Obama at the UN

"At the UN, President Obama called on other countries to help us track down and eliminate radicals and extremists. But they told Obama, 'Hey, the Tea Party is your problem buddy' " - Jay Leno.

The hoodie did it.

That pic right there is why it's tough to rip his Oness. (I don't care if it's photoshopped.) Yes, he can be too politically wishy washy at times. But just when I started to wonder about his heart he restored my faith in his humanity by coming out and making a statement about the Trayvon Martin case. I mean if you are going to insert yourself into the Skippy Gates and Sandra Fluke cases, you better have something to say about this one.

 "If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon".

Well that's true Mr. President, and as a parent of black children it would be very hard for you to divorce yourself from this case. I bet Michelle was giving you an earful every night: Forget Axelrod and your pollsters, so what if you alienate some white voters. If this causes you to lose the election so be it. You will be able to live with yourself for the rest of your life."  O, always listen to your wife.

Anyway, as is to be expected, some folks are not too pleased:

"Newt Gingrich called Obama's remarks about Trayvon Martin "disgraceful" in an interview with Sean Hannity, according to CBS/National Journal.
“It’s not a question of who that young man looked like. Any young American of any ethnic background should be safe, period. We should all be horrified no matter what the ethnic background," Gingrich said. "Is the President suggesting that if it had been a white who had been shot that would be ok because it didn’t look like him?" [Source]

Actually Newt, if he was white he most likely would not have been shot. The truth of the matter is he was shot because he was black.

 "It would have been a tragedy if he had been Puerto Rican or Cuban or if he had been white or if he had been Asian-American of if he’d been a Native American. At some point we ought to talk about being Americans."

Newt, that would be nice. But......

"Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said Thursday he is willing to go before the NAACP and urge blacks to demand paychecks, not food stamps.
Gingrich told a town hall meeting at a senior center in Plymouth, N.H., that if the NAACP invites him to its annual convention this year, he'd go there and talk about "why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps." [Source]

*mouth open*

Anyway, Newt made his cretinous and moronic statement while giving an interview on FOX NEWS. The same FOX NEWS who hires one Geraldo Rivera. (Is there a "Drop Squad" for Latinos?) Geraldo wants all of us to know that Trayvon Martin was killed because of his hoodie. Yes, the hoodie did it. Not George Zimmerman. Trayvon Martin contributed to his own death by wearing a hoodie. It's the victim's fault.

*shaking head*

Finally, shout out to the LeBrons for stepping up and making a powerful political statement about the Trayvon Martin killing. I rip athletes and celebrities all the time for not involving themselves in social causes, so when they do I have to acknowledge their actions.

I think I am rooting for the Heat to go all the way this season.

Uppity Negroes and broke Negroes.

Memo to Jan Brewer, that Obama fellow doesn't forget s*&^.

"Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer came to greet President Barack Obama upon his arrival outside Phoenix Wednesday. What she got was a critique. Of her book.

The two leaders could be seen engaged in an intense conversation at the base of Air Force One's steps. Both could be seen smiling, but speaking at the same time.

Asked moments later what the conversation was about, Brewer, a Republican, said: "He was a little disturbed about my book."

Brewer recently published a book, "Scorpions for Breakfast," something of a memoir of her years growing up and defends her signing of Arizona's controversial law cracking down on illegal immigrants, which Obama opposes.

Obama was objecting to Brewer's description of a meeting he and Brewer had at the White House, where she described Obama as lecturing her. In an interview in November Brewer described two tense meetings. The first took place before his commencement address at Arizona State University. "He did blow me off at ASU," she said in the television interview in November.

She also described meeting the president at the White House in 2010 to talk about immigration. "I felt a little bit like I was being lectured to, and I was a little kid in a classroom, if you will, and he was this wise professor and I was this little kid, and this little kid knows what the problem is and I felt minimized to say the least."

On the tarmac Wednesday, Brewer handed Obama an envelope with a handwritten invitation to return to Arizona to meet her for lunch and to join her for a visit to the border.

"I said to him, you know, I have always respected the office of the president and that the book is what the book is," she told reporters Wednesday. She said Obama complained that she described him as not treating her cordially.

"I said that I was sorry that he felt that way. Anyway, we're glad he's here, and we'll regroup."' [Source]

Yes Jan, some of these Negroes can get a little uppity. That Obama fellow seems to have forgotten his place. Being the president of these divided states of A-merry-ca will do that to you.

Finally, when are some of you Negroes going to learn how to manage your money?

You shouldn't be able to blow eighty millon dollars even if you try.

 "I hate myself for letting this happen. I believed that they had my back when they said, ‘You take care of the football, and we’ll do the rest.’ And in the end, they just basically stole from me.”  [Story]

Who is "they" TO? Like WTF?

The next time one of you Negroes out here balling have a few hundred thousand to throw away, please holla at your boy. I promise that I will put it to good use for you, and I will even have some saved away for you after your playing carreer is over. Promise.

It could be worse.

"She's tellin' me about the things that her girlfriend's got
What she ain't got, and she wants me to go out and get ‘em for her
But, but girl, I can't be in two places at one time

If you think you're lonely now,
Wait until tonight, girl
(If you think you're lonely now) I'll be long gone
(Wait until tonight, girl) And you'll find another man that'll treat you right" [Video]

O should have been singing that classic Bobby Womack song instead of "Let's Stay Together" the other night at the Apollo. I am hearing a lot of liberals and progressives express disappointment with O lately. Many of them actually say that they regretted giving him their vote.

I love Bruce Dixon over at Black Agenda; fam is a true field Negro in my book. Bruce has been relentless in his attacks of O because he believes that he has been a huge disappointment as president. A sampling:"Next week will mark the third anniversary of Barack Obama's inauguration, and the unveiling of his fourth budget. Already White House spokespeople admit that it will be bad news for black and poor Americans. In three years this president has investigated and prosecuted not a single Wall Street banker or institution, not held up the wave of foreclosures a single week, not addressed the issues of black unemployment or black mass incarceration. But black America has silenced itself to protect the career of the First Black President."  [Source] I honestly don't know what folks like Bruce expected from Obama. Those of you who know me and read my writings know that I have said all along that there would be nothing spectacular in terms of progressive changes with an Obama presidency. I have said all along that he is a Democratic politician who is a product of the Chicago political machine, and that he is first and foremost a political moderate when it comes to governing.

His election was historic only for its imagery and the possibilities it represents; not because it was going to bring any fundamental changes in the American political landscape for poor people and people of color.

What Barack Obama has delivered is exactly what I expected. Nothing more, nothing less. In terms of foreign policy, he has kept the country relatively safe and he has improved our standing in the world with our allies. Domestically we have come back from the brink of an economic disaster, and growth has been slow but steady.  His justice department has been going after civil rights violators more aggressively than the previous administration, and his single appointment to the Supreme Court so far will act as a voice of reason on a body that is precariously close to being hijacked by a group of right wingnut extremist. (Just imagine how the court would look if McCain and Palin was elected. )

But let me go back to what Bobby Womack was writing about to that woman of his: If you think that Obama is bad, wait until either Mitt or Newt gets into office. I suspect that a lot of you progressives will be crying for the good old days of O again. But O won't be around, he- like Bobby told his woman- will be "long gone". And sadly, it could be a long time before you find another leader that will treat you right.

Are some black intellectuals just as bad as the KKK? And can white liberals be racist?

I see that his Oness is continuing to kick ass on the "war on terror". If he was a republican the GOP boys would be calling for some modifications on Mount Rushmore right about now. Now if he can just get us some jobs here on the home front. 

Anyway, I will move on.

Maybe the fact that I like Melissa Harris-Perry so much is clouding my judgment with a story I saw about her recently. I have to agree with Elon James-White who wrote an article for News One about the subject:

 "Race in America is a difficult subject. When it comes to race America has the mental maturity of a 7 year old that, on occasion will plug its ears with its fingers and sing “La, la, la.” Being American and Negro I understand this. I don’t really have any choice but to understand it. I can’t decide that racial matters or discussions are silly because I’m actually affected. I can’t speak of it philosophically and talk racial theory because for me its NOT theory. I’m Black. This is real. End of story.

Last night I came across an article that I was so offended by that I reserved comment until I had a full nights sleep. I thought to myself that it was so insulting, so idiotic that it couldn’t be as bad as I was perceiving it to be. I needed to literally go to bed, take a mental break, and come back. That article was Gene Lyons “Obama’s Bridge too Far” on Salon.com. The article, a poorly thought out and terribly executed piece which wasn’t even cohesive as a whole should have been axed in the editorial process. But it wasn’t. Take a look.

This just in: Not all the fools are Republicans. Recently, one Melissa Harris-Perry, a Tulane professor who moonlights on MSNBC political talk shows, wrote an article for the Nation titled “Black President, Double Standard: Why White Liberals Are Abandoning Obama.”
See, nobody ever criticized Bill Clinton, another centrist Democrat who faced a hostile Republican congress. Indeed, he was “enthusiastically re-elected” in 1996. Therefore, “[t]he 2012 election is a test of whether Obama will be held to standards never before imposed on an incumbent. If he is, it may be possible to read that result as the triumph of a more subtle form of racism.”

You can like Dr. Harris-Perry’s theory or not, but 1) its a theory not an etched in stone condemnation and 2) it’s based in reality. It’s based in feelings many in the Black community have wondered when hearing attacks from White liberals. It’s based in issues that have been previously pointed out within the progressive movement. You could make the argument that race has nothing to do with White liberals issues with Obama and I wouldn’t have an issue with that. But to dismiss one of the great Black public intellectuals of our time because it made you feel uncomfortable is completely ridiculous.

And that’s the problem. Dr. Harris-Perry made folks feel uncomfortable.
White liberals enjoy the concept that they are immune to accusations of racism. They’re LIBERALS. They obviously are totally and completely not racist so how could you ever dare even pose the possibility of such a thing? Matter of fact? Since White liberals are so “obvi” not racist they can dismiss this feeling amongst Black folks as silly and tell them to stop it. You can even get all Dave Sirota on us and say how this hurts the civil rights movement. Because questioning the possibility of racism obviously makes equality harder right? Thanks sir!
But Mr. Lyons isn’t done.

The professor actually wrote that. See, certain academics are prone to an odd fundamentalism of the subject of race. Because President Obama is black, under the stern gaze of professor Harris-Perry, nothing else about him matters. Not killing Osama bin Laden, not 9 percent unemployment, only blackness.
Furthermore, unless you’re black, you can’t possibly understand. Yada, yada, yada. This unfortunate obsession increasingly resembles a photo negative of KKK racial thought. It’s useful for intimidating tenure committees staffed by Ph.D.s trained to find racist symbols in the passing clouds. Otherwise, Harris-Perry’s becoming a left-wing Michele Bachmann, an attractive woman seeking fame and fortune by saying silly things on cable TV. (emphasis mine)

Lyons actually wrote that. To question possible racism is to be the photo-negative of the KKK. To dare question White folks who were nice enough to treat you almost fairly is to be the Black equivalent of the KKK. And to possibly question race is only helpful in gaining tenure–because you know. Blacks and tenure at colleges? We gotta play that race card right? And PHD’s find race in everything. It’s not that they might have studied history and race long enough that they actually understand the systemic problems within our society based on race and privilege–they just see it in EVERYTHING. Silly educated people.

Lyons compared the Scholar Harris-Perry to the publicly mocked known idiot Michelle Bachmann. How did Lyons think that was going to work out? You mock the concept that as a White man you might not always understand everything about racism, then you degrade a brilliant Black mind and compare her to a wilful White idiot who has said websites full of dumb shit. Oh yeah. You’ve just won me over. White Liberals are sooooooo not racist." [Source]

Oh yes, liberals can be racist,too. I consider Mrs. Harris-Perry a friend, and there is nothing about her that says KKK to me. Nothing.

I suspect that Mr. Lyons knows this, (or maybe not) but let's be honest folks; some people just can't change who they are. It doesn't matter if their political ideology leans left or right.

Barack,Troy, and a falling satellite.

Just getting back from Washington. (Memo to self: Take Acela for my next mid week trip to D.C.) Shout out to all the folks who were at the digital civic engagement forum. Especially those of you who came up to me and showed me love. Jeff,Joseph,Navarrow, and Kristal, we have to do this again sometime.

Someone asked me today if I thought that the killing of Troy Davis will cost his O ness votes. Black folks are still mad that you could hear a pin drop in the White House during the days leading up to the state sanctioned killing of Davis.

Hey, what can I tell you? O is first and foremost a politician, and he did what politicians do when these types of "touchy" issues raise their ugly heads: He kept his mouth shut. Pro death penalty folks vote.

But back to the question: Will it cost him votes? Maybe. It's still too early to tell. I just don't think that blacks folks are going to be motivated to head to the polls this time around. He will still get 85% of the black vote, but there just won't be as much of them. A 16% unemployment rate will do that to you. We know that it wouldn't be better with a republican in charge, but we also realize, now, that no matter who is the HNIC, politics will always take center stage over everything else. It's back to business as usual in A-merry-ca. Just like it was under Reagan and those Bushes.

I keep telling you Negroes that it's time to stop looking to Washington and start taking care of yourselves. Work with your local governments to try to get things done in your neighborhoods. If they tell you that there is no money available, then work among yourselves. You would be surprised what you can do when you put your heads together. I am watching you do it with certain neighborhoods here in Philly. Some of you have wonderful community partnerships with certain institutions like Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania. And some of you work with non profits and religious groups. It's all good as far as I am concerned. Whatever it takes to keep us moving forward in these divided states of A-merry-ca.

Finally, I see that a very large satellite is about to fall to earth anytime now. They say what goes up must come down, and it looks like it's about that time for the school bus sized object. But don't worry, folks, the chance of it hitting us is slim....

"It just doesn't want to come down," said Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

McDowell said the satellite's delayed demise demonstrates how unreliable predictions can be. That said, "the best guess is that it will still splash in the ocean, just because there's more ocean out there."

Until Friday, increased solar activity was causing the atmosphere to expand and the 35-foot, bus-size satellite to free fall more quickly. But late Friday morning, NASA said the sun was no longer the major factor in the rate of descent and that the satellite's position, shape or both had changed by the time it slipped down to a 100-mile orbit.

"In the last 24 hours, something has happened to the spacecraft," said NASA orbital debris scientist Mark Matney.

On Friday night, NASA said it expected the satellite to come crashing down between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. EDT. It was going to be passing over the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans at that time, as well as Canada, Africa and Australia.
"The risk to public safety is very remote," NASA said in a statement.

The Aerospace Corp., which tracks space debris, also estimated the strike would happen sometime between about 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. EDT, which would make a huge difference in where the debris falls. Its projections also put almost all of the U.S. in the clear — with Washington state the lone holdout.

Any surviving wreckage is expected to be limited to a 500-mile swath.
The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, or UARS, will be the biggest NASA spacecraft to crash back to Earth, uncontrolled, since the post-Apollo 75-ton Skylab space station and the more than 10-ton Pegasus 2 satellite, both in 1979.
Russia's 135-ton Mir space station slammed through the atmosphere in 2001, but it was a controlled dive into the Pacific.

Some 26 pieces of the UARS satellite — representing 1,200 pounds of heavy metal — are expected to rain down somewhere. The biggest surviving chunk should be no more than 300 pounds."

With any luck it will drop on a certain house in Florida.








      

Checking Shelby.

Every now and then I have to call out one of my favorite conservative writers. Shelby Steele is a pretty smart guy, and he usually does a good job of observing some of the racial dynamics here in America. The problem with Shelby, however, is his ideology, and where he chooses to align himself in our political debate.

Shelby is a classic black conservative. He likes to call out black folks and liberals for being too lazy and disingenuous, and he praises the conservative ethos and their (so called) honesty.

Anyway, Mr. Steele has struck again. [h/t to David for e-mailing this article to me) This time he has penned an article for the Wall Street Journal about Obama. (Shelby is fascinated with Obama. He is still pissed that the first black president came from the left and not the right.) In it, he lets America have it for not calling out Obama for his incompetence and giving him a pass because of his exotic skin and charisma.

"The president's success in having Osama bin Laden killed is an exception to a pattern of excruciatingly humble and hesitant leadership abroad. Mr. Obama has been deeply ambivalent about the application of American power, as if a shameful "neocolonialism" attends every U.S. action in the world. In Libya he seems actually to want American power to diminish altogether.

This formula of shrinking American power abroad while expanding government power at home confuses and disappoints many Americans. Before bin Laden, 69% of Americans believed the country was on the wrong track, according to an Ipsos survey. A recent Zogby poll found that only 38% of respondents believed Mr. Obama deserved a second term, while 55% said they wanted someone new.

And yet Republicans everywhere ask, "Who do we have to beat him?" In head-to-head matchups, Mr. Obama beats all of the Republican hopefuls in most polls.

The problem Mr. Obama poses for Republicans is that there has always been a disconnect between his actual performance and his appeal. If Hurricane Katrina irretrievably stained George W. Bush, the BP oil spill left no lasting mark on this president. Mr. Obama's utter confusion in the face of the "Arab spring" has nudged his job-approval numbers down, but not his likability numbers, which Gallup has at a respectable 47.6%. In the mainstream media there has been a willingness to forgive this president his mistakes, to see him as an innocent in an impossible world. Why?

There have really always been two Barack Obamas: the mortal man and the cultural icon. If the actual man is distinctly ordinary, even a little flat and humorless, the cultural icon is quite extraordinary. The problem for Republicans is that they must run against both the man and the myth. In 2008, few knew the man and Republicans were walloped by the myth. Today the man is much clearer, and yet the myth remains compelling.

What gives Mr. Obama a cultural charisma that most Republicans cannot have? First, he represents a truly inspiring American exceptionalism: He is the first black in the entire history of Western civilization to lead a Western nation—and the most powerful nation in the world at that. And so not only is he the most powerful black man in recorded history, but he reached this apex only through the good offices of the great American democracy.

Thus his presidency flatters America to a degree that no white Republican can hope to compete with. He literally validates the American democratic experiment, if not the broader Enlightenment that gave birth to it. "

Let me jump in here: Barack Obama is no worse than any of the previous presidents before him. So Shelby, you lost me at hello. Your article, from its outset, is poisoned by ideological prejudice. And you give Americans credit for enlightenment where they deserve none. I would argue that electing Barack Obama only highlighted the fact that America is still stained by its sad racial legacy. And it has created more bigotry, ignorance, and uncontrolled hostility by not only the usual suspects, but by those who we never expected to become so afraid and fearful of losing their country to those other people.

"..Conversely, the media hold the president's exceptionalism against Republicans. Here is Barack Obama, evidence of a new and progressive America. Here are the Republicans, a cast of largely white males, looking peculiarly unevolved. Add to this the Republicans' quite laudable focus on deficit reduction and spending cuts, and they can be made to look like a gaggle of scolding accountants.

How can the GOP combat the president's cultural charisma? It will have to make vivid the yawning gulf between Obama the flattering icon and Obama the confused and often overwhelmed president. Applaud the exceptionalism he represents, but deny him the right to ride on it as a kind of affirmative action.

A president who is both Democratic and black effectively gives the infamous race card to the entire left: Attack our president and you are a racist. To thwart this, Republicans will have to break through the barrier of political correctness.

Mr. McCain let himself be intimidated by Obama's cultural charisma, threatening to fire any staff member who even used the candidate's middle name. Donald Trump shot to the head of the Republican line by focusing on Mr. Obama as a president, calling him our "worst" president. I carry no brief for Mr. Trump, but his sudden success makes a point: Another kind of charisma redounds to those willing to challenge political correctness—those unwilling to be in thrall to the president's cultural charisma.

Lastly, there must be a Republican message of social exceptionalism. America has more social mobility than any heterogeneous society in history. Isn't there a great Republican opportunity to be had in urging minorities to at last move out of their long era of protest—in which militancy toward the very society they struggled to join was the way ahead? Aren't Republicans uniquely positioned to offer minorities a liberation from both dependency and militancy?

In other words, isn't there a fresh new social idealism implicit in conservative principles? Why not articulate it and fight with it in the political arena? Such a message would show our president as unevolved in his social thinking—oh so 1965. The theme: Barack Obama believes in government; we believe in you." [Article]

Let me jump in here: Republicans don't applaud social exceptionalism,they view it with scepticism. Your claim that Obama is an affirmative action president is proof of it. Telling the truth isn't political correctness, and honestly and openly questioning something isn't necessarily racism. But claiming that only republicans can move minorities out of their "long era of protest" because only republicans can show us how to work hard and achieve in America, is an insult to every hard working person of color who helped to make this country what it is. "Militancy" isn't always such a bad thing. Just ask the founding fathers to whom you and those of your ilk pray to every day. Without that "militancy" you wouldn't be able to speak of this great country that you seem to love so much. You wouldn't be able to collect a nice check from Stanford University. And you certainly wouldn't be able to collect what your publishers give you in advances for those wonderful books you like to churn out like pablum for the wingnut soul.

Shelby, I credit my success in life to my parents and the work ethic that they gave me, not the benevolence of white America. I have succeeded in America in spite of American -so called- exceptionalism, not because of it.

I wonder if you can say the same thing?

“There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.”

Watch out Mr. Bad Hair, it looks like O is fighting back.

Still, my question to O would be this: Why? O, let bloggers like yours truly have fun with the birther crowd, sane people (what few of us are left) in this country have no time for such nonsense.

The more the wingnuts ride on that birther train the more people who actually have a brain will want to send that train to the closest insane asylum or tea party rally.

"President Obama has a message for Republicans who embrace the birther movement: You're only hurting yourselves with this nonsense. Obama told ABC News's George Stephanopoulos that he was born in Hawaii and "doesn't have horns," stressing that birthers just makes the GOP look bad in the long run.

"There's been an effort to go at me in a way that is politically expedient in the short term for Republicans but creates I think a problem for them when they want to actually run in the general election, where most people feel pretty confident the President was born where he says he was, in Hawaii," Obama said.

The president added, "He doesn't have horns. ... We're not really worried about conspiracy theories or birth certificates."

You are wrong Mr. President. Metaphorically speaking you DO have horns, your horns just happen to manifest themselves in the color of your skin.

Message to O.

"After two years of being called a tyrant and a dictator, President Obama returns to Washington from a five-day overseas trip to find he has become a weakling.

Would-be opponents such as Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, and Sarah Palin had been trying out this somewhat contradictory line of attack for more than a month as Obama gave mixed signals about events in Egypt and Libya. But the "weak leader" charge gained traction last weekend as Obama chose to launch the attack on Moammar Gadhafi's forces while on an excellent adventure with his family in South America.

At about the moment the Tomahawk missiles began to rain down on Libya, Obama was joking with Brazilians about Carnival, the World Cup, and the Olympics. Rather than an Oval Office address announcing the new war, Americans got word from the president in a scratchy audio recording. As warheads pounded Libyan forces, Obama was kicking a soccer ball, seeing the sights, and watching cowboys in sequins.

It was perilously close to George W. Bush's "The Pet Goat" moment, when he continued reading a children's storybook after being told the second World Trade Center tower had been hit. Bush later said he was trying to maintain calm. Likewise, White House officials tell me the decision to proceed with the South America trip was made in part to convey that the Libya bombardment was not a major military action.

Weak or stubborn?
Obama administration officials calculated that he would take a hit. But they appear to have been surprised by the force of the weakling complaint, coming not just from usual suspects such as Karl Rove, but from liberals such as my Washington Post colleague Richard Cohen, who saw Obama "quite literally distancing himself from the consequences of his own policy."
My own sense, based on years of Obamology and confirmed by discussions with current and former Obama advisers, is that Obama's decision to proceed with spring break in Rio comes less from weakness than from stubbornness. Since his earliest days on the campaign trail in Iowa, he has made clear his aversion to the flavor-of-the-day news cycle, instead measuring his progress toward a few broad-brush goals. If something - such as the uprisings in the Middle East - doesn't fit unambiguously within his big goals, his instinct is to brush it off.

"I know everybody here is on a 24-hour news cycle," he told reporters once. "I'm not. OK?"

Laser focus
This worked to his benefit during the campaign, when he kept his focus on electoral mechanics rather than the vagaries of his opponents' attacks. But his broad brushes have not always served him well in the presidency, as when his laser focus on health care left voters with the sense that he didn't care about unemployment. He lost the House, and with it the rest of his agenda.

The attack on Libya presented the toughest test yet of Obama's defiance of the news cycle. In a USA Today op-ed before his departure, Obama wrote that while the Middle East is important, he was going to Latin America because "our top priority has to be creating and sustaining new jobs and new opportunities."

The administration officials I spoke with argued that this was a sign of strong leadership. "To abandon course at every moment of pundit criticism is not strength," said one of the president's top advisers. They pointed to polls showing most Americans continue to regard Obama as a strong leader, and they argued that, beyond Washington, headlines from Obama's trip justified his strategy. ("Obama's trip to Brazil key to N.J. businesses," reported North Jersey's Record.)

But the White House is also discovering the perils of broad-brush leadership. The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll found that when Americans were asked who is taking "a stronger leadership role," Republicans had a seven-point advantage over Obama; three months ago, Obama had a narrow lead.

The White House justifiably complains that the criticism of Obama's Libya policy has been inconsistent: First he was too slow to take action, and now he's rushing to attack without congressional approval - even though Congress is on its own 10-day spring break.

But it doesn't matter if the criticism is fair. Obama left a vacuum, and his opponents filled it. For a president suddenly called "weak," such is the tyranny of the news cycle." [Source]

O, I have to agree with Dana Milbank: You are acting as if A-merry-ca still loves you. She does not. You were the flavor of a November month when A-merry-cans were being...well, A-merry-cans. This is, after all, the country that made "Snooki" famous. If you want to win in this country, you have to get out in front of the story. Do not let the story get in front of you. Do not give your political opponents an opening so that they can create their own story.

We all know that if you were a republican president the wingnuts would be calling you a hero. We all know that the pretzel- logic they are using to say that you were wrong to join the UN and other countries (such as the African Union) to attack Libya is laughably ludicrous. But this is politics in A-merry-ca. This is what you came from, so you have to deal with it. I just wonder why no one in your inner circle told you this before

BTW, in the future, you might want to work on your soccer skills before you go kicking a soccer ball with a bunch of Brazilian kids. They are kind of good at that game.