Enough Is Enough

This is simple for me. If House Democrats allow Stupak or his group to add anything to this bill to restrict women's reproductive rights then I withdraw any support of the bill at all and it should not pass. I am just one guy in the whole blogosphere but I bet there are lots of liberals and progressives who share that sentiment. You simply cannot sacrifice one core Democratic issue for another. If Democrats can't find a way to pass the bill without that tradeoff then they don't deserve to govern, period.

Since evidently the White House and some in Congressiona Leadership has decided that "the left" does more bad than good for them then maybe its time for "the left" to let them sink or swim on their own if this happens.

About Bart Stupak's Sexism

Am I really the only person who thought that Bart Stupak's statement dismissing the endorsement of the health care reform bill by 59,000 nuns as the epitome of sexist? Lets think about what he is saying here.

"When I'm drafting right to life language, I don't call up the nuns." He says he instead confers with other groups including "leading bishops, Focus on the Family, and The National Right to Life Committee."

Translation?

When I am writing about a woman's reproductive rights I want nothing to do with the opinions of women of the cloth (nuns) and instead restrict my outreach to men of the cloth (bishops) or organizations headed by men (FOF and NRTL).

I wonder if he were righting language about men's reproductive health he would only consult with NOW.

Its worth pointing out that his primary opponent is also a woman. If she has a campaign advisor worth his salt this quote of Stupaks will come back to bit him in the ass in a major way.

One can only hope...

The REAL Reason People Aren't Behind Health Care Reform

Its because our media refuses to do its fucking job. Prime example, earlier this week ABC News investigates Bart Stupak's claim that the Senate health care reform bill requires the government to subsidize abortion with tax dollars. The investigation came to a clear cut answer, the claim is FALSE as its typed in red across the screen during the piece.



Fast forward to today and you have the very same network hosting a debate about health care reform. George Stephanopolous is hosting both HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the aforementioned pro life Democrat Bart Stupak. Now it would be different if this conversation was supposed to be about the bill as a whole, then MAYBE I could understand Stephanopolous being so unprepared for Stupak's argument. But being that this WHOLE segment was supposed to be about Stupak's opposition to the bill over abortion rights and his own network had already investigated Stupak's claim about the bill, you might think Stephanopolous would have been ready to step in and call him out for being wrong, lying or both over the language in the Senate bill.

And you'd be wrong.



So to recap, even thought ABC News did an investigation and found that Bart Stupak was wrong about the language in the Senate bill when it comes to government funding of abortion, the same network's host of "This Week" framed the whole debate on if they would be able to change the language of the bill so as to placate Stupak on something that he is totally wrong about......according to ABC News.

I swear I wanted to type this whole post in all caps because I just noticed this right after I left a comment about how the White House needs to take on the media more if they want to do better with their agenda but there is no way that anything I type on this blog whether it be in bold, in red, more cuss words or whatever could truly convey the contempt I am feeling at this moment for our media. Contempt and righteous anger. They are playing around with people's lives and instead of taking that seriously they just keep doing the same shit every day either more concerned with ratings than substance, or so cowed by right wingers that they have decided to just not do their job rather than be accused of "liberal bias".

I certainly hope that there is a hell and there is a special place carved out for journalists who allow harm to be done to their readers because they don't have the guts or the conscious to do their damn job.

Long Term Ramifications

Ezra Klein games out the long term implications of the Stupak amendment. Here's a hint, it ain't good!

So How Did We End Up With Stupak-Pitts?

Turns out C Street has struck again.

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You Lie!

I am not the world's biggest fan of Dylan Rattigan but he gets major props for giving this guest a nice steaming cup of shut the fuck up over her lying about the Stupak amendment in health care reform.

Make Bob McDonnell Own His Shit!

Looks like Republican candidate for Governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, is trying to run from his wingnut culturally conservative philosophy and his record in office when it comes to womens' rights and gay rights among other things.

At age 34, two years before his first election and two decades before he would run for governor of Virginia, Robert F. McDonnell submitted a master's thesis to the evangelical school he was attending in Virginia Beach in which he described working women and feminists as "detrimental" to the family. He said government policy should favor married couples over "cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators." He described as "illogical" a 1972 Supreme Court decision legalizing the use of contraception by unmarried couples.

The 93-page document, which is publicly available at the Regent University library, culminates with a 15-point action plan that McDonnell said the Republican Party should follow to protect American families -- a vision that he started to put into action soon after he was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates.

During his 14 years in the General Assembly, McDonnell pursued at least 10 of the policy goals he laid out in that research paper, including abortion restrictions, covenant marriage, school vouchers and tax policies to favor his view of the traditional family. In 2001, he voted against a resolution in support of ending wage discrimination between men and women.

In his run for governor, McDonnell, 55, makes little mention of his conservative beliefs and has said throughout his campaign that he should be judged by what he has done in office, including efforts to lower taxes, stiffen criminal penalties and reform mental health laws. He reiterated that position Saturday in a statement responding to questions about his thesis.

snip

One controversy that drew wide attention was an effort in the General Assembly in 2003 to end the judicial career of Verbena M. Askew, a Circuit Court judge from Newport News who had been accused of sexual harassment by a woman who worked for her. As chairman of the Courts of Justice Committee, McDonnell led the effort in the House. He said he was opposed to Askew's reappointment because she didn't disclose, as required, that she was a party to a legal proceeding.

McDonnell was widely quoted at the time as saying that homosexual activity raised questions about a person's qualifications to be a judge. Spokesman Tucker Martin said McDonnell was misquoted and does not consider homosexuality a disqualifying factor for judgeships or other jobs.

Askew, who was not reappointed, denied any wrongdoing and was never found by a court to have harassed the employee.

I saw recently that his Democratic opponent, Creigh Deeds was actually hitting him on his opposition to abortion, something that not many Democrats have the balls to do anymore. When I heard about it I was on the one hand happy that Deeds wasn't hiding from the issue but on the other hand I did wonder about the political implications. In the back of my mind I kept thinking that McDonnell must have some radical skeletons in his closet or something when it comes to abortion and I guess we see now that this is certainly the case. But what we need to do is keep him on the defensive and keep hitting him on these issues.

Every liberal and progressive blogger who is concerned about the race in Virginia should be bringing this issue up a couple of times a week. For as much as people may have some personal reservations about abortion I don't think his views on it are even close to being mainstream. Its time that we started labeling the anti choicers as the real radicals as we should have been doing from the start.

Make McDonnell own his past and then see how many Republicans continue to try to fight these culture wars.

(h/t O Dub)

You Ain't Gonna Believe This Shit

Last week this asshole Republican Congressman Todd Tiahrt stood on the floor of the house and insinuated that President Obama and Justice Clarence Thomas, both black men and the only people he referred to, might have been aborted had there been tax payer funded abortions available to their mothers when they were concieved. It was a fucked up and reprehensible thing for anybody to say let alone a sitting Congressman.

Now you might think that the GOP establishment would try to distance themselves from Tiahart's remarks if not condemn them outright.

And you would be wrong.

Greg Sargent reports that the YouTube clip of Tiahrt giving the speech has now been posted up on the official GOP blog. But Sargent throws in this caveat.

Not to go too far out on a limb, but maybe this means the House GOP doesn’t see any need to distance itself from the remarks…

The only problem with that is evidently there was an addition made to the blog entry after Greg linked to it.

Tapper reported Rep. Todd Tiahrt's (KS) response to that possibility:

...if you think of it in human terms, there is a financial incentive that will be put in place, paid for by tax dollars, that will encourage women who are single parents, living below the poverty level, to have the opportunity for a free abortion. If you take that scenario and apply it to many of the great minds we have today, who would we have been deprived of? Our president grew up in those similar circumstances. If that financial incentive was in place, is it possible that his mother may have taken advantage of it?

You see you don't have to go out on a limb at all. They provided the whole fucking tree!!!

Please if you don't do anything else send the link to the GOP post around to your friends and family and especially friends of yours who are of color, and especially any who lean Republican.

I am just sick and tired of them getting away with this kind of bullshit. And for once I am even also pissed off for Clarence Thomas as well. As if only black women or single white women carrying the child of a black man would ever consider abortion. Sorry muthafucka, let me stop here before I blow a damn gasket!

Because Only Minorities And Single White Women Have Abortions

This kinda shit is the reason why I have little to no respect for the GOP and that will probably never change.

Stay classy, assholes.

Uncommon Courage

If you are like me and watch "The Rachel Maddow Show" on a regular basis, then you probably are familiar with Princeton Professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell. She is a frequent guests and she gives very informed and many times witty takes on racial issues as they relate to politics. Well today she has a very powerful, moving, courageous, and just about any other positive adjective you can think of post up at "The Nation" about the assassination of Dr George Tiller over the weekend. On Monday there Rachel had Dr. Susan Wicklund on TRMS who had this to say.

We have to get women to start standing behind us as providers. We need the 45 million women who have had abortions in this country Roe versus Wade to stand beside us as providers and clinics now and come out of your homes, come out of your comfort zone and talk about it. Make everyone know how common this is.

At the time I thought to myself that Dr. Wicklund was absolutely right, but what she was asking of many of these women might be too much for them to bear. Well Ms. Lacewell shows that there are women out there willing to tell their story in order to push back against the anti choice crowd.

Forty years ago my mother was part of the movement of individuals who helped desperate women find safe ways to terminate their pregnancies. This network provided safe houses, transportation, and follow-up support for women who had to cross state lines to obtain abortions. She was willing to risk her life and livelihood to protect women's reproductive choices.

Nearly twenty years ago my older sister was diagnosed with cancer during the second trimester of her pregnancy. Her religious commitments led her to refuse her doctor's advice to terminate. She risked her life to ensure that she would not have an abortion. She and my niece are both healthy.

When we were 14-year-old, high school freshmen my friend decided to have the baby of a boy she'd had sex with only once. It changed her life forever, but she graduated from school and made a life for herself and daughter. In my twenties I stood by dear friends who simply could not afford emotionally or financially to carry their pregnancies to term. Their decisions to seek abortions were difficult and painful, but they faced them courageously.

I'm a 35-year-old, educated, black, divorced mother. Like so many other women my age I have faced my own tough reproductive choices. I've had a child, an abortion, and hysterectomy. I love and respect women who have chosen many different paths. Their stories and my own are part of the reason that I am a committed supporter of reproductive rights.

The murder of George Tiller is personal to me. It is not just a matter of politics or policy. I am an aunt to three teenage girls and the mother to a daughter. It is critical to me that their health, safety, and choices are protected.

I HIGHLY recommend reading the full text of her post because it definitely deserves your attention. I can't imagine how much courage it took for Professor Harris-Lacewell to tell her story but I hope she is an inspiration to other women who have a similar story to tell.

Damn He's Good

I have to admit that I was a little worried about the reception President Obama would recieve today from the crowd and Notre Dame's commencement. However I will also admit that I thought he would go the "safe" route and avoid talking about abortion in little more than a passing fashion so as to not give his critics a target. Boy was I wrong. Boy am I GLAD I was wrong. There have been quite a few issues that President Obama has dealt with lately that I felt he didn't handle in a satisfactory fashion. But today what he showed me,once again, is that he isn't afraid. He isn't scared to confront controversies that come up about him. And he isn't afraid of taking the debate public and keeping it real with his audience. Even when they may not agree with him. As I watched the speech I kept noticing the people in the crowd behind him nodding their heads. Then I noticed that I too was subtly nodding my head along to his words. When we can get to a point in this country where we don't demogogue people just because they don't agree with us we will all be better off. And his message today, highlighting how the Civil Rights Act was hammered out, showed how far we can go when we adopt that stance.

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More Catholic Than The Pope

E. J. Dionne has an op-ed in today's Washington Post examining the opposition to President Obama delivering the commencement address and receiving an honorary degree from Notre Dame University. I think what his column shows that the Bush Administration era "Either you are for us or against us" mentality lives on in the Christian right.

We now know that the reaction of right-wing Catholics to Notre Dame's invitation to President Obama falls into the category of "more Catholic than the pope."

To the dismay of many conservatives, the Vatican's own newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, has offered what one antiabortion Catholic blog called "a surprisingly positive assessment of the new president's approach to life issues" -- so positive, in fact, that a spokesman for the National Right to Life Committee was moved to criticize Pope Benedict XVI's daily.

The Vatican newspaper offered its analysis as Catholic liberals and conservatives are battling fiercely over Notre Dame's decision to invite the president as this year's commencement speaker and to grant him an honorary degree. The article will strengthen the liberal claim that the Catholic right's over-the-top response is rooted at least as much in Republican and conservative politics as in concern over the abortion question.

The April 29 essay by Giuseppe Fiorentino, L'Osservatore's frequent foreign affairs contributor, painted Obama as a moderate on many fronts. "Some have accused him of practicing excessive statism," Fiorentino wrote, "if not even of making the country drift toward socialism." But "a calmer analysis," he said, suggests that Obama "has moved with caution." (I rely here on a translation of the article posted yesterday on the Vatican's official Web site.)

On abortion and the other life issues, the article concluded that Obama "does not seem to have established the radical changes that he had aired."

In loosening the rules on federal funding of stem-cell research, the paper noted, Obama did not go as far as many in the antiabortion movement feared he would. "The new guidelines regarding embryonic stem cell research do not in fact follow the [prospective] change of route laid out months ago," Fiorentino wrote. "They do not allow for the creation of new embryos for research or therapy purposes, for cloning or reproductive ends; and federal funds can only be used for experimentation with surplus embryos."

Then came a carefully worded sentence declaring that "these measures do not eliminate the reasons for criticism in the face of unacceptable forms of bioengineering that work against the embryo's human identity, but the new regulations are less permissive than expected."

This restrained view contrasts with charges that Obama is the "most radical pro-abortion president in history," words used earlier this year on the Christian Coalition's Web site. During the campaign, Robert P. George, a Princeton professor who is a leading Catholic conservative intellectual, called Obama "the most extreme pro-abortion candidate ever to seek the office of president of the United States."

The consternation on the right over the Vatican article was immediate. Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee in the United States, told LifeSiteNews.com that L'Osservatore's assessment was "not helpful" and that "there's nothing middle of the road about the substantive policies that this administration is pursuing on life issues."

It has gotten so bad for Christian conservatives that they are now trying to tell the Pope how to feel about "life issues". That is classic tail wagging the dog mentality that the Bush Administration's "War on Terror" has wrought. And the sad thing is that these people really believe that someone disagreeing with them is all the evidence they need that the other person is wrong. The air must be pretty thin way up there on top of that big ass moral pedestal that these people have created for themselves.


(h/t dkos)

President Obama's 100 Days Presser

President Obama did a fantastic job in his press conference last night. Here are a few choice excerpts and I will follow up with some key points:


Jake Tapper tries to get President Obama to admit that the Bush Administration sanctioned torture which would then cause a feeding frenzy over the issue but Obama doesn't fall into the trap.

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. You've said in the past that waterboarding, in your opinion, is torture. Torture is a violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions. Do you believe that the previous administration sanctioned torture?

Obama: What I've said -- and I will repeat -- is that waterboarding violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it is torture. I don't think that's just my opinion; that's the opinion of many who've examined the topic. And that's why I put an end to these practices.

I am absolutely convinced it was the right thing to do, not because there might not have been information that was yielded by these various detainees who were subjected to this treatment, but because we could have gotten this information in other ways, in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are.

I was struck by an article that I was reading the other day talking about the fact that the British during World War II, when London was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees. And Churchill said, "We don't torture," when the entire British -- all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat.

And then the reason was that Churchill understood, you start taking short-cuts, over time, that corrodes what's -- what's best in a people. It corrodes the character of a country.

Mark Knoller tries to carry water for Dick Cheney but President Obama ain't having it.

Question: Thank you, sir. Let me follow up, if I may, on Jake's question. Did you read the documents recently referred to by former Vice President Cheney and others saying that the use of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" not only protected the nation but saved lives?

And if part of the United States were under imminent threat, could you envision yourself ever authorizing the use of those enhanced interrogation techniques?

Obama: I have read the documents. Now they have not been officially declassified and released. And so I don't want to go to the details of them. But here's what I can tell you, that the public reports and the public justifications for these techniques, which is that we got information from these individuals that were subjected to these techniques, doesn't answer the core question.

Which is, could we have gotten that same information without resorting to these techniques? And it doesn't answer the broader question, are we safer as a consequence of having used these techniques?

Chip Reid asks about Arlen Specter switching parties but President Obama is able to transition in his answer to talking about how bipartisanship should be defined between himself and the GOP. I think his point about compromise was huge because its something that's hardly ever taken into account on cable news.

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. On Senator Specter's switch to the Democratic Party, you said you were thrilled; I guess nobody should be surprised about that.

But how big a deal is this, really? Some Republicans say it is huge. They believe it's a game-changer. They say that, if you get the 60 votes in the Senate, that you will be able to ride roughshod over any opposition and that we're on the verge of, as one Republican put it, "one-party rule."

Do you see it that way? And, also, what do you think his switch says about the state of the Republican Party?

Obama: Well, first of all, I think very highly of Arlen Specter. I think he's got a record of legislative accomplishment that is as good as any member of the Senate.

And I think he's always had a strong independent streak. I think that was true when he was a Republican; I think that will be true when he's a Democrat.

He was very blunt in saying I couldn't count on him to march lockstep on every single issue. And so he's going to still have strong opinions, as many Democrats in the Senate do.

I've been there. It turns out, all the senators have very strong opinions. And I don't think that's going to change.

I do think that having Arlen Specter in the Democratic caucus will liberate him to cooperate on critical issues, like health care, like infrastructure and job creation, areas where his inclinations were to work with us, but he was feeling pressure not to.

And I think the vote on the recovery act was a classic example. Ultimately, he thought that was the right thing to do. And he was fiercely berated within his own party at the time for having taken what I consider to be a very sensible step. So -- so I think it's, overall, positive.

Now, I am under no illusions that suddenly I'm going to have a rubber-stamp Senate. I've got Democrats who don't agree with me on everything, and that's how it should be.

Congress is a co-equal branch of government. Every senator who's there, whether I agree with them or disagree with them, I think truly believes that they are doing their absolute best to represent their constituencies.

And we've got regional differences, and we've got some parts of the country that are affected differently by certain policies. And those have to be respected, and there's going to have to be compromise and give-and-take on all of these issues.

I do think that, to my Republican friends, I want them to realize that me reaching out to them has been genuine. I can't sort of define bipartisanship as simply being willing to accept certain theories of theirs that we tried for eight years and didn't work and the American people voted to change.

But there are a whole host of areas where we can work together. And I've said this to people like Mitch McConnell. I said, look, on health care reform, you may not agree with me that I -- we should have a public plan. That may be philosophically just too much for you to swallow.

On the other hand, there are some areas like reducing the costs of medical malpractice insurance where you do agree with me. If I'm taking some of your ideas and giving you credit for good ideas, the fact that you didn't get 100 percent can't be a reason every single time to oppose my position.

And if that is how bipartisanship is defined, a situation in which basically, wherever there are philosophical differences, I have to simply go along with ideas that have been rejected by the American people in a historic election, you know, we're probably not going to make progress.

If, on the other hand, the definition is that we're open to each other's ideas, there are going to be differences, the majority will probably be determinative when it comes to resolving just hard, core differences that we can't resolve, but there is a whole host of other areas where we can work together, then I think we can make progress.

Ed Henry asks a classic Republican talking point question on abortion. President Obama turns the talking point on its head.

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. In a couple of weeks, you're going to be giving the commencement at Notre Dame. And, as you know, this has caused a lot of controversy among Catholics who are opposed to your position on abortion.

As a candidate, you vowed that one of the very things you wanted to do was sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which, as you know, would eliminate federal, state and local restrictions on abortion. And at that it was above -- quote, "above my pay grade."

Now that you've been president for 100 days, obviously, your pay grade is a little higher than when you were a senator.

(LAUGHTER)

Do you still hope that Congress quickly sends you the Freedom of Choice Act so you can sign it?

Obama: You know, the -- my view on -- on abortion, I think, has been very consistent. I think abortion is a moral issue and an ethical issue.

I think that those who are pro-choice make a mistake when they -- if they suggest -- and I don't want to create straw men here, but I think there are some who suggest that this is simply an issue about women's freedom and that there's no other considerations. I think, look, this is an issue that people have to wrestle with and families and individual women have to wrestle with.

The reason I'm pro-choice is because I don't think women take that -- that position casually. I think that they struggle with these decisions each and every day. And I think they are in a better position to make these decisions ultimately than members of Congress or a president of the United States, in consultation with their families, with their doctors, with their doctors, with their clergy.

So -- so that has been my consistent position. The other thing that I said consistently during the campaign is I would like to reduce the number of unwanted presidencies that result in women feeling compelled to get an abortion, or at least considering getting an abortion, particularly if we can reduce the number of teen pregnancies, which has started to spike up again.

And so I've got a task force within the Domestic Policy Council in the West Wing of the White House that is working with groups both in the pro-choice camp and in the pro-life camp, to see if we can arrive at some consensus on that.

Now, the Freedom of Choice Act is not highest legislative priority. I believe that women should have the right to choose. But I think that the most important thing we can do to tamp down some of the anger surrounding this issue is to focus on those areas that we can agree on. And that's -- that's where I'm going to focus.

BET gets a question. How's that for change? LOL

Question: Thank you, Mr. President.

As the entire nation tries to climb out of this deep recession, in communities of color, the circumstances are far worse. The black unemployment rate, as you know, is in the double digits. And in New York City, for example, the black unemployment rate for men is near 50 percent.

My question to you tonight is given this unique and desperate circumstance, what specific policies can you point to that will target these communities and what's the timetable for us to see tangible results?

Obama: Well, keep in mind that every step we're taking is designed to help all people. But, folks who are most vulnerable are most likely to be helped because they need the most help.

So when we passed the Recovery Act, for example, and we put in place provisions that would extend unemployment insurance or allow you to keep your health insurance even if you've lost your job, that probably disproportionately impacted those communities that had lost their jobs. And unfortunately, the African-American community and the Latino community are probably overrepresented in those ranks.

When we put in place additional dollars for community health centers to ensure that people are still getting the help that they need, or we expand health insurance to millions more children through the Children's Health Insurance Program, again, those probably disproportionately impact African-American and Latino families simply because they're the ones who are most vulnerable. They have got higher rates of uninsured in their communities.

So my general approach is that if the economy is strong, that will lift all boats as long as it is also supported by, for example, strategies around college affordability and job training, tax cuts for working families as opposed to the wealthiest that level the playing field and ensure bottom-up economic growth.

And I'm confident that that will help the African-American community live out the American dream at the same time that it's helping communities all across the country.

I give Michael Scherer a hard time on a regular basis over at Swampland but I believe he had the question of the night. The question he asked about States Secrets is a major issue on progressive and liberal blogs and other media but you hardly ever hear the right talking about it so really this was just about the only question in the whole press conference which came from almost a purely left wing orientation. President Obama's answer probably didn't end the issue for civil libertarians but he at least made the case that he hasn't changed his mind about the need to reform the states secrets issue and that he is working to do that.

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. During the campaign, you criticized President Bush's use of the state secrets privilege, but U.S. attorneys have continued to argue the Bush position in three cases in court. How exactly does your view of state secrets differ from President Bush's? And do you believe presidents should be able to derail entire lawsuits about warrantless wiretapping or rendition if classified information is involved?

Obama: I actually think that the state secret doctrine should be modified. I think right now it's overbroad.

But keep in mind what happens, is we come in to office. We're in for a week, and suddenly we've got a court filing that's coming up. And so we don't have the time to effectively think through, what exactly should an overarching reform of that doctrine take? We've got to respond to the immediate case in front of us.

There -- I think it is appropriate to say that there are going to be cases in which national security interests are genuinely at stake and that you can't litigate without revealing covert activities or classified information that would genuinely compromise our safety.

But searching for ways to redact, to carve out certain cases, to see what can be done so that a judge in chambers can review information without it being in open court, you know, there should be some additional tools so that it's not such a blunt instrument.

And we're interested in pursuing that. I know that Eric Holder and Greg Craig, my White House counsel, and others are working on that as we speak.

My observations.

1. I think one of the major things that President Obama did was take the opportunity to swat down wingnut memes in the course of answering the questions. He addressed the "pro abortionist" meme, the "socialist" meme, the "he's doing too much" meme, and the "torture made us safe" meme. I think its important to push back on these false cannards just as he did during the campaign season so that reasonable people who watch FoxNews will hear him say out of his own mouth that the stuff they have heard and read in emails aren't true.



2. Its nothing new but just seeing President Obama answer each question thoughtfully and have a well informed answer to every question is just so impressive to me. It shows that he is on top of everything and that inspires confidence.



3. Even when he was clearly being baited by Jake Tapper, Chuck Todd and Ed Henry, President Obama stayed calm and didn't allow himself to show any emotion. Could you imagine John McCain trying to answer those questions?



4. I still can't believe Fox though it was a good idea not to carry the presser.



5. I expect that his approval numbers will get a bump for the next few weeks or so.

On Michael Steele

All throughout the day there has been speculation that Michael Steele will get fired because of his latest gaffe of seeming to take a pro choice stance on abortion. By seeming I mean he unequivically told a reporter for GQ that he was pro choice. If you want to see the reactions and predictions from around the net you can read them here, here, and here. I haven't posted about it because I personally think the guy is safe until after the next round of elections next year. The RNC simply overplayed the fact that they had elected their first black chairman. Some I would say the did so because they wanted to do something to attract minorities after the election of President Obama, our country's first black President. Now they are pretty much stuck with Steele much like the Democrats are stuck with Roland Burris. The Republican Party has such a terrible reputation with respect to minorities that firing Steele after just a month or so is going to be seen by their party leaders as a political impossibility. Now I am willing to allow for being wrong on this, but I really believe that the GOP won't risk further alienating minorities by firing their first black chairman.

Of course the truth is quite a few black folks think Steele is in fact an embarrasment so I don't really believe that firing him would affect their view of the Republican Party for good or for bad. But shhhhhh don't tell them that! lol