As Marc Ambinder reports over at the Atlantic Politics Chanel,

The moment President Obama began his address to Republicans in Baltimore today, I began to receive e-mails from Democrats: Here’s an except from one of them: “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry that it took a f$$@&$* year for Obama to step into the ring and start throwing some verbal blows… I’m definitely praying at mass on Sunday morning that this Obama doesn’t take another 12 month vacation.”

This e-mail comes from a very influential Democrat.

Let me just add that as much as I like seeing this showing from Obama, what I would really like to see is him do the same thing with his own Blue Dog/Reagan Democrat Caucus.

It was watching the healthcare reform debate and Obama’s lack of presence in it that really started me worrying about the administration. And while I will whole-heartedly agree that Republican obstrucionism didn’t help having a healthy debate and legislative process, it was really a pocket full of Democrats who, to my mind, tarnished the procees and weighed it down to the sinking point.

Republicans need to have some of the assumptions challenged in a vigorous way, for sure (and vice versa as the President noted). But Democrats also need to have an out in the open and up front debate about the philosophical differences and challenges facing the Party. And perhaps Obama could be the right person to initiate that process — someone has to.

It seems that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has had second thoughts on the idea of holding the KSM trial in Lower Manhattan with the help of some heavy-weight lobbying and has successfully petitioned the White House to look at moving the trial,

“It would be an inconvenience at the least, and probably that’s too mild a word for people that live in the neighborhood and businesses in the neighborhood,” Bloomberg told reporters.
“There are places that would be less expensive for the taxpayers and less disruptive for New York City.”

Obviously you can’t go ahead with an extraordinarily high profile trial in a location where the once supportive Mayor is now arguing in opposition along side a sizeable chunk of the business community, so this move makes a lot of sense. I had previously expressed my own skepticism about the likely outcome of symbolically holding the trial in New York. I think that skepticism is only more applicable now. If the SOTU and responses to it showed us anything, it is, I think, that people are generally disenchanted with the notion of doing things in a symbolic fashion and are looking for concrete and specific action to get things done.

Nose to the grind stone is the order of the day for the foreseeable future.

Noting Bruce Bartlett’s recent Forbes article on Obama v. Reagan, Kevin Drum talks about what he sees as Obama’s big blind spot,

I’m a fan of Obama’s, but this has always been his big blind spot. He came to office convinced — sincerely, it seems — that he could change the tone of Washington DC. That was always a fantasy. The way to get things done is to make a case for them, build public support for them, blast your enemies for opposing them, and just generally fight like hell for them. It can be done with a smile, but it has to be done. Obama seems to have a hard time getting that.

That is, in my estimation, exactly right. I have been mounting an increasing pile of “Obama, you suck” posts, or at least they could seem to read that way. That is not how they are intended. People I admire the most tend to come in for the sharpest criticism (see: Andrew Sullivan) precisely because of how much I admire them and how much I consaciously and explicitly raise expectations for them.

I’m disappointed in Obama of late, but I too remain a fan. I think that if the President isn’t prodded on shortcomings by his supporters — preferably those who were capable of voting for him — then it is unlikely that he is going to address and overcome those deficiencies. I’m not totally convinced that chanigng the tone of Washington was a fantasy, pace Kevin, but I do think that there needs to be a recknoning about what the practice of politics is and how one wants to go about doing it. Politics is a fight, on that front I’m with Kevin. But how one goes about fighting remains a decision facing the individual participants.

Obama wasn’t handed the Democratic nomination, he had to fight tooth and nail for it — and he did so in what seemed to be his own way, in a fashion that was different and that inspired people and seemed to set a different tone. It just doesn’t feel like Obama is willing to apply that lesson to an in-office context. Or maybe he’s still figuring out what that means, I don’t know.

At the end of the day, though, the practice of politics is what it is and it is Obama’s choice to find a way of engaging that practice in a fashion that strikes a pose of integrity and intelligence with which he is comfortable (“with a smile” as Kevin suggests). But the tone of Washington is going to be changed by the act of engaging in the practice that goes on there, not by virtue of simply showing up and recoiling in horror.

I remain fascinated by the idea of the political process pace Obama, but part of my doubts also revolve around the idea that, congentially speaking, I’m waiting for something that isn’t coming. If it isn’t in Obama to be the guy who gets down in the trenches, but finds a way of doing so that changes the way the trenches work, then it seems kind of silly to continue pointing out ways he might do so.

And on that note, the President deserves praise for the DADT announcement, even though there are some who would suggest it comes too late. I also think that the idea of taking monies repaid by the banks to create loand for small businesses and increase liquidity for Main Street was a great feature of the SOTU. I’m also heartened to see Obama seeming to get tough on the banks themselves in terms of modest repayment fees despite (because of?) the wailing from Wall Street. The market dropped after the announcement of the Volker-rule… shocking. It’ll rebound, trust me. Meanwhile, average indivisuals deserve some indication that they aren’t the only ones paying for past indiscretions.

And speaking of the SOTU, you should check our Dan Summers’ own parsing of Obama’s speech at Bleakonomy.

Kyle at Voegue Republic looks at Lawrence Lessig’s response to Glenn Greenwald on Citizens United and offers his own thorughts.

And Ken at Popehate talks about censorship and Anne Frank’s.. well, just go read it for yourself.

My general feeling on the matter is that clearly Obama has strong feelings about the correctness of the Court’s decision in Citizens United.  As much as I may find the hyperventilating over that decision silly, I can’t deny that the passions it has engendered are real.  Of course, I also have no idea what kind of a legislative fix Obama could possibly have in mind, but that’s neither here nor there.  The notion, advanced by Barnett, that such attacks are unprecedented is simply untrue, even if Obama’s attack was unusually harsh and, insofar as he mischaracterized the actual holding in the case, highly inaccurate.  The fact is that, like it or not, Supreme Court decisions have long been fair game for politicians to attack, particularly when those politicians want to overturn the decision via a legislative fix.  If the goal of the State of the Union is for the President to set the agenda for the year, then there’s no real reason to demand that the President avoid discussing parts of his agenda that involve overturning Supreme Court decisions. 

But this brings me to Balkin.  In refuting Barnett’s broadside against Obama, Balkin cites to a long quote from FDR’s 1937 State of the Union address.  Balkin points out that FDR spent fully a quarter of that State of the Union delivering a blistering attack on the Supreme Court’s repeated overturning of various New Deal programs.  Unfortunately, I cannot think of a worse example to show the appropriateness of a President attacking the Court than FDR’s 1937 State of the Union.  That attack was more than mere words, and more than merely attempting to chastise the Court for a decision the President found problematic.  Instead, its line that “means must be found to adapt our legal forms and our judicial interpretation to the actual present national needs of the largest progressive democracy in the modern world,” was a veiled threat to the Court’s political independence.  This veiled threat became overt just a few weeks later when FDR introduced the Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937 – better known as FDR’s court packing scheme.  Shortly thereafter, Associate Justice Roberts changed his voting habits in the “switch in time that saved nine.”

Nonetheless, the fact is that Presidents and legislators have been viciously and publicly attacking the courts for a very long time, whether it be over Roe v. Wade, Ledbetter, Terry Schiavo, or Dred Scott.  Sometimes they’ve been right, sometimes they’ve been wrong, but as long as we insist on viewing the President as the nation’s agenda-setter, the judiciary’s actions are fair for the President to attack with that agenda.

On the other hand, judges – even Supreme Court justices! – are human.  One might even imagine that they take pride in their work and care pretty deeply about what they do.  So when the President stands up just a few feet in front of a Justice and announces to the entire nation that his work product is actively evil, while misrepresenting what that work product actually said and did, it’s perfectly understandable that the Justice might exhibit a little emotion in their expressions, and maybe mutter some things under their breath. 

That’s not to say that I think it’s a good thing that Alito was caught on camera expressing that emotion – it’s not.  Regardless of whether we expect judges to forget their humanity, we do invest quite a bit in the notion that federal judges are supposed to be politically independent.  Yet the State of the Union is an inherently political event, and not only inherently political, but also inherently partisan.  Any appearance of taking sides during that event cannot be good optics for the public’s perception of judicial independence, whether or not the judge’s actions in creating that appearance are completely understandable and appropriate.  So to me, then, Alito’s mistake wasn’t in reacting the way he did – it was in attending an inherently political and partisan event like the State of the Union in the first place.

UPDATE: An exit question on Citizens United:  Let’s say a guy sees a big market for T-Shirts that say “Cut Bait With Senator Wormtongue.”  Because he wants to run this as a business, he incorporates to take advantage of limited liability.  The resulting corporation then seeks to market his wares on TV, the radio, or in print – whatever.  Should it be prohibited from doing so, given that it cannot market its product without advocating the defeat of Senator Wormtongue?  More importantly, should potential voters be prohibited from hearing such advocacy simply because the sponsoring entity is incorporated?  That is essentially the question that was before the Court in Citizens United.

At present response rates, it looks like only two of the five Ordinary Gentlemen I polled about the State of the Union address last night actually watched or otherwise consumed what some have called the most important speech of this President’s short time in office. It’s the State of the Union, it’s supposed to be a big deal, right? And yet currently, less than fifty percent of us bothered to tune in (and I have my doubts about the other three who have yet to respond).

Why is that? I mean, you’re talking about wanna be pundits here. We’re guys who spend not insignificant amounts of time writing posts about politics and culture free of charge because… well, for a variety of reasons. But the point is, we spend a lot of time writing on this site, so why would we, as Will termed it, commit the blogger mortal sin and fail to watch the State of the Union address?

Reasons vary, but the general theme is we had better things to do. But this is the State of the Union!!! And we’re aspiring bloggers!!! There was nothing better to do than watch this and live blog it, right?! Except that I don’t think most of us placed much stock in what went down last night because this just in: Barack Obama gives good speech.

The President was bound to give a good speech last night. We’ve collectively been watching his every move for the past three-ish years and I defy anyone to point to a bad speech given by the President. Sure you can point to better and worse speeches, but they’re all good speeches. The President’s oratory skills have never been in question and anyone who tells you different is lying.

[Read more →]

Part 2 will follow in a day or two so as to break up what are usually hour plus conversations into smaller, bite sized chunks. Check out the audio below the fold. [Read more →]

So here’s my running theory on politicians.  And here I’m thinking high-level ones.  e.g. Someone willing to run for president of the United States in the media age.

In order for someone to be willing to go through the insanity that such a process is, they have to be, well, insane.  My baseline assumption is that all such politicians (of whatever political persuasion) have some deep-seated “off” tendencies.  I assume they are some pretty emotionally messed up human beings in some pretty key existential areas.  [That's my basic running theory on all human beings btw, it's just with politicians of that level, they end up with way more power than the normal person.]

Think of these names:  Tony Blair, The Clintons, George W. Bush, John McCain, Sarah Palin, and yes the current President.  Not lacking in egos those folks, to put it oh so mildly.

But they are still human beings and should be afforded the basic decency, particularly in relation to their families, that such humanity brings.

On the other hand, personal biography matters.  This is my second basic principle of politics:  people don’t really change, politicians even less so.  Call it the political law of karma if you like: the conditions will play out.

As a wise friend of mine once told me, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them.”

With politicians this is oh so true. [Read more →]

He is perhaps best known for playing a key role in the resignation of CBS’s Dan Rather following the forged Killian document scandal.  He also played a role in bringing attention to altered photographs in the Adnan Hajj photographs controversy. In July 2008, LGF identified that photographs of Iran’s nuclear missile test had been altered.

More recently, Johnson has locked spears with many on the right over issues such as Obama’s birth certificate, creationism in schools, and “Obama Derangement Syndrome.”

He helped found the popular new media site, Pajamas Media, though he has since fallen out with the publishers and, as of September, has removed all links from Little Green Footballs to Pajamas Media.

I had a chance to exchange emails with Charles Johnson about his experience as a blogger and the current state of affairs on the war on terror and the conservative blogosphere. [Read more →]

I also wonder if Yglesias is all that correct with this assessment:

I would say that another message is that progressive politics is badly disadvantaged by a situation in which the overwhelming majorities of political leaders and prominent media figures are white men. There are plenty of white men with progressive views, but in general the majority of white men are not progressive and the majority of progressives are not white men.

I think a lot of minority voters aren’t so much “progressive” as they are in favor of more direct government assistance, something Democrats have promised to do better than Republicans.  A lot of minorities and union members also happen to be staunch social conservatives.  Support for things like gay marriage is very low among black and Hispanic populations.  Union members and minorities just have populist tendencies when it comes to economics. [Read more →]