Tag: Barack Obama

Singling out Obama for his religion

I haven’t done any research on this, so I’m running the risk of being wrong. But it seems to me that Catholic leaders used to reserve their venom for pro-choice elected officials who were also fellow Catholics. I could point to any number of examples, but you may recall there was some buzz during the 2004 presidential campaign that John Kerry would be denied communion because of his pro-choice stance.

So it strikes me as an unfortunate escalation for Catholics who oppose abortion rights to protest Notre Dame’s decision to invite President Obama to speak at the university’s commencement and to award him an honorary degree. As the Boston Globe’s Michael Paulson reports, Harvard Law School professor Mary Ann Glendon, a well-known conservative Catholic, is the latest to take part in the protest, as she has refused to accept an award on the same platform as Obama.

Trouble is, Obama is not a Catholic, or even a conservative Protestant. Rather, he is a member of the United Church of Christ, a liberal Protestant denomination that supports abortion rights (notwithstanding the fact that he quit his UCC church over statements made by his former minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright). Indeed, the UCC is part of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, which issued a statement shortly after Obama’s inauguration praising him for overturning Bush administration policy on global reproductive-health assistance.

Are Notre Dame’s critics — including Mary Ann Glendon — suggesting that a Catholic university can’t honor a non-Catholic if his religious beliefs differ from Catholic doctrine? It certainly sounds that way, doesn’t it? How far do they intend to go with this?

A disturbing profile of Geithner

The New York Times’ monumental profile of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is pretty disturbing.

Despite Geithner’s clear pattern of getting too close to the bankers he was supposed to be regulating during his time as president of the New York Fed, he still manages to come across as a man of integrity. So that’s not the issue.

Rather, the issue is that Geithner came to trust those bankers far more than he should have, a mindset that led him to get it wrong consistently.

It seems pretty clear that President Obama would have been better served by an outsider, albeit one with the technical expertise to see us through the financial crisis. Geithner’s got the technical expertise, but is simply too close to see the big picture.

Iranian-American journalist gets eight years

Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi has been sentenced to eight years in an Iranian prison, the Committee to Protect Journalists reports. The dispatch begins:

An Iranian court convicted journalist Roxana Saberi of espionage and sentenced her to eight years in prison today following a closed, one-day trial earlier this week, according to international news reports. Her lawyer said he will appeal. “Roxana Saberi’s trial lacked transparency and we are concerned that she may not have been treated fairly,” said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. “We call on the Iranian authorities to release her on bail pending her appeal.”

You have to wonder if Saberi has been caught up in the byzantine workings of internal Iranian politics. President Obama has attempted to find an opening to the regime. Iranians who don’t want to see any contacts between Iran and the United States obviously stand to benefit from Saberi’s imprisonment.

Obama now pretty much can’t — and shouldn’t — have anything to do with the Iranian government unless it releases Saberi. Which it won’t.

Here is a link to the CPJ’s online petition demanding freedom for Saberi. I’m going to go sign the Facebook version right now.

More: I see that the petition is now closed. But I joined the CPJ’s Facebook group, and urge you to do the same.

Still more: According to Global Voices Online, an Iranian blogger says Saberi is being held so that she can be used as a pawn in a prisoner swap.

Photo of Saberi with former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami.

Power Line’s new math

At Power Line, John Hinderaker says a chart on budget deficits put out by the Congressional Budget Office shows President Obama’s claim that he’ll reduce deficit spending is “a bald-faced lie.”

Really? Hinderaker reproduces the chart, so have a look. What I see is that the deficit hits a mind-boggling $1.8 trillion or so during the current fiscal year, 2009, which ends on Sept. 30. We already knew that, and we know the reason: it’s the government’s response to the current economic emergency — the stimulus package, bailouts, etc., etc.

After that, though, both the White House and the CBO agree the deficit will shrink quite rapidly until around fiscal 2012 or ’13. Then the two sets of figures start to diverge. But that’s not really of much importance, is it? As Obama observed last night, adjustments will be made along the way.

Forced to choose between Hinderaker’s interpretation and my own lying eyes, I’ll go with the latter.

This may or may not be really awful

Perhaps the worst lede on a political column you’ll read this week comes from Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal:

He is willowy when people yearn for solid, reed-like where they hope for substantial, a bright older brother when they want Papa, cool where they probably prefer warmth. All of which may or may not hurt Barack Obama in time. Lincoln was rawboned, prone to the blues and freakishly tall, with a new-grown beard that refused to become an assertion and remained, for four years, a mere and constant follicular attempt. And he did OK.

Media Nation is no Peggy Noonan-basher. I often found her insights during the presidential campaign to be valuable. But what you submit to your editor is supposed to be what you write after you’re done clearing your throat.

Live-blogging Obama’s news conference

I’ll be live-blogging President Obama’s news conference tonight. If you like multi-tasking, please drop by a few minutes before 8 p.m.

8:00: Bill Bennett, on CNN, says independents now favor Republicans. But Real Clear Politics average on Obama’s job-approval rating shows the president at 61.2 percent favorable, 30.5 percent unfavorable. Who are these independents?

8:04: Cites Geithner’s bank plan. Good timing for news conference — Geithner finally got off the mat yesterday.

8:06: “I’m as angry as anybody about those bonuses” but “we’re all in this together.”

8:07: Much shorter opening statement this time.

8:11: Chuck Todd: Why haven’t you asked the American people to sacrifice, given that some (who?) have compared the economic crisis to war? But Chuck — the crisis is eased when people spend.

8:15: Still thinking about Todd’s question. What does it even mean? Savings rate is higher than it’s been in many years — and that’s a big part of the problem.

8:19: Chip Reid of CBS News another economic ignoramus: Isn’t that debt what you were referring to when you said we didn’t want to pass it on to next generation?

8:20: Obama: I inherited a huge deficit from Republicans. My budget will drive it down.

8:26: The questions show a fundamental lack of understanding that, in the midst of an economic crisis, the best approach for the federal government to take is to spend in order to offset at least part of the lack of spending by the private sector. If anything, as Krugman keeps pointing out, Obama isn’t doing enough.

8:27: Mexican reporter asks about drug violence in her country and spillover effect on the border. Who let her in? Serious, substantive questions not allowed.

8:31: Obama’s lost in the weeds responding to a question from Stars and Stripes on military spending. Or, to be more accurate, he’s led us into the weeds and now we’re lost.

8:33: Ed Henry of CNN: Why is Andrew Cuomo getting better results going after AIG than you and Geithner? Good question. Then, before Obama can answer, he follows it up with another dumb budget question. Not surprisingly, Obama chooses to answer the dumb budget question.

8:36: Obama on why he waited to express anger at AIG: “It took us a couple of days because I like to know what I’m talking about before I speak.”

8:40: Mike Allen of Politico: Are you reconsidering tax deduction for health care and charity? Do you wish you hadn’t made that promise? Obama: We would return to the Reagan percentages, and it would only affect one percent of the American people. If you’re rich, you’d be able to write off 28 percent of charitable deductions, not 39 percent.

8:43: Allen: Charities say this will hurt giving. Obama: No, it won’t. What really hurts charities is an economy that isn’t working.

8:46: Ann Compton of ABC News: How is race affecting your presidency? Obama: I’ve been focused on the economy. Racial significance of inauguration “lasted about a day.” “Are we taking the steps to improve liquidity in the financial markets, create jobs, get businesses to reopen, keep America safe.”

8:48: Washington Times guy: How much did you wrestle with your conscience over embryonic-stem-cell research? Half a nanosecond is my guess as to what would be a truthful answer.

8:52: Agence France-Presse guy: How are you going to bring peace to the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation given Israel’s new anti-Palestinian government? Funny — no mention of Hamas’ terrorism against Israel. Obama: Former enemies in Ireland celebrated in the White House on St. Patrick’s Day. “What that tells me is that if you stick to it, if you are persistent, then these problems can be dealt with…. I’m a big believer in persistence.”

8:56: “We’re moving in the right direction.” Geithner now has a plan. We’ve reached out to Iran, but that will take time. We haven’t eliminated the influence of lobbyists immediately, nor have we eliminated pork-barrel spending. The idea is to keep moving forward. “This is a big ocean liner, it’s not a speedboat. It doesn’t turn around immediately.” But after four years, I hope people will see we’ve moved in the right direction.

8:57: And that was that.

9:03: Bill O’Reilly: He was boring! Karl Rove: “I think he’s sort of an arrogant guy.” Now they are sharing their deep knowledge of economics.

9:06: O’Reilly: When I interviewed Obama, man, I was so great.

Final word: I’ll be wrapping up morning commentary for The Guardian tomorrow. But it strikes me that what we saw tonight was the normalization of the Obama presidency. This was no big deal, very much unlike his last prime-time news conference. Obama seemed to feel free to deflect stupid questions. It helped that Geithner’s having a nice little two-day run.

People should pay attention to Obama’s closing, in which he talked about persistence and the long run. It’s how he got elected. And it seems to be how he approaches politics, and life.

David Brooks’ reality-based conservatism

I think this column speaks incredibly well of both Team Obama and David Brooks.

Earlier in the week, Brooks went off on President Obama, characterizing his budget and spending priorities as “a promiscuous unwillingness to set priorities and accept trade-offs,” and calling for an alliance between moderate conservatives (such as himself) and moderate liberals to stop Obama’s runaway ambitions.

The White House responded to Brooks by laying out its case, arguing that the president hasn’t abandoned his preference for a cautious, incremental approach to problem-solving, but had to respond to an unprecedented financial crisis. Given a few years and a little luck, Obama’s aides say, and things will be back on track.

Brooks writes:

I didn’t finish these conversations feeling chastened exactly….

Nonetheless, the White House made a case that was sophisticated and fact-based. These people know how to lead a discussion and set a tone of friendly cooperation.

I’m guessing that Brooks doesn’t think Rush Limbaugh is the leader of the Republican Party. Or, if he does, he’s horrified.