Now, let's try to remember how much trouble the Obama administration caused Toyota. Here's an article from last March:
Ever since the Transportation Department stepped up pressure on Toyota over its recalls several months ago, two delicate questions have hung over regulators: Is the Obama administration trying to help the Detroit carmakers it bailed out last year by attacking Toyota? And, will those attacks lead to new trade tensions with Japan?...
“It’s doubly convenient for the Obama administration to hammer Toyota excessively,” [Weekly Asahi magazine] said. “By picking on Toyota, Mr. Obama wants to reverse his falling popularity.”
Akio Toyoda, the president of Toyota, was billed as the main attraction at a House hearing Wednesday into the company’s recalls of millions of cars — recalls for which he profusely apologized and took personal responsibility....
He was criticized by a representative on the committee for failing to show adequate remorse for those who had been killed in accidents involving acceleration problems.
“I extend my condolences from the deepest part of my heart,” Mr. Toyoda said.
Now, let's think about this. He didn't need a drink after Obama's talk, but he did after Ryan's. What does that mean? Apparently, Obama's rhetoric comes with its own high, while Ryan's is more of a plain glass of water. Is Weiner interested in reality or not? I think we deserve sober Congresspeople at this point.
A letter to congressional leaders signed by proponents of this exercise in musical chairs claims...
Musical chairs? Clearly, the Washington Times has never played musical chairs. Musical chairs would be quite funny: Make the Congresspeople scramble for what are too few chairs, and kick out everyone who can't find a seat. Where's your kinder, gentler more civil politics then?
... "the choreographed standing and clapping of one side of the room - while the other side sits - is unbecoming of a serious institution. And the message that it sends is that even on a night when the president is addressing the entire nation, we in Congress cannot sit as one, but must be divided as two." [Senator Mark] Udall is clearly focused on the wrong problem. Presumably orgiastic clapping, not sitting stonefaced, is what offends the seriousness of the august institution.
I don't know much about the Washington Times's sex life, but I think it's got orgasms wrong too. I'll bet, if you did a scientific study, you'd find that, during orgasm, remaining stonefaced is much more common than applause. But I do agree that it would offend the seriousness of the august institution if the President's admirers really acted like they were having orgasms.
Shifting the seats around will not alter the president's applause lines. Democrats, wherever placed in the chamber, will still faithfully rise and clap at the appointed times. If such demonstrations are what Mr. Udall believes are "unbecoming" to the Congress, then Democrats should instruct their members to refrain from such demonstrations, similar to how the NFL has tried to promote civility by cracking down on post-touchdown celebrations.
I think the Democrats should instruct their members to show a little more NFL-style enthusiasm:
If clapping isn't banned, the primary effect of the seating change would be to distribute standing ovations across the chamber, making it appear that the president enjoys more congressional support than he does in fact.
That's the theory that's going around, but I'd like to see how it really would look. When the cameras can't zero in on a clump of idolators and must show the President's friends next to his enemies skeptics, we will see exactly what is going on: We've got a partisan Congress. There are a lot more Republicans than Democrats these days: The disproportion may be more likely to look obvious if they are all mixed up. And the juxtaposition of fans and sourpusses will be more amusing in close-up shots.
Some people displayed a crazed hunger for a vicious murderer who was inspired by the criticism of the government that has been so powerful over the last 2 years. Jared Loughner was not that guy, and, of course, they looked ridiculous and despicable jumping to say that he was.
Now, what if it were really true that incendiary political rhetoric pushed mentally unstable individuals over the edge and caused them to act out murderously? Picture such a mentally unstable person reading and listening to the rhetoric that spewed out over Jared Loughner.
I'm imagining a young man who takes it to heart that the Tea Party and the right wingers are ruining America and thwarting our fine President and the Democrats in Congress who set out to bring us hope and change.
He might think: Oh, if only Jared Loughner really had turned out to be the Tea-Party-inspired wingnut the liberals and lefties originally thought he was! How effective that would have been in squelching the right!
This mentally unstable young man decides that he could be what the left hoped Jared Loughner was. "Loughner2" tweaks his Facebook page with the titles of conservative books and joins various right-wing groups on-line. He sets about making Tea-Party-style pronouncements in the comments sections of various left- and right-wing blogs, stressing the right-wing rhetoric he's heard and restating it with a sharper edge of violence. He stocks his house with books written by the right-wingers most demonized by the left. He hangs a big Gadsden Flag on his living room wall.
Then, believing he is sacrificing himself for the greater good of the liberal cause, Loughner2 goes on his shooting spree. The pundits who revealed their raging hunger for a right-wing murderer will finally have the rich feast they deserve, he tells himself. Loughner2, like Loughner1, grins ghoulishly in his mug shot. He steels himself the hatred of the world and the secret pleasure of reading, from his prison/asylum cell, about the left-wing paradise he has made possible.
Do you think that's an absurd fantasy? Then you don't really believe that inflammatory rhetoric inspires unstable individuals to act. If you're one of those who's been saying it does, then admit that you've been lying. Or take responsibility for the effect your words are now having in the minds of the deranged.
Mr. Clinton and Mr. Reagan, though they are two recent examples, are nevertheless just two examples, and they were both once-in-a-generation political talents.
Reagan was in the "greatest generation" and Bill Clinton is a Baby Boomer. This makes me want to dredge up the old question whether Obama is a Baby Boomer. Taking Silver's assertion seriously, if Bill is the "once-in-a-generation" talent, then Obama's not at the Clinton level. But I'll just link back to that time I assumed Obama was not a Baby Boomer and you readers argued with me about it. Well, maybe you've changed your mind. I haven't.
[Would Obama] win re-election if an election were held tomorrow[?] His approval ratings right now are quite similar to where George W. Bush’s were at the end of 2004. Mr. Bush won re-election, albeit very narrowly and against a relatively weak Democratic nominee.
Then again, the set of prospective Republican nominees is also perhaps rather weak.... [I]f an election were held tomorrow, Mr. Obama would be a clear favorite against Ms. Palin, and probably about even money (although perhaps a very slight favorite) against a less divisive Republican nominee....
[But] an election won’t be held tomorrow. Do we have any inkling yet about whether Mr. Obama’s standing with the public is likely to improve or decline by 2012?
There's the economy, which might improve. And there's the post-election flurry of activity by the doomed Democratic majority in Congress, and then, whatever will happen with the Republicans in the next session.
Mr. Obama will be fighting from a defensive posture on health care, which remains unpopular with the public....
Ultimately, however, Mr. Obama is more popular than the Republican Congress — an advantage that Bill Clinton did not have after 1994, nor Ronald Reagan after 1982. With the equally unpopular Democratic Congress largely being marginalized, that may work to his advantage....
Until we get a better sense for how the dynamics between Mr. Obama and the Republicans will play out — or in which direction the economy is headed — I would be skeptical of analyses that seem to express a significant amount of confidence on either side of that figure.
It seems to me that people generally tend to hate Congress, so it will help the President to have an oppositional Congress.
1. Joe Klein: "The Senate ... did not pass the 'Dream Act,' which is a cold, cold abomination." Not just cold, but cold, cold. It's not just the exaggeration that wins Klein a nomination. It's the witless, unintentional ambiguity. He doesn't mean to say that the act was the abomination.
2. John McCain: "Today's a very sad day. The commandant of the United States Marine Corps says when your life hangs on the line, you don't want anything distracting. . . . I don't want to permit that opportunity to happen and I'll tell you why. You go up to Bethesda Naval Hospital, Marines are up there with no legs, none. You've got Marines at Walter Reed with no limbs." And that's it. The speech suddenly ends there, and — as Dana Milbank puts it in the Washington Post — he "turned and, without another word, walked into the cloakroom." (Note the irony that the staunch opponent of homosexuals is the one who enters the cloakroom/closet.) McCain's argument against gay people in the military is that there are Marines who have have lost limbs. Don't you get it? Perhaps now that DADT is dead, a Marine with no legs — none! — will speak up and with quiet dignity inform us that he is gay. What will John McCain say then? "I'm sorry"?
“We righted a wrong,” said Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, the independent from Connecticut and a leader of the effort to end the ban. “Today we’ve done justice.”
4 Senators did not vote. 3 Republicans — Bunning, Gregg, and Hatch. 1 Democrat: Joe Manchin. All of the no votes were Republican. Republicans voting yes were: Scott Brown, Burr (of NC), Susan Collins, John Ensign, Mark Steven Kirk (in Barack Obama's old seat), Lisa Murkowski, Olympia Snow, George Voinovich.
I don't like all this lame duck action, but I'm greatly pleased to see the awful old law repealed at last.
McCain famously said in 2006 that he would support repeal once military leaders recommended it. Instead, he led the opposition to repeal. McCainologists in the Capitol speculate that on this and other issues he's driven less by policy consideration than by personal animosity....
On Saturday, McCain's rage was all the more striking because the general tone of the debate was tame. Republicans were mostly defensive, objecting not to the service of homosexuals in the military but to procedures and other technical matters. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) said of the repeal: "Should it be done at some point in time? Maybe so, but in the middle of a military conflict is not the time to do it."...
When it came time for his closing argument before the day's key vote, McCain spoke for only a few seconds: "Today's a very sad day. The commandant of the United States Marine Corps says when your life hangs on the line, you don't want anything distracting. . . . I don't want to permit that opportunity to happen and I'll tell you why. You go up to Bethesda Naval Hospital, Marines are up there with no legs, none. You've got Marines at Walter Reed with no limbs."
McCain turned and, without another word, walked into the cloakroom.
“This bill is a law that at its fundamental core is a reward for illegal activity,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) on the floor an hour before the vote. “It’s the third time we’ve tried to schedule a vote on it during this lame-duck session. It’s the fifth version of this legislation that has been introduced in the past five months.”...
“Many of you have told me that you’re lying awake at night, tossing and turning over this vote, because you know how hard it’s going to be politically, that some people will use it against you,” [Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin] said. “But I might say, if you can summon the courage....”
But the courage to reward illegal activity was insufficiently summoned.
"... don't fundamentally oppose the earmarking process -- to back off the omnibus, according to a Republican leadership aide. Part of it was that, though bipartisan, the bill itself included funding for key Democratic priorities that in the current political environment no Republican supports, or wants to be accused of supporting. The omnibus included $1 billion in spending to implement the health care law -- a provision no Republican wanted to de facto support."
Oh, big deal. It will only take them a day or 2, as Senator DeMint admits. "Again, we’re trying to run out the clock. They should not be able to pass this kind of legislation in a lame-duck Congress."
The White House denies it: "The president hasn’t said anything remotely like that and has never spoken with Mr. DeFazio about the issue." Denies even speaking to DeFazio?
There's a discrepancy. Maybe both are lying, but both can't be telling the truth.
The quote from the White House has internal indicia of dishonesty. The spokesman (Tommy Vietor) is asserting, with respect to another person (the President), that things have never happened. Vieter makes 2 extreme statements in rapid succession: 1. "The president hasn’t said anything remotely like that," and 2. The President hasn't even "spoken with DeFazio about the issue." How can a person who cares about the truth make such expansive statements?
That doesn't mean DeFazio is honest. He goes on TV — the Eliot Spitzer show — and portrays Barack Obama as a big drama queen: "The White House is putting on tremendous pressure, making phone calls, the president is making phone calls saying this is the end of his presidency if he doesn't get this bad deal." DeFazio is against the tax deal, and he's trying to sink it by acting like Obama's desperately and selfishly obsessed with his own interest in prestige and reelection.
Well, maybe they do and they just don't like him getting all the winner's glory. What about them? After playing him for the last 2 years, they can't like seeing him pull away from their pack in a victory sprint toward 2012. He only has to win the country. They have to win their districts — their politically gerrymandered districts.
Meade, immediately: "Oh, man! That's going to make bleeding-heart moderates like you like him even more."
Immediate Althouse: "Obama is being thrust into the arms of the onrushing GOP!"
Meade: "In the same way that H.W. befriended Bill Clinton, W is going to befriend Obama. You'll see them playing golf together. Maybe even mountain biking."
Now, Rush Limbaugh was talking about how "the media is just beside itself over how pathetic [Obama's] performance was yesterday" in the news conference about the tax compromise. And Rush is saying that Obama "knows full well that he had a meltdown yesterday."
Here's the video:
Rush says he can tell that Obama...
... has been festering, this has been effervescing inside him, that he's unappreciated, that he did something nobody else has done, and they wanted it for a hundred years, and by golly he got it. He didn't get everything he wanted, he got 99%, and they don't appreciate me,...
So he's essentially telling them, look, I gotta back off on some of this stuff if we're to get anything done. And that infuriated 'em even more because the question was, "Where you gonna go to the mat, what are your core values?" And he withered. He caved. And that made them even angrier. I know it's hard to comprehend. But these people on the left, they are truly enraged. It is a lifestyle. They are never happy. I looked at the comments on the Daily Kos website, they are hilarious. But they're real. And it went on for ten pages. I mean they are just fit to be tied because Obama is not what they thought he was....
I must say... I watched that video clip earlier today, and I liked the Obama I saw there. You could say he's beaten down, but there's fire there. It's the fire of pragmatism. I see a sensible and strong man. I never believed in Obama the Messiah, and I fretted about the signs that he was a left-wing ideologue. But when it came down to a decision between Obama and McCain, in the midst of a terrible economic crisis, I put my trust in Obama. I said:
I worry about what awful innovations the new President will concoct in league with the Democratic Congress, but at this point, I'm more worried about McCain than Obama.
I thought that Obama would have some independence from the Democrats in Congress and that he'd use his common sense and pragmatism to work out some solutions. The more he departs from left-wing ideology and struggles to get to good solutions, the more I like him.
When I watch that video, I don't see a melt-down at all. I see Obama coming into his own at last. I see the Obama I voted for.
I clicked, because I wanted to see what Joe Biden had to say under the snazzy headline "Obama: On the way to a failed presidency?" The link goes to a Washington Post column with that headline — but it's by Katrina vanden Heuvel ("editor and publisher of the Nation" who "writes a weekly online column for The Post").
Can anyone explain why the automatic aggregator Memeorandum would have picked up that column and attached Biden's name to it? I'm guessing the answer is pretty boring: "Joe Biden" appears in a line above the column, near the top of the page, that begins "Hot Topics." That does give rise to a new puzzle: What's hot about Biden? Clicking on his name, I see that he "heads to the Hill to talk taxes" today. Sizzling!
