Jack's Newswatch

It is a universal political truth that administrations do not begin to fragment when things are going well: it only happens when they go badly, and those who think they know better begin to attack those who manifestly do not. The descent of Barack Obama’s regime, characterised now by factionalism in the Democratic Party and talk of his being set to emulate Jimmy Carter as a one-term president, has been swift and precipitate. It was just 16 months ago that weeping men and women celebrated his victory over John McCain in the American presidential election. If they weep now, a year and six weeks into his rule, it is for different reasons.

Despite the efforts of some sections of opinion to talk the place up, America is mired in unhappiness, all the worse for the height from which Obamania has fallen. The economy remains troublesome. There is growth – a good last quarter suggested an annual rate of as high as six per cent, but that figure is probably not reliable – and the latest unemployment figures, last Friday, showed a levelling off. Yet 15 million Americans, or 9.7 per cent of the workforce, have no job. Many millions more are reduced to working part-time. Whole areas of the country, notably in the north and on the eastern seaboard, are industrial wastelands. The once mighty motor city of Detroit appears slowly to be being abandoned, becoming a Jurassic Park of the mid-20th century; unemployment among black people in Mr Obama’s own city of Chicago is estimated at between 20 and 25 per cent. One senior black politician – a Democrat and a supporter of the President – told me of the wrath in his community that a black president appeared to be unable to solve the economic problem among his own people. Cities in the east such as Newark and Baltimore now have drug-dealing as their principal commercial activity: The Wire is only just fictional.

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Popularity: 16% [?]

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama summoned more than a dozen Democrats from the House of Representatives to the White House, pleading with them to put aside their qualms and vote for his massive health care overhaul.

In back-to-back meetings Thursday, Obama urged uneasy rank-and-file moderates and progressives to focus on the positives rather than their deep disappointment with parts of the bill. The lawmakers said Obama assured them the legislation was merely the first step, and he promised to work with them in the future to improve its provisions.

It’s the opportunity of a generation, he told them — and a chance to revive the party’s agenda after his rough first year in office.

“The president very pointedly talked about how important this is historically,” said Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva, “how he needs our help.” Obama told them that “‘this is an opportunity, it’ll give us momentum”‘ on other issues, the congressman said.

Congressional leaders said they were hoping for votes on the legislation in as soon as two or three weeks.

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Krauthammer: Why the Health Care Bill is a Failure

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Howard Dean: Health bill hangs Dem incumbents and Obama out to dry in elections

Popularity: 4% [?]

President Obama declared for the first time yesterday that he was prepared to steamroller his troubled health reform legislation through Congress with only Democratic support; a move Republicans denounced as the “nuclear option”.

Signalling that his patience had snapped after a year-long fight, Mr Obama laid the ground for Democrats in Congress to muscle the Bill through using a high-risk legislative manoeuvre known as reconciliation, which overrides a Republican filibuster. Although he did not use the word “reconciliation”, Mr Obama made it clear that that was the route he intended to take.

Democrats will, as a result, be able to get the health reform package through the Senate with a simple majority. Mr Obama’s party ceded their 60-stong majority in the upper chamber after losing the late Teddy Kennedy’s Massachusetts seat in January.

That shock defeat was due, in large part, to growing public hostility to Mr Obama’s health reforms, which many see as too expensive at a time of soaring deficits. Ramming the Bill through Congress is, therefore, a high-risk strategy that Republicans vowed to exploit.

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Popularity: 5% [?]

Washington (CNN) — President Obama outlined his final version of a health care bill Wednesday and urged Congress to bring the plan to a conclusive vote within the next few weeks.

The president said his nearly $1 trillion proposal is a compromise plan that combines the best ideas of both Democrats and Republicans. He asked Congress to “finish its work” and end what has become a yearlong vitriolic legislative showdown over his top domestic priority.

“Everything there is to say about health care has been said, and just about everybody has said it,” he said. “Now is the time to make a decision about how to finally reform health care so that it works, not just for the insurance companies, but for America’s families and America’s businesses.”

He also came out in support of a controversial legislative maneuver known as reconciliation, which would allow changes to the health care bill to be passed by the Senate with only 51 votes — a bare legislative majority.

The bill “deserves the same kind of up-or-down vote” that was used to pass President George W. Bush’s signature tax cuts and welfare reform in the 1990s, Obama said at the White House.

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Popularity: 4% [?]

WHEN Barack Obama took office last year he was compared to Superman, even joking at a dinner that he had been “born on Krypton and sent here … to save the planet Earth”. Last January he appeared on the cover of Spider-Man.

Now, with his legislative agenda in tatters, the president has moved from comic-strip hero to comparisons to one of the great flawed figures of American literature. Ten days ago Charlie Cook, a leading election analyst, compared Obama and his battle to push through healthcare reform to Captain Ahab and his suicidal hunt for the great white whale.

Despite poll after poll showing that Americans’ main priority is jobs, the president has focused on reforming the US healthcare system and extending coverage to the 40m citizens with no insurance.

“I think choosing to take a Captain Ahab-like approach to healthcare — I’m going to push for this even in the worst downturn since the Great Depression — is roughly comparable to Bush’s decision to go to war [in Iraq],” Cook told Politico. “It basically destroyed the first year of a presidency.”

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Popularity: 6% [?]

WHEN President Barack Obama’s secret service codename was revealed as Renegade and his wife Michelle’s as Renaissance, the names seemed perfect for a first couple who had come to Washington to shake things up.

More than a year into the Obama administration, with healthcare yet to be reformed, Wall Street banks continuing to pay huge bonuses and Guantanamo Bay prison still open, that mood of hope has turned to disillusion. Obama’s policy of engagement has yielded no progress in the Middle East or Iran; the war in Afghanistan continues to exact a big toll in lives and dollars; while the heaviest snow in Washington for 90 years seems to have stymied any hope of climate change legislation.

The president and his team now find themselves under fire for mishandling Congress from everyone from senior Democrats to social columnists. Critics say that by failing to move on from the “us versus them” feeling of the Obama election campaign, they have united an opposition that was in disarray. The result is legislative paralysis despite the biggest Democratic majority in 30 years.

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Update:

Bayh: Why I’m Leaving the Senate

Popularity: 9% [?]

WASHINGTON — Determined to have a deficit commission with or without Congress’ backing, President Obama plans to announce on Thursday that he is establishing a panel similar to — although weaker than– the one lawmakers rejected.

Former White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles and former Republican Senate Whip Alan Simpson would lead the panel, a senior administration official said Tuesday. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the president’s executive order creating the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform had not been announced.

The deficit spiked to an extraordinary $1.4 trillion last year and could top that figure this year as the struggling economy puts a big dent in tax revenues. Even worse from the perspective of economists and deficit hawks, the medium-term deficit picture is for deficits to hit around $1 trillion a year for the foreseeable future.

Obama and his economic team have said repeatedly that this is not sustainable. He told lawmakers during his State of the Union address that he would go around their vote and appoint a version of a deficit commission.

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See Also:

Report: 2011 Economic Time Bomb Will Hurt All of U.S.

Updates:

2:08 pm EST, February 17th, 2010 — Morris: Obama is Ruining His Presidency and His Party

2:12 pm EST, February 17th, 2010 — Obama Defeats FDR (in Spending Other People’s Money)

Popularity: 4% [?]

President Barack Obama vowed Saturday to beat a “blizzard” of opposition and to salvage his crusade for change, leaving a snow-buried White House to rally Democrats spooked by looming November polls.

Obama motorcaded through deserted Washington streets during a historic winter storm to fire up a party rocked by panic and disaffection after the president’s reform drive hit a roadblock after just a year in power.

“(It’s) good to be among friends. So committed to the future of this party and this country … a blizzard … Snowmageddon here in DC!” Obama told Democratic National Committee members hunkered down in a Washington hotel.

Obama sharply warned that he would not give up on his effort to pass health care reform through Congress, even though the loss of the Democratic Senate supermajority leaves his wavering party few easy options to enact it.

“Just in case there’s any confusion out there, let me be clear. I am not going to walk away from health insurance reform,” Obama said, in one of his most feisty speeches since his 2008 election campaign.

“I’m not going to walk away from the American people. I’m not going to walk away on this challenge. I’m not going to walk away on any challenge.’

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Popularity: 3% [?]

President Obama renewed virtually all his campaign promises in the State of the Union address Wednesday night. Now he’s got to deliver.

The road to restoring public confidence in Washington and in his ability to lead it starts Thursday in Tampa, where Obama will hold a town hall meeting and discuss federal investment in mass transit. The visit comes as the president vows to make the economy and jobs creation his top focus in 2010, while continuing to press ahead with his ambitious agenda on everything ranging from health care reform to education to immigration reform.

“We have finished a difficult year. We have come through a difficult decade. But a new year has come,” Obama said. “We don’t quit. I don’t quit.”

The president took the podium at a vulnerable time for his agenda, his party and his relationship with Congress.

Health care reform, which earlier this month seemed on the verge of final passage, screeched to a halt last week after Republican Scott Brown won election to the U.S. Senate in the seat formerly held by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. The victory broke the Democrats’ supermajority in the Senate and heightened the party’s anxiety over the November midterm elections.

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Related:

Justice Mouths ‘Not True’ as Obama Slams Court

Transcript of Obama’s First State of the Union

The Republican Response to Obama’s State of the Union

Updates:

4:04 pm EST, January 28th, 2010 — Obama’s Clash with Alito Triggers Firestorm

4:16 pm EST, January 28th, 2010 — A Self-Reverential State of the Union Address

6:21 pm EST, January 28th, 2010 — Palin: The Credibility Gap

Popularity: 6% [?]

I must confess that I have been against an Obama presidency since he started to run. The reason was that his past was hidden and remained that way throughout his run and “so it happened” that Obama became President.

Call me mind boggled.

To this very day we do not know if he was ever qualified for the office and we do not know what he and his minions have planned because it’s a big secret. What we do know is that Republicans are backing away and letting a political neophyte wear it and so they should.

I fully expect the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to fire him tonight and save a nation.

I also expect Democrat politicians to file for unemployment insurance in the days ahead because it’s a happening thing. A “Super Majority” has it’s drawbacks and America has lost four years as they correct their mistake.

But “never mind” — America will survive.

Obama and the fools he delegated power to won’t.

Updates:

CNN goes nuts

Popularity: 11% [?]

WASHINGTON — What went wrong? A year ago, he was king of the world. Now President Obama’s approval rating, according to CBS, has dropped to 46 percent — and his disapproval rating is the highest ever recorded by Gallup at the beginning of an (elected) president’s second year.

A year ago, he was leader of a liberal ascendancy that would last 40 years (James Carville). A year ago, conservatism was dead (Sam Tanenhaus). Now the race to fill Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat in bluest of blue Massachusetts is surprisingly close, with a virtually unknown state senator bursting on the scene by turning the election into a mini-referendum on Obama and his agenda, most particularly health care reform.

A year ago, Obama was the most charismatic politician on earth. Today the thrill is gone, the doubts growing — even among erstwhile believers.

Liberals try to attribute Obama’s political decline to matters of style. He’s too cool, detached, uninvolved. He’s not tough, angry or aggressive enough with opponents. He’s contracted out too much of his agenda to Congress.

These stylistic and tactical complaints may be true, but they miss the major point: The reason for today’s vast discontent, presaged by spontaneous national Tea Party opposition, is not that Obama is too cool or compliant but that he’s too left.

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Hanson: Our Sorta, Kinda War on Terror

Popularity: 8% [?]