The President's Interview on C-SPAN (Link only)

The President sat down for a 30 Minute Interview with...well, some guy from C-SPAN.

Nothing particularly earth-shattering in the interview (though I had a dickens of a time trying to find it on my DVR). Did mention that he has spoken to former President Bush since inauguraton. Did mention the thing about the White House being good for their family life. And he mentioned that Michelle is probably selling a lot more magazines than he is.

I did read a headline somewhere that the President was "pushing" back against his "empathy" line about his Supreme Court nominee, only to see the President reinforce that very notion in this interview.

One of these days, I hope that C-SPAN, PBS (and ABC News for that matter) make little things like embeddable video possible. It'd make my job easier.

Obama's Speech at the Naval Academy (VIDEO)

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Obama's Complete National Security Speech (VIDEO)

This was as serious a smack-down as I have seen the President deliver...ever.

He never named Cheney, not once.  But he left no doubt as to who he was talking about.

They may have both worked for the same Government, but only one of these men has been serving the Country.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

One more reason to hate Hockey...

At some point, punishment ends. So, before we get all outraged about Michael Vick getting out of jail, please take a moment to remember the story of Altanta Thrashers Dany Heatley:

On September 29, 2003, Heatley was seriously injured after he lost control of the Ferrari 360 Modena he was driving. The car struck a wall, splitting the car in half and ejecting him and his passenger, teammate Dan Snyder. Heatley suffered a broken jaw, a minor concussion, a bruised lung, bruised kidney, and tore three ligaments in his right knee; Snyder was critically injured with a skull fracture and died six days later on October 5 of sepsis. Heatley was charged with vehicular homicide; he pleaded guilty to second-degree vehicular homicide, driving too fast for conditions, failure to maintain a lane, and speeding. He admitted to drinking some prior to the incident, but his blood-alcohol content was below the legal limit. He was sentenced to three years probation, and the judge required the court to approve Heatley's vehicle, which could not have more than six cylinders and would not surpass 70mph (112km/h). Heatley avoided having to go to trial as part of a plea deal that dropped the first-degree charge of vehicular homicide.

Because of injuries he suffered from the car accident, Heatley's next season started in January 2004 and he appeared in only 31 games. A disappointing season ended with an early elimination in the race for a playoff spot and 25 points. During the last part of the season, the Thrashers and the Atlanta community, including Snyder's family, were largely supportive of him.

Same town. Different crimes.

Dany Heatley...the white man who actually got another human being killed...is forgiven.

Michael Vick...the black man who killed dogs...is not.

Obama's complete Speech at Notre Dame (VIDEO)

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The Fireside chat for May 16, 2009

"By the Time I get to Arizona..." (VIDEO)

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Arizona State Snubs Obama
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Obama's Speech at ASU (VIDEO)

Flash! President delivers speech at racist Arizona Community College.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The Third Hand...

There’s a concept I’ve been discussing with my Father recently; a concept I’ve given to calling, the “Third Hand”.

When a Political Figure acts against his nature, for whatever reason, there’s usually some other force at work, something we don’t see.

Put a simpler way, you got one hand on Obama pulling him one way, you got another hand pulling him in reverse, and then comes another hand (hint-hint: a Third Hand), which pushes him the way he actually goes.

Think of it like this, if there’s a situation where Obama does something to deliberately anger his base, logic suggests that the alternative, whatever it may be, is far worse.

Thus, we come to the release, or non-release, of those Abu Ghraib Photos, and the President’s reversal on that decision. My fellow Progressives/Liberals are justifiably upset by the decision…or maybe not so justifiably.

Looked at on its own, by itself the decision to withhold those photos is indefensible. Lord knows people I read, admire and respect have been dumping all over it. (Though I will say, David Kurtz in TPM comes very close to the explanation I'm about to give you, and...after all...he's a professional, and got there first, so...kudos.)

But…and I hate to bring the West Wing into anything…but it’s like President Bartlet said in the episode Hartsfield’s Landing (Episode 58, Season 3): “See the whole board…”

What do I mean by that?

Ask yourself, what happened? What made President Obama change his mind, or more to the point, has something changed that would make President Obama change his mind??

I’d say, yes.

Mind you this is just a theory, but at the same time...

Since the last week of April, beginning of May, there has been a considerable uptick in the violence in Pakistan, as the Taliban has moved ever closer to Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan (within 60 miles, so it seems). Now, the United States has been using Aerial drones to ice people across the Pakistani Border. The Pakistani Government has been upset about that, but since Pakistani’s Prime Minister is Asif Ali Zardari (aka Benazir Bhutto’s widower) and Islamist Militants were the ones who killed her, I don’t think he’s that upset…you know what I mean?

(In fact, should I mention that the Pakistani Government wants "ownership" over U.S. Drones? God, I hope we told them "hell, no.")

The situation was so bad that General Petraeus said that Pakistan was two weeks from falling, and the President was asked about the security of Pakistan’s Nuclear Arsenal at his last press conference.

But something has happened into the interim. Pakistan’s population has decided that they don’t much like the Taliban, or Taliban rule. In fact now that the Taliban has closed within 40 miles of the Capital, suddenly, we don’t have to bribe the Generals into defending their own country anymore. They’re actually (finally) pulling troops off the Indian border to get into the fight with the extremists. In fact, it’s creating something of a humanitarian crisis as refugees flee the fighting.

So, we are left with a situation where the Pakistani Military has finally gotten off its collective, and ineffective ass to start dealing some payback to the Taliban. There's popular support for the offensive in mainstream Pakistan, and all this is coming off recent American pressure to do so.

...and into this hyper-mega-combustile mix, some folks want to release some 2000 more photographs of Americans torturing Muslims?!?

Can you say…Danish Cartoons?? Times ten??

The President said that these Photographs were "not particularly sensational, particularly when compared to the painful images we remember from Abu Ghraib." Maybe, maybe not. We only have his word on this. I've heard in some quarters, these photos were pretty bad. They were bad enough to have Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman write the President a letter begging him to not to release the photos. (It's too bad they couldn't have gotten a Democrat to sign that letter. I would have been helpful if it was bipartisan.)

With the Pakistani populace finally seeing things our way, why do we want to go and insert into the discussion something that makes the Pakistanis start thinking that the Taliban has a point?!?

Listen, some of the stories I’m seeing are using a specific word: stall and/or delay. I think the Administration is eventually going to release these photos, on their own accord. Either that, or I wonder how far they'll fight the case in court. Either way, they’re not going to release those photos yet, not until Pakistan stabilizes.

Personally, I want the photos released, too, but I'm personally okay with this decision as long as it's only a stall, or a delay...and not an outright cancellation.

At the end of Hartsfield's Landing, Sam Seaborn (in case you don’t remember, played by Rob Lowe), asks President Bartlet (Martin Sheen), a question. The answer is one that is both simple and complicated all at the same time, and is one of the reasons (I trust) we all voted for the President in the first place:

SAM

I don’t know how you... I don’t know the word. I...don’t know how you do it.

BARTLET

You have a lot of help. You listen to everybody and then you call the play.

I think the President might owe us a better explanation than the “safety of American Troops”, which is both true and hollow all at once. But this advice is coming from his Generals (something we all thought Bush didn't do enough of), and its coming from his OLC (who may actually have read a Law Book or two in their careers).

Still, I think the real reasons play across a far wider board...one we all should try to see, but that the President is ultimately responsible for.

Please remember, there was a reason we decided we wanted this man to call the plays.

UPDATE (5:26pm Pacific): For the record, I beat Joe Klein to the punch.

Obama at the White House Correspondent's Dinner (VIDEO)

Still looking for Wanda Sykes' introduction.  She killed, too.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The Fireside chat for May 9, 2009

"We need a durable and successful flow of credit in our economy, but we can't tolerate profits that depend upon misleading working families. Those days are over."

Here comes Employee Free Choice...

I hope to God this compromise is okay, and doesn't screw the Unions.

I'm getting this from Jane Hamsher's blogpost on HuffPo, but the data really comes from the National Journal (subscriber only).

[Diane Feinstein's] proposal would replace the card-check provision, which would allow workers to unionize if a majority signed authorization cards and strip a company's ability to demand a secret ballot election. "It's a secret ballot that would be mailed in ... just like an absentee ballot. The individual could take it home and mail it in," Feinstein said. If a majority mailed the ballots to the National Labor Relations Board, the NLRB would recognize the union.

...and I did mention the part where Diane Feinstein wants to be Governor of Union heavy California, right?? Being the one to stop EFCA's passage is a good way to make sure you don't become Governor.

Listen to David Plouffe

From the Huffington Post. David Plouffe speaking at the Panetta Institute in Monterey, California:

"Because we've won so many House seats in the last two elections, we have got more Democrat representing swing seats, so the balance has shifted a little bit," he said. "Right now the Republicans are, I think, at a core in the U.S. House, where there may be four or five House seats that you can plausibly suggest the Democrats have a chance of winning. We've won pretty much all there was to win in the last two elections."

Later in the event, he cautioned that "some people in my party" are "a little over-confident now," after recent sweeping victories.

He's right. I just wish he hadn't said it in front of Karl Rove.

The Fireside chat for May 2, 2009

The President's Press Conference of April 29, 2009 (VIDEO)

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Obama's Town Hall from Missouri (VIDEO)

MSNBC edited out a very nice introduction by a former Republican Housewife (turned Obamacan), who's out there volunteering for Habitat for Humanity.

Oh well, what can I say? C-SPAN doesn't offer embeddable video.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The Fireside chat for April 25, 2009

With apologies. Departing for the L.A. Times Festival of Books bright and early caused this delay.

The GOP inherits the wind...

Believe it or not, Arlen Specter’s move wasn’t all that surprising.

I mean, think about it. This is how the cycle works. This is the process a party goes through when its knocked out of power.

The process is fairly routine. After a voter rebellion, the party out of power goes through some soul searching, a reformation if you will. During this time, the old guard fades away (either through retirements or being kicked out by the voters). The party becomes a more ideologically pure, while at the same time bringing on new talent (i.e. candidates) that will show the battered survivors new ways to communicate the overall Republican brand with the voters, and eventually find their way back to electoral triumph.

The only difference in this story is Arlen Specter, instead of waiting to be voted out of office, chose to jump ship. Rare, but it's happened before with Jim Jeffords and Joe Lieberman. It'll probably happen again.

After you take a bath like the Republicans have done, your big tent is going to be, by necessity, a wee-bit smaller. Once you get the riff-raff out of there, you can start widening it again.

But just remember, Republicans, when the new arrivals come onboard, not everybody is going to be of the same ideological stripe. But they’ll all agree that losing sucks, and it’s better to be in power than out of power. Everyone will hang together, hold their noses and vote for someone tolerable, someone with broad, national appeal. Once that happens, you can start winning again.

That being said, fellow Democrats/Liberals/Progressives, one of these days, the GOP Reformation will be complete. One of these days, they will be back in power. It’s inevitable. The last guy who thought there could be one party in permanent majority was Karl Rove.

It’s going to happen.

The only question is when.

However, the way the GOP is handling this reformation, I can tell you, it’s going to be long time.

And I mean a loooooooooooooooonnnnnnng time.

I already thought 2012 was a lost cause for them. Now, I’m starting to wonder if 2016 is toast as well.

If there is a reason that the Republican Party did as well as it did in the 1980s is that the Goldwater Wing of the Party, led by its ideological scion, Ronald Reagan, expanded the tent to include the Libertarians, Neocons/National Defense Hawks, Club For Growth Types and Religious Conservatives, all under his flag. That coalition held together for many years, despite losing power to Bill Clinton for a little while. Then, come 2000, the Neocons and the Religious Conservatives took over the party, pushed aside the Goldwater types, and promptly ran the Party into the ground (along with the country, but that’s the subject of another posting).

Right now, the Republicans should be turning to their Goldwater Wing to go “pick them a winner”. But that’s not happening, is it? Instead, the very factions of the Conservative movement that drove them into that ditch are somehow complaining they weren’t allowed to drive.

This particular wing of the party, the ones that lost you the 2008 Election, the people that left the country in such a state that it allowed African-American to be voted into Office, is actually out there yelling louder and louder that their ideas are the only one’s of merit.

Hell, they’re actually out they’re saying the they’re the only people who should be listened to, period (and not just in the party, but nationally).

It’s not like the Goldwater wing has died off or anything: Gov. Charlie Crist (FL), Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (CA), Senator Olympia Snowe (ME), Senator Susan Collins (ME), the 2000 era John McCain, not the guy who ran in 2008, and Senator Arlen—

--whoops.

But that’s just the point, isn’t it. Not only are these guys not running the show, they’re getting better deals from the Democrats, you know…the party they’re supposed to oppose??

Crist, Collins and Snowe both worked with President Obama to get the Stimulus passed. Schwarzenegger practically has a man-crush on the President. The 2000 era John McCain was asked to switch parties (alledgedly) by John Kerry. (As a side note, who would’ve been our Party’s nominee in 2008 if that had happened??!)

And Arlen Specter was so disgusted he left the Party all together.

What does this tell you!??

Apparently, nothing.

I think the threat to the country presented by [the defection of Arlen Specter] really relates to the issue of whether or not in the United States of America our people want the majority to have whatever it wants without restraint, without a check or a balance.

- Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

Some in the Republican Party are happy about this. I am not. Let's be honest -- Senator Specter didn't leave the GOP based on principles of any kind. He left to further his personal political interests because he knew that he was going to lose a Republican primary due to his left-wing voting record. Republicans look forward to beating Sen. Specter in 2010, assuming the Democrats don't do it first.

- RNC Chairman Michael Steele.

To tell you how sad things are. Even Bay Buchanan has a better grip on things than some of her colleagues on the right:

Did he give us a few things? Did he owe President Bush something because he flew into the fray in 2004 and saved him in the primary with Toomey? Were we able to call in a few chits? Absolutely. And now the Democrats will call in their chits. This is not good for Republicans. I’m not going to tell you that we’re cleansing the party and that this is good for Republicans.

In the same article, even Gary Bauer showed flashes of sanity:

I would remind folks that Ronald Reagan picked George H.W. Bush to be his running mate. Ronald Reagan understood that there was another element of the party that needed to be brought along. We gain nothing if we replace RINOS with Democrats.

My personal expectation is that the American people have decided to give the new President a chance to un!@#$ us out of our current dilemma, thus, they will give him time. My personal bet is that very little changes in the House in the 2010 Midterms, and maybe a few seats gain for Democrats in the Senate.

And that’s assuming we stay on the economic path we’ve been on. If things start to look up, start to feel better, or worse (for Republicans) start to turn toward recovery, then look to 1936’s Congressional Composition as a marker (where there were only 17 Republicans in the Senate).

If that is the future you want, then by all means, keep plowing ahead. But there needs to be a debate in this country about our future and our direction. And even I, the consummate Republican hater, know they have good ideas to contribute. But "He that troubles his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart."

That was an actual Bible quote, fellas. (Trust me, I'm impressed myself).

But, I thought the Bible was a Book that the "Party of Family Values" was at least somewhat familiar with.

I'm not sure I, nor my party, nor the President himself can lay claim to being all that wise of heart. We're just doing the best we can. But there's little doubt as to who is the fool in this equation.

Republicans, if you ever wonder why you lose...

...this would be the reason why:

I think the threat to the country presented by [the defection of Arlen Specter] really relates to the issue of whether or not in the United States of America our people want the majority to have whatever it wants without restraint, without a check or a balance.

- Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

Chris Matters kicks Rep. Thornberry's !@$!#$ (VIDEO)

For the record, Mac Thornberry (R-TX) is a lying sack of--

The amount of time, he spends twisting and contorting himself into a pretzel, labelling the torture at Abu-Gahrib a "systemic failure" that no one should be held accountable for. Ever.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy