While Jeralyn and I were swamped in real life for the past week, there has been a lot of back and forth (to put it charitably) about President Obama in the threads. It made me want to describe my thinking on the President's performance thus far in his term.

I have made it clear that I am disappointed that the President did not achieve more in his first year in office. I am even more disappointed that he did not TRY to achieve more, even if there were no guarantees of success. I said it at the end of the 2008 Presidential campaign and at the beginning of his term - Obama was an incredibly gifted politician with terrific policy instincts who was given a political climate (especially after the September financial crisis) open to transformational change. What seems clear so far is that these gifts have not translated into strong governing skills and certainly he has not delivered transformational change. More . . .

Wonderful use of the bully pulpit, we don't have the votes, and we won't try to get them says the White House:

In today's press briefing, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said President Obama didn't include a public option in his health care plan because it doesn't have the votes to pass.

"We have seen obviously that though there are some that are supportive of this, there isn't enough political support in a majority to get this through," Gibbs said today, according to Sam Stein. "The president ... took the Senate bill as the base and looks forward to discussing consensus ideas on Thursday."

I bet that, as of today, the Obama Proposal does not have the votes in the Senate or the House. Given Gibbs' answer, one can assume that Oama will be dropping his health proposal right after the summit Thursday.

Speaking for me only

Via Ezra Klein (PDF):

Key changes include:

• Eliminating the Nebraska FMAP provision and providing significant additional Federal financing to all States for the expansion of Medicaid;
• Closing the Medicare prescription drug “donut hole” coverage gap;
• Strengthening the Senate bill’s provisions that make insurance affordable for individuals and families;
• Strengthening the provisions to fight fraud, waste, and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid;
• Increasing the threshold for the excise tax on the most expensive health plans from $23,000 for a family plan to $27,500 and starting it in 2018 for all plans;
• Improving insurance protections for consumers and creating a new Health Insurance Rate Authority to provide Federal assistance and oversight to States in conducting reviews of unreasonable rate increases and other unfair practices of insurance plans.

(Emphasis supplied.) [More...]

It's general pablum about the need to "reform" the health insurance system. It would be more meaningful if the President was supporting proposals to actually reform the health insurance system in a meaningful way. The White House is not. It has pushed for the feeble Senate health bill that does nothing meaningful on reform, though it does expand Medicaid and offer, albeit inadequate, subsidies for the purchase of health insurance. To call it a band aid is an insult to band aids. Would it be a first step? Well, the proponents of the bill like to say it will be decades before health insurance reform is addressed again, so by their own logic, it is the last step for some time. Either the crisis is not quite so desperate, which seems wrong, or the notion of doing anything, however feeble, is the logic of the day. Not very inspiring.

Speaking for me only

Dana Milbank's Apologia for Rahm Emanuel demonstrates precisely why he was a terrible choice for Chief of Staff. Leaving aside the questions of his political and policy judgment (which Milbank lauds, I think they are horrid), it is the fact that Rahmbo is interested in his own personal agenda first, that of the President's second. Indeed, the most telling part of Milbank''s piece is this:

No wonder Emanuel has set up his own small press operation and outreach function to circumvent the dysfunctional ones that Jarrett and Gibbs run.

(Emphasis supplied.) Think about it. The President's CoS has set up his own press operation to circumvent the one the serves his President. Its main goal is of course to flack for Rahmbo. What more need be said? Of course Emanuel is a force of the Village, so the Beltway Media will defend him. Sally Quinn famously wrote in her infamous 1998 piece about the Village:

One would hope that this ends the ridiculous debate regarding whether the House should "Pass The Damn [Stand Alone Senate health] Bill" (They never could BTW.) Ezra Klein reports:

I spoke to the White House over the weekend and they indicated that the president's package will not be a new White House plan, but a compromise between the House and Senate bills. That is to say, the White House expects that the House and Senate will have a compromise plan by February 25th.

That ends the whole "Pass The Bill" thing. It's Sidecar Reconciliation now.

Speaking for me only

President Obama is pleased with Max Baucus' "trickle down" jobs initiative, according to the White House, who released this statement:

The President is gratified to see the Senate moving forward in a bipartisan manner on steps to help put Americans back to work. The draft bill released today by Senators Baucus and Grassley includes several of the President’s top priorities for job creation, including a tax incentive to encourage businesses to hire, a tax cut to make it easier for small businesses to invest and expand, further measures to keep people at work repairing our nation’s roads and bridges, and extended unemployment insurance and health care assistance for Americans who are out of work.

[More...]

Greg Sargent has the transcript:

QUESTION: Let’s talk bonuses for a minute: Lloyd Blankfein, $9 million; Jamie Dimon, $17 million. Now, granted, those were in stock and less than what some had expected. But are those numbers okay?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, look, first of all, I know both those guys. They’re very savvy businessmen. And I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That’s part of the free market system. I do think that the compensation packages that we’ve seen over the last decade at least have not matched up always to performance. I think that shareholders oftentimes have not had any significant say in the pay structures for CEOs.

[MORE . . .]

President Obama's $3.8 Trillion budget goes to Congress tomorrow.

Given the Republican threat to pass a bill that prevents DOJ from using funds to try terror suspects in federal court, Obama has one other option: trying them not in military commissions as the scaredy-pants Repubs want, but trying them in military courts under the Uniform Code OF Military Justice, a procedure far more fair that the military tribunals.

If that is done, the Department of Defense can use some of its bloated budget to pay for the trials, instead of the DOJ and Homeland Security.

The Republicans and right-leaning Dems can scream all they want, but Obama made a promise: Those that could be tried in civilian courts would be tried in either civilian courts or under the Code of Military Justice. [More..]

Digby writes:

[E]ither Rahm is a brilliant legislative strategist, in which case he didn't bother to use his great powers to pass health care reform for reasons we can only speculate about, given the stakes --- or his reputation for brilliance is extremely overrated.

(Emphasis supplied.) It's the latter. What Rahmbo is actually brilliant at is self promotion. Always has been and always will be. Consider the sell job Rahmbo did about the 2006 elections. To hear Rahmbo and his Village mouthpieces tell it, Rahmbo engineered the big Dem win. The reality is Rahmbo almost blew the 2006 election by his refusal to focus on Iraq until it was obvious to anyone that that was the way to go. Rahmbo wanted to run a "culture of corruption" campaign. After the big win in 2006, Rahmbo got in front of the parade and pretended running on Iraq was his idea. It wasn't. He was against it.

Speaking for me only

Via SusanG, this is an interesting formulation by the President:

I’ve also proposed a spending freeze, so that as we increase investments in things we need, like job creation and middle class tax cuts – we cut spending on those we don’t, like tax cuts for oil companies and investment fund managers [. . .]

This is not bad as political framing. We'll see if there is any follow through on this. Anyway, here is the President's Saturday address:

I have not seen it (Transcript here), but the universal reports are that President Obama owned the GOP Caucus in his "Question Time" turn today. Much of it apparently was televised on cable television (Fox News cut away quickly.) Politico reports:

Republicans invited Obama to appear at their annual conference; the president surprised them by accepting – and then by asking that cameras and reporters be allowed into the room. Republicans immediately agreed to the request, but they may be regretting it now. Obama was clearly energized by the exchange – and again and again, he turned the Republicans questions against the GOP, accusing the party of obstructing legislation for political purposes and offering solutions that won’t work.

If politics actually worked this way, Dems would win every time. And Obama would be our FDR. But it doesn't. Do not expect the GOP to ever make this mistake again.

Speaking for me only