September 9th, 2011 by John Feehery
It was back to school night in the Feehery Household, so I missed the President’s address to the Congress.
Bummer.
I knew the President was giving a big speech because all the roads around the Capitol were closed, complicating my effort to find parking at Back to School Night (my son’s school is about 4 blocks from the white domed building).
I can’t say I was that disappointed to miss the speech. In my Congressional career, I saw plenty of joint sessions where a President makes this or that speech. I remember when George Bush the first gave an address to Congress where he tried, in vain, to shift his attention to the fascinating things that were happening in the rest of the world to a domestic agenda back here at home. But Bush didn’t have much of the “vision” thing, and he ultimately lost. Read more...
Tags: America, Americans with Disabilities Act, Back to School Night, Barack Obama, Bill Daley, Blacks, budget deficits, Bush tax cuts, Civil Rights bill, Clean Air Act, Congressional Republicans, Dodd-Frank, George Bush, Government, high unemployment rates, Hispanics, John Boehner, medicare, Native Americans, Obamacare, Osama Bin Laden, Persian Gulf War, Politics, President Obama, President’s address to the Congress, Republicans, Sam Skinner, short-term economic stimulus, Social Security, state and local unions, Supercommittee, TARP, taxes, The Obama speech, Unemployment, White House, Women
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Financial Crisis, Government, History, Media, Politics, Promises, Theory, Unemployment, health care, housing crisis, speeches, spending, taxes | No Comments »
September 8th, 2011 by John Feehery
Rick Perry walked into an ambush at the Reagan Library last night, as he took hits on his record, on his rhetoric, and on his philosophy. John Huntsman revived his campaign with a sparkling performance. Newt Gingrich took on the role of Spiro Agnew by once again attacking the media for asking questions about the differences between the candidates (which I thought was the purpose of the debate). Michelle Bachmann joined Herman Cain in the irrelevance caucus. Rick Santorum scored a good hit against Perry, which eliminated his chance to be named to the ticket by the Big Texan. Ron Paul went where no Republican has gone before on the libertarian scale.
And Mitt Romney won the debate.
The line of the night was Perry’s Ponzi scheme claim, an utterance that will live in infamy in 30-second commercials from every anti-Perry organization on the planet for the next six months.
The second best line came from Romney: “I don’t want to eliminate Social Security. I want to save it.” Read more...
Tags: America, Democrats, GOP, Government, health care, Herman Cain, John Huntsman, John McCain, Jon Weaver, McCain, medicare, Michelle Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, political debate, Politics, Ponzi scheme, Presidential election, Reagan Library, republican party, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Social Security, Spiro Agnew, Tea Party Republicans
Posted in Economy, GOP, Government, Media, Politics, Presidential election, Theory, election, speeches, taxes | No Comments »
August 31st, 2011 by John Feehery
Hurricane Irene blew in to Washington over the weekend and the biggest casualty was the Martin Luther King Memorial ceremony.
It turns out that the weather was pretty nice on Sunday afternoon, and the event could have still occurred, but it is hard to predict the weather.
It’s also hard to predict the future.
Are we as a country moving forward on the whole concept of racial harmony or are we moving backward?
Congressman Andre Carson said today that certain members of the Tea Party want to see black lawmakers “hanging on a tree.”
I wonder if Alan West and Tim Scott, two of the most influential Tea Party members of Congress (who coincidentally happen to be black), want to hang their fellow Congressional Black Caucus members up a tree.
I doubt it.
Carson believes that the Tea Party is to blame for the fact that unemployment is so high in the black community.
I find that hard to believe.
I guess it is far easier to blame a bunch of white conservatives than it is to blame the nation’s first black President.
The Tea Party hasn’t really had much of an impact on the President’s policies, not yet anyway. Read more...
Tags: affirmative action, African-Americans, Al Sharpton, Alan West, America, Barack Obama, Congress, Congressman Andre Carson, Conservatives, Democrats, Economy, election, first black President, George W Bush, GOP, hurricane Irene, Martin Luther King Memorial ceremony, Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn, Msnbc, Obama, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, Politics, racism, raising taxes, Republicans, spending, taxes, Tea Party, Tim Scott, Washington
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Financial Crisis, Government, History, Media, Politics, Presidential election, Religion, Theory, bad news, election, poverty, spending, taxes, terrorism | No Comments »
August 29th, 2011 by John Feehery
A mighty wind blew in over the weekend. Television anchors were stretched to the limit as they desperately sought ways to fill airtime. Emergency workers looked far and wide to fill in their time cards. And plenty of people suddenly freaked out over the possibility that they might get wet.
New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg decided to close down the city’s mass transit system a full day before the storm was supposed to hit the Big Apple. When the rainstorm finally hit (without any of the promised flooding), a lot of the Mayor’s critics wondered in loud and not very pleasant voices, if he was over-reacting.
He said that he would rather be safe than sorry, and that is a very common reaction among politicians. “We must be safe, not sorry,” should be the catchphrase of the 21st century.
That sounds completely rational in the abstract. It makes perfect sense to be cautious, especially when it comes to a major storm like a hurricane.
But being overly cautious is not without its own risks. I call it the “Chicken Little Syndrome”. If political leaders continually warn that the sky is falling, and the sky does not fall, it can cause a huge problem with voters. Read more...
Tags: America, Chicken Little Syndrome, Economy, Government, hurricane Irene, Hurricane Katrina, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, politicians, Politics, war on terror
Posted in Bad Decisions, Government, History, Media, Politics, Radicalism, Theory, bad news, national security, terrorism, tragedy, war | No Comments »
August 23rd, 2011 by John Feehery
Muammar Gaddafi
If and when Muammar Gaddafi is finally deposed in Libya, President Obama probably deserves some credit. He backed Nicholas Sarkozy and NATO’s efforts to aid the rebels (whoever they are). He authorized the Navy and the Air Force to bomb the hell out of the bad guys. And of course, he has been boldly predicting that Gaddafi’s days are numbered, a nice counter-balance to the Libyan dictator’s assurances that he was going nowhere.
Will Obama get that credit? Probably not.
Most Americans don’t care what happens to Mr. Gaddafi. They are worried less about the economic future of Tripoli and more worried about jobs in their own community. Why should we spend our hard-earned tax dollars deposing a far-away dictator when we have a huge budget deficit and a struggling economy back here?
For the conspiracy theorists out there, there is a persistent rumor that we went into Libya to bailout Goldman Sachs.
Goldman lost 98% of Libya’s Sovereign Wealth Fund in 2007 (which amounted to $1.3 billion, a lot of it personal Gaddafi money, undoubtedly), and the Libyans were not very happy about it. Goldman could never come up with a solution to this problem that could make the dictator happy. Read more...
Tags: America, Assad, Barack Obama, Economy, Goldman-Sachs, Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, NATO, Nicholas Sarkozy, Obama, Politics, spending, Syria, Tripoli, Wall Street Journal, war, Zarti
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Financial Crisis, Foreign Relations, Government, History, Media, Politics, Scandals, Theory, bad news, national security, spending, taxes, war | 1 Comment »
August 19th, 2011 by John Feehery
For a lot of non-Tea Party Republicans, Rick Perry’s entrance into the Republican Primary makes Mitt Romney look a lot more attractive.
It is wrong to say that the Republican establishment wants Mitt Romney to be their Presidential candidate. First, that assumes that there is a Republican establishment that can make a decision, which I think is a vast overstatement. Second, if there were such an establishment, it is a non-evangelical elite that is simply not that comfortable with Romney’s Mormonism, and has been casting a wide-net for anybody other than Romney and Bachmann. Some had put their hopes in Pawlenty, others begged Haley Barbour, Mitch Daniels, Chris Christie and Jeb Bush to enter the race, to no avail, and now they are turning their attention to Paul Ryan, which will probably yield the same results.
At this moment, it now looks that the choice comes between Perry and Romney. Michele Bachmann, whether she knew it or not, was always a placeholder for Perry, and my guess is that she will quickly fade in the polls. Read more...
Tags: Chris Christie, Democrats, Haley Barbour, Jeb Bush, Karl Rove, Michelle Bachmann, Mitch Daniels, Mitt Romney, Obama, Paul Ryan, Politics, preseidential race, Presidential election, presidential election 2012, Republican, Republican Primary, Rick Perry, Tim Pawlenty
Posted in GOP, Government, History, Media, Politics, Presidential election, Promises, Religion, election | 3 Comments »
August 15th, 2011 by John Feehery
I caught some of Michele Bachmann’s appearances as I drove down to Florida on my family vacation. She was doing one of the Sunday talk shows after her Ames, Iowa victory, and she sounded articulate and smart enough to hold her own.
The Republican Party of Iowa has already had an outsized influence on the GOP primary process. By elevating Bachmann and the Libertarian Ron Paul over Tim Pawlenty, the Straw poll voters knocked out the former Minnesota Governor.
Tim Pawlenty made an attractive candidate on paper. He had a good record. He is a nice guy. He is plenty conservative. What he didn’t have was a compelling message. He wasn’t crazy enough to appeal to either the Bachmann or Paul supporters (or the Herman Cainers either), and he wasn’t establishment enough to attract Mitt Romney type money.
I believe and continue to believe that if he portrayed himself as a warrior for the middle class, he could have made a bigger dent in the campaign. Instead, he kind of wandered from one message to another, at one point warning the party that it was becoming too isolationist, at another, claiming that he was a reformer with results, ala George Bush. Read more...
Tags: America, Ames, Ames Straw poll, Barack Obama, Congress, Conservatives, Democrats, election, George Bush, Governor Rick Perry, Iowa, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Obama, Politics, President Obama, Presidential election, Red Staters, republican party, Republicans, Ron Paul, Straw Poll, Tim Pawlenty, White House
Posted in GOP, Government, History, Media, Politics, Presidential election, election | No Comments »
August 11th, 2011 by John Feehery
So why are so many political reporters traipsing to Iowa this August?
Well, it must be the Ames Straw poll, a tradition like no other.
The Iowa Republican party plays host to this political beauty contest that has little actual bearing on the actual race for the White House.
Since the straw poll was first started in 1979, it has picked exactly one candidate who went on to become President, George W. Bush.
In fact, since 1980, the Iowa caucus system itself has picked exactly one candidate who went on to become President.
If that is the case, then why should we care what Iowans decide at the Ames Straw poll?
Who cares if Michele Bachmann wins? Who cares if Ron Paul comes in second?
Well, to be candid, we shouldn’t care.
Unless, of course, you are Tim Pawlenty. Pawlenty probably needs to do pretty well if we wants to raise enough money to stay in.
But Pawlenty has bigger problems than Ames, Iowa.
Right now, he doesn’t look like he will be able to compete long-term even if he was able to convincingly sweep the straw poll. Read more...
Tags: America, Democrats, Economy, election, George W Bush, GOP, Government, House Republicans, Iowa caucus, Iowa Republican party, Michele Bachmann, Politics, President, Presidential election, Republicans, Ron Paul, The Ames Straw Poll, Tim Pawlenty, Washington, White House
Posted in GOP, Government, History, Media, Politics, Presidential election, Promises, Theory, election | No Comments »
August 8th, 2011 by John Feehery
Democratic spinmeisters have concocted a nice little phrase to describe the actions of the Standard and Poor’s Ratings Agency, which was used to little effect over the weekend: The Tea Party Downgrade.
Nice try. That is kind of like blaming the fire department for not putting out the fire fast enough.
The S&P believes that we spend too much as a nation and that we don’t have the political will to stop spending. The Tea Party was formed primarily to send a message to Washington that America needs to stop spending money we don’t have.
The Tea Party won’t get the blame for the debt rating downgrade. President Obama will get the blame and it will hurt him with the American people in the next election.
This 30-second ad takes less than 30 seconds to create. A picture of the President hanging out with his Democratic colleagues fades in and fades out. A screen shot fades in: “The first President to ever lose America’s AAA credit rating. Had enough?”
The President’s men know this is a bad hit. That is why Tim Geithner is attacking the S&P so harshly. That is why the spinners are trying to pin the blame on conservative Republicans. But it won’t work. Read more...
Tags: AAA rating, America, American people, Barack Obama, Bush administration, Congress, Congressional leaders, Conservatives, debt limit, Democrats, election, FDR, George Bush, George W Bush, GOP, health care law, impson-Bowles deficit commission, JFK, Media, medicare, Politics, President Obama, Presidential election, recession, reform, Republicans, Senate, spending, Standard and Poor’s Ratings Agency, tax increases, taxes, Tea Party, Tim Geithner
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Financial Crisis, GOP, Government, History, Laws, Media, Politics, Presidential election, Theory, bad news, election, health care, medicare, national security, spending, taxes, war | No Comments »
August 3rd, 2011 by John Feehery
The President turns 50 tomorrow, which is a big deal, especially to the President’s fundraisers, who are doing their best to milk it for all it is worth. Apparently, they are throwing a big bash for him in my hometown of Chicago. My invitation must have got caught up in my spam filter.
50 isn’t nearly as old as it used to be (especially if you are 47, like a blogger I know pretty well), and to many old-timers who depend on Social Security and Medicare to survive, 50 is pretty darn young.
I was talking to a neighbor of mine who happens to be a big Democratic activist, and he told me about how panicked his 84-year old mother was over the possibility that she wasn’t going to get her Social Security check.
She comes from a generation where they listen closely to their political leaders, and when the President says that Social Security checks may not be delivered because America can’t pay its debt, that generation takes those threats seriously. Read more...
Tags: America, Barack Obama, Congress, Conservatives, Democrats, dollar, Economy, election, GOP, Government, health care, House Republicans, medicare, President Obama, Presidential election, senior citizens, Social Security, Social Security checks, spending, voters, Washington
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Financial Crisis, GOP, Government, History, Laws, Liberal Media, Media, Politics, Presidential election, Reviews, Theory, bad news, election, health care, medicare, spending, taxes | No Comments »
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