I’m loath to push the previous post down a notch as it’s gotten a lot of traction and garnered small pile of new blog followers. But onward we must march here in blogland. I’ll keep it simple tonight: Obama had a reasonably good week.
The media has dutifully allowed the leak scandal to fade, he scored a political blow with the immigration flip-flop, albeit a temporary one, and Greece came through with a right-wing win, probably saving the world from market turmoil on Monday.
Obama’s immigration flip-flop was interesting on 2 fronts. He got his mindless Facebook minions into another momentary uproar. Of course, this will fade shortly as it always does now. More on point, he cornered Romney. Mittens didn’t have the wherewithal to formulate a response for his base’s enjoyment. This deepens the suspicion on the Right that Romney is not one of them. (They are correct in having this suspicion. He’s not one of them. ) The more the Right is reminded that they don’t trust Romney, the more they stay home, which is, of course, good for Obama. Especially in close states.
Conservatives won in Greece. Or rather they won enough seats in the Greek parliament to sooth the savage markets for a wee bit longer. Had the Lefties won we’d no doubt be seeing big sell offs already. Once again, the Euro is saved for a few more weeks. This means the American economy can inch along for a little while longer and the markets can pretend the worst has passed for a few more weeks. None of this great for Obama, but it’s better than the alternative.
Obama gets a “C” in reelection class this week. A step up from the Ds and Fs he’s been getting lately. Mittens? I give him a C for the week too. The man needs a big idea and he needs one soon. The Robot Nice Guy act alone isn’t going to cut it for a lot longer. Barry O seems to have a thousand little schemes up his sleeve. I wonder if Mitt R. has even one.
The more the Right is reminded that they don’t trust Romney, the more they stay home, which is, of course, good for Obama. Especially in close states.
The Right is VERY motivated this year, and not because they like Romney. They’ll be there at the polls in November.
The difference between the Right and the Left is, the Right’s parents made them eat their vegetables as children.
My lefty mom made me eat my vegetables too… but not before boiling them with a hunk of animal fat until everything was one color.
Romney is in a no win situation. The Congregational press is praying he will screw up, so they can pounce, and ‘save’ their idol. I thought his response was adequate as it applied to a much ado about nothing event. He seems to be playing it smart by avoiding the press as much as possible. Returning the press’s respect in kind, seems fair.
I heard one of the morning pundits ask “what do we know about Romney, who is he ?” He seemed clueless about his own hypocrisy,even his fellow pundits had no response..
I guess he learned HIS lesson in 2008, right?
It isn’t hypocrisy. It’s being a journalist. /s
;(
It was supposed to look like this. . .
off topic but this former professor of o’s wants him to lose saying it would be no worse under a repub with how o’s policy’s are going right now anyway…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/16/roberto-unger-obama_n_1602812.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
I often get the feeling the powers that Be are laughing at us as they trot out shit we are then expected to take as seriously as the lackey media tells us to……but when I look at these two guys supposedly running for an office that no longer exists,…I think , wow the powers that Be are REALLY laughing at us now … Campaign 2012 : This is what collapse looks like. I guess the point of this last year’s Fun House Repugs endless debate-o-rama , was meant to make them both look better in comparison. oy
With unemployment rising, I’m not sure Romney needs a trick up his sleeve – he may only need to utter the Reaganesque question: are you better off now than you were four years ago?
You don’t really need much of a strategy to run against abject failure.
Romney only needs to play the tape of obama saying that four years ago.
I do hope it’s as easy as you two maintain.
I, too, think Romney’s going to win, but I fear I’m being too optimistic. And, I don’t discount Zal’s point about Obama feeding eno’ people’s ‘needs’ to pull it out.
You don’t really need much of a strategy to run against abject failure.
And yet Romney doesn’t really have one except maybe to ride the tide of anti-Obama sentiment. Is it enough or will the guy actually have to stand for something real?
What a great choice: The Big Nothing vs. The Big Zero.
I hear, increasingly, “liberals” saying they think Romney’s going to win, which of course plays into Obama’s favorite thing in the universe: lowered expectations on him.
But I’ve heard nobody who voted for Obama in ’08 say they intend to vote for Romney this year, and OTOH I’ve heard and read many Hillary supporters who refused to vote for Obama in ’08 or who said a year ago they wouldn’t vote for him, now defending and supporting his campaign “actions” (which of course will have no lasting impact on actual people’s lives) about contraception, race (Trayvon Martin), gay rights, immigration and so on, and clearly intending to vote for him.
One side thought about this that’s been haunting me the past few weeks: if Obama loses he’ll become an everlasting martyr to his supporters and possibly to history. The narrative’s already been published in print and online that Obama had the best intentions and was thwarted by Republicans — the fact that one has to begin writing the narrative in January 2011 after Dems lost the House and their wide majority in the Senate gets lost of course, but that’s conventional wisdom for you. The part of me that wants Obama to get his just desserts is now kind of hoping he wins a second term so that, like Bush, there’ll be a better chance he’ll own the failures he’s responsible for.
Great article on Hillary as Head of State—-
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/2012/06/18/Head_of_State?page=0,7
What bugs me about the DREAM act even though as an ”educator” (I hate that term) I am supposed to be for it: no expiration date. It’s an incentive built in for anyone with kids under 16. The latest ”immigration rights” (the LAT dubs them unauthorized” now if ”sin papeles”) turnaround by O has a two-year hold, but it’ll be impossible for him not to ”extend” this too if he’s re-elected. Both parties pretend to want ”reform” but how is this fair to citizens + legal immigrants? I realize compromise is necessary with 11 million who jumped the line to get here, but these election year photo-ops for grateful demographics wear me down, even if we’re called racist if we speak out.
I’m seeing a lot of the US press calling the New Democracy (ND) party in Greece “right wing” but ND is *only* considered “right” compared to SYRIZA, which is communist, albeit “less” communist than KKE (the “hard” communist party). By Greek standards ND is considered center-right because PASOK (the socialist party) is the “center.” So, more accurately, ND is “center right” by *Greek* political standards, but to characterize ND as “right wing” in an American blog, with the connotations that attach thereto, is misleading.
Also, since we are on the subject, the Golden Dawn party (the one where that punk slapped Kannelli from KKE on TV), which has been called “extreme right wing” in the US press, is actually extreme left wing — they are anarchists, not right wing.
This election means a slight majority of Greek people (32%) want to try to stay in the EU rather than become communist (and also that they lost faith in PASOK, the party in power when all the borrowing & then austerity measures were enacted in the first place). None of the choices were very good because, realistically, regardless of who won the elections, there isn’t really much hope for Greece in the EU — the election results just bought a little time.