“This isn’t how responsible families do their budgets. When times are tough, you tighten your belts,” Obama said, according to a White House transcript of his appearance Tuesday at a high school in North Nashua, N.H.

“You don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage,” Obama said. “You don’t blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you’re trying to save for college. You prioritize. You make tough choices.”

The comments quickly sparked a flurry of reaction from federal, state and local lawmakers in the Silver State, which had an unemployment rate of 13 percent in December.

Tough choices? Like sticking a bunch of pork in the stimulus bill? Like bailing out Wall Street and saying the heck with Main Street. Like holding back stimulus dollars till an election year so he can boost the Democrats’ prospects in the midterms while people have been losing homes and jobs, suffering horribly all through 2009? Those tough choices?

His preaching on the subject comes as a shock indeed considering this President in his first year has spent more than all other Presidents combined. He hosts half million dollars pizza parties, averaging a party every three days. He had the most expensive inauguration ever, clocking in at about $170 million, spent $6 million on a faux Grecian temple at the Convention and spent three quarters of a billion dollars to get the Presidency in this “no lose year” for Democrats. Do as I say, not as I do.

Anyone will tell you, modeling good behavior works a lot better than preaching. Something Mr. Obama might want to make note of, considering he has a bad habit of living beyond his means. It takes nerve to ask others to sacrifice when he and the First Lady spare no expense for themselves on the taxpayers’ dime. Why should we be surprised at his spending the taxpayers’ money so recklessly when his own past indicates the same pattern.

He bought a house he couldn’t afford with the help of Tony Rezko, then under indictment. Obama later said, “it was boneheaded” yet he feels quite comfortable telling other Americans the proper way to “tighten their belts.” When credit card companies wanted to charge usury rates, Obama did nothing to oppose them.

The President and First Lady had an opportunity to lead by example in the sacrifice department. Unfortunately, they have repeatedly demonstrated they are far more concerned with enjoying the perks and toys of office than tightening their own belts as a way to both inspire the American people and to show that they “feel our pain.”

“I’ll do everything I can to give him the boot,” Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said … adding that he was incensed when he heard about the comments and said he would no longer welcome the president here if he visits.

“This president is a real slow learner,” said Goodman, who is not affiliated with a political party.

Nevada’s economy has been hit hard with foreclosures, unemployment and bankruptcies during the past two years as consumers everywhere tighten leisure spending and companies spend less on meetings and conventions.

And when your own Senator Majority Leader, the much maligned Harry Reid – most likely the man who lit a fire under Obama to run in the first place – condemns your remarks, you know you’ve stuck your foot in it: Reid issued a statement:

“Reid to Obama: ‘Lay off Las Vegas’.

“The President needs to lay off Las Vegas and stop making it the poster child for where people shouldn’t be spending their money,” Reid said. “I would much rather tourists and business travelers spend their money in Las Vegas than spend it overseas.”

Obama’s reply was insipid at best:

“I was making the simple point that families use vacation dollars, not college tuition money, to have fun,” Obama said, according to the letter. “There is no place better to have fun than Vegas, one of our country’s great destinations.”

Sen. John Ensign, a Republican, complained that Obama “failed to grasp the weight that his words carry.”

Well, Ensign hits the nail on the head. How can this man be the POTUS and not understand that his every remark is tracked to within an inch of its life. If the President voices disapproval about a city – it’s revenues falter. How could he not know that?

Las Vegas’ Mayor Goodman concluded with this telling remark:

“Sometimes when he’s not using his monitors and reading what he says, he doesn’t think…”

The President doesn’t think? Is that the reason why Axelrod and Co. never want the president to go off script? Is Goodman implying that without his trusty TelePrompTer, POTUS’ handlers never know what is going to happen? Like Obama’s careless remark that “the Cambridge police acted stupidly” before he knew the facts of the case. That little nugget arguably went a long way toward costing the Democratic Party the MA Senate seat.

Goodman also said Obama has a “psychological hang-up” about Las Vegas. So I offer one of two theories about his remarks:

1. Perhaps his sensitive nature is still holding a grudge against Las Vegas because Hillary won the Nevada primary – forcing Obama to have to fight on for the nomination.

2. The “my uncle liberated Auschwitz” syndrome – he is just looking for the nearest convenient sound bite, accurate or not.

He figures no one is going to challenge him on the accuracy of his remarks or take him to task for them. Why wouldn’t he believe this? The media hasn’t bothered to do their jobs so far. It never occurs to him that his careless words – pulling the nearest example out of his, er, hat that he can find, can have serious repercussions to others – being that he is the President of the United States.

As Hillary Clinton once said, “you don’t need a President who looks down at you.”

Millions of Americans are hurting. They watched a man win a historic election, promising change only to see politics as usual and worse, a White House that is deaf, dumb and blind to their concerns. A spendthrift who tells everyone else how to sacrifice is as elitist as he is out of touch.

Someone needs to remind the President that when he mouths off, he is not an adjunct lecturer getting cute at a cocktail party, spouting some witty bon mot for the entertainment of his hangers on.

Words are not just words anymore. The President is being held accountable for them — if not by the media, then by the voters. It would be helpful if he held himself accountable as well.

That would be Mort Zuckerman. If you are not familiar with the name, you surely are with the U.S. News and World Report, of which he is Editor-in-Chief, or the New York Daily News, which he owns (along with other properties). He is a gazillionaire (okay, just a billionaire), and he supported Obama in the 2008 Election. Now, he is just a tad put out as his Op-Ed, “He’s Done Everything Wrong,” indicates (h/t to Andy):

Obama punted on the economy and reversed the fortunes of the Democrats in 365 days.

He’s misjudged the character of the country in his whole approach. There’s the saying, “It’s the economy, stupid.” He didn’t get it. He was determined somehow or other to adopt a whole new agenda. He didn’t address the main issue.

This health-care plan is going to be a fiscal disaster for the country. Most of the country wanted to deal with costs, not expansion of coverage. This is going to raise costs dramatically.

In the campaign, he said he would change politics as usual. He did change them. It’s now worse than it was. I’ve now seen the kind of buying off of politicians that I’ve never seen before. It’s politically corrupt and it’s starting at the top. It’s revolting.

Holy moley! Bear in mind, this man, Mr. Zuckerman, was a SUPPORTER. I sure can’t disagree with his assessment, though. He continues:

Five states got deals on health care—one of them was Harry Reid’s. It is disgusting, just disgusting. I’ve never seen anything like it. The unions just got them to drop the tax on Cadillac plans in the health-care bill. It was pure union politics. They just went along with it. It’s a bizarre form of political corruption. It’s bribery. I suppose they could say, that’s the system. He was supposed to change it or try to change it.

Even that is not the worst part. He could have said, “I know. I promised these things, but let me try to do them one at a time.” You want to deal with health care? Fine. Issue No. 1 with health care was the cost. You know I think it was 37 percent or 33 who were worried about coverage. Fine, I wrote an editorial to this effect. Focus on cost-containment first. But he’s trying to boil the ocean, trying to do too much. This is not leadership.

Obama’s ability to connect with voters is what launched him. But what has surprised me is how he has failed to connect with the voters since he’s been in office. He’s had so much overexposure. You have to be selective. He was doing five Sunday shows. How many press conferences? And now people stop listening to him. The fact is he had 49.5 million listeners to first speech on the economy. On Medicare, he had 24 million. He’s lost his audience. He has not rallied public opinion. He has plunged in the polls more than any other political figure since we’ve been using polls. He’s done everything wrong. Well, not everything, but the major things.

I don’t consider it a triumph. I consider it a disaster.

You and me both, Mr. Zuckerman. But if I may be so bold, perhaps lofty words are not a prerequisite for the highest office in the land. Just saying. Perhaps you should have looked a little deeper into how much Obama enjoyed the adoring masses, buying the PR spin that he was The One. The problem is, he started to believe it. He believed/believes it really is all about him. But, as a truly great president said, “I feel your pain.”

And speaking of Clinton:

One business leader said to me, “In the Clinton administration, the policy people were at the center, and the political people were on the sideline. In the Obama administration, the political people are at the center, and the policy people are on the sidelines.”

Again, YES. I hate to keep harping on this, but why were you not capable of seeing this BEFORE?? When Obama regurgitated Deval Patrick’s speeches, that should have been a clue that it was absolutely NOT about policy, but all about politics. When he continually took Hillary Clinton’s policy positions for his own, instead of crafting them himself, that should have been a bit of a clue. But no. Zuckerman, and to many like him, failed to see what was right before their eyes. They believed the hype, too:

I’m very disappointed. We endorsed him. I voted for him. I supported him publicly and privately.

I hope there are changes. I think he’s already laid in huge problems for the country. The fiscal program was a disaster. You have to get the money as quickly as possible into the economy. They didn’t do that. By end of the first year, only one-third of the money was spent. Why is that?

He should have jammed a stimulus plan into Congress and said, “This is it. No changes. Don’t give me that bullshit. We have a national emergency.” Instead they turned it over to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi who can run circles around him.

It’s very sad. It’s really sad.

He’s improved America’s image in the world. He absolutely did. But you have to translate that into something. Let me tell you what a major leader said to me recently. “We are convinced,” he said, “that he is not strong enough to confront his enemy. We are concerned,” he said “that he is not strong to support his friends.”

The political leadership of the world is very, very dismayed. He better turn it around. The Democrats are going to get killed in this election. Jesus, looks what’s happening in Massachusetts.

Well, for a moment, perhaps, but even in other countries, people are waking up (check out The Telegraph, or Der Spiegel sometime). But here’s the thing: by caring more about appearances than policy, being liked more than fixing problems, Obama, and all who voted for him, have done this country a tremendous disservice. We told you it wasn’t American Idol for which he was running, but the presidency.

There is still some delusion, though:

It’s really interesting because he had brilliant, brilliant political instincts during the campaign. I don’t know what has happened to them. His appointments present somebody who has a lot to learn about how government works. He better get some very talented businesspeople who know how to implement things. It’s unbelievable. Everybody says so. You can’t believe how dismayed people are. That’s why he’s plunging in the polls.

I can’t predict things two years from now, but if he continues on the downward spiral he is on, he won’t be reelected. In the meantime, the Democrats have recreated the Republican Party. And when I say Democrats, I mean the Obama administration. In the generic vote, the Democrats were ahead something like 52 to 30. They are now behind the Republicans 48 to 44 in the last poll. Nobody has ever seen anything that dramatic.

Did you mention by how much Obama has run up the National Debt? You know, the one he has increased by $1.7 TRILLION since he took office? And he’s looking to increase it by even more. Oh, yippee.

If I may return to another part of Mr. Zuckerman’s editorial, no offense, sir, but OBAMA didn’t have “brilliant, brilliant political instincts during the campaign,” his HANDLERS, Axelrod and Plouffe. did. Had you taken just a few minutes and used the considerable resources at your disposal, you could have looked into his REAL record in IL. You would have seen the shenanigans he employed to even get elected. Now, maybe YOU think that is “brilliant,” but I see it as being an indicator of the man’s moral fiber, and his “win at all costs,” mentality, no matter who he steps on, or what kind of damage he does. Perhaps what Zuckerman is seeing now, is the failure of Axelrod and Plouffe to pull the man off the Campaign Trail and him getting to work. Obama still hasn’t stopped, as he heads off to Ohio on Friday.

Still, at least he is finally getting is. In this interview with Neil Cavuto (h/t to Logistics Monster), he can barely contain himself:

Mr. Zuckerman made some mighty interesting assertions in there, didn’t he, especially in terms of housing? Welcome to the reality based community, sir.

Indeed, slowly but surely, the Kool Aide is wearing off, but not until Obama has done untold damage to out country – IN ONE YEAR. Will he be able to turn it around? I don’t know, but that would presuppose he was capable of introspection, and a willingness to actually listen to the people, as opposed to talk, talk, talking to us (though apparently, he hasn’t talked at us enough – we just don’t get it, you know – because apparently, we are all a bunch of mo-rons not to buy his healthcare bill). Just a thought.

In the meantime, maybe we have all learned a lesson after this presidential election, and after the Massachusetts election. People can be hoodwinked, but not forever. When they wake up, they are none too happy at the lies they were told. That’s why we have elections, and this year is shaping up to be mighty interesting indeed…

I love John Kass of the Chicago Tribune. He is one of the very, very few columnists who tried to warn us about Obama, Obama’s record (or lack thereof), how he came to be a Senator, and all about Chicago Politics. Simply put, he was a voice crying out in the wilderness.

And now, he has turned his pen (or keyboard, as the case may be) to the rumor that Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s Chief Thug And Chicago-Style politician, may be running for mayor of Chicago in this article,

Rahm In The Mayor’s Race Would Be Quite A Fish Tale. Indeed. Here is Kass on this possibility:

On my first day back at work after vacation, the political news from Washington hit me like a cold dead fish in the face:

Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago?

That’s enough to freeze the bowels of every voter in the land.

“Emanuel, the most political animal in this town … is said to have told people that the ( White House) chief of staff role is an 18-month job and that he is considering a run for mayor of Chicago,” wrote columnist Sally Quinn in the Washington Post on Tuesday. (Tribune photo by Jose M. Osorio / December 18, 2008)

With Hollywood continuing to suck up to the Obama administration, imagine the benefits of a Rahmsian mayoral campaign. HBO’s “Entourage” could film here. The lead character, a charismatic Hollywood agent named Ari, is based on Rahm’s brother, Ari.

Just think of the scenes at Cafe Bionda and Tavern on Rush, and the parts for Rahm’s Chicago buddies, the entourage he’ll need to run things if he’s mayor. State Sen. Jimmy DeLeo (D-How You Doin?) could play Turtle and handle the parties. Corrupt former city water boss Donald Tomczak, who’ll be released from federal prison this year, would thrill “Entourage” fans in the role of Donny Drama.

The White House could have thrown cold water on the idea. Instead, a White House source told the Tribune that “Rahm is 100 percent focused on the job at hand — serving President Obama as his chief of staff.”

From such non-denial denials, a demonic campaign may yet be hatched. If so, I might get down on my hands and knees and beg Mayor Richard Daley to stay. This would frighten the mayor and quite possibly unhinge him — permanently.

Now THAT should give you an idea of what it would be like for Rahm to take the helm of Chicago from someone who lives in Chicago. Kass, undeterred, did something too few journalists seem capable of these days. He picked up the phone to seek answers as opposed to relying on whatever rumor mill put this out:

So I called a mayoral source. “It’s news to us,” said the source. “The mayor has no intention of not being mayor.”

Whew. If the prospect of a Rahm mayoral campaign is frightening, just think if Daley retired and played the geezer, an old man with trousers high, bragging about how he did everything he pleased and nobody could do anything about it.

Of course, he’d want to show up at his old haunts. That’s when every politician he terrified over the years would line up to insult him. Don’t even mention the cops and firefighters. Daley couldn’t handle that kind of retirement.

So if Daley’s not the mayor, it means either he’s passed on or he’s taking a long vacation on some exotic beach, drinking gin and tonics, watching “Entourage” DVDs.

The Washington Post is an esteemed newspaper. But the editors eat in Washington. They don’t eat in Chicago. Yes, papers from Washington and New York periodically dispatch their foreign correspondents to our gritty Midwestern precincts to chronicle our quaint, earthy ways. But they never quite get it.

Don’t you just love this guy? “Quaint, earthy ways” – too funny. Oh, if a presidency hadn’t hinged on that kind of thinking:

Just one year ago, Obama was in his first miracle phase, feeding the multitudes with two fish sandwiches and five hot dog buns. He was applauded as a reformer, even while putting Chicago City Hall guys in charge of the world.

Later, a few journalists were annoyed at Obama’s penchant for meekly bowing down before measly foreign kings and emperors. But bowing meekly is what every young Illinois state senator does when summoned to the mayor’s office in Chicago.

When the president installed Rahm as his chief of staff, the Washington media were turgid with respect, praising Rahm as a shrewd political alley fighter, a maestro of profanity, a former ballet dancer tough enough to send a dead fish to an enemy, just like a Hollywood gangster.

Naturally, the national media marveled that Obama selected a Clinton guy, Emanuel, to run things.

That is because the National Media didn’t bother to do their jobs, as we know all too well:

But Rahm is no Clinton guy. He’s a Daley guy.

And if folks in Washington weren’t so besotted with all that primo Hopium they’ve been smoking, they’d have understood this.

Preach it, brother, preach it!

There’s more:

And, legend has it that Rahm sprouted fully formed from the navel of mayoral brother Billy Daley. Rich even assisted at the birth, and according to the dusty hieroglyphs, is said to have shrieked:

“Push, Billy! Push! Billy, I can see the head! Don’t give up! Push!”

The Washington establishment also ignores how Rahm got elected to Congress in 2002 from Illinois’ 5th District. The district’s Democratic state central committeeman, DeLeo, had something to do with it. So did all those illegal City Hall patronage workers swarming the precincts, led by Donny Drama, currently in federal stir for the nasty habit of taking bribes.

Exactly the same way they ignored how OBAMA got elected to office, or that the one time he couldn’t get everyone OFF the ballot, he LOST. Oh, yeah. Betcha didn’t know that. And he only won his US Senate seat because they managed to unseal sealed divorce records, thus forcing the Republican, Jack Ryan, to drop out right before the election. (You may NOT have heard that there was another Democrat, Blair Hull, who also had his sealed divorce records unsealed. Voila, he was out of the race, too. There is reason to believe that it was David Axelrove and Obama who forced that to happen, too, according to the link above. Who knew, right?) So, Obama ran against Alan Keyes. One of my cats could beat Alan Keyes in an election. That was no big feat. But, no. They didn’t bother:

Yet as if by tacit agreement, Rahm’s Chicago back story doesn’t make national news. But neither did the mayor’s reaction when Rahm was made chief of staff of the Chicago Way.

“It’s a gain,” Daley said last year. “It’s a real gain, gain, gain.”

Unless it’s a fish. A real fish, fish, fish.

And it’s really cold. (jskass@tribune.com)

A “gain” indeed. And we have seen just what kind of “gain” – Chicago Politics Writ Large.

I guess that is one thing about which Obama told the truth. He isn’t a Washington politician – he is something worse – a Chicago politician. And we are seeing exactly how that is playing out across the country now…

This is perfect Sunday fare, and rich coming from someone who routinely appeared with Keith Olbermann on Countdown (until they broke up back in August last year). That would be Dana Milbank. Oh, yes, this is priceless:

Obama The Mortal

Some parishioners in the Church of Obama discovered last week that their spiritual leader is a false prophet.

Consider the blow suffered by the liberal filmmaker Michael Moore, who issued a plaintive plea to the president on the eve of his announcement that he was sending 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan. By escalating the war, Moore wrote:

“[Y]ou will do the worst possible thing you could do — destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will teach them what they’ve always heard is true — that all politicians are alike.”

Obama, of course, was not moved by his follower from Flint. The real question is why Moore, and those millions and multitudes of whom he wrote, thought that Obama would do otherwise. Obama never said during the campaign that he would pull out of Afghanistan; in fact, he had promised to escalate. “As president, I will make the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban the top priority that it should be,” he said in July 2008, vowing to send at least two more combat brigades to Afghanistan. “This is a war that we have to win.”

Yet Moore is surely right about the disillusionment of Obama’s supporters. Even before the surge announcement, support among liberals for Obama’s Afghanistan policy had dropped 22 points since July, to 59 percent from 81 percent, according to a Post-ABC News poll. Overall liberal support for Obama had drifted down to 80 percent from 94 percent in the spring — and, given the noisy complaints from the left last week, that number seems likely to fall further.

I wonder what Moore thinks now that Obama didn’t pay any attention to him? Not sure why he ever thought Obama would, but there you have it. As Milbank points out:

It was bound to happen eventually. Obama had become to his youthful supporters a vessel for all of their liberal hopes. They saw him as a transformational figure who would end war, save the Earth from global warming, restore the economy — and still be home for dinner. They lashed out at anybody who dared to suggest that Obama was just another politician, subject to calculation, expediency and vanity like all the rest.

Certainly, Obama gets some blame for encouraging the messianic cult as he stumped for change and hope. “I am asking you to stop settling for what the cynics say we have to accept,” he would say as he wrapped up speeches. “Let us reach for what we know is possible: A nation healed. A world repaired. An America that believes again.”

Uh, you think? Encouraging it?? That is exactly what Axelrove and Plouffe wanted – to craft Obama as the next coming (remember the whole “the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal” crap?), and Obama was all too willing to go along. That isn’t exactly a newsflash, at least to us in the reality based community. We were aware of what the Obama camp was doing, and why. No doubt, it was so people wouldn’t pay attention to this:

In other cases, Obama truly has gone back on campaign vows. Even some of his advisers are disappointed that he has moved so slowly to close the Guantanamo Bay prison. Civil libertarians are justifiably disappointed with his decision to continue much of the Bush administration secrecy. Clean-government types are understandably frustrated that Obama vowed that lobbyists “will not get a job in my White House” but now grants waivers so that lobbyists can work in key administration jobs.

But at least as much blame for the disillusionment goes to progressives who simply expected too much of him. Some are disappointed that the Nobel Peace Prize winner proposed even higher defense spending than George W. Bush did — but Obama never said he would cut the Pentagon’s budget. Many liberals are disappointed that he isn’t pushing the “public option” more forcefully in the health-care debate — but it was never something Obama emphasized during the campaign.

For all of Obama’s soaring oratory about hope and change, it was plain even during the campaign that his record was that of an incrementalist. His signature legislation — health care in the Illinois Senate and ethics in the U.S. Senate — were evolutionary improvements, not revolutionary overhauls. His Afghanistan policy, likewise, is above all a pragmatic, nonideological strategy. He stayed true to his campaign promise to take the fight to the Taliban, but he also tried to build a consensus.

His record? Just which record would that have been exactly? The one in which Emil Jones slapped Obama’s name on legislation for which he had done exactly NOTHING? And what did he do in the US Senate besides blow off promises made on the campaign finance reform committee, or fail to hold any meetings for the committee for which he was chair (that pesky boring one that just dealt with stuff like Afghanistan)? Is that the new definition of “incrementalist”? Sure, whatever you say, Dana.

Back to Afghanistan:

You’d think his supporters might applaud this sort of thoughtful, methodical leadership as a repudiation of the Bush style of government by political theory. Instead, they’re using words such as “O’Bomber” to describe the president. MoveOn.org launched a petition drive against the policy. Code Pink, the group that heckled Bush officials for years, heckled Obama advisers on Capitol Hill last week. The liberal Web publisher Arianna Huffington told Charlie Rose that the policy “puts into question his whole leadership.”

This is what happens when true believers mistake a mortal for a messiah. (danamilbank@washpost.com )

“Thoughtful”? “Methodical” Oh, right – that is “Upside down world” speak for “hemming and hawing”, “dithering,” and “dragging one’s feet.” Got it.

And Dana, you and a lot of the rest of the MSM were hyping Obama as a messiah, too, so make sure you shine that spotlight on yourself and your colleagues, while you are at it. Obama couldn’t have gotten his “message” across all over this land without the sycophantic collusion of the media. Just sayin’.

We all knew this was going to happen. At some point, Obama’s most devoted followers were going to start letting the reality pierce their veil of “Hope, Change, And Unicorns for Everyone!” It would have been BETTER had this happened 18 months ago before this charlatan got into the White House, aided and abetted by some of the very folks Millbank mentions above, as well as the media.

Okay – can I finally say this? I told you so. We told you so. Time to get up off your knees, shake the Kool Aide dust out of your head, and realize you have been had, on the 7th level with Tom Cruise kind of being had by some self-proclaimed messiah.

We welcome you to the Reality Based World. And with this being Sunday and all, I reckon we can say our prayers are starting to be answered. Halle-damn-lujah.

With Fox News against the White House attempt to censor the cable network. Check that, to shut DOWN the network. I am assuming that, by now, you have heard of the concentrated attacks on the Fox News Network by Administration officials, and the president himself. Larry Johnson had a great piece on this earlier in the week, “Fox Is Not A News Station?,” if you need to catch up.

Well, the strangest thing has started to happen as the White House has continued its unprecedented attack on a major network, not just freezing out a reporter here or there as other administrations have done, but a flat out drive to shut down this network. I can scarcely believe it myself, but what has happened recently is that reporters from other networks, even the Washington Bureau chiefs of the main news outlets, have started to stand WITH Fox News.

It all began with one of my favorite reporters, Jake Tapper of ABC News. He is one of the very few national reporters from a major network to consistently challenge the Obama campaign, and now the Obama Administration. And he did so again just the other day as his post entry indicates:

“Today’s Qs For O’s WH – 10/20/09”
From this morning’s gaggle in White House press secretary Robert Gibbs’ office:

Tapper: It’s escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations “not a news organization” and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization. Can you explain why it’s appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one –

Let’s just stop right there. Jake Tapper referred to Fox News as a “sister organization.” That is HUGE, people. His use of that phrase speaks volumes, as he indicates a solidarity with Fox News (good post on that very topic at Commentary Magazine here). Perhaps it is even a bit of a warning shot across the bow that the White House needs to back the hell off from this attack on a major press outlet.

The Q&A continued:

(Crosstalk) Gibbs: Jake, we render, we render an opinion based on some of their coverage and the fairness that, the fairness of that coverage.

Tapper: But that’s a pretty sweeping declaration that they are “not a news organization.” How are they any different from, say –

Gibbs: ABC -

Tapper: ABC. MSNBC. Univision. I mean how are they any different?

Gibbs: You and I should watch sometime around 9 o’clock tonight. Or 5 o’clock this afternoon.

Tapper: I’m not talking about their opinion programming or issues you have with certain reports. I’m talking about saying thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a “news organization” — why is that appropriate for the White House to say?

Gibbs: That’s our opinion. -jpt

You know I can’t stand Gibbs anyway, that mealy mouthed worm. But Tapper demonstrates what a stand up guy he is by pursuing this line of questioning, and not letting Gibbs, or the White House, off the hook.

I mentioned above that the White House is doing its darndest to completely shut down Fox News. The following video is a good summation of what has happened thus far, the latest attack by the White House, and what the other networks did:

I know, right? They know, I gather, that this time around, it may be Fox News, but next time, it could be CNN, or MSNBC. I would love to think that the solidarity of the major networks was the result of it simply being the right thing to do.

The All Star Panel on Fox News takes this on, too, with a bonus clip of Obama’s discussing Fox News:

Uh huh. Sure, he’s not losing sleep over it. If he isn’t, why are he and his minions going out of their way to ATTACK Fox News? It most certainly IS “breath-taking in its pettiness” as Mr. Barnes put it.

Thomas Jefferson said it best:

“I am… for freedom of the press, and against all violations of the Constitution to silence by force and not by reason the complaints or criticisms, just or unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents.”

And, when he said this:

“Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it.”

Finally, Thomas Jefferson said this about the importance of a free press and our responsibility to it:

“To preserve the freedom of the human mind… and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will and speak as we think, the condition of man (sic) will proceed in improvement.”

Hopefully, that is exactly why the networks are standing shoulder to shoulder on this issue. They know, as we do, that our liberty is at risk when the press is under attack from its government.

Like Jefferson, like the Washington Bureau, like Jake Tapper, like many of you reading this, I stand on the side of a free press, and on the side of our liberty. It is our duty, it is our call, it is our very democracy.

ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe reports: President Obama, like any other President, has his fair share of critics. Even fourth-graders have noticed.

“Why do people hate you?”, a fourth-grade boy asked Obama at a town hall event in New Orleans today. “They’re supposed to love you. And God is love.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” replied the President.

Here’s the video of the exchange, though the transcript is below if you’d prefer:

Um, what the hell was he talking about BEFORE the little boy asked his question? Wasn’t he saying, “It’s a man’s turn. Isn’t it? It’s a guy’s turn.” That’s what it sounded like to me, anyway…So, just what came BEFORE that?? Curious.

Obama continued his response to the child:

“First of all, I did get elected president, so not everybody hates me,” Obama noted, before adding, “What is true is if you were watching TV lately, it seems like everybody’s just getting mad all the time. And I — you know, I think that you’ve got to take it with a grain of salt. Some of it is just what’s called politics where, you know, once one party wins, then the other party kind of gets — feels like it needs to poke you a little bit to keep you on your toes.”

“And so you shouldn’t take it too seriously,” Obama told the boy. “And then, sometimes, as I said before, people just — I think they’re worried about their own lives. A lot of people are losing their jobs right now. A lot of people are losing their health care or they’ve lost their homes to foreclosure, and they’re feeling frustrated. And when you’re president of the United States, you know, you’ve got to deal with all of that.”

So, um, not to quibble or anything, but just when do you think you are going to get around to dealing with job loss, home loss, and losing health care? Hey, just asking:

“You get some of the credit when things go good. And when things are going tough, then, you know, you’re going to get some of the blame, and that’s part of the job,” he continued. “But, you know, I’m a pretty tough guy.”

“You’ve just got to keep on going, even when folks are criticizing you, because — as long as you know that you’re doing it for other people, all right?” Obama concluded.

The boy’s question was the last one the President fielded at his event at the University of New Orleans, his first trip to the city since being elected to the Oval Office.

Well, there is a good reason the child asked that question. While Obama did get elected, the latest Fox Poll shows that he wouldn’t if the election was held today, as this article highlights, Fox News Poll: 43 Percent Would Vote To Re-Elect President Obama:If the election were held today, 43 percent of American voters would back Barack Obama for president, according to a new Fox News poll.

Oh dear. I guess that’s some of the “blame” Obama is getting for not fulfilling his campaign promises, for starters, not to mention his continued constant campaigning instead of working thing he’s got going on. Here are the results of this poll:

In what may be the ultimate job rating, 43 percent of voters say that they would vote to re-elect President Obama if the 2012 election were held today, down from 52 percent six months ago, from April 22-23, 2009.

Obama’s job approval rating comes in at 49 percent this week. (Emphasis mine.) That’s down just one percentage point from late September, but it marks a new low approval for the president — and the first time the Fox News poll has measured his approval below 50 percent.

Moreover, the number of Americans saying they would vote to re-elect President Obama has dropped. If the election were held today the poll finds more voters say they would back someone else in the 2012 election than would back the president.

Despite winning the Nobel Peace Prize last Friday, the latest Fox News poll finds the president’s ratings on foreign issues are lower than his overall job ratings. All in all, 49 percent of Americans say they approve of the job President Obama is doing and 45 percent disapprove. His average approval for the term so far is 58 percent.

Yep, Obama’s approval numbers are below 50% for the first time at 49%. How about on some of the issues:

On Afghanistan, 41 percent of Americans say they approve of the job Obama is doing and 43 percent disapprove. For his handling of Iran, 44 percent approve and 43 percent disapprove.

On the president’s handling of the economy, voters are almost equally split: 48 percent approve and 49 percent disapprove. On health care, some 42 percent approve of the president’s performance and half disapprove, 50 percent.

Among Democrats, 78 percent say they would vote to re-elect President Obama, down from 87 percent in April. For 2008 Obama voters, 81 percent say they would vote to re-elect him — that’s a slight up tick from the 79 percent who said so previously.

Six in 10 Americans — 60 percent — think Obama is a strong and decisive leader.
And while 38 percent think President Obama is getting good advice from his advisors, a larger number — 45 percent — think he is “listening to the wrong people.” (Opinion Dynamics Corp. conducted the national telephone poll of 900 registered voters for FOX News from October 13 to October 14. The poll has a 3-point error margin.)

Like Rahm Emmanuel, or David Axelrod, or Nancy Pelosi, or Harry Reid? Yeah, I’d say he’s listening to the wrong people.

And about that whole Nobel Peace Prize thing:

Did He Deserve It?

Upon winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Barack Obama said, “To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many transformational figures.” Most Americans agree with the president — 65 percent say he did not deserve to win, while 29 percent say he did.

Furthermore, a slim 54 percent majority of Democrats think Obama did deserve to win, while 38 percent disagree. For independents, 19 percent think he deserved it, while nearly three-quarters, 74 percent, say he did not. Among Republicans, almost all — 91 percent — say he did not deserve it.

When asked why the Nobel Committee gave the president the prize, about a third of Americans, 32 percent, say because he deserved it, while the largest number — 44 percent — think the committee hoped the prize would make Obama “think twice before using military force in the future.”

About that whole Nobel Peace Prize thing. Remember how we were all told the Committee Was unanimous in their decision to give it to Obama? Turns out that 3 out of 5 of them did NOT want to give it to him. Golly gee, I guess truth really DOES will out! Evidently, their reaction was the same as many of ours – he hasn’t DONE anything yet but speechify, for cryin’ out loud!

The poll also address how Congress was doing:

Most Americans are unhappy with Congress these days — 66 percent disapprove, including 45 percent of Democrats, 77 percent of independents and 84 percent of Republicans. Overall, less than one of four Americans, 24 percent, approve of the job Congress is doing.

Looking ahead to the 2010 Congressional election, for the first time this year the Republicans have the advantage: 42 percent of voters say they are more likely to back the Republicans to provide a check on President Obama’s power, while 38 percent say they would vote for the Democrat to help the president pass his policies.

Finally, in a rare example of bipartisan agreement, majorities of Democrats, 53 percent, Republicans, 78 percent, and Independents, 61 percent, agree the country is more divided these days. All in all, 64 percent of Americans think the country is more politically divided today — that’s more than twice the number who say it is not more divided, 31 percent.

Click here for the raw data.

What a bang-up job Obama has done in uniting us, just like he said he would. Blech. Can’t believe people fell for THAT line again, can you? Great – so glad there is one area that is truly bipartisan. Ahem.

And while President Obama is still feeling the love, the numbers of those who love him seem to be decreasing the more they open their eyes to see and their ears to hear. Such a shame they couldn’t muster that BEFORE the election, isn’t it? Now, his daily tracking poll continues to go down; Secretary Clinton’s approval numbers are higher than his (no big surprise to ME there); and his overall rating is at 49%. COngress doesn’t fare much better. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy, or more deserving Congress, could it?

Yesterday I was appalled to watch the Speaker of the House comment on Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ assertion that the anger at these town halls over health care reform is “manufactured”. The reporter asked, “Do you think there is legitimate grassroots opposition going on out there?”

Nancy Pelosi made the following statement:

“I think they’re Astroturf…you be the judge. They are carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on health care.”

How dare she? I have heard of bullying tactics but this is beyond the pale. She is cherrypicking a couple of extreme protesters, if indeed they exist, in order to deride the whole as an angry mob. My husband and I were Democrats for thirty years and we have questions and concerns about this overhaul as well. Here’s a hot flash, Ms. Pelosi, my Dad was used as slave labor by people who wore swastikas so I don’t appreciate being grouped in with them.

Average citizens who daily watch our leadership trade places in the clown car have a reason to be worried. Until Ms. Pelosi and every other elitist in Congress, on both sides of the aisle, is willing to be subject to the exact same health care plan, and use it on their own mother, their children and themselves, they have no business sticking it to the rest of us. “Okay for thee but not for me” is not going to cut it.

There is no doubt that both sides “astroturf.” President Obama’s svengali, David Axelrod, is known for this behavior. There will always be groups left or right who will try to bank on to a legitimate protest for their own ends. Yet I have no doubt that the majority of these protesters are legitimate. We are talking about a 1,000 page monstrosity that no one can explain.

Pelosi is talking about overhauling one sixth of our nation’s economy when they have just laid an egg with the stimulus package and $60 billion dollar car bailouts.

Last year I watched the DNC insult anyone who did not buy the “cool” candidate they chose to put on their spaghetti jar. Their bullying tactics drove me away. As brilliant WaPo columnist Marie Cocco put it, their “deafening silence” on what looked to be the media lynching of Hillary Clinton didn’t help either.

People get mad when you question them for one of two reasons. Either they don’t have the answer and don’t want be made to look bad, or they know they are trying to pull a fast one and don’t want you to get a peek behind the curtain. Which is it? If the policy cannot be explained coherently and simply, that means they don’t have it working yet. Pardon my dust, but I thought the ultimate goal was to craft a policy that is better than what we have now.

I do not appreciate being bullied or blown off. People are angry and they are scared. Unemployment is in double digits in my state. My Congressman has been ensconced in his position for 25 years. He runs unopposed so I assure you, he isn’t bothering to have a town hall meeting on health care otherwise I’d be there shouting, too.

We pay their salaries. I do not wish to be told to shut up and sit down by the likes of Ms. Pelosi, who sees fit to negatively classify the opposition because she does not feel like being countermanded.

I can appreciate the President wishes to put forth an ambitious agenda, but this White House is tone deaf. We have moved beyond ego here. I am not concerned with someone racking up “accomplishments” just so they can say they did. We have severe problems in our economy and trying to do all this at once without first making sure you’ve got the right formula is like trying to paint a house in a hurricane.

Nancy Pelosi needs to apologize to the American people for the disrespect she has shown them. We are dealing with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and we have every right to have all our questions answered.

We can do without the name calling and disrespect from our elected representatives. That is not the way to earn anyone’s trust.

One can only hope. Oh, hahaha – “hope” – yes, it is a part of this story. “Hope and Change” – sound familiar? It should, not just for Barack Obama, but for his buddy for whom this strategy was tested: Deval Patrick. Oh yes, in case you didn’t already know, Patrick and Obama share the same media consultant: David Axelrod. Patrick rehearsed all of Obama’s lines for him just to see if they would work. They did, and he got elected.

But now, it seems things aren’t looking so good for Patrick’s re-election. It seems the folks in Massachusetts are finding that “Hope!” and “Change!” don’t put food on the table, as this article details: Patrick Support Plummets, Poll Finds: Faulted on economy, reforms; tough reelection fight ahead. Oh, dear – that doesn’t look good does it? And check out why:

Governor Deval Patrick, fresh off signing a major tax increase and still battling through a historic budget crisis, has seen a huge drop in his standing among Massachusetts voters and faces a tough road to a second term, according to a new Boston Globe poll.

The survey, taken 16 months before the election, shows that the public has lost faith in Patrick’s ability to handle the state’s fiscal problems or bring reform to Beacon Hill, as he had promised. He is either losing or running neck-and-neck in matchups with prospective rivals, according to the poll, conducted for the Globe by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center.

Patrick’s favorability rating has dropped sharply over the past seven months, with just 36 percent of respondents holding a favorable opinion of him, and 52 percent viewing him unfavorably. As recently as December, 64 percent of voters viewed him favorably.

The governor’s job-approval rating, sampled after Patrick scored several major legislative victories but also approved $1 billion in new taxes, is even worse, with just 35 percent of respondents approving and 56 per cent disapproving of his performance. Just as ominously, 61 percent said the state is on the wrong track, compared with 31 percent who said it was headed in the right direction, down from 44 percent in December – numbers reminiscent of voters’ mood before Patrick captured the corner office from Republicans in 2006.

Even the state Legislature, traditionally held in low esteem by the public, won higher marks when voters were asked whom they trust more to manage the state budget crisis and faltering economy. Forty percent said they put more faith in state lawmakers to handle fiscal issues, compared with 23 percent for Patrick.

“These numbers indicate that Patrick is in a very difficult position regarding his reelection,’’ said Andrew E. Smith, director of the survey center. “Voters do not think he is up to the task of dealing with the state’s fiscal problems, and he has lost his mantle as a reformer.’’

The poll, conducted among 545 respondents statewide from July 15 to 21, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

Well, yes, I would think so. In order to be a reformer, one has to be a reformer! I’m just sayin’, you can’t just CLAIM you do something without actually following through on it. Again, as noted a gazillion other times, “words, just words” just don’t cut it in a real-world kind of way.

Well, it’s not all Patrick’s fault, I suppose:

Patrick, the poll numbers suggest, is being blamed in part for the fallout from a global recession largely beyond his control. But even as Massachusetts approved this year’s budget without the political acrimony that has crippled states such as New York and California, polls around the country indicate that Patrick appears to be one of the least popular governors in the nation.

The potential matchups for the 2010 election illustrate the perilous political position of Patrick, who has said he will not govern on the basis of poll numbers.

State Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill, who left the Democratic Party this month to plot a potential independent gubernatorial candidacy, runs even with the governor in a three-way race that includes a Republican candidate.

Cahill also has a much higher standing with the public: Forty-two percent of respondents say they view him favorably, compared with 17 percent who view him unfavorably; the rest said they did not know.

Without Cahill in the race, the poll indicates, Patrick runs behind or even with the two potential Republican contenders. The newest GOP entrant, former Harvard Pilgrim Health Care chief executive Charles D. Baker, tops Patrick 41 percent to 35 percent in a head-to-head matchup. Baker beats Patrick even though more than six in 10 respondents said they knew little about the Republican.

The other Republican candidate, former Turnpike Authority board member Christy Mihos, runs about even, getting 41 percent to Patrick’s 40 percent, even though nearly two in five respondents said they viewed Mihos unfavorably.

Patrick’s best hope at this point appears to be that Cahill and Baker both run. The governor’s core constituency remains highly educated, liberal Democrats and voters in Western Massachusetts, which could help form a big enough base if Baker and Cahill split many conservative Democrats, independents, and Republicans. Baker has the potential to cut into Cahill’s support among independents the more he introduces himself to voters.

Patrick’s formerly strong appeal to independents – the state’s largest voting bloc – has dropped sharply, with only 17 percent viewing him favorably. Nearly two-thirds say they have an unfavorable opinion.

Seven months ago, a Globe poll showed that 52 percent of independents viewed the governor favorably.

“I just somehow expected him to be more ready and have more of a plan in place by now than he does,’’ said one poll respondent, Norma George, a 71-year-old retired nurse from Duxbury.

George, an independent who voted for Patrick in 2006, thinks the governor has been too indecisive.

“It may not even be his fault,’’ she said. “But I’m just disappointed with the way things are moving, or lack thereof.’’

And there you have it. Really – that is the crux of it all, isn’t it? That even if things aren’t his fault, he has not produced a VIABLE plan to help his state. That sure sounds like someone else we know, doesn’t it?

Here’s another one of the big reasons why Patrick is losing support, and while it is serious for those folks in the Commonwealth, it is serious for the rest of us who have a president based on this concept writ large:

One of the most damaging findings in the poll for Patrick was that most Massachusetts residents do not believe he has brought change to Beacon Hill, a core tenet of his 2006 gubernatorial race and a key aspect of his political persona.

Patrick’s political advisers have hoped he would get a big boost from his recent signing of major overhauls of state ethics, transportation, and pension laws – all changes he championed.

But just 25 percent said they felt that Patrick has brought reform to state government, while 62 percent said he had not – including nearly half of Democrats.

The governor must try to recover his political standing in an economic environment that some state officials believe could worsen next year.

On a variety of issues – from taxes to funding for Greater Boston’s zoos – voters either disagree with Patrick or do not trust him.

New increases in the sales and other taxes, which the Legislature initiated but Patrick signed, are deeply unpopular, despite being passed to prevent deeper cuts to state and local services. Sixty-one percent of respondents said they object to the increases – and Patrick appears to be getting most of the blame.

The buck does stop there, doesn’t it? Surely he didn’t think he would get all the glory and none of the blame, did he? (Hmmm – I just wonder if that is what Axelrod promised these guys? All the glory, none of the responsibility? Who knows, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that was the case…)

Poor Patrick, though – nothing he seems to do now appears to be working:

Nearly 60 percent of respondents opposed the governor’s veto of $4 million in funding for Franklin Park Zoo in Boston and the Stone Zoo in Stoneham. State lawmakers may vote this week to override Patrick’s veto, and zoo officials have threatened to close unless the funding is restored.

But even as residents object to Patrick’s funding cuts for the zoos, few actually visit them. Three-fourths of those polled said they had not been to either zoo within the past two years.

A majority of respondents – 57 percent – said they support Patrick’s plan for casino gambling in three locations in Massachusetts, a slight increase from previous Globe polls. The public overwhelmingly wants resort casinos, which Patrick has pushed, over slot machines at racetracks, which House Speaker Robert DeLeo strongly favors. Sixty percent of respondents favored resort-style casinos, compared with 12 percent preferring slots at racetracks.

And despite Baker’s background at Harvard Pilgrim, voters at this point see Patrick as the best candidate on healthcare, though by a small margin.

Overall, though, voter antipathy for Patrick is clear. Asked, in an open-ended question, to name the biggest problem facing the state, about a third of respondents listed jobs and the economy. Strikingly, nearly 7 percent volunteered Patrick by name.

OOPS – that is not good, is it? But wait, it gets worse:

Massachusetts residents also apparently believe that one-party rule on Beacon Hill has not worked. After 16 years of Republican governors, Patrick’s 2006 victory brought Democratic dominance to the State House. But a plurality of voters surveyed – 46 percent – prefer divided government; even 28 percent of Democrats said so.

I reckon that should be a lesson to us all, shouldn’t it? Oh, wait – we are already learning that lesson, I think. I never thought I would be saying that, but there it is. As it turns out, we DO need checks and balances. I reckon those Founders knew just what the hell they were doing after all!

But it isn’t ALL bad news:

Among other political figures, Senator Edward M. Kennedy is viewed favorably by the most people – 60 percent of respondents. Senator John F. Kerry fared worse, with 46 percent viewing him favorably and 44 percent saying they had an unfavorable opinion of him. Attorney General Martha Coakley remains popular, with 56 percent of respondents viewing her favorably and just 15 percent viewing her unfavorably. (Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com. Frank Phillips can be reached at phillips@globe.com.

So, there’s that. But wait – it turns out, the comparisons continue, as the title of this article indicates, “Poll: Obama Reaches A New Low.” In just six L-O-O-N-N-G-G months, people are starting to wake up from the “Hope!” and “Change!” hooeyfication. What took them so long?

President Obama’s approval numbers reached a new low today, according to Rasmussen’s tracking poll.

A total or 49% of likely voters now approve of Obama’s job performance, compared to 50% who disapprove.

Only 29% “strongly approve,” compared with 40% who “strongly disapprove.” The 11% gap between those numbers is the largest since Obama took office.

The percentage of respondents who strongly disapprove of Obama’s performance has jumped 5% since the President’s prime time press conference on Wednesday.

Gee, I’m no statistician or anything, but that doesn’t look too good to me (click HERE to read the rest of the article, if you wish)…

Axelrod, if my prayers are answered, will be known as the master of the One-Term Wonders. Fingers crossed!!!

In Europe, he chastised America for what he called our “arrogance.” In the Caribbean, he gave the dictator of Venezuela a warm smile and a handshake, and called him “amigo.” Before the Saudi king, he bowed low and long.

And just the other day, in a cynical nod to Turkish generals, the American president who campaigned for human rights quietly avoided the word “genocide” in a resolution marking the anniversary of the 1915 Ottoman Turkish slaughter of more than a million Armenian Orthodox Christians.

A few years after that slaughter, as he prepared to engage in his own genocide of the Jews, Adolf Hitler was credited with saying: “Who remembers the Armenians?” The United States may remember, but our president can’t call it genocide.

Ah, yes, his trip to Turkey. Our guide in Turkey mentioned Obama’s two days spent there in Istanbul. He lifted up his hands, and his eyes to the heavens, and said, “yes, people here think he is the new savior.” There was a tinge of irony in his voice, thankfully. I was glad he appeared not to have been sucked in by Obama’s rhetoric. And all I could think was, “He has benefited from a GREAT marketing campaign, that man.” I might add, there were VERY few responses to the guide’s having said this, but in particular, there were no enthusiastic affirmations. Perhaps after Obama’s unwillingness to call genocide what is is, there may be fewer Turks who see him as The Messiah.

Kass continues:

Still, President Barack Obama offers himself up to an adoring world — and the enraptured, Hopium-smoking American media that helped elect him — as a leader more flexible than his hopelessly rigid predecessor, George W. Bush.

And he’s proved it, charming nations and their leaders, remaining in campaign mode, where he’s most comfortable.

While in Egypt, at the Citadel and its two mosques, we were all on the bus getting ready to leave. One of the constant souvenir hawks kept talking to people on the bus, and said, “I love Barack Obama! He will change the world! I hate George Bush and Tony Blair!” Well, I couldn’t disagree with his last assessment, but one of the other women on the bus, when he said Obama would “change the world, ” muttered, “We’ll see.” Again, not an enthusiastic response from the people on the bus (different group, for the most part, too, by the way). But it is clear that the MSM, Plouffe, and Axelrod meme that Obama really is a change agent, in contradiction to his entire political history thus far, and his underhanded way of even getting into politics in the first place (getting everyone thrown off the ballot), has taken root abroad. People believe what they want to believe, facts notwithstanding. It’s one thing for people in other countries to buy this stuff – they can’t vote here. Quite another that people here bought it. But I digress.

Back to the USA and John Kass:

But last week, he bowed to his base in the hard political left by reversing himself, opening the door for the prosecution of Bush Justice Department officials who helped develop harsh interrogation policies for suspected terrorists.

Some call it torture and legitimately oppose it. Others say harsh interrogation — such as waterboarding — was necessary after the Sept. 11 attacks.

But what Obama accomplished by opening the possibility of political witch hunts was to offer up one of his own eyes to his political supporters. He needs both eyes to see a dangerous world.

The week began when Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief of staff, appeared on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos to reiterate Obama’s pledge not to prosecute.

“He believes that people in good faith were operating with the guidance they were provided,” said Emanuel, no fool. “They shouldn’t be prosecuted. … It’s time for reflection. It’s not a time to use our energy in looking back in any sense of anger and retribution.”

Two days later, Obama abruptly changed course to please his anti-war base that demands a few severed political heads.

“With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say, that is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general,” he said. “I think there are a host of very complicated issues involved there.”

His critics used phrases such as “chilling effect” on intelligence gathering, but I call it the pucker factor. In all bureaucracies, it rolls down hill.

Of course, Obama caved. Anyone who thought he would do otherwise was sadly mistaken.

As for his releasing of the Torture memos, a number of my fellow writers at No Quarter have taken this on, including none other than Larry Johnson, American Girl In Italy, and SusanUnPC, to name a few. No need for me to get into that with such stellar writers already dealing with it, except to say – once again, Obama did not consider the implications and/or ramifications of doing so, including, as SusanUnPC pointed out, the impact on some of his more sychophantic supporters like Nancy Pelosi. (If you haven’t had a chance to read those, and others, I highly recommend that you do.)

Kass continues on the torture theme:

Reporters are kind of like intelligence gatherers. We don’t waterboard politicians, but we’re under pressure to get good information. So, let me tell you a story.

In 1985, I was a kid in the news business, and our gossip columnist, Mike Sneed — now at the Sun-Times — got the story of the year: “Reform” Mayor Harold Washington had been secretly taped pressuring a fellow to get out of the 3rd Ward aldermanic race. It sounded like raw politics. It didn’t sound anything like reform. And Washington was enraged.

Jim Squires, then our editor, decided to publish transcripts but tell readers the tapes were leaked by Washington’s white ethnic political opponents who wanted to embarrass him. Fair enough.

Then he ordered me and another young reporter to find Sneed’s source and walk back the cat. I didn’t want to do it, but he was the boss and Sneed understood, and after a few days, he dropped his harebrained scheme.

Yet for a long time afterward, sources worried they might be outed. Reporters were concerned their bosses might investigate their sources. And in the gathering of political intelligence, when sources start puckering up, they’re not going to kiss you. You get scooped.

And some editors shriek, “How did you get scooped?!” even when they knew that the boss made a decision that sent spasms through everything. More spasms ensue. The pucker factor multiplies exponentially.

Now THAT is a quote for the ages, isn’t it? “The pucker factor multiplies exponentially.”

Kass makes his point:

Obama isn’t an editor. He’s the president of a nation targeted by terrorists and constantly probed for weakness, even by our allies.

His intelligence gatherers — and others who give them the tools and the go-ahead — can’t spend their time wondering if he has their backs.

His statements surely sent spasms through bureaucracies that are vital to his own success and America’s safety. All because he wanted to campaign, rather than lead.

Our president has a fine ear for language and nuance. Yet sometimes he shapes his principles to fit the moment, something anyone who watches Chicago politics understood years ago(Emphasis mine.). The Democratic machine candidates he eagerly endorsed for re-election — from Boss Daley II to Cook County Board President Todd Stroger to disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich — are testament to Obama’s flexibility.

But he must stop campaigning someday, and start thinking like a chief executive. And he’ll need both eyes to see where he’s got to go. (
jskass@tribune.com)

I could not have said it better myself. Except to say that it isn’t just the intelligence gatherers who have to wonder if he has their backs, but ALL Americans. When the President of the United States goes abroad and insults the very people he was elected to serve, it does raise the question if he indeed does. Personally, I never suffered the illusion that he gave a damn about the American people – he seems to care about one person and person only: himself. Still, his position alone as POTUS would certainly IMPLY he has a duty to not trash us in other countries while apparently campaigning for Master of the Universe. Just sayin’.

And, while I know others are writing about this, a president who cares, really cares about the people whom he was elected to serve does NOT, DOES NOT, have a PHOTO OP of a 747 being chased by an F-16 Fighter Jet flying over lower Manhattan and New Jersey. The bubble surrounding this man and his inner circle is mighty thick, and mighty clueless. (If you have not yet heard about this incredibly insensitive, assholic move by the White House, click HERE and HERE for just two articles on this.)

If Obama is truly capable of leading, rather than just campaigning, and having his ego stroked, it is time, PAST time, for him to hop to it. And enough with the press conferences already, too. And the vacations (I’ve lost count, but it has been at least three in the first One Hundred Days. Feel free to enumerate them if you know of more!). And playing games while real issues are arising (golf, basketball, whatever). That is all to say, President Obama, get to work already.

The cream certainly rose to the top in the second round in the battle for the No Quarter Trophy. The second round of our March Madness tournament had few suprises and almost every match was a blowout. With the field narrowed to 16, we are down to the best of the best. To become our National Champion and wear the title of Biggest Ass on the American Political Landscape, someone will have to rise to the top over some of the most reprehensible people of our time.

BELOW, the scoop on the most suspenseful race last week (Michelle Obama vs. David Axelrod) and your virtual voting booth:

It was a surprising second round as three former National Champions were eliminated in matches that were not even close. Dick Cheney, Ann Coulter and Ted Kennedy (in a likely farewell performance) were all sent packing. The 12th seed in the Capitol Hill Bracket, Senator Claire McCaskill is the lone long shot left in the field as she easily disposed of the 4th seed John Boehner. The most exciting match occurred in the White House Bracket where number two seed Michelle Obama had her hands full with the 7th seed, David Axelrod.

Mrs. Obama pulled it out 54-46.

Your chance to vote in our Sweet 16 starts now. The polls will be open until 8:00 PM EDT on Tuesday. Here are the matchups.

White House Bracket
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Capitol Hill Bracket
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Media Bracket
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At Large Bracket
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Just vote for who you think is the biggest ass in each matchup. Feel free to post additional comments below. Have fun with this. Don’t forget to join us on the Nocturnal Warrior Show on No Quarter Radio this Tuesday night at 9:00 PM EDT for the Sweet 16 results and Elite Eight preview.

Here is how the AAPOR defines the Bradley effect on page 53 of the report:

the tendency for respondents to report a preference for a black candidate (Obama) but vote instead for a white opponent.

And here is what their extensive and rigorous report found (pages 53-54):

Several compelling pieces of evidence suggest that the New Hampshire estimation errors were probably not caused by the “Bradley effect” – or the tendency for respondents to report a preference for a black candidate (Obama) but vote instead for a white opponent. A meta-analysis by Hopkins (2008) indicates that while the Bradley effect did undermine some state-level polls in previous decades, there is no evidence for such an effect in recent years. In the 2008 general election, the very accurate final poll estimates of Barack Obama’s fairly decisive victory over John McCain dispelled suspicion that the Bradley effect was at play during the final weeks of the fall contest. There is also a conspicuous lack of evidence for a Bradley effect in the primary contests outside of New Hampshire. Of the 81 polls conducted during the final 30 days of the Iowa, South Carolina, California, and Wisconsin contests, the vast majority (86%) over-estimated Clinton’s relative vote share, while just 14% over-estimated Obama’s relative vote share. This finding is based on the signed direction of A for each survey.26 Furthermore, as reported in Table 3, poll estimates of Obama’s vote share in New Hampshire were quite accurate – it was only Clinton’s share that was consistently underestimated.

Here is Table 3 (page 14):

In poll after poll Hillary Cinton’s support was undersampled while Obama’s support was correctly sampled. It was not that her supporters lied to pollsters; they were simply not contacted.

Pollster.com offers this summary of the report:

• Given the compressed caucus and primary calendar, polls conducted before the New Hampshire primary may have ended too early to capture late shifts in the electorate’s preferences there.
• Most commercial polling firms conducted interviews on the first or second call, but respondents who required more effort to contact were more likely to support Senator Clinton. Instead of continuing to call their initial samples to reach these hard‐to‐contact people, pollsters typically added new households to the sample, skewing the results toward the opinions of those who were easy to reach on the phone, and who more typically supported Senator Obama.
• Non‐response patterns, identified by comparing characteristics of the pre‐election samples with the exit poll samples, suggest that some groups who supported Senator Clinton–such as union members and those with less education–were under‐ represented in pre‐election polls, possibly because they were more difficult to reach.
• Variations in likely voter models could explain some of the estimation problems in individual polls. Application of the Gallup likely larger error than was present in the unadjusted data. The influx of first-time voters may have had adverse effects on likely voter models.

Hillary’s base of women, blue collar workers, union members, single mothers and the elderly were simply too difficult to contact, while young Obama supporters were always available by telephone. It was not racism or the Bradley Effect that enabled Hillary to win New Hampshire; it was that the pollsters never spoke to her base.

But the media and the Obama campaign had to accuse New Hampshire Democratic Primary voters of racism in order to minimize Hillary’s victory and racialize the race before the South Carolina primary, where the majority of Democratic voters are African-American.

Here is Mickey Kaus of Slate on January 9, 2008:

1. Bradley Effect: It seemed like a nice wonky little point when Polipundit speculated on the Reverse Bradley Effect–the idea that Iowa’s public caucuses led Dem voters to demonstrate their lack of prejudice by caucusing for Obama. Now this is the CW of the hour. Polipundit wrote:

I suspect that Obama may have scored better than he would have in a secret-ballot election, and benefited from a Reverse Bradley Effect.

New Hampshire, of course, is a secret ballot election. Voters might have told pollsters one thing but done another in private.** New Hampshirites I ran into Tuesday night mentioned that the state was very late ratifying the MLK Holiday.

Here is Andrew Kohut in the New York Times on January 10, 2008:

To my mind all these factors deserve further study. But another possible explanation cannot be ignored — the longstanding pattern of pre-election polls overstating support for black candidates among white voters, particularly white voters who are poor.…

Poorer, less well-educated white people refuse surveys more often than affluent, better-educated whites. Polls generally adjust their samples for this tendency. But here’s the problem: these whites who do not respond to surveys tend to have more unfavorable views of blacks than respondents who do the interviews….

In New Hampshire, the ballots are still warm, so it’s hard to pinpoint the exact cause for the primary poll flop. But given the dearth of obvious explanations, serious consideration has to be given to the difficulties that race and class present to survey methodology.

Here is David Kuo of the Huffington Post as votes were counted during the New Hampshire Primary:

Tonight, despite all the talk of how little race matters in this campaign, it is clear that race is still a big deal in bi-racial campaigns. And it has showed up for the first time, in a measurable way, in the 2008 presidential race.

It means that every poll — from exit polls to tracking polls — are absolutely suspect from here on out.

Here are excerpts from MSNBC on the night of the New Hampshire Primary:

ROBINSON: Well, I‘ll tell you what some people will suspect. Here you have polls, you know, the day before the primary showing Obama way ahead. And he finishes, you know, 15 points lower than that. A lot of people will suspect a “Bradley effect.”

You know, Tom Bradley…

SCARBOROUGH: Oh, Tom Bradley. You‘re…

(CROSSTALK)

ROBINSON: Not the Bill Bradley effect. We were talking about Bill Bradley‘s endorsement being, you know, not necessarily the greatest thing. I‘m talking about Tom Bradley, the mayor—African-American mayor of Los Angeles years ago, ran for governor of California. Polls showed him on election eve that he was going to cruise to victory and he lost. And Doug Wilder of—the first…

SCARBOROUGH: Wait, wait, wait, but are you really saying right now that the people of New Hampshire may have—I won‘t say, be racist, but are you saying that they did not want to go in that booth and vote for a black man? …

BRIAN WILLIAMS, NBC ANCHOR: I was just going to say, I‘ve been listening to the panel. Number one, the “Bradley effect,” whether people are going to decide it was in effect in this case is very real and talked about among people in the political business. Let‘s not forget the Gantt race in North Carolina few years ago.…

CHUCK TODD, NBC NEWS POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, look, you can only go back—you know, and I go back in recent history and you try to find races where you had these gigantic poll shifts, where the final pre-election polls differed so dramatically from the actual result.

And the one thing they all have in common is something that Eugene Robinson brought up earlier, and that is race.

It was Tom Bradley in California governor‘s race in 1982. The polls had him ahead—ahead by a fairly healthy margin over George Deukmejian. He ended up losing.

And Virginia governor, 1989, Doug Wilder had a double digit lead going into the final—in the final weekend. He won by a very narrow 1 point margin.

Harvey Gant, the 1990 Senate race with Jesse Helms—one of the most divisive races, frankly, that this country had on race. That was, again, pre-election polls had Gant ahead, Helms wins.

So you can‘t help but look at that—and particularly you‘ve got to wonder what this sends—the message that this could send to African-American Democrats, who may look at this and say, well, of course, that‘s what happened. You know, a lot of times when I‘ve noticed this and when you talk to African-American Democrats, they sat here and they‘ll see this race stuff a lot quicker than us in white America. And I think that this is—it‘s at least, you‘ve got to explore it. You‘ve got to look at it. History has taught us this—recent history—when it‘s come to dealing with African-American candidates.

Here is Carol Costello, Andrew Kohut and Professor Charles Ogletree on CNN’s Situation Room on January 11, 2008:

I’m Wolf Blitzer.

You’re in THE SITUATION ROOM.

Is the U.S. ready for an African-American president?

Senator Barack Obama’s strong showing so far in this campaign has many saying absolutely, yes. Others, though, say it’s too soon to tell.

Carol Costello has been looking into this story for us — you’ve been talking to a lot of people supposedly knowledgeable on this very sensitive subject.

What are they telling you?

COSTELLO: Well, it is a sensitive subject, isn’t it?

You know, most I talked with today say it is too soon to tell.

Obama seems to have transcended race, but can he in the long run?

Already, critics say Obama’s opponents are trying to create this subtle narrative of racial division. They deny it, but it illustrates how hard it is in this country to take race out of the equation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO (voice-over): The Iowa caucus created all kinds of excitement surrounding Barack Obama. His win in a predominantly white state and a strong showing in another seemingly proves it — Obama can transcend race. It’s something Obama has always believed could happen.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If I have your support, if I have your energy and involvement and commitment and ideas, then I am here to tell you yes, we can in ‘08.

COSTELLO: Maybe. But there are those who feel while Iowa and New Hampshire prove Obama can certainly get white votes, it doesn’t mean he can continue the trend — that Obama’s second place finish in New Hampshire, despite polls that had him coming in first, illustrates the undercurrent about race that exists in this country.

Andrew Kohut, in charge of Pew Research, has a theory. He says many of those inclined to vote for Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire were poor, uneducated whites who don’t participate in polls and who often don’t vote for blacks.

ANDREW KOHUT, PRES., PEW RESEARCH CTR.: At least race should be considered because we know that the kinds of people drawn to Mrs. Clinton are always the kinds of people who turn down surveys at pretty high rates. We don’t know much about whether the people who we don’t get are like the people that we do get.

COSTELLO: Polls about race are notoriously difficult to analyze. Take this ABC/Washington Post poll conducted before the Iowa caucus. A whopping 88 percent of Americans said race would not matter in choosing a president. But pollsters say you have to take this result with a grain of salt. Few people are willing to tell a pollster they’re racist. It reflects the Bradley effect, after Tom Bradley, a black man who ran for governor in California in 1982. Most polls showed him leading but he lost to a white male candidate.

PROF. CHARLES OGLETREE, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL: Ask Tom Bradley when he ran for governor in California. Black man, thought he could win, he didn’t. Ask Harvey Gant in North Carolina. Ask Harold Ford, Jr.

COSTELLO: Look at the stats. There is one black governor in the United States. They are nine women governors. They are 16 senators who are women. And one black man, Barack Obama.

Still, Barack Obama got plenty of votes in New Hampshire and in Iowa, which are both 95 percent white.

You could say that trumps the poll, but there are many more people yet to vote and racial under currents that are so hard to predict.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

And here is the Obama campaign as discussed in an article by Ryan Lizza in the January 21, 2008, edition of the New Yorker:

Did Obama experience a similar fate in New Hampshire? The evidence is murky, but his campaign believes the question is important enough to warrant study. When I asked a senior Obama adviser whether the Bradley effect was a possible explanation for the gap between the final poll numbers, which showed Obama leading by an average of eight points, and the ultimate outcome, he replied, “Definitely.” He added, “If so, then the question is: what’s different between Iowa and New Hampshire? It could be that the socially acceptable thing in front of your neighbor at a caucus could be different than what you do in a secret ballot. Obviously, that’s something we’re going to be trying to figure out as we go forward, primarily through polling. I know people are working on ways of asking questions about getting at people’s attitudes about race. We’re working on this.”

In other words, the Obama campaign cited the Bradley Effect in order to explain a loss, and the sycophantic media repeated the notion again and again and again. Apparently they received the memo from David Axelrod as votes were counted in New Hampshire. Too bad real analysis reveals that the Bradley Effect had no impact on the New Hampshire Primary.

Will CNN apologize? Will MSNBC apologize? Will the New York Times apologize? Will Slate apologize? And is it not a coincidence that after the Obama campaign decided race was the reason he lost the NH primary that the Clintons were accused of racism by the Obama campaign during the South Carolina primary? All of it was debunked in the report released today by the AAPOR. Will Obama and Axelrod apologize to Hillary and Bill Clinton?

I doubt anyone will apologize, for no one in the Obama administration or in the Obamamedia cares about facts. But at least all of us know that those of us who voted for Hillary during the New Hampshire primary and during the other primaries are not racist. Will they apologize to us?

The WSJ reports that GM’s Rick Wagoner and Fritz Henderson were summoned to D.C. on Friday, to the Treasury office of Steven Rattner, selected by PBO last month to head the Department’s auto-industry task force. Mr. Rattner “broke the news to Mr. Wagoner in person at his office at Treasury,” and then met with the temporary replacement, Mr. Henderson. Bloomberg confirms the Friday meetings in “GM’s Wagoner Steps Aside After Failing Obama Scrutiny.”

Below: Who knew about the Friday beheading — that bloody coup d’état! — before the story broke Sunday night? Who didn’t know? …

Surely seven people (and staff) knew Friday but, as with the leak-free message control during Obama’s campaign, nobody spilled the beans. Who knew? GM’s Wagoner and Henderson, Treasury’s Geithner and Rattner, the WH’s Obama, Emanuel, and perhaps Axelrod. Who was left in the dark until Sunday night? Michigan’s senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow? Michigan’s once-powerful House member John Dingell? (Dingell recently got kicked upstairs by Nancy Pelosi.) The 11th District’s Thad McCotter? (McCotter spoke Sunday night with John Batchelor and guests, including Larry Johnson, but was constrained by “embargoed” news.)

In fact, Obama didn’t tell four key Congressional members (Levin, Stabenow, Dingell and Sander Levin) until “a Sunday night conference call that he would grant unspecified additional aid to GM for 60 days and Chrysler for 30 days, according to a person familiar with the call,” reports the Detroit News.

Once again, the Unitary Executive Obama has circumvented the will of the people which is supposed to be expressed through their representatives and senators to Congress, as quaintly prescribed in the Constitution by our nation’s brilliant founders.

This is akin to Geithner’s “toxic assets plan,” announced Monday and issued by fiat. To which you might reply, “Well, he is the Treasury secretary.” And to which I’d retort, “But he sneakily is going to blow at least $1 trillion of your taxes, without having undergone (1) Congressional scrutiny and hearings; and (2) any legislation granting him such authority.

This Bloomberg paragraph explains in part why Rick Wagoner was forced out:

“It’s very hard for the government to write a big check without giving some evidence of change,” Casesa said. “This will also give the government moral authority with the other stakeholders to make them sacrifice.”

The WSJ goes further:

The Obama administration used the threat of withholding more bailout money to force out General Motors Corp. Chief Executive Rick Wagoner, marking one of the most dramatic government interventions in private industry since the economic crisis began last year. [...]

[NOTE THIS, readers.] The move also indicates that the Treasury Department [GEITHNER] intends to wade more deeply than most observers expected into the affairs of the country’s largest and oldest car company.

So, Obama forced the chairman of a major private company to resign. (Some news is “embargoed” until midnight ET. We will update.) Geithner? He knew this morning — of COURSE he knew (see WSJ quotes above and below) but held it during Meet the Press and Gregory, unlike Russert, has no nose for blood in the water. By the way, I never thought I’d cry out for Tim Russert, but, damn, was he needed as David Gregory played softball with Geithner, who’s obviously graduated from a quickie two-week master’s degree in Media Management from David Axelrod. For example, the back-and-forth on the toxic assets plan was as placid as a lullaby duet.

Update: Hot Air’s Allahpundit adds another dimension:

If you want taxpayer money, you’re going to have to do things The One’s way. And if you don’t want taxpayer money, TurboTax Tim might swoop in and make sure you do things The One’s way anyway. [...]

Oddly enough, when Rasmussen polled the public in December, only 14 percent thought a GM run by the feds would outperform a GM run by the private sector. Exit question: Ever get the feeling that Obama’s not quite the centrist pragmatist Christopher Buckley thought he’d be? (Emphases mine.)

(Susan’s Note about the conservative Christopher Buckley’s public support of Obama: This is a depressing instance of the unintended consequence of voting based primarily on compensatory white guilt.)

There are more news flashes via Memeorandum from major news outlets. Here’s more Bloomberg:

“General Motors Corp. Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner will step down after more than eight years running the largest U.S. automaker, people familiar with the situation said.

“The Obama administration asked Wagoner, 56, to leave the company and he agreed, said an administration official who declined to be identified before the move was announced. The likely replacement, unless the government hires from outside the company, would be Chief Operating Officer Fritz Henderson, said John Casesa, managing partner at New York-based consulting firm Casesa Shapiro Group.”

And here’s more WSJ:

An administration official confirmed that Mr. Wagoner was asked to step down to make way for ongoing restructuring within the company. Mr. Wagoner will be replaced, at least on an interim basis, by Frederick “Fritz” Henderson, the company’s chief operating officer.

Mr. Wagoner was asked to step down on Friday by Steven Rattner, the investment banker picked last month by the the administration to lead the Treasury Department’s auto-industry task force. Mr. Rattner broke the news to Mr. Wagoner in person at his office at Treasury, according to an administration official. Afterward, Mr. Rattner met one-on-one with Mr. Henderson, who will fill in as GM’s CEO.

GM didn’t immediately return calls for comment. One longtime GM board member, Kent Kresa, declined to comment when reached by phone Sunday night.

The ouster comes as President Barack Obama prepares to give billions of dollars more in aid to struggling auto makers GM and Chrysler LLC, but only if all sides—including unions and bondholders—show that they are ready to sacrifice.

President Obama plans Monday to lay out the administration’s interim conclusions on the companies’ viability and the many steps that need to be taken to return the companies to health. The president is likely to hold off on granting the companies $21.6 billion in new loans to preserve leverage in negotiations, particularly with the thousands of bondholders who hold a total of about $28 billion in GM debt.

In remarks Sunday, Mr. Obama said that he intends to extract “a set of sacrifices from all parties involved—management, labor, shareholders, creditors, suppliers, dealers.” The industry, he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” must “take serious restructuring steps now in order to preserve a brighter future down the road.” The two companies “are not there yet,” he added.

Mr. Wagoner’s removal shows that the sacrifices could cut deep. The departure of the company’s top executive promises to further shake up a company that has already been through considerable change over the past six months. The 56-year-old executive had been scrambling to craft a global strategy aimed at maintaining leadership in the global sales chase with Toyota Motor Corp., and making big profits in emerging markets. … Read all.

Adds Bloomberg in “GM’s Wagoner Steps Aside After Failing Obama Scrutiny “:

[...]

Wagoner became a symbol of the failing U.S. auto industry in recent months after flying to Washington via corporate jet to ask for aid. Since taking over in 2000, he presided over $82 billion in losses during the past four years and yielded GM’s title as the world’s top-selling carmaker to Toyota Motor Corp.

His exit caps an unsuccessful five-month push to win U.S. aid without losing his job. Forced to work for $1 a year and cede most of his corporate perks, he had said he wouldn’t resign unless compelled. On March 27, 129 days after Congress’s first hearing on the future of GM, he got that call.

[...]

“On Friday I was in Washington for a meeting with administration officials,” Wagoner said in a statement. “In the course of that meeting, they requested that I ‘step aside’ as CEO of GM, and so I have.”

Henderson, 49, was tapped by Wagoner to become COO a year ago after serving as chief financial officer. He previously ran GM’s operations in Asia and Europe.

Obama will outline his ideas for GM at a briefing later today, giving the biggest U.S. automaker 60 days to devise a plan that cuts deeper and makes more changes.

“The bailout loans aren’t hugely popular and that’s creating an issue for Obama,” said Jeremy Anwyl, CEO of Edmunds.com in Santa Monica, California, which tracks vehicle pricing and consumer behavior. “One way to make the loans more palatable is to be able to say the person responsible is no longer with GM.”

GM had said it will shed 47,000 jobs globally in 2009 and plans to close five assembly plants. Executives said the Detroit-based automaker will focus on four U.S. brands, down from eight, and eliminate thousands of dealers.

Rescue Plan

Wagoner oversaw those plans to meet the terms of the rescue unveiled on Dec. 19 by then-President George W. Bush, after Congress balked at a bailout for GM and Chrysler LLC. CEO Robert Nardelli will stay at Chrysler and must complete a planned alliance with Fiat SpA within 30 days, an Obama administration official said.

Obama’s task force pointed to GM’s failure to win concessions from bondholders, a step needed to cut the automaker’s debt and ensure future viability, as one reason the government needed a new plan.

GM’s latest debt exchange offer, made March 24, wasn’t likely to win bondholders’ approval because it’s less lucrative than the terms the U.S. required for the company to keep the first $13.4 billion in loans, a person briefed on the talks said. The bondholders didn’t seek Wagoner’s dismissal, the person said.

The government will push for even deeper cuts in debt now, the administration official said.

Tumbling Shares, Bonds

GM tumbled 87 percent in New York Stock Exchange composite trading last year, the most among the 30 stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The shares gained 21 cents, or 6.2 percent, to $3.21 on March 27, extending a 66 percent rally since GM said March 12 that it wouldn’t need a $2 billion payment by tomorrow to survive as originally forecast. ….

Postscript #1: John Batchelor discussed the firing of Wagoner Sunday night with Larry Johnson on his nationally syndicated radio show via Los Angeles’s KFI-AM (podcast up ASAP). The scheduled topic was the White House meeting with the nation’s top bankers, but the agile Mr. Batchelor leaped on the breaking news about GM’s Rick Wagoner, and plumbed his guests for their reactions, as well as netting Rep. Thad McCotter as a special guest.

Postscript #2: Here is an earlier NoQuarterUSA post that featured McCotter’s floor speech earlier this month. Larry Doyle’s wife discovered it, and e-mailed me the video link. Here’s that video:

Here is his House site URL: Thad McCotter

Mon. A.M. Update / Postscript #3: CALL and e-mail your Senators and your House, and DEMAND CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT AND THE RIGHT TO HAVE LEGISLATION so that Tiny Tim cannot RULE this country by fiat.

Who knew we’d ever be calling up our members of Congress and demanding they craft legislation?

But, unless we do, we might as well think of PBO as Hugo Chavez and/or Fidel Castro with his brother Tiny Tim Raoul Castro.

THIS BLOG’s header says it all:

Isn’t it amusing. The left kicked and screamed about Bush/Cheney’s “unitary executive” for years! Will they hold PBO to the same standards?

FYI: Guess which Democratic primary candidate told the Boston Globe that one of the first things to take care of was to rescind Bush’s unitary executive signings. Can’t guess?

…….
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….
…
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Hillary Clinton.

PBO has expanded Bush’s power.

See NoQuarterUSA’s previous stories on the unitary executive signing statements issued by Bush — and now being employed by a small cabel in the White House and Treasury department.

Axelrod puppet Barack Obama studies Axelrod puppet Deval Patrick as the latter offers empty slogans and gestures

David Axelrod manufactures commodities, not politicians: they don suits; they read teleprompters; they promise something new and unprecedented; but these newfangled objects cannot govern. No, I am not referring to Barack Obama, although this news does not bode well for Axelrod’s latest product; I am discussing Deval Patrick, who according to a 7News Boston poll has lost all credibility with the voters of Massachusetts.

Readers of No Quarter recall how Obama and Patrick read from the same script penned by David Axelrod.

I guess the voters of Massachusetts are finally experiencing a moment of disenchantment. Perhaps they now realize that all Axelrod’s commodities cum politicians can offer are “just words.” I quote the Boston Herald:

The survey of 400 registered voters – Democrats, Republicans and unenrolled alike – shows angry Bay Staters quickly losing faith in the state government, with Patrick taking the biggest hit.

Only 34 percent of those surveyed in the poll conducted for 7News by Suffolk University say the governor deserves re-election, while a stunning 47 percent say it is “time to elect someone else.”

Voters gave Patrick a 43 percent unfavorable rating and a 44 percent favorable rating. The rest are undecided….

Asked about Patrick’s job performance, 49 percent disapproved, 40 percent approved and 11 percent were undecided….

Patrick’s dismal poll numbers come after battering in the press over his naming of a senator pal to a costly plum post, raises for sheriffs, addition of two pricey staffers to the Pike payroll, embarrassing comments by his transportation secretary and his own dismissal of the controversies as “trivial.”

Aloof and oblivious to the cronyism of his administration, the incompetence of his Cabinet members and the apparent lack of ethics and fiscal responsibility he and his operatives are exhibiting, Deval Patrick is the ominous reflection of his political semblable Barack Obama.

No wonder why the NRSC has created the following advertisement:

The NRSC now knows what we have always known: Obama is just another Patrick. Indeed, he is just an updated version of a model everyone now knows is failed. He is, in other words, just so many ethereal words.

I am sure Obama will dismiss all the contradictions highlighted in the NRSC advertisement as so much trivia. He will probably claim that we cannot hold him accountable for what he promised during the campaign. After all, all he had uttered before the desperate crowds were “just words.” And I am sure he will become as aloof and oblivious as Patrick has as more and more voters lose confidence in his ability to lead as controversy compounds controversy. Commodities are alluring during a campaign, but they prove to be defunct the moment one tests their ability to govern. All that once appeared to be solid evaporates into so much hot air, I guess. The object that seemed so tangible in its promise provided nothing more than an impalpable mirage.

Obama is quickly becoming a Patrick, who from all indications is dead on arrival in 2010. Certainly if Obama continues on the path he has forged thus far, he too will be a flash in the pan, a wonder who lasted one term. This should be of no surprise, for he and Patrick are cut from the same cloth, hewn from the same block of wood, carved by the same Axelrod. And besides, his/tory has this tendency to repeat itself, rendering the past, the present and the future all into one grand, temporally suspended farce. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, would have made her/story. For she was not assembled in Axelrod’s toxic factory.

The first round winners were determined by your votes and revealed last night on the Nocturnal Warrior Show on No Quarter Radio. You can listen to that here. We did a review of last night’s so-called press conference followed by the tournament results. The show includes the scores, a review of the next round matchups and all sorts of commentary that we just can’t fit here.

Remember, your votes determine the winners. We are asking you to look at each matchup and determine for yourself who is the bigger ass in each matchup (We are not asking who has the biggest ass, although that may have helped Oprah and Donna Brazile in round one). Without further ado here we go:

ROUND TWO

White House Bracket

6th Seed Rahm Emanuel vs. 3rd Seed Dick Cheney

Capitol Hill Bracket

Media Bracket

At-Large Bracket

There you have it. Just use the polls as set up at No Quarter to determine your votes. The Polls will be open until midnight Friday. This weekend, we will reveal the “Sweet Sixteen,” and open up the voting. The “Sweet Sixteen” winners will be announced on next Tuesday night’s Nocturnal Warrior Show where we will break down the Elite Eight.

Feel free to add your comments about the matchups below. The key is to have as much fun with this as possible!

It turns out that Barack Obama’s administration was not exactly ready on day one (funny how those who are suddenly finding a critical voice, like Maureen Dowd, fail to mention their lampooning of Hillary Clinton who made “Day One” a campaign issue.) Discovering that his on-the-job performance was eroding his rock star image and loosening the support of his enormous fan base in the main stream media, the President turned to David Axelrod to help get his groove back.

Axelrod is no different than Karl Rove (although, I vaguely remember candidate Obama telling us he was going to end the permanent campaign in his White House) in that he has no interest in or talent for government. His job is to get people elected and keep them in office. Axelrod’s solution to the problem of “The Incredible Shrinking Community Organizer in Chief” was to get him back in campaign mode. The plan called for two town hall meetings and a nationally televised press conference. Sound bites and You Tube clips of the President in front of swooning crowds and a carefully orchestrated press gathering with no follow-up questions would help provide a little stimulus to his sagging fortunes on Capitol Hill.

The first stop on the “Bolster Barry’s Image” tour was Elkhart, Indiana. Axelrod is certainly a master of symbolism. Indiana helped put Obama over the top in November and the exceptionally tight nature of the state’s primary kept Hillary Clinton from gaining any more ground. More than that, Elkhart’s local economy is a disaster.

If you live in this part of Indiana, the likelihood is you work in one of two industries: 1) manufacturing recreational vehicles or 2) manufacturing recreational power boats. These are two industries that can often be looked at as bellwethers for the nation’s economy. Both are big-money purchases for strictly leisure purposes and usually require large amounts of financing. After purchase, they both need hundreds of gallons of gasoline to power a weekend’s worth of use.

RV and boat sales started sliding dramatically two years ago and are virtually non-existent today. RV lots and marinas are choked with two years’ worth of unsold new product inventory. Even, if people were interested in purchasing one of these items today (the price of gas is actually attractive right now), the banks have pretty much shut down financing options for buying either. The factories are either closed completely or operating with severely reduced work forces.

For the people of Elkhart, I’ll quote Bruce Springsteen who once sang in ‘My Hometown’; “Foreman says these jobs are going boys, and they ain’t coming back, to your hometown.”

The reason these industries tanked ahead of the rest of the economy was the result of the dramatic shift in our national economy during the Bush administration. With the top 1% of salary earners taking home 20% of our total income, these high priced toys became simply out of reach for too many Americans. The top 1% of the population just doesn’t include enough people to keep these industries alive. A few $1,000 stimulus checks are not enough to get the middle class back into considering the RV lifestyle.

What the stimulus package does not have and what the assorted TARP plans do not provide is a way out for Elkhart. Yes, some of these people can be put to work building schools or repairing aging highways and bridges, but those are temporary assignments. The people of Elkhart need a plan for a new economic future. Outside of converting those RV plants into manufacturing hybrid buses for the President to shove Joe Biden under, I am not sure what those people can do next.

And that is the fundamental problem that President Obama has yet to address. Our national economy needs a complete overhaul. The principal product that the United States has manufactured for the last 20 years is money. We were incredibly ingenious in finding ways to do it. Whether it was the dot com boost or the housing boom or creating complex financial securities, we were manufacturing cash like never before. Well that’s over now. So what do we do next?

The way out of the Great Depression was war. The last thing any of us want to see is the RV factories converted to armored vehicle manufacturing. This President needs to get all of his alleged smart people in the room and start figuring out how to create a new American economy. Temporary stimulus is not the answer. Permanent solutions are what is required.

That is what the government needs to be concentrating on. The people of Elkhart and the rest of us are depending on it. If they don’t begin to address this soon, then even David Axelrod may not be able to save the President.