President Sensitive

President attended fundraiser during Gulf memorial service

According his official schedule, President Obama did not attend the May 25 memorial service in Jackson, Mississippi for the workers who died in the Deepwater Horizon explosion because he was en route to a fundraiser for Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, in San Francisco.

At Thursday's White House briefing, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked why Obama did not attend the service. The president's spokesman answered, "I'd have to look at the schedule. I don't know the answer."

Classy.

Is the Sestak Affair an Impeachable Offense?

Exclusive: All 7 Republicans on Senate Judiciary Committee Ask AG Holder to Appoint Special Prosecutor to Look Into Alleged Sestak Job Offer
It certainly needs investigating. From Hot Air:

Darrell Issa, who started the drum-beating about this, is calling it Obama’s Watergate and potential grounds for impeachment, and went as far this week as to threaten Sestak with an ethics complaint if he doesn’t come clean. Here’s the key federal statute, although it’s not the only one in play potentially: Karl Rove cited three criminal provisions on Monday night that could conceivably have been violated.

Republicans can't force an investigation, of course, but it will be interesting to see if the press actually treats this like a "what if it were a Republican?" situation.

This must give Perry "there's no evidence! Oh, and Republicans do it, too!" indigestion. I'll pass him the Tums.

President Obama's Katrina

The White House is taking some heat over its mishandling of the oil spill in the Gulf.

Until this week, the Obama administration had largely managed to deflect responsibility for the Deepwater Horizon disaster onto others — vowing to keep a “boot on the throat” of BP, while slamming lax oversight on the part of federal regulators during the Bush administration.

But now, with crude lapping into the bayou, even Obama’s defenders have turned critical. A White House that prides itself on operational competence and message discipline has been frustrated by an environmental catastrophe it can’t predict, can’t control and can’t out-message — and the strain is showing.

A majority of Americans, by 51 percent to 46 percent, now disapprove of Obama’s handling of the crisis, according to a new CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll.

This is change you can believe in? Yep, this is what you voted for!

As Hugh Hewitt puts it:

The president's timidity comes from his fear that he will be held accountable for a failure to stop the disaster --that this will become his Katrina. It already is, except that President Bush stepped up only two days after the locals failed to execute their evacuation plans. Here the crisis has been a federal responsibility from day one minute one and the president has watched and hoped that BP would figure something out.

This is what leadership from someone without experience doing anything looks like. Obama's idea of leading is to blame someone else and dither.

"Two weeks after the explosion, the federal government doesn't have a plan to stop the damage from growing."

From Hugh Hewitt. But they sure do want to let you know that BP will be paying for it. That's reassuring. Of course, I'd be more reassured if the feds had been prepared for it.

Can you imagine what would have been in the press had GWB been president when this happened?

Obama's Backdoor Taxes

Reuters has since yanked the story, but fortunately, Dump the Democrats managed to snag an extended comment from it before its trip down the memory hole.

The point is that Barack Obama, who famously promised not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250k per year, and the Democrats running Congress have loaded up on backdoor taxes on the middle class to pay for his budget-busting budget. This will largely be done by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire. Our friend Dana at Common Sense Political Thought has chronicled how Obama is flatout lying when he says he won't raise taxes on middle class folk precisely because of this tax cut expiration. I fully expect Democrats to tapdance around this and argue that letting tax cuts expire isn't the same as raising taxes, but your wallet won't know the difference.

UPDATE: In support of free speech, the White House asked Reuters to pull the story.

Obama administration aides appealed to the Reuters White House reporting team to kill a story by another reporter of the news service that suggested the president's new budget blueprint included "backdoor" tax hikes.

Ahh, can you imagine the howls had George W. Bush leaned on a news outlet to quell a story?

When We Talk about Media Bias...

This is the kinda thing we're talking about.

One year after he won a historical presidential election, a slight majority of Americans approve of the job Barack Obama's doing in the White House.

Fifty-four percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Tuesday approve of how Obama is handling his duties as president, with 45 percent saying they disapprove.

Is that really what the CNN poll shows? Well, Not really.

In an otherwise unremarkable poll of adults, as opposed to voters or likely voters, this result stands out, especially after the Obama administration’s attempts to both spin the numbers and blame George Bush for the economy. Fifty-four percent of respondents to the latest CNN poll disapprove of Barack Obama’s performance on the economy, a 17-point swing in six weeks. That isn’t the worst of the poll, either; 57% now disapprove of Obama’s performance on health care, a 19-point swing in that same time...

Another item missing from the poll and its report: the party split in the sample. The CNN/Opinion Research poll does not include any data on its survey respondents on party identification, a rather unusual omission for a political poll. Of course, that does allow CNN to skirt the issue of skewed samples, but it also makes the final report a lot less reliable, since we cannot test for sampling bias.

You'd think a 17-point swing in opinions in six weeks would be the lede. But, amazingly, that's not what CNN took away from its own poll. Of course, we have to wonder, yet again, if this were George W. Bush, what would the lede look like?

This story is a great example of how placement of information in a story (or leaving it out all together) affects the perceptions of readers. Anyone merely reading CNN's story wouldn't know that 57% of Americans disapprove of Obama's performance on healthcare, or that 54% disapprove of his performance on the economy. Why? Because CNN chose to focus on the vaguely worded "performance as president," versus his performance on specific issues.

Now, why would they do that?

We Had Different Expectations for GWB

What if Bush had done that?
Well, we know what would have happened, don't we?

Big Brother Is Archiving You

White House Seeks to Capture and Archive Citizens’ Comments on its Facebook, YouTube, MySpace Sites

Anyone who posts comments on the White House’s Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter pages will have their statements captured and permanently archived by the federal government, according to a plan that the White House is now seeking a contractor to carry out.

Good to know before I send that snarky comment about Obama's latest snake oil.

It's Not Dick Cheney and It's Not Oil Executives, So Secret Meetings Are Lovely!

President Obama is meeting with health care industry executives in private. And he won't release a list of attendees.

But it's ok because it's not Dick Cheney and not oil executives, so no one minds yet another eeevillle Bush-era policy remaining in place. IOKIYAD.

Obama Lies about Health Care, But We're Not Supposed to Notice

From Newsbusters, we have President Obama's words to the American Medical Association:

So let me begin by saying this: I know that there are millions of Americans who are content with their health care coverage – they like their plan and they value their relationship with their doctor. And that means that no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away.

But, well, the President didn't mean it.

White House officials suggest the president's rhetoric shouldn't be taken literally: What Obama really means is that government isn't about to barge in and force people to change insurance.

Yet.

Make no mistake: when the government starts "controlling costs," it's going to have to start controlling the options you have. You'll either be unable to get private insurance (as Canada tried to do), or you'll pay far more to keep it, or it will become so inconvenient that you will drop it.

But, seriously, folks. If Barack Obama makes statements that are false, shouldn't the press warn the American people about it? Or is it acceptable to bury the revelation about the lie while you offer in-kind contributions to pass the lie along?

The Iranian Violence

I haven't written anything about the rioting and violence in Iran, partly out of fascination and horror (it's a horrific thing to watch), partly because I wanted to get more information so I wouldn't just be reacting emotionally, and partly because I wanted to see what President Obama would do.

I'm disappointed and a little afraid because Obama's nothing-doing shows a spinelessness even I didn't think he was capable of. I'm not saying we should bomb Iran, send armies there, or anything like that. But George W. Bush would have, at the very least, made a statement in support of democratic elections and government tolerance for peaceful dissent. It's not like that should be too hard to give, should it?

We knew Ahmedinajad would accuse the U.S. of "meddling," regardless of what we did or didn't do, so that really shouldn't have been a consideration. But what we're getting from Teh One is worse, IMO, than Jimmy Carter. I say this not in the political sense, but in a more realistic one. Why is our president so spineless? It's embarrassing.

UPDATE: Interesting developments, including the fact that Obama has finally spoken. Gee, that didn't take too long...

Here is the President's statement.

Preventive Detention?

If George W. Bush had proposed this, the moonbatosphere would be in flames. Granted, it's early, but I haven't seen any posts on this at the leftwing blogs I read. Of course, pointing out facts is considered whining by some people, but I'm willing to risk that scorn.

President Obama is proposing "preventive detention" for terrorists considered dangerous to Americans, but for whom trials can't be held. Perhaps Obama read the memo about one in seven detainees heading back to kill Americans. Couple this with the backtracking on closing Guantanamo, and you have to ask yourself, how is President Obama's policy on terror any different from President Bush's? And is this why Americans think Obama is moving us in the right direction?

Democrat Fundraising Scandal Not Covered; In Other News, Water Still Wet, Sun Still Shining

Lone Star Times points out that if this were about Republicans, it would be big news.

Longtime fundraiser Norman Hsu was convicted Tuesday of violating campaign finance laws in a case that became an embarrassment to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other prominent Democrats he courted.

But a Democrat? *crickets*

Maybe this just means that Democrats breaking laws isn't big news. Kind of a dog-bites-man story, if you will.

Our Educated President

Can't pronounce Orion.

President Barack Obama just finished speaking at a White House roundtable on clean energy efficiency attended by Neal Verfuerth, Orion president and chief executive. Obama saluted Orion...

All terrific press for Orion, except that Obama kept pronouncing the company’s name wrong, calling it OAR-ee-on.

H/T: PowerLine, which included this video:

Obama Bowls "Like the Special Olympics"?

I'm starting a new category: "Can you imagine what the Left would say if George W. Bush had said this?"

This story fits the new category.

The first appearance by a sitting president on "The Tonight Show" may well end up being the last.

President Obama, in his taping with Jay Leno Thursday afternoon, attempted to yuk it up with the funnyman, and ended up insulting the disabled.

Towards the end of his approximately 40-minute appearance, the president talked about how he's gotten better at bowling and has been practicing in the White House bowling alley.

He bowled a 129, the president said.

"That's very good, Mr. President," Leno said sarcastically.

It's "like the Special Olympics or something," the president said.

Look, this really isn't a terrible gaffe. Not like giving the British PM a bunch of DVDs that won't work on his player. But let's face it: sites like Dumbaware Liberal would have the video up and running if George W. Bush had said this. Me? I just look at it as a stupid thing said by a human being...even if he has been treated like the Obamessiah.