Barack Obama on The Late Show

One of the benefits of living on the West Coast is the ability to watch a show that doesn't air until 11:30pm much earlier. Such as this funny clip of President Barack Obama on The Late Show with David Letterman:


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Plus, David Letterman enumerated the top ten reasons Barack Obama agreed to do the show:

Representative Joe Wilson: Class All the Way

Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina, being the classy guy that he is, decided to shout "You're a liar!" to the President of the United States in the middle of his speech to a joint session of Congress. Classy, right?



At the time of this writing, it seems that his website is down, but you might be able to send him a message later...

Is Obama a liar? HotAir cites a Congressional Research Service report that suggests that it's possible. But The Washington Post says the claim that illegal immigrants will receive health care under this plan is blatantly false:

Despite many claims to the contrary by opponents of the universal health care proposals, fact-checkers have repeatedly established that the bills' universal coverage provisions would not extend to illegal immigrants. In Section 246 on page 143, the House's bill states that "undocumented aliens" will not be eligible for credits to help them buy health insurance -- and these credits are the provision that lies at the heart of expanding coverage to the uninsured. And Medicaid already is limited to those who can prove legal residency. For that matter, even the universal health care program in Massachusetts -- one of the most liberal states in the country -- does not cover illegal immigrants.

**UPDATE** Representative Wilson apologizes:

“This evening I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the President’s remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill. While I disagree with the President’s statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the President for this lack of civility.”

Ted Kennedy's Final Letter to Obama

Obama's address to Congress this evening ended with a reference to a letter that Ted Kennedy wrote to him to be delivered upon his death. After the speech, the White House has released the full text of that moving letter:

May 12, 2009

Dear Mr. President,

I wanted to write a few final words to you to express my gratitude for your repeated personal kindnesses to me – and one last time, to salute your leadership in giving our country back its future and its truth.

On a personal level, you and Michelle reached out to Vicki, to our family and me in so many different ways. You helped to make these difficult months a happy time in my life.

You also made it a time of hope for me and for our country.

When I thought of all the years, all the battles, and all the memories of my long public life, I felt confident in these closing days that while I will not be there when it happens, you will be the President who at long last signs into law the health care reform that is the great unfinished business of our society. For me, this cause stretched across decades; it has been disappointed, but never finally defeated. It was the cause of my life. And in the past year, the prospect of victory sustained me-and the work of achieving it summoned my energy and determination.

There will be struggles – there always have been – and they are already underway again. But as we moved forward in these months, I learned that you will not yield to calls to retreat - that you will stay with the cause until it is won. I saw your conviction that the time is now and witnessed your unwavering commitment and understanding that health care is a decisive issue for our future prosperity. But you have also reminded all of us that it concerns more than material things; that what we face is above all a moral issue; that at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country.

And so because of your vision and resolve, I came to believe that soon, very soon, affordable health coverage will be available to all, in an America where the state of a family’s health will never again depend on the amount of a family’s wealth. And while I will not see the victory, I was able to look forward and know that we will – yes, we will – fulfill the promise of health care in America as a right and not a privilege.

In closing, let me say again how proud I was to be part of your campaign- and proud as well to play a part in the early months of a new era of high purpose and achievement. I entered public life with a young President who inspired a generation and the world. It gives me great hope that as I leave, another young President inspires another generation and once more on America’s behalf inspires the entire world.

So, I wrote this to thank you one last time as a friend- and to stand with you one last time for change and the America we can become.

At the Denver Convention where you were nominated, I said the dream lives on.

And I finished this letter with unshakable faith that the dream will be fulfilled for this generation, and preserved and enlarged for generations to come.
With deep respect and abiding affection, [Ted]

Obama's Advisor Calls For Pressuring the President

Steve Hildebrand, former deputy campaign manager, tells Ben Smith of the Politico that he's losing patience with Obama:

“I am one of the millions of frustrated Americans who want to see Washington do more than it's doing right now,” said Steve Hildebrand, the deputy campaign manager who oversaw the Obama campaign’s field organization and was an architect of his early, crucial victories over Sen. Hillary Clinton in Iowa and South Carolina.

Obama, he said, “needs to be more bold in his leadership.”

“I’m not going to just sit by the curb and let these folks get away with a lack of performance for the American people,” he said, speaking of Washington’s Democratic leadership as a whole. “I want change just as much as a majority of Americans do, and I’m one of the many Americans who are losing patience.”

Feel free to apply your own pressure on President Obama here.

HypnObama Strikes!

Be careful, my friends, as there is a sinister force trying to brainwash our nation's children. With the children out of the way, HypnObama will next turn to Grandma:

**eenie weenie chili beanie** After HypnObama convinces your children to embrace his islamofascist agenda and join his communist re-education camps on Tuesday, he is going to address congress about creating his socialist healthcare death panels.... Bye, Grandma!

Barack Obama Eulogizes Teddy

President Barack Obama spoke this morning at Ted Kennedy's funeral mass, and paid tribute to the Lion of the Senate.

The Principled Senator from Arizona

John McCain has had a long, distinguished career in government service, and while I disagree with the vast majority of his political views, I believe he has represented the interests of the Republican Party well in the Senate.  But like most politicians, he does tend to make a fool out of himself from time to time.   The frequency hit its peak when he was fighting for the presidency, but is now once again on the upswing, likely a result of his struggle to be crowned the new leader of the GOP.

Yesterday was one of those foolish days for Senator McCain.

In Senate hearings yesterday, McCain threatened his opposition to President Obama's nominee for Deputy Secretary of the Interior, David Hayes.  What reason could the Senator have for his "principled opposition?"  In 2006, David Hayes wrote an article that McCain found "deeply offensive" towards Ronald Reagan.

From the "controversial" article:

The conservative political agenda in the West is grounded in hoary stereotypes about the region and its people...Out of this conservative world view emerges the stereotypical Western man (and it is unquestionably a “he”)—a rugged, gun-toting individualist who fiercely guards every man’s right to drill, mine, log, or do whatever he damn well pleases on the land; he hates government, taxes, regulations, environmentalists, and anyone or anything else that tries to tell him what to do (provided, of course, that federal subsidies for mining, logging, grazing, and the like continue unabated).

Like Ronald Reagan before him, President Bush has embraced the Western stereotype to the point of adopting some of itsaffectations—the boots, brush-clearing, and get-the-government-off-our-backs bravado.

It was this passage that caused McCain to umbrage, and question "You had to throw Reagan in there?"  Strangely, McCain expressed no discomfort about Hayes' comments about Bush.  McCain's final opinion on the matter: 

I will be considering seriously whether I can support your nomination or not.

I find it exceptionally odd that Senator McCain believes a prerequisite for this office is adoration of Reagan, while Bush-mocking is entirely okay.

A Ceasefire in the War on Science

The federal government's war on science finally coming to an end?

Science nerds returned to the White House Monday, triumphant and ready to tinker. After years of complaining about being shoved into the politics version of their school lockers, smiling scientists crowded into the ornate East Room, took cell phone photos and got a message from President Barack Obama they said was clear: Science, which once propelled men to the moon, again matters in American life.

Ideas vs. Tantrums

Great article by David Frum over at The New Majority sizing up the battle between the leader of the country, President Obama, and the leader of the floundering Republican Party, Boss Limbaugh:

Here’s the duel that Obama and Limbaugh are jointly arranging:

On the one side, the president of the United States: soft-spoken and conciliatory, never angry, always invoking the recession and its victims. This president invokes the language of “responsibility,” and in his own life seems to epitomize that ideal: He is physically honed and disciplined, his worst vice an occasional cigarette. He is at the same time an apparently devoted husband and father. Unsurprisingly, women voters trust and admire him.

And for the leader of the Republicans? A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as “losers.” With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence – exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party. And we’re cooperating! Those images of crowds of CPACers cheering Rush’s every rancorous word – we’ll be seeing them
rebroadcast for a long time.

Rush knows what he is doing. The worse conservatives do, the more important Rush becomes as leader of the ardent remnant. The better conservatives succeed, the more we become a broad national governing coalition, the more Rush will be sidelined.

Obama is Hitler! And the Anti-Christ!

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Obama's First Presser...

Barack Obama held his first press conference this evening, and of course, the focus was on the stimulus package that will hopefully come up for a vote tomorrow.  My favorite part came in response to a question from conservative Mara Liasson, who asked what lessons the President has learned from this whole stimulus debate.  

Now, just in terms of the historic record here, the Republicans were brought in early and were consulted. And you'll remember that when we initially introduced our framework, they were pleasantly surprised and complimentary about the tax cuts that were presented in that framework. Those tax cuts are still in there. I mean, I suppose what I could have done is started off with no tax cuts, knowing that I was going to want some, and then let them take credit for all of them. And maybe that's the lesson I learned.

But there was consultation. There will continue to be consultation. One thing that I think is important is to recognize that because all these -- all these items that you listed are hard, that people have to break out of some of the ideological rigidity and gridlock that we've been carrying around for too long.

And let me give you a prime example -- when it comes to how we approach the issue of fiscal responsibility. Again, it's a little hard for me to take criticism from folks about this recovery package after they presided over a doubling of the national debt. I'm not sure they have a lot of credibility when it comes to fiscal responsibility.

It seems a lot of people who attack the President for his lack of bipartisanship always fail to mention that Obama initially had 40% of his stimulus going to tax cuts because that is precisely what Republicans wanted. Rush Limbaugh, the de facto leader of the GOP, railed against Obama's bill and proposed his own "plan", which portrayed Obama's plan as 100% spending, and then Rush demanded that 46% of the stimulus go to tax cuts.  

The Republican side of the debate looks as if it's based entirely in the realm of intellectual dishonesty.  God bless consistency.

Obama's Weekly Address - Stimulus Package

Yesterday began with some devastating news with regard to our economic crisis.  But I'm pleased to say it ended on a more positive note.

In the morning, we received yet another round of alarming employment figures – the worst in more than 30 years.  Another 600,000 jobs were lost in January.  We've now lost more than 3.6 million jobs since this recession began.

But by the evening, Democrats and Republicans came together in the Senate and responded appropriately to the urgency this moment demands.

In the midst of our greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, the American people were hoping that Congress would begin to confront the great challenges we face.  That was, after all, what last November's election was all about.  

Legislation of such magnitude deserves the scrutiny that it's received over the last month, and it will receive more in the days to come.  But we can't afford to make perfect the enemy of the absolutely necessary.  The scale and scope of this plan is right.  And the time for action is now.

Obama Bipartisanship Vs. Bush "Bipartisanship"

"I guarantee you this is not bipartisan."

-- John McCain in crazy man rant

Republicans, on every TV show they can get booked on, are railing against Barack Obama and his apparent "Orwellian" tactics and complete lack of bipartisanship.  Trouble is, two weeks into his presidency, Barack Obama has already met with the opposition party in the House as many times as President Bush did in  the entirety of his eight years.  The product of these talks?  The removal of family planning funding, reduced spending on mass transit, and the conversion of infrastructure spending into tax cuts....Result?  0 Republicans voted for the package.