National Debt Hits $12 Trillion, Will Double By 2019
Barack Obama has been president for just under 10 months but he's added two trillion to the national debt and will double it by the end of the decade. CBS' Mark Knoller: This latest milestone in the ever-rising journey of the National Debt comes less than eight months after it hit $11 trillion for the first time. The latest high-point is ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 18, 2009 10:07
Obama Frustrates Europe on Climate Change
"Obama Has Failed the World on Climate Change," blares a Spiegel op-ed by Christian Schwägerl. The essay is another data point in the growing notion that the new American president's aura is fading on the other side of the Atlantic. But, as I argue in my New Atlanticist essay "Obama Disappoints Europe Ahead of Copenhagen," this was all too predictable. Indeed, ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 17, 2009 20:40
Obama Hurt Deeds in Virginia
Pollster Glen Bolger (a founding partner at my wife's firm) looks at the data in the Virginia governor's race and concludes that Barack Obama hurt Democrat Creigh Deeds. At the end of tracking, we added some questions paid for by the Republican National Committee specifically to measure the Obama effect. [...] The dominant national issue at that time (and still) is health care. ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 10, 2009 12:22
Obama’s Europe Neglect Could Bring Bush Nostalgia
My first piece for ForeignPolicy.com, "Europe's Obama Fatigue," is online. Despite George W. Bush's defiant "you're with us or you're against us" public stance, he actively solicited advice and input from his NATO partners. Obama, by contrast, is saying all the right things in public about transatlantic relations and NATO but adopting a high-handed policy and paying little attention to Europe. [...] It would ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 30, 2009 06:10
Recession Over, Obama Takes Credit
As widely expected, the Powers That Be have declared the recession over, while cautioning that the economy still has a long way to go. And, of course, the Obama administration is crediting its stimulus packages for the good news. It might not feel like it to most voters, but the U.S. economy is growing again after a more than a year ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 29, 2009 13:01
Obama Ties Bush on Golf
Interesting-if-true fact from Patrick Gavin: President Obama has already played as many rounds of golf after nine months in office as President George W. Bush did in eight years. President Barack Obama has only been in office for just over nine months, but he's already hit the links as much as President Bush did in over two years. CBS' Mark Knoller — ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 26, 2009 14:54
Is Barack Obama Too Manly?
Mark Liebowitz had a piece for NYT over the weekend titled "Man’s World at White House? No Harm, No Foul, Aides Say." At first blush, it reads like some feminists are genuinely concerned about a male-dominated culture in the West Wing. After awhile, however, one begins to suspect it's a PR exercise to make President Obama seem more ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 26, 2009 07:54
Politics of Spite
Paul Krugman continues to demonstrate that brilliance in one field doesn't necessarily translate into sound insights into others. He's upset that some Republicans took pleasure in President Obama's embarrassment in not landing the Olympics for his adopted Chicago and their cynicism in positioning themselves as the defenders of Medicare in order to fight his health care reform proposals. ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 5, 2009 15:24
Fineman: Chicago Style Isn’t Working
Howard Fineman piles on to the burgeoning -- if thus far unfounded -- Obama overexposed and Obama fatigue memes with an uncharacteristically harsh column. In addition to contending Obama gives too many speeches with too little substance, her goes further: There is only so much political mileage that can still be had by his reminding the world that he is not George ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 28, 2009 14:53
McGurn: Latimer No Star
William McGurn, head speechwriter for most of President George W. Bush's administration, takes to the WSJ today to discuss what a failure former junior speechwriter Matt Latimer was at his job. Oh, it truly pains McGurn to write this about a young man he hired -- indeed, he "would have taken them to the grave" -- but Latimer is now ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 22, 2009 11:41
Republican Party Needs More Votes if it is to Win
Bruce Bartlett explains why he's not a Republican anymore using a time-honored refrain: He didn't leave his party; his party left him. While he now considers himself an "independent," he's more than non-partisan; he's "anti-Republican." Why? I still consider myself to be a Reaganite. But I don’t see any others anywhere in the GOP these days, which is why I consider ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 31, 2009 11:58
Elections Don’t End Debate
While I share Michael Tomasky's disdain for people carrying signs about "the blood of tyrants" while protesting democratically elected leaders, he goes too far here: There was an election. One guy one, another guy lost. It wasn't disputed. It wasn't decided by an ideologically divided Supreme Court, which gave the win to the guy who won fewer votes. This election wasn't ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 13, 2009 09:19
Dick Cheney’s Tell-All Book
Dick Cheney is breaking the mold on how recently-departed vice presidents act. First, he immediately went into attack mode against President Obama. Now, he's going after President Bush, too. Bart Gelman for WaPo: Cheney's disappointment with the former president surfaced recently in one of the informal conversations he is holding to discuss the book with authors, diplomats, policy ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 13, 2009 07:42
Congressional Revolution Needed?
Ezra Klein and Steve Benen are recirculating this somewhat interesting chart on political polarization in America by political scientists Nolan McCarty, Keith T. Poole, and Howard Rosenthal. Ezra argues that "this level of polarization makes it virtually impossible to govern in a system that is designed to foil majorities and require a constant three-fifths consensus. It's not good if the country ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 2, 2009 08:08
It Takes Two to Tango
Michael Gerson pronounces the Obama Doctrine of engagement DOA: But even lacking an ideology, the administration does have a doctrine. The defining principle of President Obama's foreign policy is engagement with America's adversaries. Much of the president's public diplomacy has been designed to clear a path for such talks -- expressing respect for legitimate grievances, apologizing for past wrongs and offering ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 29, 2009 09:26
