David Pleasant

On his show last night, Bill Moyers lambasted Republicans in general and Obama specifically over health care reform and his kowtowing to Republicans. The full text of his commentary is after the jump and the video can be viewed here.

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The New York Times Opinionator suggests that President Obama’s speech to kids is a “colossal failure.” Wrong. It’s the decibel level of the Wingnuts.

With the media ready to promote any conflict, if the Wingnuts shout loud enough they can kill anything, regardless of the merits of what they oppose. Again, it’s the principle of Ideas (Dems) vs. Discipline (GOP).

President Obama’s job approval rating dropped to 50 percent in the Gallup Daily Tracking Poll. Since this is sync with other polls, albeit a minority, it cannot be viewed as an outlier.

It is normal for a president’s approval rating to drop to the 50’s level, but as Eric Kleefield notes, President Obama’s descent has been rapid. Furthermore, the descent is to be expected especially when tackling major issues such as health care. However, I am confident President Obama’s decision to throw progressives under the bus on almost every issue is a significant factor in his current polling.

If asked a straight up question of did I approve, I would answer no.

I have gotten so used to this, I am anything but surprised. If a day went by that President Obama did not break a promise, that would be a surprise.

The Obama administration will continue the Bush administration’s practice of sending terrorism suspects to third countries for detention and interrogation, but pledges to closely monitor their treatment to ensure that they are not tortured, administration officials said Monday.

[...]

The announcement, by President Obama’s Interrogation and Transfer Policy Task Force, seemed intended in part to offset the impact of the release on Monday of a long-withheld report by the C.I.A. inspector general, written in 2004, that offered new details about the brutal tactics used by the C.I.A. in interrogating terrorism detainees.

Though the Obama administration previously signaled that it would continue the use of renditions, some civil liberties groups were disappointed because, as a presidential candidate, Mr. Obama had strongly suggested he might end the practice. In an article in Foreign Affairs in the summer of 2007, Mr. Obama wrote, “To build a better, freer world, we must first behave in ways that reflect the decency and aspirations of the American people.”

Mr. Obama continued, “This means ending the practices of shipping away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off countries, of detaining thousands without charge or trial, of maintaining a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of the law.” In January, the president ordered secret prisons run by the C.I.A. to be shut down.

“Pledges to closely monitor their treatment”? Please. George Bush promised there would be no wiretaps without a warrant either. Bush also said President Cheney’s administration did not torture.

Only a fool trusts a politician. I don’t care who it is or how much they may be “liked” otherwise.

The birthers have produced (anonymously) an hour-long documentary on President Obama’s birth. I kid you not. David Wengel at the Washington Independent has the details.

Paul Krugman has a devastating column today on how damaged President Obama’s brand has become and how little progressives trust the president. The entire piece should be read, but here’s a sample.

[T]here’s a growing sense among progressives that they have, as my colleague Frank Rich suggests, been punked. And that’s why the mixed signals on the public option created such an uproar.

Now, politics is the art of the possible. Mr. Obama was never going to get everything his supporters wanted.

But there’s a point at which realism shades over into weakness, and progressives increasingly feel that the administration is on the wrong side of that line. It seems as if there is nothing Republicans can do that will draw an administration rebuke: Senator Charles E. Grassley feeds the death panel smear, warning that reform will “pull the plug on grandma,” and two days later the White House declares that it’s still committed to working with him.

It’s hard to avoid the sense that Mr. Obama has wasted months trying to appease people who can’t be appeased, and who take every concession as a sign that he can be rolled.

Indeed, no sooner were there reports that the administration might accept co-ops as an alternative to the public option than G.O.P. leaders announced that co-ops, too, were unacceptable.

So progressives are now in revolt. Mr. Obama took their trust for granted, and in the process lost it. And now he needs to win it back.

I have been harping on this for quite some time. It all began when President Obama reneged on every promise he made on FISA and it has progressed unabated ever since. If the White House wants to understand why the President is dropping so badly in the polls, they need look no further than Krugman’s piece today.

Late Update: Eugene Robinson weighs in along the same lines but focuses on the Democrats in general.

Here’s the least surprising news of the week: Americans are souring on the Democratic Party. The wonder is that it’s taken so long for public opinion to curdle. There’s nothing agreeable about watching a determined attempt to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

The Washington denizens don’t have a clue what is going on beyond K Street.

Thank goodness we have Andy McCarthy to elucidate the pressing issues of our time. In a recent post McCarthy yammers about the travesty of President Obama not wearing a tie from time-to-time.

Derb, I’ve noticed that President Obama frequently forgoes the necktie — lately, even in public appearances. That reminded me — I have no idea why — that the Iranian regime has shunned the necktie ever since Khomeini pronounced it a symbol of Western decadence.

Yes, indeed. President Obama has driven us down so far we are now analogous to the Islamic Republic of Iran and it’s all based on the compelling evidence of neckties.

I asked the other day who is president, Obama or Grassley? Well, here’s the answer: Grassley is, or at least he’s driving the bus.

This excerpt from a Matt Taibbi post a couple of days ago really needs no additional commentary. I suppose it is especially telling given Ambinder’s zinger today.

I’ll say this for George Bush: you’d never have caught him frantically negotiating against himself to take the meat out of a signature legislative initiative just because his approval ratings had a bad summer. Can you imagine Bush and Karl Rove allowing themselves to be paraded through Washington on a leash by some dimwit Republican Senator of a state with six people in it the way the Obama White House this summer is allowing Max Baucus (favorite son of the mighty state of Montana) to frog-march them to a one-term presidency?