Summary: Blame Bush, blame the Republican Congress, blame, blame blame! No blame for Obama's own record. Murders of diplomats in Libya was "not optimal."
Tweet
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Friday, October 19, 2012
Second Circuit Declares Section 3 Of Defense Of Marriage Act Unconstitutional
Dale Carpenter reports for the Volokh Conspiracy:
"In a 2-1 opinion by Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs, a conservative appointed by the first President Bush, the Second Circuit has joined the unanimous chorus of federal courts striking down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, which bars federal recognition of same-sex marriages legalized by individual states. The dissenter was Judge Chester Straub, who was appointed by President Clinton. Applying intermediate scrutiny to sexual-orientation classifications, the court held that Section 3 violates the Equal Protection Clause. The decision comes as the Supreme Court is weighing whether to grant certiorari to determine the constitutionality of the Act."
For my legal analysis of the issues in this case, see a previous post in which I discussed the case as it moved through another federal circuit: http://www.stevelackner.com/2012/04/defense-of-marriage-act-to-be-argued-in_26.html
Tweet
Former Obama Administration Defense Undersecretary And State Department Adviser Rosa Brooks: "President Obama Is The Author Of His Own Lackluster Foreign Policy"
She writes at Foreign Policy:
Despite some successes large and small, Obama’s foreign policy has disappointed many who initially supported him. The Middle East initiatives heralded in his 2009 Cairo speech fizzled or never got started at all, and the Middle East today is more volatile than ever. The administration’s response to the escalating violence in Syria has consisted mostly of anxious thumb-twiddling. The Israelis and the Palestinians are both furious at us. In Afghanistan, Obama lost faith in his own strategy: he never fought to fully resource it, and now we’re searching for a way to leave without condemning the Afghans to endless civil war. In Pakistan, years of throwing money in the military’s direction have bought little cooperation and less love.
The Russians want to reset the reset, neither the Chinese nor anyone else can figure out what, if anything, the “pivot to Asia” really means, and Latin America and Africa continue to be mostly ignored, along with global issues such as climate change. Meanwhile, the administration’s expanding drone campaign suggests a counterterrorism strategy that has completely lost its bearings – we no longer seem very clear on who we need to kill or why.
Could Obama have done better?
In foreign policy as in life, stuff happens — including bad stuff no one could have predicted. Nonetheless, to a significant extent, President Obama is the author of his own lackluster foreign policy. He was a visionary candidate, but as president, he has presided over an exceptionally dysfunctional and un-visionary national security architecture — one that appears to drift from crisis to crisis, with little ability to look beyond the next few weeks. His national security staff is squabbling and demoralized, and though senior White House officials are good at making policy announcements, mechanisms to actually implement policies are sadly inadequate.
It doesn’t have to be this way. If Obama wants to fix his broken foreign policy machine, he can do it — but conversations with numerous insiders, as well as my own government experiences, suggest that he needs to focus on strategy, structure, process, management, and personnel as much as on new policy initiatives.
Not sexy, I know. But just as a start-up company needs more than an entrepreneurial founder with a couple of good ideas and a nifty PowerPoint presentation, the United States needs moreTweet
Sign Of Desperation: Obama/Biden Actually Make "Binders Full Of Women" An Attack, Running An Ad And Bringing It Into Their Stump Speeches
There is no greater sign of desperation in the Obama camp than the fact that Obama and Biden have now actually attacked Romney over "binders full of women" on the stump. To any sane person that was not born from the womb a hopeless political hack, using this as an attack backfires, making it seem like the incumbent's campaign, in a characteristically unpresidential manner, is grasping at the flimsiest straws.
You can attack Romney for being a flip-flopper, you can attack him for being a "Massachusetts moderate" as he was in the primary, you can focus on Romneycare, or if you choose you can go in the other direction and attack him for being some sort of right wing extremist for whatever reason, you can attack him for his plans not being specific enough, you can go after him for picking Paul Ryan and go after the Ryan budget, or whatever the case may be. Regardless of the merits of any of this stuff, it at least gets to policies and credibility. Attacking him for saying "binders full of women" in reference to resumes for the most female populated cabinet in the country is just plain idiotic. It's meritless, senseless, nonsense, and a sign of desperation. I don't see how it can be seen by any person as a legitimate point. Anyone who thinks it is one is the worst sort of Kool Aid drinker there is.
Not only did they take this absurd "binders" stuff to their stump speeches, they actually created an ad that concludes, “Seriously? Binders full of women? Mitt Romney just doesn’t get it.” What I don't get is what the hell they are doing running an ad about this with a straight face? This is bizarre, it really makes the Obama camp look like they've gone completely off the rails.
Tweet
Obama Camp Runs Ad Against Romney For "Binders Full Of Women"
Not only did they take this absurd "binders" stuff to their stump speeches, they actually created an ad that concludes, “Seriously? Binders full of women? Mitt Romney just doesn’t get it.” What I don't get is what the hell they are doing running an ad about this with a straight face? This is bizarre, it really makes the Obama camp look like they've gone completely off the rails. Tweet
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Whoopi Goldberg Asks Ignorant Question To Ann Romney: How Can You Talk "To Mothers Whose Children Are Coming Home In Bags" If As A Mormon You Do Not "Believe In Fighting"?
See http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/10/18/whoopi_attempts_gotcha_wrongly_says_mormonism_forbids_military_service.html to watch the video for yourself. Here's the transcript:
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: As first lady, if you get the job, it’s going to entail a lot of things, and one of those things is going to be talking to the mothers whose children are coming home in bags, you know, from wars. Now, I know -- I believe that your religion doesn’t allow you to go fight.Tweet
ANN ROMNEY: No, that's not correct. We have many, many members of our faith that are serving in armed services.
GOLDBERG: Okay, um, I say that because when I read about your husband, what I had read, and maybe you can correct this is that the reason that he didn’t serve in Vietnam was because it was against the religion. That’s what I read.
ROMNEY: No, that's not correct. He was serving his mission and you know my five sons have also served missions. None served in the military.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Monday, October 15, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
RSS Feed (xml)