Tag Archives: Barack Obama

SOTU — 2014

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

What I thought the President needed to do:
Let me start from what I didn’t think he needed to do. President Obama did not have to appear to be reaching out to Congressional Republicans nor, for that matter, Congressional Democrats. He doesn’t much like them. They don’t much like him and, unlike Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, Barack Obama is not a good actor.

What he did need to do was to make a start in reassuring interested Americans that he is capable of not just getting through the next three years (he only got through 2013 because December 31 happened); but that he can do even small things to help the economy and the people who go to work every day to make the economy work. Continue reading →

The Race in Virginia

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

“Don’t it make my brown eyes blue.” That’s what Crystal Gayle sang in 1997.

“Don’t it make my Red State blue,” is what the Republican Party will probably be singing on Wednesday morning.

If Ken Cuccinelli gets within 10 points of Terry McAuliffe in tomorrow’s election, it will be a pretty big shock. And, you never know. It will be a low turnout election, and low turnout elections tend to work out pretty well for the Republican Party.

The Macker is a notoriously weak candidate, but he is a likeable guy who is exceptionally good at raising money.

With McAuliffe, ethics has trumped issues to become the number one reason to vote against him. Continue reading →

There, There.

BY JAY BRYANT

As the Obama administration crumbles like an old Ritz Cracker, the Democrats are trying to save it by claiming there’s no there there, and that all the troubles are caused – in one case literally, in the others figuratively — by a few low level bureaucrats in Cincinnati.

And none of them are caused by Barack Obama.

I think they’re right.

I don’t think Obama is, or ever has been, a causative agent in the events of his life. I think he is a tool, a talented one in certain ways, but lazy in the extreme and not ever in charge. Once he was Bill Ayers tool. Now he’s propped up and sent out to his Continue reading →

The Soup Is Not Ready Yet

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

The soup is not quite simmering, yet some conservatives are too anxious to serve it to the American people.

The soup is Obamacare, and for some activists, House Republicans are not being aggressive enough to serve its repeal.

Patience, my friends, patience. Obamacare will be repealed, slowly, but surely.

Congressional Republicans have voted about a million times to repeal the clunky law, to little effect. But those repeal votes have been premature. Continue reading →

Richard Milhous Obama

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

Well, well, well. Here we are. March first. Sequester day. America Held Hostage; Day One.

President Obama has been criss-crossing the country proclaiming the dire effects of March 1 if the Republicans in the House didn’t bow to his demands. We don’t know what his demands are, but he spent a lot of money accusing the GOP of not caving into them.

The Department of Homeland Security is made up, apparently, of the only group of people in America that believed Obama. A division of DHS got a jump on Sequester Day by letting “several hundred” illegal aliens who were in jail, out of jail and into what a spokesperson called “placed on an appropriate, more cost-effective form of supervised release. Continue reading →

Moving Pictures

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

The other day, the President railed against Congressional (read: Republican) inaction on averting the sequester by giving a speech while surrounded by uniformed policemen. The picture was designed to make the point that if the automatic cuts go into effect, people across the country will lose police protection.

Back when mules were the principal form of transportation, I was a member of the City Council of Marietta, Ohio 45750. One of my committee assignments was as chairman of the Police and Fire Committee. Continue reading →

Immigration From Tribulation to Triumph?

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

“Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian.”

There is as much truth as humor in those words from my friend and former colleague Bob Orben, a brilliant political speechwriter and comedy script craftsman (sometimes they are one and the same, but I digress).

The point is that Americans have been both immigrants and native population. Many of us are the progeny of immigrants. But despite our heritage, we still struggle with immigration, both legal and illegal, how we feel about it and what we should do or not do to integrate new arrivals into a burgeoning and diversifying American society.

Continue reading →

Inauguration Day

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

For foreigners, the only thing nuttier than watching the way we elect our Presidents is watching the way we inaugurate them.

For a nation that wears its egalitarianism not just as a badge of honor, but (as we saw this past November) almost as a requirement for office, the pomp and circumstance involved in a modern U.S. Presidential inauguration would have moved Louis XIV to modesty.

Both parties face the same issue: Looking for the balance between demonstrating a public outpouring of interest, if not affection, for the person preparing to take the oath of office without giving your political opponents any more ammunition than necessary. Continue reading →

Presidential Debates and Other Matters

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted by Mullings.com

With most of official Washington on nitroglycerin tablets awaiting tonight’s D*E*B*A*T*E between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in Denver, there are other things going on.

To start with, those pesky polls are beginning to tighten up again. Remember just about 10 minutes ago how the worldwide cadre of official political pundits, reporters, hangers-on, and operatives said this race was over and Obama could just take a knee for the next five week? Continue reading →

Barack Obama’s Charmed Life

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

President Barack Obama has had a charmed political life.

He has been a first class passenger on a supersonic rise in politics from community activist, state legislator and part-time U.S. Senator to President of the United States. And now he is running for a second term, wrapped in coats of Teflon slapped on so thick the negatives just don’t stick.

President Obama is rising in the polls and enjoying high personal popularity at a time when so much seems to be crumbling around him. Continue reading →

Obama Phoning It In

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

During President Barack Obama’s whirlwind visit to New York City, he delivered a speech to the United Nations.

In that speech Obama said, “The attacks on our civilians in Benghazi were attacks on America.”

To keep close tabs on our response to those “attacks on America” Obama played footsie with the gals on The View. And attended a reception. And Tweeted about the nature of the global issue of replacement refs in the NFL. And, for all I know, took a turn as the Naked Cowboy in Times Square. Continue reading →

Middle East Violence: Coming Clean Take 2

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

“You hate to think that the President would purposely mislead the American people, but it sure looks like it to me.” — House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon 9/21/2012

Let’s give the President the benefit of the doubt for now on whether he is coming clean on events in the Middle East that led to the death of our Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three others. But Chairman McKeon should hold that thought.

We should focus first on UN Ambassador Susan Rice, who on Sunday, September 16th, went on a national media bender to deliver three messages: One, the violent protests in Libya were spontaneous. Two, the protests were caused by the release of an American video that insulted the Prophet Mohammed. Three, the two former Navy Seals who were killed in Libya were part of a security detail protecting the Ambassador to that country. Continue reading →

Bad News Abroad, Good News at Home

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

As part of the continuing success story that is the foreign policy of Barack Obama, the U.S. Ambassador to China, Gary Locke, found his car surrounded by protesters, blocked, and pelted with plastic water bottles.

This, directly in front of the American embassy. He claimed he felt he was never in any danger and the Chinese have “expressed regret” and the U.S. State Department has expressed the same exact level of outrage as it has exhibited in the attacks on other Embassies around the world.

Which is to say, none. Continue reading →

Obama Nice Enough Guy

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

Friday night I was on Anderson Cooper’s CNN program, AC360, with one of my favorite debate partners, Paul Begala. As neither Paul nor I am a foreign policy expert we talked about the domestic political aspects of the riots – and killings – in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

Cooper quoted from Friday morning’s Mullings (I don’t have the transcript but this is close): “Rich, you wrote in your column this morning that President Obama’s foreign policy is: Blame George W.”

What I wrote, in its entirety was: “Barack Obama’s foreign policy is the same as his domestic policy: It’s all George W’s fault.” Continue reading →

Are You Better Off…

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

As the Democratic Party gathers in Charlotte, North Carolina this week to re-nominate Barack Obama, the big question Republicans are asking Americans to answer this week is: Are you better off now than you were four years ago?

There is almost no metric that would allow a segment of the population to answer, “Yes.” But, before we get into the wrangling of the coming three days, let’s step back a bit.

Continue reading →

Campaigns Part I: Public Must Save Campaigns

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

“This is a political stunt.”

That was the analysis of Meet the Press host David Gregory, who was summoned to the anchor desk on the NBC Nightly News August 17, to offer more incisive in-depth coverage of what everyone in America was anguishing over, the Romney and Ryan tax returns.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had taken the podium on the Senate Floor a week or so earlier and accused Mitt Romney of not paying income taxes for 10 years. It is reasonable to assume that Reid deliberately lied about Romney’s taxes in a silly attempt to goad him into releasing tax returns for those 10 years.

Gregory was close, but he didn’t get it quite right. What we were witnessing was not a stunt, but a political disgrace. Continue reading →

Capitalism on Trial

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

The Obama campaign has decided to concentrate all of its fire on Mitt Romney’s years at Bain Capital. As a result, it manufactured story after story about decisions made by Romney and his partners that led to greater profitability at the company, but also the heartache that often comes with that profitability.

For the Obama campaign, this isn’t just about Bain Capital, which most acknowledge was a well-run and ethical company. This is a bigger argument about the nature of capitalism in society today. Continue reading →

Running Mate Good Cop, Bad Cop

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

The best bad cop in American political history was Spiro T. Agnew.

He was the one who said that the media were “nattering nabobs of negativity,” called liberal intellectuals “an effete corps of impudent snobs”, and said of the Democrats, “They have formed their own 4-H club – the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.”

Agnew played the role to the hilt. He helped his running mate, Richard Nixon, looked moderate (which, of course, he was, on the domestic policy side of the equation). And because his comments were so exquisitely crafted, the press couldn’t help but print them.

The problem for Agnew is that he ended up actually being worse than a bad cop. He became a felon, and he had to resign his office so that he could spend some quality time in jail on corruption charges.

Agnew helped to define a new role for the Vice President. And that role was attack dog.

Continue reading →

Star Trek: Romney and Obama Like Mr. Spock

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Mark Liebovich revealed yesterday in the New York Times that both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are huge fans of the television show Star Trek.

He didn’t mention if they were also fans of Star Trek, the Next Generation.  I bet you dollars to donuts that Mr. Obama is a big fan of Star Trek Voyager. If you recall, Geri Ryan starred in Star Trek Voyager, and she was married to Jack Ryan.

Jack Ryan, you might recall, was the leading contender and favorite in the Republican primary until it was revealed that his ex-wife divorced him because he wanted to have sex with her in a Parisian sex club.

That shocked and surprised Illinois Republican primary voters, who didn’t realize that you could have sex with your wife in a Parisian sex club. Ryan dropped out of the race, and Mr. Obama ended up facing Alan Keyes, who turned out to be the closest thing to a real life Star Trek character, in the general election. Continue reading →

When Will We See The End?

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

In the 1965 film “The Agony and the Ecstasy” Michelangelo (played by Charlton Heston) is taking his sweet time painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Pope Julius II (played by Rex Harrison) loses his patience and asks, “When will you make an end?”

To which Michelangelo responds, “When I am finished.”

That’s pretty much the status of the GOP primary campaign. Washington-based reporters (now faced with no election activity until February 28 when Arizona and Michigan have their primaries) are expending a great deal of energy asking each other “When will they make an end?”

It is useful to remember that in 2008 Barack Obama didn’t sew up the Democratic nomination against Hillary Clinton until June. JUNE!

Continue reading →