Friday, February 17, 2012

Obama: Hypocrite or Politician?

For your consideration, a look at two of President Obama’s 2012 campaign tweets from this morning:

@BarackObama: Our FEC report today: In January 2012, #Obama2012 raised a combined total of $29.1 million between committees.

@BarackObama: Of January donations to #Obama2012, 98% were $250 or less. Thanks to everyone who pitched in.

Barack Obama’s campaign team undoubtedly deserves a round of applause for bringing in that much money, especially since 98% of it has reportedly come from the 99%. In reality, some of the $250 donations that amounted towards Obama’s large haul in January came from repeat supporters, meaning that the total amount that one of those people contributed could be well over $250.

Regardless, the number represents something of a fundraising coup for the President, and puts him far ahead of the entire GOP field. For comparison, in the fourth quarter of 2011 alone, Obama raised $68 million for his re-election campaign, whereas GOP contender Mitt Romney, brought in only $24 million.

With this momentum, it seems likely that President Obama will reach his lofty goal of surpassing the $750 million mark, and maybe even come close to the $1 billion mark once the campaign dust settles. But even with $750 million, that may not be enough money to beat whoever becomes the GOP candidate.

Enter Priorities USA Action- a pro-democratic super PAC that recently received a go-ahead from the President to allow them to aid in his re-election. Super PACs such as Priorities USA Action and Citizens United have becomes staples in presidential elections as they are allowed to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money as long as they refrain from directly coordinating with the candidates. And now, in this election, both sides of the aisle have super PACs on their sides.

So what’s the problem? Well, there are a few, and they are best explained by one of their most vocal critics: A Super PAC “opens the floodgates for an unlimited amount of special interest money into our democracy. It gives the special interest lobbyists new leverage to spend millions on advertising to persuade elected officials to vote their way- or to punish those who don't... I can't think of anything more devastating to the public interest.”

Do you remember who said that? If you guessed President Obama you’d be right—and probably confused as well. Obama was one of the main opponents of the Supreme Court’s verdict in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case of 2010. The Supreme Court’s ruling rejected any limitations on the amount a corporation can spend on political campaigns, and, in effect, gave corporations the power to sway politicians by lining their pockets.

At the time, President Obama was vehemently against the decision, as illustrated by the previous quote. Yet, as the political reality of the 2012 election became clearer to him and his campaign staff, he has made the controversial decision to forsake his ideology in favor of practical advantages. This decision has led some people, including former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), to call out the President on his blatant flip-flop, while others are just happy he has finally surrendered to political reality.

In the end, has Obama’s acceptance of super PACs made him a hypocrite? Yes. But, does it make him a better politician and 2012 contender? Definitely.

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Friday, January 13, 2012

The Salmon Problem Revisited

You may recall in January of last year that Obama quipped at the State of the Union address, “the Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they’re in fresh water, but the Commerce Department handles them when they’re in saltwater. I hear it gets even more complicated once they’re smoked.”

Last year President Obama promised to streamline federal government agencies so that policies like the “salmon problem” would become an oddity of the past rather than a commonplace nuisance in everyday governing. Today, he took the first step in making good on that promise and asked Congress for the power to consolidate six commerce and trade agencies into one.

The offices in question are the Department of Commerce, the Small Business Administration, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the Trade and Development Agency. These organizations would be merged into a new department and would abolish redundancies and reform the bureaucratic process to make it easier for small business to “compete, export and grow.”

The Consolidation Authority Act, as it is now known, would cut about 1,000 – 2,000 government jobs. However, the Administration maintains that it would be done through attrition, based on the pattern in which people normally leave their jobs. The act is also meant to save about $3 billion over the next ten years.

Obama’s actions are a direct response to public and political grievances about the size and efficiency of the federal government. This election season he needs to show voters that he is actually doing something to make the government more efficient.

However, in order to actually complete his goals, he needs the approval of Congress. This is a win-win strategy for Obama because if they approve, he can actually get something done, but if Congress rejects his proposal or moves at a slow pace, Obama can posit the GOP as enemies of efficiency and small government.

So far, one of Obama’s most vocal opponents, Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) has stated that he is ready to work with the President on the reorganization, but there’s no guarantee yet that Congress will approve Obama’s proposal.

The salmon are getting impatient.

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Friday, December 16, 2011

More of This, Please

Today, the First Lady and her daughters will board a plane to Honolulu where they will celebrate Christmas, but they’re leaving the head of the household behind for now. President Obama has postponed another family vacation to stay in D.C. and push Congress to resolve the spending bill and payroll tax cut before the government is forced to shut down.

However, the shutdown can only be prevented by Congress. There is little President Obama can do now, policy-wise, to prevent another involuntary furlough. Regardless, Obama doesn’t intend to sit on his hands and wait by the phone. In the spirit of his new “We Can’t Wait” initiative, yesterday the President announced that he would create a new rule that would ensure in-home care workers receive the minimum wage and overtime pay protection.

“Now, only Congress can prevent the payroll tax from going up next year. But there are also some things that we can do without Congress to help make sure that hard work pays off,” President Obama said during a press conference at noon yesterday. “Right now, homecare is one of the fastest-growing industries in America, partly because we’re getting older as a society. And as the baby boom generation heads into retirement, more and more Americans are going to need the services of these outstanding workers.”

President Obama, along with Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, has ensured that the 1.8 million in-home careworkers in America won’t be “lumped in the same category as teenage babysitters when it comes to how much they make.” Obama can’t control what happens in Congress, but initiatives like these show that the President won’t let what’s happening on Capitol Hill affect how he can improve the rest of the country. And if he wants to stay in office next year, he will need to continue rolling out policies like this.

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Friday, December 02, 2011

Obama Increases Support of AIDS Programs, but U.S. Can’t Fight Disease Alone

President Obama declared yesterday’s World AIDS Day as “the beginning of the end of AIDS.” To that end, he earmarked $50 million for domestic treatment of the 1.2 million Americans who suffer from HIV and AIDS and praised former president George W. Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, saying that the initiative is one of his predecessor’s “greatest legacies.”

While HIV and AIDS rates are decreasing globally, America’s number of infected citizens has remained somewhat stagnant over the years. President Obama said in front of an audience including Bill Clinton, Bono, and Senator Marco Rubio, “there are communities in this country being devastated by this disease. When new infections among young, black, gay men increase by nearly 50 percent in three years, we need to do more to show them that their lives matter.” And with this new initiative, he has, albeit with a nominal amount of money.

However, just because global HIV/AIDS rates are decreasing, it doesn’t mean that the international community is anywhere close to eradicating the virus. There are currently as estimated 33.4 million people in the world who are infected with HIV or AIDS; 2.1 million of whom are children.

With that in mind, yesterday President Obama built upon G.W. Bush’s relief plan by pledging to help 6 million people from across the globe get access to much-needed antiretroviral drugs by 2014. That’s an increase of 2 million people the U.S. originally pledged to help.

The global financial crisis has devastated international AIDS programs. Most notably, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which is the world’s largest financial institution dedicated to AIDS funding, has raised less than half of the $20 billion it had hoped to distribute to HIV/AIDS programs in 2012. The United States has historically been the largest donor country to the Global Fund, usually contributing over 33% of total country donations. In 2010 alone, the U.S. donated $1.05 billion. However, due to America’s poor economic standing, the budget for Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief is not expected to increase anytime soon.

In an effort to counter America’s inability to increase its relief budget, President Obama called upon the international community, specifically China, to join in the fight against AIDS, "Countries that haven't made a pledge need to do so. That includes China and other major economies that are now able to step up as major donors."

Obama’s pointed remarks for China follow on the heels of his return from an extensive trip to Southeast Asia, where he called upon China to reform its economic practices or risk throwing the global economy off-kilter. While those remarks were met defensively by the rising world power, one would hope that the President’s goal of eradicating AIDS will be met with compassion. As Obama said yesterday, “we are winning this fight. But the fight is not over, not by a long shot.” And it won’t be without the aid of China and the rest of the global community.

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Thursday, November 17, 2011

The War of Words Between Obama and China

President Obama may be visiting Australia this week, but while he’s talking to Prime Minister Julia Gillard, it seems his thoughts are occupied with China.

Obama’s trip to Canberra celebrates the 60^th anniversary of the defense treaty between the US and Australian governments. As a sign of America’s reaffirmation of that treaty, Obama has pledged to send 250 Marines to various Australian military bases for six-month stints. Within the next five years, 2,500 American troops are expected to serve tours in Australia in an effort to boost America’s presence in an area close to South East Asia.

Fresh from the APEC Summit earlier this week, Obama’s military commitment to Australia reflects America’s growing concern over China becoming the next world superpower. While President Obama assured the world stage that he “welcome[s] the peaceful rise of China,” he also had some harsh words for its government: “when it comes to [China’s] economic practices, there are a range of things that they have done that disadvantage not just the United States but a whole host of their trading partners and countries in the region.”

Obama cited issues with China’s currency and its snail’s pace at moving towards a market-based system that would make American exports to China cheaper. According to the Administration, China’s reluctance to import goods from foreign countries “throws the whole world economy out of balance.” In addition, China does not do enough to protect the intellectual property rights of foreign innovators. One only has to look at the ChiPad to realize that China is producing low-cost versions of high-end products invented in other countries.

Obama spent the summit vacillating between wanting to be China’s friend and business partner and warning them not to take advantage of us, saying “enough is enough.” For his part, Chinese President Hu Jintao stuck to his message that the two countries can work together with “mutual respect and mutual interest.”

However, while Hu Jintao may have kept his cool during his meetings with President Obama, the state-controlled Chinese media were busy counterstriking Obama’s attacks. The Xinhua News Agency questioned Obama’s interest in Chinese business while the American economy continues to decline: "Obama, whose job approval rating continues to slip, seems to be staking his reelection on high-profile diplomatic ambitions in Asia Pacific, as he is failing to bring America's slack economy back to the path of strong growth in his first term."

The Chinese media are looking to discredit Obama’s criticisms, saying he is focusing on China as a way to distract Americans from our own struggling economy. However, the proposed strategy would only be effective if the average American citizen were literate in foreign affairs. As it stands, most Americans are concerned with what is going on in their own backyards, and it’s not that surprising that Obama is trailing Republican contender Mitt Romney in New Hampshire by ten points. So at least in one regard, the Chinese media has got it right: While Obama is busy touring South East Asia this week, this thoughts should really be occupied by what is going on back home.

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Thursday, October 06, 2011

Obama Ignores Child Soldiers Protection Act for the Second Year in a Row

It pains me to write this article…again.

Last November, I wrote about President Obama’s decision to waive restrictions under the Child Soldiers Protection Act (CSPA) of 2008 that allowed Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Yemen and Sudan to receive American military aid despite the fact that they actively recruited children under 15 years of age for their respective military forces. The reasons given for the waiver originated from a desire to foster cooperation between the States and these countries in an effort to thwart terrorism. At that time, we were assured by the Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs, Samantha Power, that these four countries would not “get so lucky next time if we don't see some progress” by 2011.

Well, guess what? It’s 2011 and these countries have made minimal, if any, progress against the recruitment of child soldiers; and yet, the Obama Administration has decided to continue to turn a blind eye in order to keep Chad, DRC, Yemen and what is now South Sudan under US influence.

According to the official memorandum, the Administration insists that Chad has implemented sufficient measures to prohibit the recruitment of child soldiers. Those measures have manifested into the mainly symbolic gesture of signing a United Nations action plan. However, to give credit where credit is due, it is important to point out that the U.N. Country-Led Task Force on Monitoring and Reporting Children and Armed Conflict recently reported that is has not “verified” any child recruitment on the part of Chad’s government.

As for the DRC, the White House admits that while the country has taken some small steps in order to comply with the CSPA, the changes made “do not yet represent the kind of institutional change required to make real progress toward eliminating child soldiers.” However, the Administration insists that it is in our country’s national interest to continue to fund the DRC, so, as a type of compromise, the U.S. will withhold $1.3 million in military financing, but allow military training to continue. However, as Foreign Policy’s blog, The Cable, points out, military financing for Chad was already prohibited through the Trafficking Victims Prevention Act, which basically means that Chad receives no punitive measures for violating the CSPA.

On the other side of the coin, Yemen has made no effort whatsoever to comply with the CSPA, but the country will continue to receive the full amount of allocated financial aid from the States in the name of national security. Obama reasons that “cooperation with the Yemeni government is a vital piece of the U.S. national strategy to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qa’ida … by denying them sanctuary in the ungoverned spaces of Yemen’s hinterlands.” Basically, without U.S. aid, Yemen’s counterterrorism missions will be compromised. This is the same excuse the Administration gave last year.

But unlike last year, the Administration didn’t even bother to come up with an excuse as to why South Sudan should continue to receive aid despite its breach of the CSPA. According to The Cable, the last report on child soldiers was released June 27, 2011—twelve days before South Sudan gained independence from the Republic of Sudan. Because of this technicality, the State Department insists that South Sudan does not qualify to fall under the CSPA. In fact, the country wasn’t even mentioned in the Administration’s official memorandum, so South Sudan will receive $100 million in military aid this year.

When I first wrote about this story last November, I lamented the fact that ForeignPolicy.com was the only news outlet to fully cover this story. Unfortunately, it still is. Last year, I said that in the same way Obama tried to shame these countries by calling them out on their use of child soldiers, the President himself should be ashamed for continuing to support these countries financially despite their clear violations of the CSPA. Unfortunately, he still should be. However, because the President’s decision regarding the CSPA will never reach media saturation, this betrayal of yet another one of his promises will not affect his standing in the polls or the upcoming presidential election. Unfortunately, it will surely affect the child soldiers currently fighting, and dying, in the military forces of Chad, South Sudan, the DRC and Yemen.

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Thursday, September 22, 2011

Rick Perry to America: The Sky is Falling and I Have the Only Umbrella

Quick, everyone! Hide under your desks! Bury your gold! No one is safe!

What, you didn’t hear the news? Don’t you know that the world is ending? It’s true; all the evidence is in Rick Perry’s new political ad, “Rick Perry: Proven Leadership.” That’s right, and if we believe what he says, the only way to save the “last great hope for mankind” (which is America, of course) is to kick the villainous President Obama out of the White House and elect the God-fearing, shooting-coyotes-while-jogging, Senator from Texas, Rick Perry.

So if you don’t feel like spending upwards of $15 to go see the movie Contagion in theaters, just watch the first 44 seconds of Perry’s ad to see what America would look like if Obama’s political plague isn’t stopped. Perry hired directorial wunderkind, Lucas Baiano, the 23-year-old mastermind behind former candidate Tim Pawlenty’s eye-catching political ads, to set the scene of a post-apocalyptic America that Obama single-handedly created: subway cars run empty, people are begging in the streets, and Times Square is devoid of pedestrians. A dramatic score worthy of any Michael Bay flick plays in the background as a barrage of fast cuts show newscasters reporting zero-job growth in the past months. And then, following the formula of a high-budget movie trailer, the sentence, “US Poverty Rate Hits All-Time High,” flashes across the screen like it’s a movie review from the Rolling Stone.

Obama is easily painted as the American economy’s number one villain. We hear him saying as a washed-out image of his old and tattered campaign poster emerges on the screen, “I love these folks who... say this is Obama's economy. That's fine. Give it to me.” In reality, the BBC points out that Obama’s actual quote was, “"I love these folks who helped get us in this mess and then suddenly say, ‘Well, this is Obama's economy’. That's fine. Give it to me.” But facts don’t matter when our country is in such peril. Right before the commercial reaches it dramatic climax, we hear President Obama tell a crowd: “I’m just getting started!”

Then, just as your blood-pressure starts to rise to unhealthy proportions, the screen goes black and our hero arrives. Horses gallop on the beach, the sun rises, and Senator Rick Perry speaks: “A renewed nation needs a new president.” Suddenly, American flags are everywhere; people are back to work, farms flourish, and a picture of Rick Perry looking strong and confident in his old military uniform hovers on the TV. And just like a teaser for a summer action-thriller, these words appear across the screen: “In 2012... America will discover... a new name for leadership... an American who served for freedom... a president who will lead a nation…Perry for President”

It’s a beautiful thing. This ad is so well made that it necessitates repeated viewings. And its message, at least in the beginning, is hard to argue with: America is not in a good place right now. According to an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll, America hasn’t been in a good place for the last eight years. And Perry’s campaign team has come up with a great nickname for President Obama: “President Zero”—as in zero jobs, zero change, and zero hope.

Perry isn’t the only candidate smartly exploiting our current economic woes to gain points in the upcoming presidential election. Fellow Republican contender Mitt Romney took a somewhat subtler approach last month when he said, “We stand near the threshold of profound economic misery…Four more years on the same political path could prove disastrous.” While the message doesn’t overload our senses like Perry’s video does, it definitely left his audience feeling depressed and hopeless in the same way.

Obama and his fellow Democrats always knew that the President would have a hard-fought time gaining constituents’ confidence in 2012, but Rick Perry just made it that much more difficult. This ad captures the imagination, and dare I say it, leaves us wanting more. Well, at least more from director Lucas Baiano, who, by the way, was born and raised in Canada. The future does seem bright for the up-and-coming filmmaker, who also directed political ads for Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Unfortunately, Baiano’s talents will make Obama’s prospects all the more dismal, and as for the “last hope great hope for mankind,” America, whatever the outcome of 2012 is, it look likes it’s not going to become that much brighter.

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Thursday, September 01, 2011

Obama & Boehner: Fighting Over All the Wrong Things

Yesterday, President Obama sent a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell requesting a joint session of Congress for his speech on job, growth scheduled for September 7^th. Obama has been touting this speech for weeks, and in his eyes, this will be a Very Big Deal—something that deserves the same audience as a State of the Union address.

One would think that an event like this—the goal of which is to not only turn around the struggling economy but also Obama’s struggling re-election campaign—should be scheduled so that the President is assured of the largest audience possible without the distraction of other highly publicized concurrent events. Surprisingly however, the Obama White House choose to take the opposite approach and, in what had to be a calculated move, scheduled the President’s big speech at the same time that Republican presidential candidates are set to take the stage for an NBC-Politico presidential debate at the Reagan Library. The date of the GOP debate was scheduled as early as May, so no one can say that the White House wasn’t aware of the prime-time conflict.

Regardless, Obama Press Secretary Jay Carney insists that the timing of the events was just coincidence. When directly asked about the matter, he explained, “There are a lot of factors that go into scheduling a joint session of Congress for a speech. You can never find a perfect time…There are many channels to watch the president and to watch the debate.” Carney’s response did little to appease the GOP. Ron Paul’s campaign manager called the seemingly-deliberate scheduling conflict “undignified” and hinted that Paul was thinking of trying to force a roll-call vote to block the President’s request. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus called the assumed-tactic a “thinly-veiled political ploy” that “cements his reputation as Campaigner-in-Chief.” Despite the outrage, the GOP remained firm and chose not to reschedule their debate for another day.

Boehner, for his part, wasted little time in drafting his own letter to the President, asking him to delay his speech by one day, citing security concerns. While it’s hard to believe that the original scheduling conflict was just a coincidence, it’s even more difficult to believe that Boehner’s real reason for requesting a delay is due to logistics.

After Boehner chose to publicly spar with the Commander-in-Chief, spectators from both sides of the aisle waited eagerly last night for Obama to respond. The question on everyone’s mind was whether Obama would stand his ground or let the GOP call the shots—something that he has been apt to do over the past year.

So it might have come as a disappointment, if not a surprise, that the White House chose to reschedule what was supposed to be one of Obama’s most important policy speeches for Thursday, September 8^th. Now, instead of competing for ratings with the GOP presidential debate, the President has to compete with the NFL’s opening game between the Packers and the Saints. Good luck with that.

Today, disenchanted Democrats will whine about Obama’s lack of gumption, and Republicans will revel in what will be perceived as another victory for the GOP. However, both parties will mistakenly invest their emotions into this trifling tug-of-war, because in the end, this public sparring just solidifies the average American’s assumption that nothing can get done in Washington. This was a minor tussle between an unpopular president and an unpopular congress. In the end, no one wins.

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Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Save Every Job But His Own

President Obama is wrapping up his three-day tour across the country in his brand new big black bus. The trip was meant to reassure the American people that the President hasn’t forgotten them and is working to spur job creation. Unfortunately for the Commander-in-Chief, his three-day foray across the nation is only giving the GOP another reason to attack his leadership abilities, pointing out that he should be focused on running the country instead of running for re-election. As RNC chair Reince Priebus wrote Tuesday in an op-ed for Politico, “[Obama’s] bus trip has the trappings of a taxpayer-funded campaign jaunt — not a policy tour.”

Amidst the copious criticisms that President Obama is more worried about saving his job than saving the country, former press secretary and current campaign advisor, Robert Gibbs, appeared on MSNBC on Tuesday to tell the nation that “the president is not focused on keeping his job, most of all. He's focused on creating jobs for the American people."

To that end, on Monday the President announced during a town hall meeting in Decorah, Iowa that when Congress resumes their session in September, he’ll “be putting forward…a very specific plan to boost the economy, to create jobs, and to control our deficit.” After the applause died down, Obama added, “And if they don’t get it done, then we’ll be running against a Congress that’s not doing anything for the American people, and the choice will be very stark and will be very clear.”

While the specifics of his package remain elusive, we know that Obama is squarely focused on addressing job creation and deficit reduction. Like in the past, he is expected to urge Congress to streamline the patent process and call for an infrastructure bank that would help the construction industry. Both of these actions will only yield results in the long run. Obama will also put forth a $4 trillion deficit reduction plan that would dwarf the $1.5 trillion that the Super Committee was tasked with finding by Thanksgiving. He also hopes to revive the “grand bargain” that he and Speaker Boehner came close to agreeing on in July.

It’s doubtful that Obama will make any grand revelations or that much of what he will say in his September speech will come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention. Because of this, Obama’s package has already been preemptively attacked by the Republican Party. Most notably, one of Speaker Boehner’s spokesmen, Brendan Buck, tweeted this morning, “We really don't need another speech - just a plan, like, on paper. Seriously, just drop it in the mail. Podium not required. Thanks.”

It would be good for the President’s mental health if Robert Gibbs spoke the truth when he said that Obama is not preoccupied with saving his own job, because so far, he’s not doing very well. On Monday, the President’s approval rating hit an all time low at 39%. With numbers like that, the only way he may be employed come January 20, 2013 is if he can secure employment for others.

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Thursday, August 04, 2011

It’s 2007 in 2011: RNC Uses Clinton’s Old Campaign Cry

Remember way back in 2007, when George W. Bush was still Commander-in-Chief and most Americans had never heard of the term “debt ceiling”? That year, the competition to win the Democratic national primary between the then-senators from New York and Illinois, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, was just heating up.

No exciting presidential campaign is complete without a little mud-slinging, and that primary was nothing if not exciting. One of Clinton’s favorite mud-pies was Obama’s voting record during his time as state senator. During that tenure, the future President of the United States chose to abstain from casting an “aye” or “nay” vote and instead chose to merely mark himself as “present” almost 130 times. Clinton pounced on this fact as evidence that Obama lacked leadership ability and experience.

Fast forward to 2011, and Hillary Clinton’s words are now being used against her own party. RNC chair Reince Priebus and Pat Brady, Chairman of the Illinois Republican Party, held a press conference yesterday in Chicago, Obama’s home turf where he cast those damning votes. There, Brady channeled Hillary Clinton’s campaign battle cry and told the press, “Anybody who is actually from here and watched Senator Obama in both the state Senate and the United States Senate—he did not have a history of leadership. In fact if you recall, Hillary Clinton raised in one of the debates he voted present 126 times in the Illinois Senate…I think it’s instructive that in Illinois the button that you push when you’re voting present is yellow.”

To be fair to the President, during his 8 years as a state senator, he cast a total of 4,000 “aye” or “nay” votes and 50 of those 126 “present” votes were cast as part of a larger strategy with other democratic state senators. However, 36 other times Obama clearly acted alone and his motives for those votes remain elusive.

Yesterday at the press conference Priebus added fuel to Brady’s fire and said, “After failing to lead during the debt-ceiling debate, I think you can say the fundraiser in chief is back in Chicago doing the one thing that he’s really good at—and that’s raising money to save his job.” Indeed, after canceling 10 scheduled fundraisers due to the debt ceiling crisis, President Obama has restarted his 2012 campaign in earnest. At the same time that Priebus and Brady were talking to the press, the President was also in Chicago to celebrate his 50^th birthday with a huge fundraising effort and kicked off the festivities with a speech, saying “it starts now.”

And now on his 50^th birthday, Obama must again defend himself against the same attacks that threatened to thwart his campaign four years ago. It was unfortunate that the contest between Clinton and Obama was so hotly contended that it almost tore the Democratic Party apart, but now it would be wise if Clinton stepped up to defend her boss to secure her party’s leadership. Because even though she ultimately lost the primary, Hillary Clinton was just a little too good at campaigning, and now she needs to do it again.

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Tuesday, July 26, 2011

My Fellow Americans, Lend Me Your Cell Phones!

My colleague just got off the phone with his congressman. Like millions of Americans, last night he watched the President’s 15-minute prime-time address during which Obama urged the nation to call or email their members of Congress to encourage them to reach a compromise on the debt ceiling. The nation listened and consequently dozens of Congressional websites crashed due to the increased traffic of frustrated Americans. Today, the phones on Capital Hill are still ringing off the hook.

The majority of Americans feel powerless as the August 2^nd deadline approaches too quickly. The only consolation we, as a people, can take is that our leaders in Washington, D.C. seem to feel just as frustrated. And while it might be heartening to hear that many Americans still care enough about their country to become actively involved in politics, the fact remains that Washington is, as President Obama said, “a town where compromise has become a dirty word.”

Both Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have presented plans deemed unfit by the opposing parties. However, that does not mean that the plans don’t share similarities. Each plan is entitled the “Budget Control Act of 2011,” and both share the same budget numbers for Fiscal Year 2013 and use the same language to propose the creation of a joint committee to continue investigating the debate.

These similarities offer an avenue for compromise, but perhaps in part because of this both Boehner and Reid have not only failed to sell their respective plans to the opposition, but have also failed to sell it to their own parties. Boehner is facing so much opposition from the GOP that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor had to step in and tell House Republicans to stop “grumbling and whining” about their leader’s plan.

While both congressmen have been metaphorically banished from their lunch tables, President Obama’s popularity seems to have been the hardest hit. His approval rating has dropped to 43% in the past week. The New York Times’ David Brooks called the speech Obama gave on Friday “condescending” and said the President personalized the debt ceiling debate “like a spurned prom date.”

Perhaps knowing that the American people feel just as vulnerable as he does, last night Obama offered Americans an outlet to vent their frustrations: “If you want a balanced approach to reducing the deficit, let your member of Congress know. If you believe we can solve this problem through compromise, send that message.”

It remains to be seen and is, in fact, highly doubtful that any concrete change will come from crashing websites and jamming up phone lines. But we did send that message to our Senators and Representatives and in doing so, we each felt a little less powerless—and maybe, if we feel like it, we can thank the President for offering that small comfort. Now, if you please excuse me, I have to go make a phone call.

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Friday, July 08, 2011

Unemployment Won’t Matter to Voters—Unless They’re Unemployed

“People won’t vote based on the unemployment rate,” declared White House Senior Advisor David Plouffe. “They’re going to vote based on: ‘How do I feel about my own situation? Do I believe the president makes decisions based on me and my family?’” All yesterday morning, Plouffe confidently predicted that the average voter won’t make decisions based on far-reaching concepts like the GDP or jobless rates when it comes time to head to the polls. This morning, however, Plouffe may have to eat his words.

When President Obama woke up today, he was greeted with the news that the unemployment rate had risen from 9.1% to 9.2% in June, and that the major loss of government jobs in the last month dramatically offset the gains made in the private sector, meaning only 18,000 jobs were created in June.

This news, coupled with the fact that in two days Obama will meet with top Congressional leaders once again to discuss the increasingly desperate attempt to raise the debt ceiling, perhaps excused the President from showing up over half an hour late to his own press conference this morning. Standing in the White House Rose Garden, the increasingly graying President pointed to natural disasters, rising gas prices, state and local budget cuts, Greece’s economy and the uncertainty over the debt ceiling to explain the rise in unemployment. As possible solutions, he offered that investing in infrastructure would create thousands of jobs for unemployed construction workers who were hit hard after the housing boom. He also encouraged Congress to pass bills that would “streamline” the patent process and advance trade agreements that would send more “Made in America” goods to Asia and South America.

Most notably, he emphasized the need to come to an agreement over the debt ceiling so that “we give our businesses the certainty that they will need in order to make additional investments to grow and hire.” On Sunday we are expected to hear whether or not a compromise will be made over raising taxes and cutting into Medicare and Social Security in order to raise the debt limit.

In the meantime, it’s hard not to question Plouffe’s insistence that high unemployment rates won’t play a major role in determining the 2012 election. History has shown that only one incumbent president, Ronald Reagan, has won reelection with an unemployment rate over 6%. When Reagan was reelected in 1984, the jobless rate was at 7.2%—economists are predicting that by 2012 unemployment will hover around 8.2%. Still, says Plouffe, Republican candidates, especially frontrunner Mitt Romney, will only offer voters the same types of policies that created the recession in the first place: “Let Wall Street kind of run amok, cut taxes for the wealthy, starve investment in things like education, research and development.”

Even if Plouffe’s prediction is true—that voters are more concerned with their own welfare than national unemployment rates—if the country is lucky enough to see unemployment drop even more than the predicted 1% in the next 16 months, that still leaves over 25 million Americans unemployed and 25 million people in the voting booths asking themselves, “How do I feel about my own situation?”

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Thursday, June 30, 2011

Obama’s Counterterrorism Strategy: The New Old-Fashioned Way

On Wednesday, the Obama Administration released its new counterterrorism strategy for handling al-Qa’ida. However, the “newness” of the strategy depends on whether one regards something two and a half years old as being “new.” While the strategy is a departure from that of former President George W. Bush in terms of its focus, the methods for defending the country against terrorist attacks have been in place since Obama took office.

John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, explained that the differences between Bush’s strategy and that of Obama’s are “pragmatic, not ideological.” Brennan went on to say that “this is the first counterterrorism strategy that focuses on the ability of al-Qa’ida and its network to inspire people in the United States to attack us from within.” He said that the US will fight terrorism with “laser focus” to “deliver precise and overwhelming force against al-Qa’ida.”

While the death of Osama bin Laden last May provides evidence that the Administration’s strategy is capable of delivering results, if Obama and Brennan are actually serious about thwarting terrorism “from within,” the strategy released yesterday will fall short due to its failure to fully recognize al-Qa’ida’s savvy internet skills.

Last year, President Obama unveiled a plan to protect America from cyber-attacks and appointed Howard Schmidt as a new “Cyber Czar,” but Brennan acknowledged yesterday that al-Qa’ida’s ability to recruit terrorists using the internet is also a real threat to the country’s security. He said that “misguided individuals are spurred on [by the] likes of al-Qa’ida’s Adam Gadahn and Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, who speak English and preach violence in slick videos over the Internet.” However, in contrast to Brennan’s words, the document released yesterday only gives a passing nod to the power the internet has to recruit and inspire terrorists.

Not until page ten of nineteen does the report even mention that “mass media and the internet in particular have emerged as enablers for terrorist planning, facilitation, and communication.” The report promises to disrupt and counter al-Qai’da’s ability to project its message and exploit the internet. However, last October the US refused the request of Britain’s former Security Minister, Pauline Neville-Jones, to take down radical terrorist websites whose servers were located in the US. In the interest of gathering information and protecting the right to free speech, the Administration will monitor, but not interfere with, al-Qa’ida websites and message boards.

But that doesn’t mean that al-Qa’ida’s internet forums are safe from cyber-attacks of their own. Just this morning, a well-known jihadist message board was shut down by unknown hackers. While there is speculation that the attack could have come from a government organization, the White House is aware that to hack such a website will only disrupt terrorist communication in the short-term and stifle the US’ ability to gather information. For President Obama to succeed in thwarting terrorist efforts online, he will have to create a strategy that forms a middle ground between shutting down websites and replacing bomb-making instructions with cupcake recipes.

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Thursday, June 23, 2011

Defense, Oil, and Civil Rights: Just Another Week for POTUS

Looking at this morning’s headlines, it would be easy to forget that just last night President Barack Obama announced the withdrawal of 10,000 troops from Afghanistan in the next six months and 23,000 more by next summer. Today’s big stories—the Administration’s decision to delve into the nation’s petroleum reserve and the gay marriage debate in New York—have overshadowed the reactions to the announced troop withdrawal, and for Barack Obama, these forays into defense, the oil supply and civil rights have yielded mixed reactions from both the public and political sectors.

The majority of the public supports Obama’s decision to begin troop withdrawal in earnest, but as usual, reactions in DC differ from the rest of the country. While neither party is universally united in opinion, opposition to Obama’s plan is present on both sides of the aisle—albeit for different reasons.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi along with Representative John Lewis (D-GA) expressed frustration at the snail’s pace of troop withdrawal that Obama outlined last night. Pelosi suggested that Congress could act to find an alternative timeline: "It has been the hope of many in Congress and across the country that the full drawdown of U.S. forces would happen sooner than the president laid out—and we will continue to press for a better outcome."

Most Republicans, on the other hand, including 2012 presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, view Obama’s announcement as political lip service. As Santorum stated, “President Obama speaks of winding down our engagement in Afghanistan, but he does not emphasize the need for victory…We must be squarely focused on succeeding in Afghanistan rather than on politically motivated troop withdrawals.”

While Obama’s defense policies took a beating last night, the President turned to the economy and our nation’s oil supply this morning. Hoping to give consumers a break at the pump, the Administration announced that, over the next 30 days, the U.S. and its allies would release 60 million barrels of oil from global reserves (30 of which come from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve) in order to counteract the supply disruptions in the Middle East that have sent gas prices soaring. In fact, oil prices dropped 5% immediately following the announcement this morning.

Again, while this move undoubtedly pleases the American public, many of whom are planning road trips this summer, Republicans are calling the move short-sighted and “pathetic.” Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-WA) explained, “The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is intended for situations when there’s a dramatic supply shut down, not to achieve short-term political gain.” Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) questioned why Obama “would rather tap into our emergency supply than support legislation to produce and develop North American supplies.”

On both defense and the decision to release oil reserves, Obama seems to be gaining some good will from the public and mostly vitriol from D.C., but public support within the LGBT community may waver as the President prepares for a fundraiser in New York City aimed at the gay and lesbian community.

As Obama gears up to ask one of his most influential bases for campaign money, New York is in the midst of deciding for itself whether gay marriage should be legal in the state. In fact, one Republican vote shy of legalizing same sex marriage, it is possible that the outcome could be decided within hours of Obama’s event. It will be nearly impossible for Obama to ignore that debate at hand during the fundraiser, and while many in the LGBT community support Obama for his efforts on DADT and the Defense of Marriage Act, a large portion wince when the President states that his stance on gay marriage is still “evolving.” Journalist Michelangelo Signorile recently criticized Obama’s indecisiveness saying, “When your position on something like this is behind Laura Bush, that is a problem…He has to go all the way.”

While no one is actually expecting the President to “go all the way” tonight and announce his support for New York’s fight to legalize same-sex marriage, Obama must walk a fine line between outright approval and cautious politicking in order to maintain LGBT support and appease the more conservative voters going into 2012.

Just another week for the President of the United States.

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Thursday, June 09, 2011

It’s the Environment, Stupid!

Last month, the gray wolf lost its protected status under the Endangered Species Act. In less than two years, President Obama might lose the support of voters for his reluctance to protect the gray wolf. At least that’s what former Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt, implied yesterday during a visit to the National Press Club.

In the past few months, House Republicans have not only taken the 1,300 surviving gray wolves off the endangered species list, but they also added a rider to the Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act that prohibits the Interior from funding, administering or enforcing the designation of wilderness areas. Last week, Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar released a memo that said it would follow the new law, meaning that the Interior would not designate Bureau of Land Management lands as “wild lands.” This reversal of Salazar’s previous policy leaves 41 million acres of public land vulnerable to development for oil and natural resource exploration. In contrast, only nine million acres of BLM land are slated for conservation.

The actions by Congress and subsequent inactions by the Obama Administration to protect America’s wilderness prompted Bruce Babbitt, who served as Interior Secretary under President Clinton for eight years, to emerge from private life and accuse Congress, and specifically the House of Representatives, of declaring “war on our land, water and natural resources.” Babbitt claims that Congress has insidiously “chipped away” at environmental laws and “in its assaults on our environment, has embarked on the most radical course in our history.”

Babbitt continued his defense of environmental laws by asking President Obama to stand up for land and water conservation, something that Babbitt accuses him of ignoring. The former Secretary invoked the legacy of the last Democratic president, his old boss, Bill Clinton, who established the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. Babbitt even praised George W. Bush for protecting the marine reefs off of northern Hawaii. He entreated Obama to learn a lesson from his predecessors and veto future anti-environmental riders. Babbitt’s goal was to “remind the President that he has the power, the responsibility and the public support to stand up to those who would destroy our heritage.”

Babbitt’s speech certainly got the Administration’s attention, however Obama remained adamant that he is in no way a “timid” defender of the environment. Interior Department spokeswoman, Kendra Barkof, responded to Babbitt’s speech: “The Obama administration is already building a strong conservation legacy, founded on sensible protections for wilderness lands, wildlife habitat and farms and ranches that are under threat.”

While Babbitt still supports the President, Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, believes that the Administration’s silence on the issue could be damning in the upcoming elections: “Unless there's a change in his policies, he will likely face very damp enthusiasm from young voters and a significant portion of the base that wants him to stand up to polluters. I definitely think there are many progressive donors in general and environmental donors in particular whose enthusiasm won't be what it was in 2008.”

House Republicans, for their part, defend the anti-environmental riders by bringing the issue back to the economy. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) claimed that the designation of “wild lands” would “have harmed the Utah economy, prevented job growth, blocked domestic energy development and resulted in less revenue for our state.” As such, many attribute President Obama’s silence on the environment as a way of avoiding controversy on what has been spun into an economic debate.

Unfortunately for Babbitt and other activists, environmental pressures will not likely have a great impact on Obama’s actions leading up to 2012. Politically, Obama is doing the right thing by staying out of the debate and denying Republicans another opportunity to call him soft on job creation. However, what is politically smart is not necessarily morally correct. During his speech, Babbitt invoked the words of Representative John Lacey (R-IA, 1841-1913), who said, “The immensity of man’s power to destroy imposes a responsibility to preserve.” At least until 2012, it looks like President Obama will skirt those responsibilities.

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Thursday, June 02, 2011

Is the Debt Ceiling the New Bush-Era Tax Cut Debate?

Yesterday, House Republicans and President Obama gathered at the White House and did exactly what everyone expected them to do: nothing. The two parties met to discuss the federal debt ceiling, which if not raised could be catastrophic for the still-fragile economy. After an intense 75-minute debate, no progress was made.

The GOP showed no willingness to compromise and insisted that the debt ceiling should only be raised if it is accompanied by spending cuts that would equal or exceed the ceiling’s increase. The meeting yesterday was peppered by criticisms from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) that the President was playing the role of a demagogue in his opposition to the Representative’s Medicare plan. In fact, the only satisfying item of the day was a report that Obama, in response to Ryan’s claims of demagoguery, shot back by quipping “I'm the death-panel-supporting, socialist, may-not-have-been-born-here president.”

Today, Obama will meet with House Democrats, and while the meeting will surely not be as tense as the one preceding it, how much the President pays attention to his own party on this issue could have great consequences leading up to 2012.

Since the Democrats don’t have control of the House, Obama will most likely listen carefully to their opinions and then summarily disregard them as he strategizes how to get Republicans to agree to raise the debt ceiling as quickly as possible. This mirrors what happened just months ago, when Obama decided to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for wealthy Americans in order to extend unemployment benefits for 13 months. Back in December, Democrats such as the now notorious Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) accused Obama of acting like his party had the “weak hand” by settling for a compromise without even putting up a fight.

House Democrats are still licking their wounds from that defeat and would view a compromise on Medicare as one more nail in their political coffin. Ryan’s Medicare plan is largely unpopular with senior citizens and independent voters. Since 2010, Democrats have actually built up an advantage over Republicans by embracing the image as defenders of healthcare and the middle class. If Obama chooses to ignore his party’s plea to defend Medicare, there is little doubt that he will lose the support of key Representatives, as well as key voter demographics, going into 2012.

As the months pass and the presidential election gets ever closer, Obama will have increasingly little wiggle room when it comes to ignoring his party and compromising with Republicans. Whether going into to the next elections Obama is viewed as a strong and loyal leader or as a dithering demagogue will depend partly on how much he is willing to compromise in the coming weeks.

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Thursday, May 19, 2011

Obama Steps into Syria’s Arab Spring

President Obama kept his audience, both at the State Department and at home, waiting for more than half an hour before he stepped up to his podium to deliver a much-anticipated speech on Middle East and North African policy today.

After he was introduced by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Obama wasted no time in praising the governments of Tunisia and Egypt for sparking the Arab Spring and called upon the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to use next week’s G8 meeting to create a plan to stabilize their economies. In that regard, Obama presented the most concrete plan offered during his 45 minute speech: a pledge to give Egypt $2 billion dollars- half allocated for debt relief and the other half for loan guarantees. He also credited both countries’ youths who served as the catalyst for change saying, “It’s not America that put people into the streets of Tunis or Cairo—it was the people themselves who launched these movements, and it’s the people themselves that must ultimately determine their outcome.” While the Obama Administration disappointed many by taking a backseat during the uprising against Egyptian President Mubarak, he made it clear today that the US will support Egypt in its endeavor to become an economically stable nation.

Throughout the speech, President Obama expressed his opinions on each unique situation in Libya, Bahrain, and Syria—not to mention the last ten minutes of his speech which he devoted entirely to Israel and Palestine. Regarding Libya, he condemned Muammar Qaddafi for “launching a war against his own people.” He then went on to reinforce America’s commitment to Bahrain’s security while at the same time chastising them for arresting the Shiite majority en masse. But while Obama offered solid messages to the leaders of those countries, his attitude changed when he addressed the bubbling unrest in Syria: “The Syrian people have shown their courage in demanding a transition to democracy. President Assad now has a choice: He can lead that transition, or get out of the way.”

While on the surface this message to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad seems like a bold choice of words, it reveals that the Obama Administration does not necessarily want Assad to go the way of Mubarak. The President accused Syria of choosing “the path of murder and the mass arrests of its citizens,” but regarding Assad, the Administration may opt for the “devil you know” strategy. When The Atlantic’s Jeff Goldberg asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier this month if she would be happy to see Assad’s regime go, she responded by saying “It depends upon what replaces it.” Both Clinton and Obama are holding out hope that President Assad will reform, but in that same interview with Goldberg, Clinton admitted that there is no indication Assad is willing to change. Obama knows that too, which is why just yesterday he imposed sanctions on President al-Assad and six of his senior officials in an effort to stop the Syrian government’s brutal suppression of protests which have been ongoing since March.

Obama risked ending up on the wrong side of history when he waited to respond to the uprising in Egypt. That criticism might have had an effect on his decision to start military operations in Libya. Now on the heels of today’s speech, in which he touted individual dignity and human rights, Obama has stepped into Syria’s conflict which the United Nation estimates has already claimed over 850 lives. Whether Obama chooses to demand Assad’s resignation or to engage the Syrian government in a military operation, Obama must take some kind of action or risk embarrassment and charges of hypocrisy. President Assad will likely ignore Obama’s ultimatum, but Obama no longer has the luxury of ignoring the conflict in Syria.

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Thursday, May 05, 2011

A Photo Will Not Help Us Heal

On Sunday night, President Obama executed the “gutsiest” decision of his presidential career when he authorized the attack on Osama bin Laden’s compound. A few days later, he made a much more subtle but still bold decision to not release a photo of the bullet-ridden terrorist leader. His decision stemmed from a concern for our national security and sparked both indignation and commendation from the public.

For example, some notable politicians are not satisfied by the knowledge that America’s most wanted person is dead—they need visual proof to satiate their curiosity. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) argued that withholding the photo is counter-intuitive: “The whole purpose of sending our soldiers into the compound...was to obtain indisputable proof of bin Laden's death.” Former Governor Sarah Palin put it less delicately when she took to Twitter to tell Obama to stop “pussyfooting around” and release the image. On the other hand, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) told the press that releasing the picture isn’t necessary since there is “ample proof” that Osama bin Laden is dead.

For some people, the absence of the photo has left a gap of proof that has been filled with conspiracy theories about the true fate of Osama bin Laden. His quick burial at sea and lack of a marked grave only fuel the doubts of those who are now called “deathers.” Conspiracy theories in cases such as these are inevitable—doubts still linger about Hitler’s demise. A picture will not convince these people that bin Laden is in fact dead. Just last week we saw what happened when the birthers were confronted with undeniable proof that President Obama was born in the States.

In the short term, President Obama was wise to keep the image of a dead Osama bin Laden hidden. However, in the years ahead, it is possible that the photo will be released and, as a country, we will be judged by our reactions. Almost ten years ago, Osama bin Laden changed the nation in a way that was previously unfathomable. After September 11, 2001, Americans became understandably paranoid and suspicious. But in some people, that suspicion grew into an ugly prejudice against millions of innocent Muslims and Middle Easterners and damaged our country’s global reputation. Now, a bloody photo of the same man and our reactions to it has the power to change us again, but it will do nothing to make our country better.

In an interview with 60 Minutes, President Obama explained his motivations for withholding the image: “It is important to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence or as a propaganda tool… That’s not who we are. We don't trot out this stuff as trophies.” His concern for national security is a sufficient reason alone to not release the photos, but implicit in his remarks is the assumption that unlike al-Qaeda, who didn’t hesitate to release a video of Daniel Pearl’s execution, Americans are dignified and civil enough to not need a graphic photo to celebrate over. Let’s hope that’s true.

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Thursday, April 28, 2011

A Compendium of Obama Conspiracies

Let’s have a little fun today, shall we? Yesterday, President Obama succumbed to pressure from the political right-wing fringe, led by Donald Trump, and released his long-form birth certificate. This was not the first time that Obama’s birth in Hawaii has been confirmed, but unfortunately this new piece of evidence has failed to quell the Birther conspiracies.

Within minutes of the certificate’s release, Twitter was busy spewing out new conspiracies 140 characters at a time. Let’s look at some of the most outrageous claims:

1) Gary Mathis, a self-described “Conservative, gun-owning scientist with a Ph.D. in Physics” claimed that the birth certificate was signed with a rollerball pen, thus it must be fake since those types of pens were not invented until the 1980’s. He also points out that the certificate is signed “U K L LEE” to which he asserts “U K L Lee = ukulele, get it? What a joke. Obama’s laughing at you.”

2) The “It Has Layers” YouTube video, which since yesterday has been viewed over 155,000 times, claims that the birth certificate is composed of multiple layers of print which proves that it was forged. The layers are revealed when the pdf document is manipulated using Adobe Acrobat. However, Acrobat can do this with all optimized pdf’s, even Donald Trump’s birth certificate.

3) Finally, the “Birther Queen” herself, Orly Taitz, claims that the document is fake because in 1961, Obama’s father’s race would not have been classified at “African,” but would have been “Negro.”

Obama, for his part, has maintained his trademark calm demeanor throughout this debacle. Yesterday, during a press conference devoted entirely to addressing Birthers, President Obama scolded the press for concentrating on this issue when the country is on the cusp of making extremely serious decisions about our fiscal future. He said, “We do not have time for this kind of silliness. We’ve got better stuff to do. I’ve got better stuff to do.” And he was right.

While in the preceding weeks presidential Republican front-runners such as Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney have spoken out against the Birthers’claims, yesterday they and other top Republicans remained relatively silent on the issue. Romney took to Twitter to say, “What President Obama should really be releasing is a jobs plan.” Mike Huckabee stuck to the important issues and tweeted, “The price of gasoline has gone from $1.84 to $3.85 a gallon during the President’s two years in office.” It seems like these 2012 contenders are just as frustrated with the Birther conspiracies as the President is.

It’s likely that Barack Obama’s “Certificate of Live Birth” will only be fodder for die-hard conspiracy theorists. In addition to the theories listed above, a new conspiracy has since caught the attention of Donald Trump and Orly Taitz which sets out to paint Obama as an affirmative action case who never should have been allowed in an Ivy League school. Trump is now demanding that Obama show his education records.

Even though the dozens of conspiracy theories circulating the web are sometimes so ridiculous that one can’t help but laugh, in reality, the entire debacle is just really sad. The implied racism that served as the impetus behind the Birther movement has shown the world an America that will not listen to reason, and one that continues to try to defraud its first black President. As time passes, the hindsight afforded by history will reveal the Birther movement as characterizing a shameful period in America. One that will hopefully, but not likely, be over soon.

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Thursday, April 21, 2011

Obama Friends Zuckerberg, But is it Mutually Beneficial or Mutually Destructive?

In 1994, President Bill Clinton attended an MTV town hall meeting and revealed that he preferred briefs over boxers.

In 2011, President Barack Obama attended a Facebook town hall meeting and revealed, well, not much.

Both events were created to engage young voters through the hippest youth-oriented forums of their time. However, unlike the MTV town hall in 1994, President Obama’s meeting at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, California last night revealed more about the relationship between the Administration and the tech giant than it did about Obama’s personal life.

In 2008, Facebook, along with other social media sites like YouTube, became a major influencing factor in political elections when the young upstart Senator from Illinois used it to reach out to supporters and mobilize his grassroots campaign. Now, just weeks after formally announcing his bid for reelection, Obama has returned to his not-so-secret weapon to reenergize his base.

Last night, he told an audience full of twenty-somethings that Facebook “allows us to…make sure this isn't just a one-way conversation; makes sure that not only am I speaking to you but you're also speaking back and we're in a conversation, we’re in a dialogue.” Obama continued to praise the social-networking site and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, when he said, “This format and this company I think is an ideal means for us to be able to carry on this conversation.”

Except for its conspicuous location, last night’s town hall seemed like any other that the President has hosted. In fact, last night wasn’t even the first time Obama held a town hall online. But Zuckerberg’s presence, and the obvious fondness the two men have for each other, made the event special. But is their relationship beneficial to each other?

On the surface, Obama’s association with Facebook seems like a win-win situation: he can effectively and inexpensively reach out to young voters through the site, and his connection to the company aligns with his recent emphasis on innovation. However, as Chris Lehane, a Democratic political consultant who worked with Bill Clinton, points out, an elected official’s relationship with a private company can turn sour if the company ever becomes polarizing. Think Enron and Halliburton.

Since its inception, Facebook has dealt with a barrage of bad press over its lax privacy settings for its users. More recently, Zuckerberg’s company came under fire for removing a picture of two men kissing, citing that it violates its terms of use which prohibits content that is “hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.” Facebook has since apologized and said the photo “was removed in error.” A worse PR blunder are the comments made by Facebook lobbyist Adam Connor, who said that as the company looks to establish itself in countries with strict censorship laws, such as China, "We are occasionally held in uncomfortable positions because now we're allowing too much, maybe, free speech in countries that haven't experienced it before.” While these incidents are not tantamount to an oil spill or fraud, Facebook’s actions have the ability to alienate its users and independent voters by association.

On the other side of the coin, Facebook has benefited greatly from its presidential endorsement, but Obama is even more polarizing than Zuckerberg in many ways and the company risks losing clout amongst its more conservative users if it fails to hold up a bipartisan image. Many Republicans have already hopped on the social-media bandwagon, but unless Zuckerberg extends the same courtesy and invites the yet-to-be announced GOP front-runner for another town hall, he risks losing some of the validity that Obama’s seal of approval gave him.

For now, neither man seems worried about the long-term consequences of their partnership. At the conclusion of last night’s town hall, Zuckerberg presented Obama with one of his trademarked hoodies with the Facebook logo emblazoned across the chest. Obama said it was beautiful.

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