Posts Tagged ‘White House’
December 13th, 2011 by John Feehery
The New York Times had an interesting exposé over the weekend, delving into Mitt Romney’s deepest, darkest secret: He is a cheapskate.
Despite the fact that Romney has several large mansions scattered throughout the country, he throws nickels around like they were manhole covers, to paraphrase Mike Ditka’s immortal description of George Halas.
That sounds exactly like the kind of guy I want to be president today. Somebody who is really cheap with the taxpayer’s money.
Mitt Romney has run the same kind of campaign that Hillary Clinton ran four years ago. He is running as the front-runner, somebody who already fully expects to be the nominee and is more worried about the general election than the primary fight.
He has laid out a 59-point plan to turn the economy around that I am pretty certain less than 1 percent of the country has read. He wrote a book that he keeps referring to in debates. I haven’t read it. Have you?
He talks about being a turnaround artist, an unfortunate turn of phrase when you consider that he has turned around on almost every issue important to Republican base voters. He says that he hasn’t been a career politician, but as Newt Gingrich pointed out, he would have been a career politician had he won his race against Ted Kennedy. Read more...
Tags: Bain Capital, George Halas, Gingrich, Mike Ditka, Obama, Romney, White House
Posted in Theory | 2 Comments »
October 19th, 2011 by John Feehery
Newt Gingrich had the line of the night towards the end of the debate when he complained that the moderator encouraged a level of bickering that could only make it harder for the GOP to get the White House.
I don’t think Anderson Cooper was really trying to sink the Republican nominee for President in this debate. He was trying to make an 8-person debate interesting for television. But, if the bi-product is to make all the candidates look silly, well, mission-accomplished.
As Mitt Romney has tried to point out occasionally, we live in complicated times and sometimes the simplest answer is not always the best answer, but giving nuanced explanations in 30 second sound bites is damn near impossible, especially when you have a moderator asking your fiercest opponents to tear your ideas apart in a brief rebuttal.
Most avid Republican primary voters probably have heard that Mitt Romney has a 59-point plan to reform government and revive the economy, but I bet you only two people outside the media and Romney campaign have actually looked through it. Newt Gingrich has a new contract with the American people. Nobody knows anything about it and I am sure all of the other campaigns have their own plans, even Rick Perry. Read more...
Tags: Anderson Cooper, APEC, ASEAN, CNN, GOP, Herman Cain’s plan, immigration laws, Mitt Romney, Mormon, NATO, Newt Gingrich, OPEC, pre-primary debates, President Obama, Republican nominee for President, Rick Perry, White House
Posted in Contests, GOP, Government, Liberal Media, Media, Politics, Presidential election, Promises, Theory, election | 2 Comments »
October 17th, 2011 by John Feehery
(Chicago, IL) Today, David Axelrod, the chief of the Re-elect Obama Campaign, today announced that it will formally join the Occupy Wall Street protests and start mobilizing against the policies endorsed by the Obama Administration.
Axelrod brandished a Tim Geithner bobblehead doll, which he stabbed repeatedly with a pen knife while chanting an indecipherable spell, which he later said he hoped would lead to the Treasury Secretary’s immediate departure from his office.
Axelrod, in announcing this unusual campaign, said: “We have decided that we aren’t going to defend the indefensible. Yes, we have terrible unemployment. Yes, Wall Street is getting away with murder. Yes, people have lost faith in the future. As much as I have tried, we can’t blame Bush for this anymore. We have to blame the Obama Administration.”
“I believe in Barack Obama, the campaigner. I have lost faith in Barack Obama, the President. So our campaign will basically run against the President and urge his replacement with the guy on the campaign.” Read more...
Tags: Barack Obama, Bush tax cuts, David Axelrod, expansion of NAFTA, Obama Administration, Obama Campaign, Occupy Wall Street protests, Politics, Presidential election, Re-elect Obama, Teacher’s Unions, Tim Geithner, Unemployment, White House, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney
Posted in Bad Decisions, Government, Liberal Media, Media, Politics, Presidential election, Promises, Theory, taxes | No Comments »
October 13th, 2011 by John Feehery
Well, that was quick.
Yesterday, as I drove through Washington’s streets, all I saw was a bunch of traffic, made worse by the 30 rabble-rousers who occupied a half-block in downtown D.C.
Today, dozens of South Korean flags were fluttering in the pouring rain.
The President of South Korea is in town, meeting with Barack Obama and addressing a joint session of Congress.
Apparently, this visit constituted an important enough deadline to compel Congress to finally act on a free trade agreement with one of our best Asian allies.
The House and Senate usually only work this quickly together when they pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open.
South Korea wasn’t the only trade pact passed in a New York minute yesterday. So were the Colombia and Panama Free Trade agreements.
If you like NAFTA, you will love this trio of trade pacts.
If you don’t like NAFTA, you will be despondent.
The big business and the agriculture sectors love free trade. Free trade makes it easier for our companies to sell their products at a lower price to more customers and that is something that makes farmers and multi-national CEO’s very happy. Read more...
Tags: Barack Obama, Bush administration, Colombia Free Trade agreements, Congress, Free Trade, House and Senate, Mitt Romney, NAFTA, Occupy Wall Street, Panama Free Trade agreements, President of South Korea, South Korean, Tea Party, White House
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Foreign Relations, Government, Politics, Presidential election, Theory, bad news, spending, taxes | No Comments »
October 4th, 2011 by John Feehery
Originally posted on THE HILL – October 3, 2011
It might be too early to start analyzing what went wrong with the Obama administration in its first three years, but I am going to do it anyway.
Here are seven turning points that led to the president’s decline and fall, seven places where Obama or his Democratic allies made critical errors that forever altered the course of his presidency. He hasn’t done everything wrong, but he has made enough mistakes to make his reelection extraordinarily difficult.
1. Failed to veto the initial stimulus package: Imagine for a moment if Obama had vetoed that initial stimulus package. Imagine if he insisted that Democratic leaders take out all the pork and cleanse the bill of unworthy projects. Imagine if he had insisted that congressional Democrats work with Republicans to include their ideas, because we are all in this together. He would have immediately branded himself as a different kind of president, as someone above the fray, as a leader who cares first about the country, not the Democratic Party. And if he had done that, he would have had the Republicans hopelessly divided. Of course, he didn’t take that step, congressional Democrats were able to walk all over him and Republicans stiffened up their resolve and presented a united front against the president and his plans. Read more...
Tags: America, Barack Obama, Bush’s tax cuts, David Plouffe, Democrats, dollar, election, George W Bush, Government, healthcare, House Republicans, Nancy Pelosi, Obama Administration, Obamacare, olympics, Politics, Republicans, spending, White House
Posted in Economy, Financial Crisis, Government, Politics, Presidential election, election, health care, medicare, national security, spending | 1 Comment »
October 4th, 2011 by John Feehery
The Hermanator - Herman Cain
The Hermanator is now tied with Rick Perry for second place in a new Washington Post poll in the Republican race for the White House.
That doesn’t surprise me much. A very good friend of mine who describes himself as a moderate independent Republican kind of guy pinged me on Facebook about Cain. He said he would vote for him if Mr. Cain survives the primary process down in Texas.
And for many folks out there, Herman Cain is more than just a successful pizza guy. He is the embodiment of the American dream.
Unlike Barack Obama, Cain believes deeply in the concept of American exceptionalism. He worked hard his whole life, and he has been successful at just about everything he has done.
Where Obama preaches collectivism and class envy, Cain preaches self-reliance and individual liberty. Where Obama has nothing but contempt for free-market capitalism, Cain believes strongly in the power of the marketplace.
He turned around Burger King, made Godfather’s Pizza a huge success, and helped to stop Hillarycare in the mid-nineties. Read more...
Tags: America, American exceptionalism, Barack Obama, Burger King, Cain, Coca-Cola, Congress, Democrats, Economy, election, free-market capitalism, Godfather’s Pizza, Herman Cain, Hermann Cain, Hillarycare, individual liberty, Morehouse College, Obama, Politics, President Obama, Presidential election, Republican race for the White House, Rick Perry, Secretary of Commerce, self-reliance, the American dream, The Hermanator, Washington Post poll, White House
Posted in Government, History, Liberal Media, Media, Politics, Presidential election, Promises, Theory, election, medicare | No Comments »
September 28th, 2011 by John Feehery
I was talking to a Democratic friend of mine this morning, and he told me to expect the President’s people to go after Mitt Romney on the jobs issue. “There is a lot more that hasn’t come to the surface,” he told me confidently.
I’m sure there is. There is always more on just about everybody. I wish we knew more about Obama before the American people elected him three years ago.
The issue that my friend talked to me about had to do with Romney’s time at Bain Capital.
Bain Capital is a private equity firm that buys undervalued companies and turns them around so they can become profitable. They have had a lot of success. You can wake up with a Bain Capital company (Sealy), check out the weather (they own the Weather Channel), get a cup of coffee and a donut (Dunkin Donuts), go to the store and buy some running shoes to work off the donut (Sports Authority), buy some office supplies (Staples), grab a burger (Burger King), buy a present (Brookstone), catch a movie (AMC Entertainment), and then get home in time for dinner (Domino’s Pizza). Read more...
Tags: America, Bain Capital, Barack Obama, Congress, Democrats, Economy, election, Government, Mitt Romney, Politics, Presidential election, private sector, public sector, Republican, Republicans, spending, taxes, Ted Kennedy, Washington, White House
Posted in Economy, Financial Crisis, Government, History, Laws, Politics, Presidential election, Promises, Theory, election, spending | No Comments »
September 26th, 2011 by John Feehery
Ping-Pong is a wonderful game, requiring skill, finesse, great hand-eye coordination, and at times, power.
Ping-Pong is a different game in the Congressional sense.
When one legislative body ping-pongs back a piece of legislation to another legislative body (like the House jamming the Senate) it can be both exhilarating and frustrating at the same time.
Last week, the House served up a continuing resolution plus some additional disaster assistance money to the Senate before leaving for its break for the Jewish holidays.
The Senate, which hoped to also break for the week, is not at all happy with what the House served up.
But to be successful in jamming back the House, the Senate has to act as one. The rules of the Senate make it awfully hard for that body to act quickly on anything if there is a disagreement between the political parties.
And on this package, there is intense disagreement.
The Republicans want to pay for disaster assistance. The Democrats don’t like how the Republicans paid for it, especially their efforts to isolate a particularly bad political scandal that is currently afflicting the Obama Administration. Read more...
Tags: America, Barack Obama, Congress, Conservatives, Democrats, House of Representatives, John Boehner, Obama Administration, Ping-Pong, Politics, President, Republican, Republicans, Senate, Senate Minority Leader McConnell, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Senate Majority Leader, White House
Posted in Economy, Financial Crisis, GOP, Government, Laws, Politics, spending | No Comments »
September 15th, 2011 by John Feehery
Just as the former producer of the Jerry Springer Show arrives in Washington, the former Real Housewife of Washington D.C. leaves the nation’s capitol to take up with a former rock band star.
Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Somewhere up in the heavens, God is getting a good chuckle.
Congressman-elect Bob Turner’s claim to fame before he decided that he wanted to make a splash politically was as a television producer. He most famously produced the show that consistently exhibits for all to see the tawdriest aspects of American society. Springer is especially good at exposing cheaters on national television. I don’t know how they are able to get these folks to appear on their show, but some people just want to be famous, no matter how they get there.
Michaele Salahi is a perfect case in point. She and her husband famously crashed President Obama’s first state dinner, which caused a minor and quite enjoyable little scandal in D.C. That little event brought great shame and more importantly great fame to the Salahi family. The other “Real Housewives” were jealous of her notoriety, and threw her under the bus consistently on the show (which I must admit, I watched on occasion). But Michaele is now getting the last laugh. Read more...
Tags: Anthony Weiner, Barack Obama, Bob Turner, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Democratic National Committee, Democrats, Government, Isreal, Jerry Springer Show, Jewish voters, Michaele Salahi, Neal Schon, New York’s 9th District, Republicans, White House
Posted in Economy, Financial Crisis, Government, History, Media, Politics, election, spending, taxes | 1 Comment »
September 13th, 2011 by John Feehery
Here are some questions that I would like to be asked at the next debate: Read more...
Tags: Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Chief of Staff, China and Brazil, CIA, debate, DNI, England, France, House, Israel, Jimmy Carter, management style, Medicaid, Office of Presidential Personnel, President, Ronald Reagan, Senate, Surgeon General, The American people, U.N., United Nations, Vice President, welfare reform, White House
Posted in Economy, Foreign Relations, Government, History, Media, Politics, Presidential election, Promises, election, national security, spending, taxes, welfare | No Comments »
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