THE COMEBACK VEGAN
MAUREEN DOWD
NEW YORK TIMES
Obama doesn’t like to share the stage with other politicians or even campaign for House Democrats. ...But now — because of his own naïveté, insularity and arrogance — he needs [Bill] Clinton to rev up the disillusioned faithful and donors and lure independents and white working-class men. Bill, hailed by some as the first black president, must expand Barry’s narrative to reach back and link Obama’s roiling tenure of wars, debt and partisan-fencing to Clinton’s restful stretch of prosperity. ...It’s not a bromance, like Romney and Paul Ryan. It’s a transaction. Obama needs his Democratic predecessor to reassure jittery voters that the future can look like the past, with a lower deficit, plenty of jobs and the two parties actually talking. In return, Bill will have the capital to try to ensure that the past can look like the future, with Hillary as Obama’s successor.
A SECOND OBAMA TERM
EDITORIAL
WASHINGTON POST
We agree that Republican bullheadedness, particularly in the doctrinaire opposition to revenue increases, has been a major obstacle to progress. If Mr. Obama wins, a crucial question will be whether defeat nudges Republicans to moderate their positions or whether they decide that nominee Mitt Romney was not ideological enough. But Mr. Obama wasn’t faultless. Even when conservative Republicans such as Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma signaled a willingness to deal, the president failed to show the leadership that might have made something happen. ... Most fundamentally, any solution to the nation’s fiscal crisis is going to require compromise. No matter who is in charge, taxes will have to go up and entitlements will have to be scaled back. The math doesn’t work any other way.
Must-Read Op-Eds for Sept. 4, 2012
THE OBAMAS' PARTY
ROSS DOUTHAT
NEW YORK TIMES
The party’s most plausible 2016 contenders will be conspicuously missing from the dais: Bill Clinton will speak, but his wife will not; Joe Biden will speak, but Andrew Cuomo will come and go in silence. In their absence, the convention’s primetime lineup seems designed to leave the impression that the Democratic Party has a past and a present, but not much of a future. ... The absence of Democratic rising stars in Charlotte isn’t just a clever propagandist’s move, designed to keep the spotlight on the president and only on the president. It also reflects certain hard realities for liberals.
Their party has had an extremely difficult time since its 2008 landslide. Their leaders haven’t figured out what liberalism should stand for in an age of budget cuts and fiscal cliffs. Their president is running for re-election on an agenda that’s longer on criticisms of the Republicans than on positive promises of what his party wants to do next.
ENIGMA IN CHIEF
RICHARD COHEN
WASHINGTON POST
Just when the Democratic Party needs more of Bill Clinton, there is less of him. ...He is the anti-Obama. He gives so much of himself. Barack Obama gives so little. ...Obama and Clinton don’t much like each other. They have their reasons, but Clinton got a coveted prime-time slot for his speech, the one usually reserved for the vice president. Obama showed both poise and confidence in allowing that, but he can more than hold his own in this regard. He was born for the podium. It is from Clinton’s manner, his open-faced welcome, that Obama ought to learn. Clinton is a Venus Flytrap of a politician. Walk near him and you are caught. There are precious few stories about Clinton not returning phone calls.
OF BILL AND BARACK
EDITORIAL
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Arguably the most memorable phrase (not related to a scandal) that Bill Clinton uttered during his Presidency came in his 1996 State of the Union address: "The era of big government is over." And for a few years, it was over. By contrast, Mr. Obama's four years have been spent expanding the government willy-nilly—with more spending, the promise of higher taxes, and intervention across the economy. His only economic plan now is still-more spending. So as Mr. Clinton tries to lay hands on Mr. Obama and rewrite the history of the 1990s, the real story isn't how much policy the two Democrats have in common. What matters is what they did differently. Bill Clinton learned from the mistakes of his first two years. Mr. Obama has doubled down on his—and, on all available evidence, he will double down again if he's re-elected.
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ROMNEY, RELEASE JUST ONE LINE ON YOUR TAX RETURNS FOR EACH OF THE LAST TEN YEARS:
Posted on September 4, 2012 by jcarroll
What Romney fears about his tax returns is the line that has his gross income on it. It’s not what he paid in taxes that he fears. In order to get into a Morman Temple, he must affirm that he has paid 10% of his gross income to the church, not net, but gross. If he lies about that, he will need someone to get baptized for him to get him out of hell. This cult knows how to get the money out of their members, only Moses was better. Catholics can’t put that kind of pressure on their members. Protestants are not in the race. Muslims teach their members how to tithe. Visit the Internet Free Press every day.
Webster’s definition of a cult:system of worship or a group of worshipers devoted attachment to a person, fad, etc. This definition might apply to all religions. The success of any cult depends on how successful it is in collecting tithes. visit the Internet Free Press, Joe
It appears that Joe Scarborough has to have something negative to say about the Democratic National Convention -- red meat for his audience as it were. It also appears that, according to him at least -- the Democrats are damned if they do and damned if they don't. For example, when the Democrats repeatedly reach across the aisle and try to work with the Republicans, who repeatedly rebuff such attempts (having pledged to destroy President Obama's presidency at all costs...just because), they are accused of being weak and having no spine. When they stand up to the GOP's repeated twisting of the truth, stonewalling and outlandish statements of what they intend to do to America if they get the chance again, they are accused of not cooperating. Enough! The Democrats are mostly right (no one is perfect) and the Republicans are mostly wrong (they are far from perfect). The Republicans preach small government, but yet want to have enough big government to be able to tell women and gay people how to run their lives according to their (the Republicans') personal beliefs. They want to cut spending except in the military so they can wage additional wars that they cannot pay for because they refuse to pay their fair share in taxes and are trying to squeeze blood from the stone of the middle class. It is excrutiatingly obvious that this particular Republican Party is so radical as to be ridiculous and that the Democrats are doing what they do best in a reasonable and statesmanlike manner -- fixing a damaged economy brought about again by the Republicans (check your history) and growing jobs. And, by the way -- two additional points: (1) there are more issues at stake besides the current economic state; a whole way of life is being threatened -- under the Republicans, we can look forward to lower standards of air and water, fewer food inspections and a lowering of FDA standards and less access to healthcare when the cancer rates rise as a result, the closing of national parks and selling them off to the wealthy Tea Partiers, fewer public schools and teachers -- causing a further rise in unemployment, a dismantling of FEMA so weather disasters will truly wipe out whole areas, more isolation from the rest of the world except to wage war until the country runs out of money spent by the Repubicans and more, and (2) Bill Clinton is a true Democrat and is supporting President Obama because he does not want to see the Republicans -- with whom he is well acquainted -- have the power to ruin the country, which they most certainly will. And, yes, I'm sure he does want to see Hillary Clinton in the White House to carry on the progression of the U.S. into the 21st Century. After all, the Republicans have wontonly destroyed that Bridge to the 21st Century that Bill envisioned, and Hillary is the one to ensure that it is rebuilt. We are on a roll which will be picking up momentum; we don't want the Party of No to prevent that from happening.