Topic: Obama
The Problem with “American Jobs”
As the opening to his re-election campaign, President Obama’s rousing State of the Union address laid out a vision for a renewed American social compact, one in which hard work and responsibility offer everyone a decent life. It was a stirring message, aptly crystallizing the central theme of the 2012 campaign: Does our economy work for everyone? Or does it just work for the lucky, wealthy, or unusually talented few? One of the reliable applause lines in the speech – and in … Read More
Grading Obama on Foreign Affairs
If you had to give President Obama a grade in International Affairs for these past three years, what would it be? A plus? B minus? “Incomplete”? For my part, I give him (and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, key architect of his foreign policy) an A minus, for a job well done, with room for improvement. It’s been interesting to watch Republicans try to find fault in every foreign policy decision Obama has made, without much of a coherent theme or a credible … Read More
From the Office of Presidential Spam
I’m in a giving mood these days. But I can’t say that I’m ready to give to Obama 2012 yet. Certainly, the most recent email that I got “from” the President can’t help. What in the world are they thinking at Obama HQ? from: Barack Obama to: Andrew Solomon date: Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 9:41 AM subject: Hey Friend – About the deadline tonight: It matters. If you can, please give $375: https://donate.barackobama.com/Midnight To 2012, Barack
Republicans – A Party without Judgment
Capt. Willard: “They told me that you had gone totally insane, and that your methods were unsound.” Col. Kurtz: “…Because it’s judgment that defeats us.” – John Milius & Francis Ford Coppola, Apocalypse Now. In the run up to a debt ceiling debate last summer, I wrote this on my wall: In the battle between the Tea Party and Wall Street I’m betting on Wall Street. How naïve I was back then. How much faith I put, wishfully, into Republicans’ … Read More
Arab Spring and Gaddafi’s Fall
With the death of Libya’s brutal dictator Muammar Gaddafi as the latest result of this year’s “Arab Spring,” which has already toppled dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt, we’ve been hearing a lot about regime change in the Middle East. We liberals so far have had very little trouble drawing a distinction between, on one hand, revolutions brought about by the will of Middle Eastern people, and on the other hand, by the Bush-Cheney neoconservative “regime change” doctrine in Iraq. But is that line really so easily … Read More
“Romney” (v. tr.): to loot or plunder
I keep waiting for it: the first general election attack on Mitt Romney. Though still well within the formal primary phase of the 2012 campaign, my view has largely moved to the seemingly inevitable head-to-head clash between Romney and President Obama. I don’t like what I see. It’ll be a nasty fight. And I foresee some of the nastiest of it emanating from “our” side.
Poking and Prodding Healthcare
Moving beyond the politics of healthcare (fear not: this is a brief detour), I want to highlight an excellent talk on healthcare reform given by wunderkind and former Director of OMB Peter Orszag at the LSE.
Negotiation 101
I started the MBA program at Penn this week, and signed up for a three-day lecture series by Professor Gilead Sher, who led public and covert negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians from 1999-2001. The course, Negotiating in Times of Crisis, is wildly oversubscribed. But I think I should try to get a seat for President Obama. The Debt Ceiling debacle suggests that the President might benefit from some pointers. As any fuming liberal will tell you, the 11th-hour “compromise” … Read More
Facebook Presidency
For anyone who expects 2012 to be a relatively traditional Presidential election, today’s blast email to the 2-million member Obama for America list is an important reminder that we are living in the Facebook era. The seemingly humdrum job ad from the Obama Campaign’s “Chief Analytics Officer” called for applicants to join a “multidisciplinary team of analysts, statisticians, mathematicians, software developers, and organizers” to “help inform election strategy and develop quantitative, actionable insights that drive our decision making.” The application … Read More
