Barack’s Rock (Michelle)

Barack’s Rock | Print Article | Newsweek.com
By Richard Wolffe NEWSWEEK

Now a very public figure, Michelle has accepted the role of aspiring First Lady and the sometimes uncomfortable scrutiny that comes with it. On the campaign trail, she is sometimes slated as the opening act, introducing Barack to the audience. Direct and plain-spoken, with an edgy sense of humor uncommon in a political spouse, she complements her husband’s more grandiose style. She can be tough, and even a little steely, an attitude that stems, at least in part, from wanting to live up to the high expectations her father set for her. She wants to change the world, but she also wants to win this thing now that they’re so deeply invested. If his loftiness can set him apart from the crowd, her bluntness draws them in. …

Part of Michelle Obama’s appeal—she routinely draws audiences of 1,000-plus supporters even when she’s campaigning on her own—is that she comes across as so normal despite the withering glare of a national campaign. As a political spouse, she is somewhat unusual. She isn’t the traditional Stepford booster, smiling vacantly at her husband and sticking to a script of carefully vetted blandishments. Nor is she a surrogate campaign manager, ordering the staff around and micromanaging the candidate’s every move. She travels the country giving speeches and attending events (her mother watches the kids when she’s on the road), but resists staying away for more than one night at a stretch. When the couple catch up several times a day on the phone, the talk is more likely to be about their daughters than the latest poll projections. Michelle has made it her job to ensure that Barack, who now lives full time inside the surreal campaign bubble of adoring crowds and constant attention, doesn’t himself lose sight of what’s normal.

Onstage, Obama has introduced Michelle as “my rock”—the person who keeps him focused and grounded. In her words, she is just making sure he is “keeping it real.” She does this in part by tethering him to the more mundane responsibilities of a husband and father. She insists that Barack fly home from wherever he is to attend ballet recitals and parent-teacher conferences. When the couple host political gatherings at their home in Chicago’s Hyde Park, Michelle asks everyone to bring along their children. To help bridge the physical distance between father and daughters, Michelle recently bought two MacBook laptops, one for Barack and one for the kids, so they could have video chats over the Internet. Last Thursday, she cleared his schedule so he could return home to Chicago and spend Valentine’s Day with her and the girls. …

Barack’s Rock | Print Article | Newsweek.com

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The Page – by Mark Halperin – TIME

“[I]f you sample talk radio and the conservative blogs, you will get a neat preview of what will happen if Barack Obama is the Democrats’ presidential nominee and his wife makes similar statements as a potential first lady.”

“Now he’s got to produce the loaves and fishes.”

The Barack Blowout – TIME

By JOE KLEIN

If nothing else, a presidential campaign tests a candidate’s ability
to think strategically and tactically and to manage a very complex
organization. We have three plausible candidates remaining–Obama,
Clinton and John McCain–and Obama has proved himself the best
executive by far. Both the Clinton and the McCain campaigns have gone
broke at crucial moments. So much for fiscal responsibility. McCain has
been effective only when he runs as a guerrilla; in both 2000 and ’08,
he was hapless at building a coherent campaign apparatus. Clinton’s
sins are different: arrogance and the inability to see past loyalty to
hire the best people for the job and to fire those who prove
inadequate. “If nothing else, we’ve learned that Obama probably has the
ability to put together a smooth-running Administration,” said a
Clinton super-delegate. “That’s pretty important.”

Obama still
has a tricky path to the nomination. “We know he can walk on water,”
Democratic stalwart Donna Brazile told me, presciently, a year ago.
“Now he’s got to produce the loaves and fishes.”

Rove Clinches Obama Victory

Obama’s New Vulnerability – WSJ.com 

Unlike Bill Clinton in 1992, Mr. Obama is completely unwilling to confront the left wing of the Democratic Party, no matter how outrageous its demands, no matter how out of touch it might be with the American people. And Tuesday night, in a key moment in this race, he dropped the pretense that his was a centrist agenda. His agenda is the agenda of the Democratic left.

In recent days, courtesy of Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Mr. Obama has invoked the Declaration of Independence, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Franklin Roosevelt to show the power of words. But there is a critical difference between Mr. Obama’s rhetoric and that of Jefferson, King and FDR. In each instance, their words were used to advance large, specific purposes — establishing a new nation based on inalienable rights; achieving equal rights and a color-blind society; giving people confidence to endure a Great Depression. For Mr. Obama, words are merely a means to hide a left-leaning agenda behind the cloak of centrist rhetoric. That garment has now been torn. As voters see what his agenda is, his opponents can now far more effectively question his authenticity, credibility, record and fitness to be leader of the free world.

The road to the presidency just got steeper for Barack Obama, and all because he pivoted on Tuesday night.

Mr. Rove is a former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.

Obama’s New Vulnerability – WSJ.com

LCV Releases 2007 National Environmental Scorecard

LCV Releases 2007 National Environmental Scorecard 

Presidential Candidates’ Scores

* The presidential candidates’ scores all suffered from the occupational hazard of absenteeism. Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) missed four votes each in 2007, although both made a point of being on hand for the key vote that would have allowed a version of the energy bill to move forward that included a provision to repeal billions of dollars in tax breaks for big oil and put that money toward clean energy programs. Clinton’s score in 2007 was 73 percent (87 percent lifetime); Obama’s was 67 percent (86 percent lifetime).
* Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) scored 0 percent in 2007 (24 percent lifetime) due to missing all 15 votes scored, including the key vote on repealing tax giveaways to big oil – a measure that failed by only one vote.

LCV Releases 2007 National Environmental Scorecard

The War Budget

Craig S. Barnes – Commentary 
The War Budget

Nuclear bombs are of practically no use in the so-called war on terror. Although this is the war that we have, this is not the war that pits can be used for. Nuclear bombs cannot be used in Islamabad, or in Mosul, or to protect nightclubs in London or Bali. They can’t be used in Al Anbar province and they can’t be used—except to level the mountains—in Waziristan; they can’t be used to uncover subversive cells in the United States and they can’t be used against the Chinese or the Russians without starting a final holocaust. They aren’t practical for anything at all except as a jobs program for the defense oligarchy. …

Building bombs creates the impression of great danger. Assuming great danger gives excuse for assuming absolute authority. Assuming absolute authority, Mr. Bush regularly says that he will suspend all, or parts, of laws with which he disagrees. It does not matter that a statute has been enacted exactly as the Constitution requires; if Mr. Bush does not—or thinks he may not some time in the future—agree, he issues a signing statement saying that he will not enforce that law. In so doing he attempts to suspend, not only the law, but also Articles I and III of the Constitution which were intended to give legislative and interpretive authority to the congress and courts. He just plain, flat out, restructures government. The Boston Globe reports that he has declared his intention to suspend legislation over 1,000 times.

When the constitution of the republic is willingly overridden, when the priorities are to build bombs rather than find the water, or fund the trains, or maintain the forests, when a ruling oligarchy of defense contractors is funded while at the same time ignoring all those who actually educate, carry the rifles for, and feed our nation, ignoring all those who wrap up our wounds and inspire us with poetry and song, the time has come to find someone else to draw up the budget.

Craig S. Barnes – Commentary

Duhbya: ‘a clear lesson I learned’ [finally!]

President Bush Participates in Joint Press Availability with President Kagame of Rwanda 

PRESIDENT BUSH: I would say it’s like — as I explained to this fellow here — that one of the lessons of the genocide in Rwanda was to take some of the early warnings signs seriously.

Secondly, a clear lesson I learned in the museum was that outside forces that tend to divide people up inside their country are unbelievably counterproductive. In other words, people came from other countries — I guess you’d call them colonialists — and they pitted one group of people against another. And an early warning sign was — and it’s hard to have seen it, I readily admit, but I’m talking earlier than 1994, and earlier than the ’90s — was the fact that it become a habit to divide people based upon — you know, in this case, whether they were Tutsi or Hutu, which eventually led to exploitation.

Secondly, I would tell my successor that the United States can play a very constructive role. I would urge the President not to feel like U.S. solutions should be imposed upon African leaders. I would urge the President to treat our — the leaders in Africa as partners.

President Bush Participates in Joint Press Availability with President Kagame of Rwanda

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The National Economy 

Among all Americans, 19% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 77% disapprove. When it comes to Bush’s handling of the economy, 14% approve and 79% disapprove.

Among Americans registered to vote, 18% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 78% disapprove. When it comes to the way Bush is handling the economy, 15% of registered voters approve of the way Bush is handling the economy and 79% disapprove.

The National Economy

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 President Bush and President Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia Exchange Toasts

PRESIDENT BUSH: Madam President, I want to make sure I’ve got the following correctly: Here, they call you the “Iron Lady.” (Applause.) And here they call you “Ma.” (Applause.) And I call you friend. (Applause.)  …

It is easy to destroy a country; it is hard to rebuild a country. And I, Madam President, I want you to know that the United States of America supports you as you rebuild your country. (Applause.)

President Bush and President Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia Exchange Toasts

When you read Duhbya’s feckless remarks in Africa, there can be no doubt what a stunning idiot the man is. He has no clue how ironically his words ring in light of Iraq. His mouth noises mean nothing to him or the rest of us. mjh

Overstating the Terrorists’ Threat

E. J. Dionne Jr. – A ‘Challenge’ Worth Challenging – washingtonpost.com 

Of course, defeating terrorism is important, and no candidate will say otherwise. But the United States has a lot of work to do in the world. If we’re thinking about the next two decades, not to mention the next 90 years, it’s a mistake to see terrorism as a “transcendent challenge” that makes all our other interests secondary.

For conservatives, there is something peculiar about turning Islamic extremism into a mighty ideological force with the power to overrun the world. It’s odd that so many take seriously Osama bin Laden‘s lunatic claims that he will build a new caliphate. (And, by the way, exactly what did the Iraq war contribute to the fight against terrorism?)

In his new book on neoconservatism, “They Knew They Were Right,” Jacob Heilbrunn quotes Owen Harries, an early neoconservative whose realist bent has made him skeptical of the latest turn in the thinking of his erstwhile comrades. Harries argues that viewing terrorism as an ideological challenge akin to Nazism or Soviet communism is neither accurate nor prudent.

“I think it’s to belittle the historical experiences of World War II,” Harries says, “not to speak of the Cold War, to equate the terrorists of today and the damage they’re capable of with the totalitarian regimes of the previous century.” Underestimating our enemies is a mistake, but so, too, is endowing them with more power than they have.

E. J. Dionne Jr. – A ‘Challenge’ Worth Challenging – washingtonpost.com