US Elections

These may be good campaign sound bites, but they ignore what Obama has actually said about the complex relationship between politics, religion and public life. Consider these comments from a 2006 speech at the Call to Renewal Conference.

More fundamentally, the discomfort of some progressives with any hint of religion has often prevented us from effectively addressing issues in moral terms. Some of the problem here is rhetorical - if we scrub language of all religious content, we forfeit the imagery and terminology through which millions of Americans understand both their personal morality and social justice.

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But what I am suggesting is this - secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King - indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history - were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause.

So to say that men and women should not inject their "personal morality" into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

And later in the same speech he explained how laws alone could not create social change.

I believe in vigorous enforcement of our non-discrimination laws. But I also believe that a transformation of conscience and a genuine commitment to diversity on the part of the nation's CEOs could bring about quicker results than a battalion of lawyers. They have more lawyers than us anyway

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I also think that we should give [children] the information about contraception that can prevent unwanted pregnancies, lower abortion rates, and help assure that that every child is loved and cherished

But, you know, my Bible tells me that if we train a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not turn from it. So I think faith and guidance can help fortify a young woman's sense of self, a young man's sense of responsibility, and a sense of reverence that all young people should have for the act of sexual intimacy.

These hardly sound like the remarks of a hardened secularist, but maybe Obama just pays lip service to these ideals while ignoring them in practice. However, the evidence does not bear out this claim. Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman explains that the Obama administration has actually been very accommodating on issues of religious freedom.

Most notably, Chapman points out that the administration has not repealed the Bush administration policy of allowing religious organisations who receive federal funding to “only hire people of their own faith.”

In this instance, Obama may be accused of ignoring the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which forbids government support of religion. But if so, it's because he has given too much deference to religious freedom rather than too little.

Chapman goes on to list numerous other instances in which the White House has sought to defend religious liberty.

His commitment is also on display in defending churches against municipal governments that would prefer to do without them. Under federal law, houses of worship are assured equitable treatment in land-use decisions. But mayors and community groups often tell churches to go to the devil.

When that happens, they often find themselves at odds with the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. Last year, it forced the town of Schodack, N.Y., to retreat after it barred an evangelical church from renting space in a commercial area where nonreligious meetings were allowed.

It filed a brief in support of a Hasidic Jewish congregation's lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles, which had forbidden it to hold services in a private home. A federal court ordered the city to back off.

The administration has also intervened in cases where prisoners are denied religious literature. After a South Carolina sheriff prohibited inmates from getting devotional materials and other publications in the mail, the Justice Department sued. In the end, the county agreed to let inmates receive Bibles, Torahs, Qurans and related fare.

There’s nothing wrong with criticizing Obama on these issues. I felt that the contraception mandate went too far in curtailing religious freedom. But to claim that the president is actively hostile towards religion is to be ignorant of his statements and actions.

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Harry Truman was the first American president to formally propose a universal health care system and move the issue into the forefront of the American political debate. Although his plan gained little traction in 1945, Democrats have remained committed to comprehensive health care reform, and every Democratic president since Truman has expressed support for universal health care.

Both Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton made universal health care a key issue in their 2008 presidential primary campaigns. Unlike Clinton, Obama was opposed to requiring individuals to purchase insurance as a means of broadening the risk pool and decreasing health insurance premiums, “well, if things were that easy, I could mandate everybody to buy a house, and that would solve the problem of homelessness. It doesn't.” Ironically, the “individual mandate” ended up being the centre piece of the health care reform bill.

Upon taking office, Obama put health care reform at the top of his legislative agenda. The goal was to help curb the rising cost of health care, expand coverage to the uninsured, and prevent insurers from denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions. Both Republicans and Democrats generally agreed that these issues eventually needed to be addressed, although there was wide disagreement over the best means of doing so.

With large majorities in both chambers of Congress and the support of President Obama, Democrats were optimistic that they could pass comprehensive health care reform. However, their plans hit an initial roadblock in February 2009 when former Senator Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination as secretary of health and human services amid revelations that he had not properly reported or paid his income taxes. Before the scandal, Daschle had been set to lead the Obama’s administration’s health care overhaul. 

Initially, Obama took a passive role in the health care reform process, outlining his broad goals but allowing Congress to try and work out the details of the plan. In May 2009, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi vowed to have the bill signed into law by August. However, things didn’t go exactly according to plan for the Democrats. At town hall meetings across the country citizens protested against the proposed bill, and Republican lawmakers warned of the dangers of “socialised medicine” and “rationing health care.”

Democrats also had trouble convincing the more moderate members of their coalition to sign onto the legislation. In the 2006 and 2008 elections, Democrats won a large number of seats in generally conservative congressional districts. While this was obviously good news for the party, many of these new members of Congress were very moderate. These “Blue Dog Democrats” were concerned about the costs of health care reform and were reluctant to endorse government rune insurance plans. Bills have to pass through relevant committees before they can proceed to the floor for a vote, and Democrats had to appease the demands of many House Blue Dogs in order to get the bill through committee. Democrats informed Obama that passage of the bill could take longer than anticipated.

There was also much controversy surrounding the issue of abortion. The 1976 Hyde amendment prohibits federal funds from being used to pay for abortions, but there was dispute over what this should mean in the context of publicly subsidized health care. Eventually, House Democrats agreed to adopt the Stupak amendment, a proposal by Michigan congressman Bart Stupak stipulating that no federal funds be used to cover any part of a health care plan that covered abortion. Many pro-choice Democrats were upset at the compromise, but the amendment ultimately secured the necessary votes for the bill’s passage.

On November 7 2009, the Affordable Health Care for America Act was passed by the House of Representatives by a narrow margin of 220-215. Only one Republican voted in favour of the bill and 39 Democrats voted against it. The bill included a government run insurance plan, or public option, that would compete against the plans offered by private insurers. The bill mandated that all citizens buy insurance or a pay fee, and provided government subsidies to those who could not afford insurance on their own. The bill would cost $1 trillion dollars and would extend health insurance coverage to 36 million Americans.

Progress in the Senate was also very extremely slow. Senate rules required 60 votes to prevent Republicans from “filibustering”, blocking the bill from proceeding to the Senate floor for a vote. This meant that Senate Majority leader Harry Reid needed to get all 60 members of the Senate Democratic caucus to sign onto the bill. In order to appease moderate Democrats, various versions of the House bill needed to be modified. On December 24, the bill was finally passed along a strict party lines vote (60-39). It would cost $871 billion over ten years, and, notably, did not include a public option. The language regarding abortion was different as well. People receiving federal subsidies could buy health plans that covered abortion, but they had to write a separate monthly cheque for abortion coverage.

The final task was to merge the two bills into one. While there was still work to be done, it seemed fairly inevitable that the Affordable Care Act would become law. Then, the unthinkable happened. On 29 January 2010, Republican Scott Brown won the Massachusetts Senate special election to fill the seat of the late liberal icon Ted Kennedy, who had died that past August. Democrats now lacked the 60 votes to override a filibuster, meaning they could not pass a modified version of the health care bill. Massachusetts had no Republican representatives in Congress, and hadn’t elected a Republican Senator since 1972. Ted Kennedy had called universal health care “the cause of his life,” but now reform appeared in jeopardy because Democrats couldn’t hold onto his seat in one of the most liberal states in the union. In the eyes of many, this was the end of the road for health care reform. Others Democrats wanted to abandon their ambition for sweeping reform, and instead try to pass much more moderate legislation.

However, key members of the party continued to explore other options for passing the bill. Obama also refused to back down on the issue, emphasizing that Democrats couldn’t give up now after coming so close to their goal.Eventually, Senate Democrats settled on a potential solution: “reconciliation.” Reconciliation is a process generally used to modify spending in bills for the purpose of deficit reduction, and requires a simple up or down vote instead of the 60 votes required to end a filibuster. The Senate couldn’t pass an entirely new bill through reconciliation, but they could make small budget related changes to the bill they had already passed in December.

In late February, Obama and Pelosi announced that they supported using reconciliation in order to get the bill through Congress. Democrats argued that they were justified in using the procedure because given that the bill was projected to reduce deficits, it could be considered a deficit reduction measure. They also pointed out that Republicans had previously used reconciliation to pass several major pieces of legislation. Republicans accused Democrats of using a loophole to get an unpopular piece of legislation through Congress.

Speaker Pelosi was clear that she did not have the votes to simply pass the Senate Bill in its exact current form, given that House members had concerns with some specific provisions. Most notable was a guarantee that Nebraska would not have to pay any of the costs associated with the health care bill’s expansion of Medicaid. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had offered this deal in order to convince Senator Ben Nelson from Nebraska to vote for the legislation. Senate Democrats agreed to amend these provisions through reconciliation.

Still, there was much work to be done. Speaker Pelosi had gotten House Democrats to already sign off on one bill; now she had to persuade them to pass a bill nearly identical to the one that the Senate had already approved. Many liberal Democrats were frustrated that the Senate bill was less comprehensive than the one they had passed, but they realized that at this point it was their only option. The real difficulty for Pelosi was winning over moderate, and especially, pro-life Democrats. The Stupak amendment had been essential in getting the support of around 40 members of Congress the first time around, but there could be no such provision in the final bill. The White House and House leadership worked with these pro-life Democrats to try and find an acceptable compromise.

Then, on the evening of 21 March, Congressman Stupak and a number of other pro-life Democrats announced they had reached an agreement with the Obama administration. Obama would issue an executive order reaffirming the government’s commitment to the Hyde Amendment and also address some of the Stupak coalition’s other minor concerns, such as clear abortion restrictions on government sponsored community health clinics.

Later that evening, the House of Representatives passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act by a vote of 219-212. Every Republican and 34 Democrats voted against the bill. On 23 March, Obama signed the bill into law, proclaiming that health care reform reflects, “the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their health care." Attorney General’s in 13 states immediately filed lawsuits claiming that the bill’s individual health care mandate was an unconstitutional violation of federal powers. Two days later, the Senate passed the reconciliation bill to amend the health care legislation in accordance with the stated wishes of the House. The reconciliation bill passed the Senate by a vote of 56 to 43. Senator Nelson was amongst three Democrats who voted against the bill. The process had been a long and often frustrating one, but Democrats had finally achieved the goal that had so long eluded them.

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What would have been a better way of handling this issue? In his Washington Post column, E.J. Dionne advocates a proposal that would require religious groups to inform employees if they were not covering birth control and describe “alternative ways for enrollees to access” low cost contraceptives. Under the circumstances, I think this would have been a better solution. but there’s no denying the unfortunate and frustrating truth that it would have made it more difficult for many women to access reproductive health services.

I firmly hope that the Catholic Church changes its stance on birth control in the near future, and I remain cautiously optimistic that they will, given that the vast majority of Catholics use contraceptives. However, until they do, I’m not sure the coercive response of the Obama administration is the best course of action. It’s never easy resolving these cases in which such fundamental principles come into conflict with one another, but there are times when liberalism must be tolerant of practises that are somewhat illiberal in themselves. I believe this is one of those times.

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It was the great Showman-in-Chief himself, Ronald Reagan. On January 25, 1983, President Reagan told Congress "As we gather here tonight, the state of our Union is strong, but our economy is troubled." Three years later, he had upgraded its condition: "I am pleased to report the state of our Union is stronger than a year ago and growing stronger each day."

After that, presidents have been pretty insistent on telling the American people that their Union is strong. Perhaps Obama's prediction of eternal strength can end this piece of rhetorical filler for good?

Interestingly, presidents haven't always been so triumphal. In 1948, Harry S. Truman was ambivalent. "The state of our Union," he said, "reflects the changing nature of the modern world." In 1968, Lyndon B. Johnson affirmed the Union was always "equal to the test," but only predicted future strength. "The State of our Union will be much stronger eight years from now on our 200th birthday," he said.

In 1976, Gerald Ford was downright glum: "Just a year ago I reported that the state of the Union was not good. Tonight, I report that the state of our Union is better — in many ways a lot better — but still not good enough."

Ouch. Maybe the election Ford lost that year discouraged future presidents from being so pessimistic. His successor, Jimmy Carter, said in his first State of the Union address, in 1978, "Militarily, politically, economically, and in spirit, the state of our Union is sound."

Much more reassuring.

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I believe as strongly as ever that we should take on illegal immigration. That’s why my Administration has put more boots on the border than ever before. That’s why there are fewer illegal crossings than when I took office.

The opponents of action are out of excuses. We should be working on comprehensive immigration reform right now. But if election-year politics keeps Congress from acting on a comprehensive plan, let’s at least agree to stop expelling responsible young people who want to staff our labs, start new businesses, and defend this country. Send me a law that gives them the chance to earn their citizenship. I will sign it right away.

Infrastructure

In the next few weeks, I will sign an executive order clearing away the red tape that slows down too many construction projects. But you need to fund these projects. Take the money we’re no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home.

Regulation

And tonight, I’m asking my Attorney General to create a special unit of federal prosecutors and leading state attorney general to expand our investigations into the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis. This new unit will hold accountable those who broke the law, speed assistance to homeowners, and help turn the page on an era of recklessness that hurt so many Americans.

Foreign Policy

Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal.

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Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans:

Last month, I went to Andrews Air Force Base and welcomed home some of our last troops to serve in Iraq. Together, we offered a final, proud salute to the colors under which more than a million of our fellow citizens fought – and several thousand gave their lives.

We gather tonight knowing that this generation of heroes has made the United States safer and more respected around the world. For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq. For the first time in two decades, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country. Most of al Qaeda’s top lieutenants have been defeated. The Taliban’s momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home.

These achievements are a testament to the courage, selflessness, and teamwork of America’s Armed Forces. At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations. They’re not consumed with personal ambition. They don’t obsess over their differences. They focus on the mission at hand. They work together.

Imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example. Think about the America within our reach: A country that leads the world in educating its people. An America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs. A future where we’re in control of our own energy, and our security and prosperity aren’t so tied to unstable parts of the world. An economy built to last, where hard work pays off, and responsibility is rewarded.

We can do this. I know we can, because we’ve done it before. At the end of World War II, when another generation of heroes returned home from combat, they built the strongest economy and middle class the world has ever known. My grandfather, a veteran of Patton’s Army, got the chance to go to college on the GI Bill. My grandmother, who worked on a bomber assembly line, was part of a workforce that turned out the best products on Earth.

The two of them shared the optimism of a Nation that had triumphed over a depression and fascism. They understood they were part of something larger; that they were contributing to a story of success that every American had a chance to share – the basic American promise that if you worked hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and put a little away for retirement.

The defining issue of our time is how to keep that promise alive. No challenge is more urgent. No debate is more important. We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules. What’s at stake are not Democratic values or Republican values, but American values. We have to reclaim them.

Let’s remember how we got here. Long before the recession, jobs and manufacturing began leaving our shores. Technology made businesses more efficient, but also made some jobs obsolete. Folks at the top saw their incomes rise like never before, but most hardworking Americans struggled with costs that were growing, paychecks that weren’t, and personal debt that kept piling up.

In 2008, the house of cards collapsed. We learned that mortgages had been sold to people who couldn’t afford or understand them. Banks had made huge bets and bonuses with other people’s money. Regulators had looked the other way, or didn’t have the authority to stop the bad behavior.
It was wrong. It was irresponsible. And it plunged our economy into a crisis that put millions out of work, saddled us with more debt, and left innocent, hard-working Americans holding the bag. In the six months before I took office, we lost nearly four million jobs. And we lost another four million before our policies were in full effect.

Those are the facts. But so are these. In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than three million jobs. Last year, they created the most jobs since 2005. American manufacturers are hiring again, creating jobs for the first time since the late 1990s. Together, we’ve agreed to cut the deficit by more than $2 trillion. And we’ve put in place new rules to hold Wall Street accountable, so a crisis like that never happens again.

The state of our Union is getting stronger. And we’ve come too far to turn back now. As long as I’m President, I will work with anyone in this chamber to build on this momentum. But I intend to fight obstruction with action, and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place.

No, we will not go back to an economy weakened by outsourcing, bad debt, and phony financial profits. Tonight, I want to speak about how we move forward, and lay out a blueprint for an economy that’s built to last – an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values.

This blueprint begins with American manufacturing.

On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen. In exchange for help, we demanded responsibility. We got workers and automakers to settle their differences. We got the industry to retool and restructure. Today, General Motors is back on top as the world’s number one automaker. Chrysler has grown faster in the U.S. than any major car company. Ford is investing billions in U.S. plants and factories. And together, the entire industry added nearly 160,000 jobs.
We bet on American workers. We bet on American ingenuity. And tonight, the American auto industry is back.

What’s happening in Detroit can happen in other industries. It can happen in Cleveland and Pittsburgh and Raleigh. We can’t bring back every job that’s left our shores. But right now, it’s getting more expensive to do business in places like China. Meanwhile, America is more productive. A few weeks ago, the CEO of Master Lock told me that it now makes business sense for him to bring jobs back home. Today, for the first time in fifteen years, Master Lock’s unionized plant in Milwaukee is running at full capacity.

So we have a huge opportunity, at this moment, to bring manufacturing back. But we have to seize it. Tonight, my message to business leaders is simple: Ask yourselves what you can do to bring jobs back to your country, and your country will do everything we can to help you succeed.
We should start with our tax code. Right now, companies get tax breaks for moving jobs and profits overseas. Meanwhile, companies that choose to stay in America get hit with one of the highest tax rates in the world. It makes no sense, and everyone knows it.

So let’s change it. First, if you’re a business that wants to outsource jobs, you shouldn’t get a tax deduction for doing it. That money should be used to cover moving expenses for companies like Master Lock that decide to bring jobs home.

Second, no American company should be able to avoid paying its fair share of taxes by moving jobs and profits overseas. From now on, every multinational company should have to pay a basic minimum tax. And every penny should go towards lowering taxes for companies that choose to stay here and hire here.

Third, if you’re an American manufacturer, you should get a bigger tax cut. If you’re a high-tech manufacturer, we should double the tax deduction you get for making products here. And if you want to relocate in a community that was hit hard when a factory left town, you should get help financing a new plant, equipment, or training for new workers.

My message is simple. It’s time to stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas, and start rewarding companies that create jobs right here in America. Send me these tax reforms, and I’ll sign them right away.

We’re also making it easier for American businesses to sell products all over the world. Two years ago, I set a goal of doubling U.S. exports over five years. With the bipartisan trade agreements I signed into law, we are on track to meet that goal – ahead of schedule. Soon, there will be millions of new customers for American goods in Panama, Colombia, and South Korea. Soon, there will be new cars on the streets of Seoul imported from Detroit, and Toledo, and Chicago.

I will go anywhere in the world to open new markets for American products. And I will not stand by when our competitors don’t play by the rules. We’ve brought trade cases against China at nearly twice the rate as the last administration – and it’s made a difference. Over a thousand Americans are working today because we stopped a surge in Chinese tires. But we need to do more. It’s not right when another country lets our movies, music, and software be pirated. It’s not fair when foreign manufacturers have a leg up on ours only because they’re heavily subsidized.

Tonight, I’m announcing the creation of a Trade Enforcement Unit that will be charged with investigating unfair trade practices in countries like China. There will be more inspections to prevent counterfeit or unsafe goods from crossing our borders. And this Congress should make sure that no foreign company has an advantage over American manufacturing when it comes to accessing finance or new markets like Russia. Our workers are the most productive on Earth, and if the playing field is level, I promise you – America will always win.

I also hear from many business leaders who want to hire in the United States but can’t find workers with the right skills. Growing industries in science and technology have twice as many openings as we have workers who can do the job. Think about that – openings at a time when millions of Americans are looking for work.

That’s inexcusable. And we know how to fix it.

Jackie Bray is a single mom from North Carolina who was laid off from her job as a mechanic. Then Siemens opened a gas turbine factory in Charlotte, and formed a partnership with Central Piedmont Community College. The company helped the college design courses in laser and robotics training. It paid Jackie’s tuition, then hired her to help operate their plant.

I want every American looking for work to have the same opportunity as Jackie did. Join me in a national commitment to train two million Americans with skills that will lead directly to a job. My Administration has already lined up more companies that want to help. Model partnerships between businesses like Siemens and community colleges in places like Charlotte, Orlando, and Louisville are up and running. Now you need to give more community colleges the resources they need to become community career centers – places that teach people skills that local businesses are looking for right now, from data management to high-tech manufacturing.

And I want to cut through the maze of confusing training programs, so that from now on, people like Jackie have one program, one website, and one place to go for all the information and help they need. It’s time to turn our unemployment system into a reemployment system that puts people to work.
These reforms will help people get jobs that are open today. But to prepare for the jobs of tomorrow, our commitment to skills and education has to start earlier.

For less than one percent of what our Nation spends on education each year, we’ve convinced nearly every State in the country to raise their standards for teaching and learning – the first time that’s happened in a generation.

But challenges remain. And we know how to solve them.

At a time when other countries are doubling down on education, tight budgets have forced States to lay off thousands of teachers. We know a good teacher can increase the lifetime income of a classroom by over $250,000. A great teacher can offer an escape from poverty to the child who dreams beyond his circumstance. Every person in this chamber can point to a teacher who changed the trajectory of their lives. Most teachers work tirelessly, with modest pay, sometimes digging into their own pocket for school supplies – just to make a difference.

Teachers matter. So instead of bashing them, or defending the status quo, let’s offer schools a deal. Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job, and reward the best ones. In return, grant schools flexibility: To teach with creativity and passion; to stop teaching to the test; and to replace teachers who just aren’t helping kids learn.

We also know that when students aren’t allowed to walk away from their education, more of them walk the stage to get their diploma. So tonight, I call on every State to require that all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn eighteen.
When kids do graduate, the most daunting challenge can be the cost of college. At a time when Americans owe more in tuition debt than credit card debt, this Congress needs to stop the interest rates on student loans from doubling in July. Extend the tuition tax credit we started that saves middle-class families thousands of dollars. And give more young people the chance to earn their way through college by doubling the number of work-study jobs in the next five years.

Of course, it’s not enough for us to increase student aid. We can’t just keep subsidizing skyrocketing tuition; we’ll run out of money. States also need to do their part, by making higher education a higher priority in their budgets. And colleges and universities have to do their part by working to keep costs down. Recently, I spoke with a group of college presidents who’ve done just that. Some schools re-design courses to help students finish more quickly. Some use better technology. The point is, it’s possible. So let me put colleges and universities on notice: If you can’t stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down. Higher education can’t be a luxury – it’s an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford.

Let’s also remember that hundreds of thousands of talented, hardworking students in this country face another challenge: The fact that they aren’t yet American citizens. Many were brought here as small children, are American through and through, yet they live every day with the threat of deportation. Others came more recently, to study business and science and engineering, but as soon as they get their degree, we send them home to invent new products and create new jobs somewhere else.

That doesn’t make sense.

I believe as strongly as ever that we should take on illegal immigration. That’s why my Administration has put more boots on the border than ever before. That’s why there are fewer illegal crossings than when I took office.

The opponents of action are out of excuses. We should be working on comprehensive immigration reform right now. But if election-year politics keeps Congress from acting on a comprehensive plan, let’s at least agree to stop expelling responsible young people who want to staff our labs, start new businesses, and defend this country. Send me a law that gives them the chance to earn their citizenship. I will sign it right away.

You see, an economy built to last is one where we encourage the talent and ingenuity of every person in this country. That means women should earn equal pay for equal work. It means we should support everyone who’s willing to work; and every risk-taker and entrepreneur who aspires to become the next Steve Jobs.

After all, innovation is what America has always been about. Most new jobs are created in start-ups and small businesses. So let’s pass an agenda that helps them succeed. Tear down regulations that prevent aspiring entrepreneurs from getting the financing to grow. Expand tax relief to small businesses that are raising wages and creating good jobs. Both parties agree on these ideas. So put them in a bill, and get it on my desk this year.
Innovation also demands basic research. Today, the discoveries taking place in our federally-financed labs and universities could lead to new treatments that kill cancer cells but leave healthy ones untouched. New lightweight vests for cops and soldiers that can stop any bullet. Don’t gut these investments in our budget. Don’t let other countries win the race for the future. Support the same kind of research and innovation that led to the computer chip and the Internet; to new American jobs and new American industries.

Nowhere is the promise of innovation greater than in American-made energy. Over the last three years, we’ve opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration, and tonight, I’m directing my Administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources. Right now, American oil production is the highest that it’s been in eight years. That’s right – eight years. Not only that – last year, we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past sixteen years.

But with only 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves, oil isn’t enough. This country needs an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy – a strategy that’s cleaner, cheaper, and full of new jobs.

We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly one hundred years, and my Administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy. Experts believe this will support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade. And I’m requiring all companies that drill for gas on public lands to disclose the chemicals they use. America will develop this resource without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk.
The development of natural gas will create jobs and power trucks and factories that are cleaner and cheaper, proving that we don’t have to choose between our environment and our economy. And by the way, it was public research dollars, over the course of thirty years, that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock – reminding us that Government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground.

What’s true for natural gas is true for clean energy. In three years, our partnership with the private sector has already positioned America to be the world’s leading manufacturer of high-tech batteries. Because of federal investments, renewable energy use has nearly doubled. And thousands of Americans have jobs because of it.

When Bryan Ritterby was laid off from his job making furniture, he said he worried that at 55, no one would give him a second chance. But he found work at Energetx, a wind turbine manufacturer in Michigan. Before the recession, the factory only made luxury yachts. Today, it’s hiring workers like Bryan, who said, “I’m proud to be working in the industry of the future.”

Our experience with shale gas shows us that the payoffs on these public investments don’t always come right away. Some technologies don’t pan out; some companies fail. But I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy. I will not walk away from workers like Bryan. I will not cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or Germany because we refuse to make the same commitment here. We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That’s long enough. It’s time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that’s rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that’s never been more promising. Pass clean energy tax credits and create these jobs.

We can also spur energy innovation with new incentives. The differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change. But there’s no reason why Congress shouldn’t at least set a clean energy standard that creates a market for innovation. So far, you haven’t acted. Well tonight, I will. I’m directing my Administration to allow the development of clean energy on enough public land to power three million homes. And I’m proud to announce that the Department of Defense, the world’s largest consumer of energy, will make one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history – with the Navy purchasing enough capacity to power a quarter of a million homes a year.

Of course, the easiest way to save money is to waste less energy. So here’s another proposal: Help manufacturers eliminate energy waste in their factories and give businesses incentives to upgrade their buildings. Their energy bills will be $100 billion lower over the next decade, and America will have less pollution, more manufacturing, and more jobs for construction workers who need them. Send me a bill that creates these jobs.

Building this new energy future should be just one part of a broader agenda to repair America’s infrastructure. So much of America needs to be rebuilt. We’ve got crumbling roads and bridges. A power grid that wastes too much energy. An incomplete high-speed broadband network that prevents a small business owner in rural America from selling her products all over the world.

During the Great Depression, America built the Hoover Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge. After World War II, we connected our States with a system of highways. Democratic and Republican administrations invested in great projects that benefited everybody, from the workers who built them to the businesses that still use them today.

In the next few weeks, I will sign an Executive Order clearing away the red tape that slows down too many construction projects. But you need to fund these projects. Take the money we’re no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home.

There’s never been a better time to build, especially since the construction industry was one of the hardest-hit when the housing bubble burst. Of course, construction workers weren’t the only ones hurt. So were millions of innocent Americans who’ve seen their home values decline. And while Government can’t fix the problem on its own, responsible homeowners shouldn’t have to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom to get some relief.

That’s why I’m sending this Congress a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low interest rates. No more red tape. No more runaround from the banks. A small fee on the largest financial institutions will ensure that it won’t add to the deficit, and will give banks that were rescued by taxpayers a chance to repay a deficit of trust.

Let’s never forget: Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day deserve a Government and a financial system that do the same. It’s time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts. An America built to last insists on responsibility from everybody.

We’ve all paid the price for lenders who sold mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them, and buyers who knew they couldn’t afford them. That’s why we need smart regulations to prevent irresponsible behavior. Rules to prevent financial fraud, or toxic dumping, or faulty medical devices, don’t destroy the free market. They make the free market work better.

There is no question that some regulations are outdated, unnecessary, or too costly. In fact, I’ve approved fewer regulations in the first three years of my presidency than my Republican predecessor did in his. I’ve ordered every federal agency to eliminate rules that don’t make sense. We’ve already announced over 500 reforms, and just a fraction of them will save business and citizens more than $10 billion over the next five years. We got rid of one rule from 40 years ago that could have forced some dairy farmers to spend $10,000 a year proving that they could contain a spill – because milk was somehow classified as an oil. With a rule like that, I guess it was worth crying over spilled milk.

I’m confident a farmer can contain a milk spill without a federal agency looking over his shoulder. But I will not back down from making sure an oil company can contain the kind of oil spill we saw in the Gulf two years ago. I will not back down from protecting our kids from mercury pollution, or making sure that our food is safe and our water is clean. I will not go back to the days when health insurance companies had unchecked power to cancel your policy, deny you coverage, or charge women differently from men.

And I will not go back to the days when Wall Street was allowed to play by its own set of rules. The new rules we passed restore what should be any financial system’s core purpose: Getting funding to entrepreneurs with the best ideas, and getting loans to responsible families who want to buy a home, start a business, or send a kid to college.

So if you’re a big bank or financial institution, you are no longer allowed to make risky bets with your customers’ deposits. You’re required to write out a “living will” that details exactly how you’ll pay the bills if you fail – because the rest of us aren’t bailing you out ever again. And if you’re a mortgage lender or a payday lender or a credit card company, the days of signing people up for products they can’t afford with confusing forms and deceptive practices are over. Today, American consumers finally have a watchdog in Richard Cordray with one job: To look out for them.

We will also establish a Financial Crimes Unit of highly trained investigators to crack down on large-scale fraud and protect people’s investments. Some financial firms violate major anti-fraud laws because there’s no real penalty for being a repeat offender. That’s bad for consumers, and it’s bad for the vast majority of bankers and financial service professionals who do the right thing. So pass legislation that makes the penalties for fraud count.

And tonight, I am asking my Attorney General to create a special unit of federal prosecutors and leading state attorneys general to expand our investigations into the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis. This new unit will hold accountable those who broke the law, speed assistance to homeowners, and help turn the page on an era of recklessness that hurt so many Americans.

A return to the American values of fair play and shared responsibility will help us protect our people and our economy. But it should also guide us as we look to pay down our debt and invest in our future.

Right now, our most immediate priority is stopping a tax hike on 160 million working Americans while the recovery is still fragile. People cannot afford losing $40 out of each paycheck this year. There are plenty of ways to get this done. So let’s agree right here, right now: No side issues. No drama. Pass the payroll tax cut without delay.

When it comes to the deficit, we’ve already agreed to more than $2 trillion in cuts and savings. But we need to do more, and that means making choices. Right now, we’re poised to spend nearly $1 trillion more on what was supposed to be a temporary tax break for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. Right now, because of loopholes and shelters in the tax code, a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households. Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.

Do we want to keep these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans? Or do we want to keep our investments in everything else – like education and medical research; a strong military and care for our veterans? Because if we’re serious about paying down our debt, we can’t do both.

The American people know what the right choice is. So do I. As I told the Speaker this summer, I’m prepared to make more reforms that rein in the long term costs of Medicare and Medicaid, and strengthen Social Security, so long as those programs remain a guarantee of security for seniors.
But in return, we need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of Members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes. Tax reform should follow the Buffett rule: If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes. And my Republican friend Tom Coburn is right: Washington should stop subsidizing millionaires. In fact, if you’re earning a million dollars a year, you shouldn’t get special tax subsidies or deductions. On the other hand, if you make under $250,000 a year, like 98 percent of American families, your taxes shouldn’t go up.

You’re the ones struggling with rising costs and stagnant wages. You’re the ones who need relief.

Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.

We don’t begrudge financial success in this country. We admire it. When Americans talk about folks like me paying my fair share of taxes, it’s not because they envy the rich. It’s because they understand that when I get tax breaks I don’t need and the country can’t afford, it either adds to the deficit, or somebody else has to make up the difference – like a senior on a fixed income; or a student trying to get through school; or a family trying to make ends meet. That’s not right. Americans know it’s not right. They know that this generation’s success is only possible because past generations felt a responsibility to each other, and to their country’s future, and they know our way of life will only endure if we feel that same sense of shared responsibility. That’s how we’ll reduce our deficit. That’s an America built to last.

I recognize that people watching tonight have differing views about taxes and debt; energy and health care. But no matter what party they belong to, I bet most Americans are thinking the same thing right now: Nothing will get done this year, or next year, or maybe even the year after that, because Washington is broken.

Can you blame them for feeling a little cynical?

The greatest blow to confidence in our economy last year didn’t come from events beyond our control. It came from a debate in Washington over whether the United States would pay its bills or not. Who benefited from that fiasco?

I’ve talked tonight about the deficit of trust between Main Street and Wall Street. But the divide between this city and the rest of the country is at least as bad – and it seems to get worse every year.

Some of this has to do with the corrosive influence of money in politics. So together, let’s take some steps to fix that. Send me a bill that bans insider trading by Members of Congress, and I will sign it tomorrow. Let’s limit any elected official from owning stocks in industries they impact. Let’s make sure people who bundle campaign contributions for Congress can’t lobby Congress, and vice versa – an idea that has bipartisan support, at least outside of Washington.

Some of what’s broken has to do with the way Congress does its business these days. A simple majority is no longer enough to get anything – even routine business – passed through the Senate. Neither party has been blameless in these tactics. Now both parties should put an end to it. For starters, I ask the Senate to pass a rule that all judicial and public service nominations receive a simple up or down vote within 90 days.
The executive branch also needs to change. Too often, it’s inefficient, outdated and remote. That’s why I’ve asked this Congress to grant me the authority to consolidate the federal bureaucracy so that our Government is leaner, quicker, and more responsive to the needs of the American people.

Finally, none of these reforms can happen unless we also lower the temperature in this town. We need to end the notion that the two parties must be locked in a perpetual campaign of mutual destruction; that politics is about clinging to rigid ideologies instead of building consensus around common sense ideas.

I’m a Democrat. But I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That Government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more. That’s why my education reform offers more competition, and more control for schools and States. That’s why we’re getting rid of regulations that don’t work. That’s why our health care law relies on a reformed private market, not a Government program.
On the other hand, even my Republican friends who complain the most about Government spending have supported federally-financed roads, and clean energy projects, and federal offices for the folks back home.

The point is, we should all want a smarter, more effective Government. And while we may not be able to bridge our biggest philosophical differences this year, we can make real progress. With or without this Congress, I will keep taking actions that help the economy grow. But I can do a whole lot more with your help. Because when we act together, there is nothing the United States of America can’t achieve.
That is the lesson we’ve learned from our actions abroad over the last few years.

Ending the Iraq war has allowed us to strike decisive blows against our enemies. From Pakistan to Yemen, the al Qaeda operatives who remain are scrambling, knowing that they can’t escape the reach of the United States of America.

From this position of strength, we’ve begun to wind down the war in Afghanistan. Ten thousand of our troops have come home. Twenty-three thousand more will leave by the end of this summer. This transition to Afghan lead will continue, and we will build an enduring partnership with Afghanistan, so that it is never again a source of attacks against America.

As the tide of war recedes, a wave of change has washed across the Middle East and North Africa, from Tunis to Cairo; from Sana’a to Tripoli. A year ago, Qadhafi was one of the world’s longest-serving dictators – a murderer with American blood on his hands. Today, he is gone. And in Syria, I have no doubt that the Assad regime will soon discover that the forces of change can’t be reversed, and that human dignity can’t be denied.

How this incredible transformation will end remains uncertain. But we have a huge stake in the outcome. And while it is ultimately up to the people of the region to decide their fate, we will advocate for those values that have served our own country so well. We will stand against violence and intimidation. We will stand for the rights and dignity of all human beings – men and women; Christians, Muslims, and Jews. We will support policies that lead to strong and stable democracies and open markets, because tyranny is no match for liberty.

And we will safeguard America’s own security against those who threaten our citizens, our friends, and our interests. Look at Iran. Through the power of our diplomacy, a world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program now stands as one. The regime is more isolated than ever before; its leaders are faced with crippling sanctions, and as long as they shirk their responsibilities, this pressure will not relent. Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal. But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better, and if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations.

The renewal of American leadership can be felt across the globe. Our oldest alliances in Europe and Asia are stronger than ever. Our ties to the Americas are deeper. Our iron-clad commitment to Israel’s security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries in history. We’ve made it clear that America is a Pacific power, and a new beginning in Burma has lit a new hope. From the coalitions we’ve built to secure nuclear materials, to the missions we’ve led against hunger and disease; from the blows we’ve dealt to our enemies; to the enduring power of our moral example, America is back.

Anyone who tells you otherwise, anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn’t know what they’re talking about. That’s not the message we get from leaders around the world, all of whom are eager to work with us. That’s not how people feel from Tokyo to Berlin; from Cape Town to Rio; where opinions of America are higher than they’ve been in years. Yes, the world is changing; no, we can’t control every event. But America remains the one indispensable nation in world affairs – and as long as I’m President, I intend to keep it that way.

That’s why, working with our military leaders, I have proposed a new defense strategy that ensures we maintain the finest military in the world, while saving nearly half a trillion dollars in our budget. To stay one step ahead of our adversaries, I have already sent this Congress legislation that will secure our country from the growing danger of cyber-threats.

Above all, our freedom endures because of the men and women in uniform who defend it. As they come home, we must serve them as well as they served us. That includes giving them the care and benefits they have earned – which is why we’ve increased annual VA spending every year I’ve been President. And it means enlisting our veterans in the work of rebuilding our Nation.

With the bipartisan support of this Congress, we are providing new tax credits to companies that hire vets. Michelle and Jill Biden have worked with American businesses to secure a pledge of 135,000 jobs for veterans and their families. And tonight, I’m proposing a Veterans Job Corps that will help our communities hire veterans as cops and firefighters, so that America is as strong as those who defend her.

Which brings me back to where I began. Those of us who’ve been sent here to serve can learn from the service of our troops. When you put on that uniform, it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white; Asian or Latino; conservative or liberal; rich or poor; gay or straight. When you’re marching into battle, you look out for the person next to you, or the mission fails. When you’re in the thick of the fight, you rise or fall as one unit, serving one Nation, leaving no one behind.

One of my proudest possessions is the flag that the SEAL Team took with them on the mission to get bin Laden. On it are each of their names. Some may be Democrats. Some may be Republicans. But that doesn’t matter. Just like it didn’t matter that day in the Situation Room, when I sat next to Bob Gates – a man who was George Bush’s defense secretary; and Hillary Clinton, a woman who ran against me for president.

All that mattered that day was the mission. No one thought about politics. No one thought about themselves. One of the young men involved in the raid later told me that he didn’t deserve credit for the mission. It only succeeded, he said, because every single member of that unit did their job – the pilot who landed the helicopter that spun out of control; the translator who kept others from entering the compound; the troops who separated the women and children from the fight; the SEALs who charged up the stairs. More than that, the mission only succeeded because every member of that unit trusted each other – because you can’t charge up those stairs, into darkness and danger, unless you know that there’s someone behind you, watching your back.

So it is with America. Each time I look at that flag, I’m reminded that our destiny is stitched together like those fifty stars and those thirteen stripes. No one built this country on their own. This Nation is great because we built it together. This Nation is great because we worked as a team. This Nation is great because we get each other’s backs. And if we hold fast to that truth, in this moment of trial, there is no challenge too great; no mission too hard. As long as we’re joined in common purpose, as long as we maintain our common resolve, our journey moves forward, our future is hopeful, and the state of our Union will always be strong.

Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

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The article acknowledges that this strategy takes time, but says Obama has stuck with it, and it has proved increasingly successful. I agree with parts of this argument, but it strikes me as a little too flattering. Much of Obama’s first term has been the journey of a talented but still relatively unseasoned politician trying to find his voice and style of leadership. For example, on health care reform Obama seemed content to lead from beyond and let Congress move the bill along without his help. This strategy did not prove especially successful, and eventually the administration had to pivot towards a new approach. Obama’s changing role in the process seemed more the result of trial and error than any sort of precocious game plan.

Finally, Sullivan may be right that what matters to Obama “is what he can get done not what he can take credit for,” but a president, especially one who is up for re-election in ten months, needs to able to communicate his accomplishments and vision to the American public. A recent New York Times poll shows that independents have soured on Obama and voters do not have a clear idea of what he wants to achieve in his second term. Sullivan has made his argument for why Obama’s re-election remains as “essential for this country’s future as his original election in 2008”; it remains to be seen if Obama can effectively make the same case to the American public.

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No strong correlation between performance in the primary and performance in the general election seems to emerge. For instance, Al Gore and John Kerry both won the Democratic primaries by much larger margins than Barack Obama, but only Obama went on to be elected president.

The reasons for a close or divisive primary campaign also appear critical in predicting how it will affect a candidate’s general election prospects. All three incumbent presidents who faced serious primary challenges went on to lose the general election. This is not surprising, since it is likely that an incumbent is perceived as especially weak if they face competition in the primary from within their own party. In contrast, Barack Obama had an especially close nomination process, but the primaries existed against a backdrop of backlash against Republicans and a perception that the country needed to turn in a new direction. This supports David Smith’s assertion that the details of the campaign process are of much less importance than the public’s perception of the incumbent president.

I was trying to figure out which example from the table most closely mirrors the way the 2012 race is shaping up. It’s tough to find a great comparison, but the 2004 race in which John Kerry won easily in the primary and then faced a potentially vulnerable incumbent in the general election seems like the best comparison. George W. Bush, of course, went on to be re-elected in 2004 by a narrow margin.

I stand by my earlier comments that a divisive Republican primary would be in the interest of the Obama campaign, but, as the data indicates, it would be a relatively minor factor in the general election. Further, as explained above, the length and competitiveness of the Republican primary alone will be significantly less telling than the specific factors that caused it to be this way. For instance, has Mitt Romney fared so well primarily because he is a strong candidate or because the Republican field is unusually weak? I’ll leave the readers to further explore these issues.

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There does seem to be a slight difference in the points Reich and Keller are pushing. Reich appear to believe Clinton will be drafted on to the 2012 Democratic ticket, while Keller merely hopes she will be. Whether analysis or fantasy, however, Hillary Clinton taking the vice presidential nomination this year is a terrible idea that won't happen.

First, as Keller points out, "It has been kicking around on the blogs for more than a year without getting any traction, mainly because it has been authoritatively, emphatically dismissed by Hillary, Biden and Team Obama." Considering all the relevant parties dismiss the idea, you might think that would give its proponent pause. But no.

Joe Biden "is not a dazzling campaigner," says Keller, ignoring Biden's support among the Democratic base and his appeal to voters in swing states across the working class Rust Belt. Reich, in a piece penned for the Huffington Post, argued "Obama needs to stir the passions and enthusiasms of a Democratic base that's been disillusioned with his cave-ins to regressive Republicans," ignoring that the president, far from being unpopular with the Democratic base, has his keenest supporters among them. 84 per cent of liberal Democrats approved of the job the president was doing in November 2011, as compared to 43 per cent of the general population. These people don't need Hillary Clinton to get themselves excited.

Reich also thinks Clinton could save Obama on the economy:

Moreover, the economy won't be in superb shape in the months leading up to Election Day. Indeed, if the European debt crisis grows worse and if China's economy continues to slow, there's a better than even chance we'll be back in a recession. Clinton would help deflect attention from the bad economy and put it on foreign policy, where she and Obama have shined.

Does he really think a couple of news days about Hillary Clinton would make Americans forget they don't have jobs? Does he really think this election — unlike most American elections, even when the country isn't in dire economic straits — will be one where foreign policy takes centre stage?

Both Reich and Keller point to Clinton's popularity, demonstrating only the shortness of their memories. Clinton looks popular now while in the largely nonpartisan role of Secretary of State. But during her time as First Lady and her tenure in the Senate, Republicans loathed her. All women in politics bear the brunt of sexist attacks, but Clinton was such a lightning rod, with her divisive and progressive beliefs about gender roles and social policy, that she copped more than most. If she were added to a presidential ticket, Republicans would quickly remember how much they dislike her.

But the biggest reason this switch up will not happen is that it would make Obama look weak and desperate. Stories would fly about the White House being in disarray, and how the president was relying on a last-minute gimmick to scrape a victory. And Clintons, like it or not, are larger than life figures. Hillary on the ticket would have the same effect she would have in 2008 if Obama had asked her to be his running mate: She would have distracted attention from the top of the ticket and made it harder for the campaign to keep on message. 

I understand why Democrats keep pushing Hillary Clinton in these kinds of situations. She's an adept politician and a talented woman, and women have too long been shut out of the highest positions in American political life. But putting her on the 2012 ticket would be a terrible idea that isn't going to happen. Political analysis should be based on sober judgement, not daydreams derived from exciting headlines.

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Interestingly, it's not just Democrats who are attacking Romney's big business past. As Andrew Sullivan points out, Romney's Republican opponents have begun attacking him from the left: 

That Gingrich and Perry are openly using classic Democratic attack lines against Romney, especially with his record at Bain, is a sign to me that they suspect it could work. And if it can work against Romney in a Republican primary, imagine what could be done in a general election.

[...]

Even the hardest of hardcore Republicans, like Perry, realize that this is now a populist election and their likeliest nominee is a plutocrat who stumbles every time he tried to relate to regular folks, and has a record at Bain that is a populist opponent's dream.

Also check out James Fallows for more on why this could harm Romney, even though it shouldn't:

It's the word fire ... people with any experience on either side of a firing know that, necessary as it might be, it is hard. Or it should be. It's wrenching, it's humiliating, it disrupts families, it creates shame and anger alike — notwithstanding the fact that often it absolutely has to happen. Anyone not troubled by the process — well, there is something wrong with that person.

EDIT: Besides, as Matt Yglesias writes, the problem with Romney's statement is not that it can misconstrued to make him sound nasty, it's that his idea of customer choice in health insurance would not work in reality.

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Remember Ronald Reagan's famous "Morning in America" campaign commercial from the 1984 election? That was the year Reagan won 49 states and 58.8 per cent of the national vote, in a landslide victory over his Democratic opponent Walter Mondale. What's less often remembered is that Reagan's morning in America wasn't all that sunny. "It's morning again in America," said the commercial's narration, "and under the leadership of President Reagan, our country is prouder and stronger and better." It finished with a question: "Why would we ever want to return to where we were less than four short years ago?"

The truth is, however, that Reagan didn't actually end his first term with the American economy in much better shape than when he began:

That's the unemployment rate during Reagan's first term. When he took office, in January 1981, the unemployment rate was 7.5 per cent. Over the next two years it soared up, reaching a high of 10.8 per cent in November and December of 1982, and staying above ten until July 1983. From there it went down, but when Reagan was re-elected in November 1984, the unemployment rate was still 7.2 per cent, barely lower than when he took office. The story of the Gipper's first term was one of joblessness and misery for a lot of Americans. Why, then, were they so eager to vote him back in to office?

This graph shows GDP during Reagan's first term. The big swoop upward after the shaded recession does a lot to explain his victory: Americans were still unemployed, but all in all, voters could tell things were getting better. Reagan got the credit, and a second term.

There are signs the latest job figures may be the beginning of a similar turn around now. Obama took office with even higher unemployment than Reagan — 7.8 per cent — and the jobless rate topped out at 10.0 per cent, in October of 2009. Where Reagan oversaw a relatively rapid drop in unemployment after his peak figures, under Obama, the rate declined a little bit, but mostly it just levelled off. Things stopped getting worse, but they didn't get better.

It turns out, however, that 2011 was a pretty good year for job growth. All in all, the economy added 1.9 million jobs in the private sector and lost 280 000 in the public sector. And, adding to that, Ezra Klein explains why it was better than we thought at the time:

As more accurate data has streamed in, the Bureau of Labor Statistics have revised its estimates upwards for many months. For instance: The December jobs report is the best jobs report since September, when the economy added 210,000 jobs. But we only know that now. When the September jobs report came out, the initial data showed that we added 103,000 jobs. What seemed like a disappointment was actually a very strong month for the economy. (By the same token, the December numbers could be revised up or down in the coming months.)

Some economists think that these are the first hints of a strong recovery, as Matt Yglesias explains here. If they're right, what looked to be a tough re-election campaign for Obama could turn out to be a romp home. And remember, as Reagan showed, the nation doesn't have to return to full employment for an incumbent to get on voters' good side. It's growth that matters.

Of course, there are plenty of reasons this scenario might not play out. Most economists still expect slow growth during 2012. It's possible that the good December figures are a blip, and the next few months will see unemployment revert to the mean. There's a chance that when the BLS revises the December figures in three months time that job growth wasn't as strong as we originally thought. Or perhaps this is indeed a real recovery, but it will be thrown off course due to trouble in Europe, poor economic policy decisions in Washington over the next year, or an unforeseen circumstance like a natural disaster. We don't know what the economic landscape will look when America goes to the polls next fall. But there's no guarantee that the economy will still be issue number one.

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What they actually said, however, was this:

First of all, ads are propaganda by definition. We are in the persuasion business, the propaganda business…. Ads are agitprop…. Ads are about hyperbole, they are about editing. It’s ludicrous for them to say that an ad is taking something out of context…. All ads do that. They are manipulative pieces of persuasive art.

Of course the Romney team lied in its commercial, this Romney insider is saying. It's a political commercial!

Voters, of course, shouldn't accept this, and Mitt Romney should be above it. Political commercials are often designed to deceive, and in doing so, they help erode public trust in government. Telling the public they should expect to be lied to, however, erodes trust even further. A candidate who wants to lead the nation should not be telling the public they shouldn't trust the people who wish to represent them.

But, at the same time, voters do find this kind of candour refreshing. John McCain, for instance, built much of his initial popularity on his willingness to cut through the pretence of how political campaigns oeprate. When a candidate acknowledging how shady politics can be, voters feel as if they're being treated like responsible adults — that the candidate respects them enough not to think the public doesn't know it's being manipulated.

In fact, the current president is something of a master at this kind of thing. Here's Ryan Lizza, profiling Obama in the New Yorker in June 2008:  

[E.J.] Dionne wrote about a young Barack Obama, who artfully explained how the new pinstripe patronage worked: a politician rewards the law firms, developers, and brokerage houses with contracts, and in return they pay for the new ad campaigns necessary for reëlection. “They do well, and you get a $5 million to $10 million war chest,” Obama told Dionne. It was a classic Obamaism: superficially critical of some unseemly aspect of the political process without necessarily forswearing the practice itself. Obama was learning that one of the greatest skills a politician can possess is candor about the dirty work it takes to get and stay elected.

Obviously, it would be best if politicians would just foreswear unseemly practices entirely. But Romney's campaign couldn't even practice its sleight of hand correctly; rather than merely describing a sketchy tactic that campaigns generally use, and earning points for honesty in the process, they brazenly dared voters to be disgusted by their deceptions. All in the game? Sure, but here's another Omar-ism: "A man got to have a code." 

And if he can't have that, he should at least be smart about his fibs.

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Prime Minister Gillard, Leader Abbott, thank you both for your very warm welcome.

Mr Speaker, Mr President, Members of the House and Senate, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for the honour of standing in this great chamber to reaffirm the bonds between the United States and the Commonwealth of Australia, two of the world's oldest democracies and two of the world's oldest friends.

To you and the people of Australia, thank you for your extraordinary hospitality. And here, in this city — this ancient "meeting place" — I want to acknowledge the original inhabitants of this land, and one of the world's oldest continuous cultures, the First Australians.

I first came to Australia as a child, travelling between my birthplace of Hawaii, and Indonesia, where I would live for four years.

As an eight-year-old, I couldn't always understand your foreign language. Although, last night I did try to talk some Strine.

And today I don't want to subject you to any earbashing. I really do love that one and I will be introducing it into the vernacular in Washington.

But to a young American boy, Australia and its people — your optimism, your easy-going ways, your irreverent sense of humour — all felt so familiar; it felt like home.

I've always wanted to return. I tried last year. Twice. But this is a Lucky Country. And today I feel lucky to be here as we mark the 60th anniversary of our unbreakable alliance.

The bonds between us run deep.

In each other's story we see so much of ourselves. Ancestors who crossed vast oceans-some by choice, some in chains.

Settlers who pushed west across sweeping plains. Dreamers who toiled with hearts and hands to lay railroads and to build cities.

Generations of immigrants who, with each new arrival, add a new thread to the brilliant tapestry of our nations.

And we are citizens who live by a common creed-no matter who you are no matter what you look like, everyone deserves a fair chance; everyone deserves a fair go.

Of course, progress in our societies has not always come without tension, or struggles to overcome a painful past. But we are countries with a willingness to face our imperfections, and to keep reaching for our ideals.

That's the spirit we saw in this chamber, three years ago, as this nation inspired the world with a historic gesture of reconciliation with Indigenous Australians.

It's the spirit of progress, in America, which allows me to stand before you today, as President of the United States. And it's the spirit I'll see later today when I become the first US president to visit the Northern Territory, where I'll meet the traditional owners of the Land.

Nor has our progress come without great sacrifice.

This morning, I was humbled and deeply moved by a visit to your war memorial and pay my respects to Australia's fallen sons and daughters.

Later today, in Darwin, I'll join the Prime Minister in saluting our brave men and women in uniform.

And it will be a reminder that — from the trenches of the First World War to the mountains of Afghanistan — Aussies and Americans have stood together, we have fought together we have given lives together in every single major conflict of the past hundred years. Every single one.

This solidarity has sustained us through a difficult decade.

We will never forget that the attacks of 9/11 took the lives, not only of Americans, but people from many nations, including Australia.

In the United States, we will never forget how Australia invoked the ANZUS Treaty — for the first time ever — showing that our two nations stand as one. And none of us will ever forget those we've lost to al Qaeda's terror in the years since, including innocent Australians.

That's why we are determined to succeed in Afghanistan. It's why I salute Australia — outside of NATO, the largest contributor of troops to this vital mission.

And it's why we honour all those who have served there for our security, including 32 Australian patriots who gave their lives, among them Captain Bryce Duffy, Corporal Ashley Birt, and Lance Corporal Luke Gavin.

We will honour their sacrifice by making sure that Afghanistan is never again used as source for attacks against our people. Never again.

As two global partners, we stand up for the security and dignity of people around the world.

We see it when our rescue workers rush to help others in times of fire and drought and flooding rains.

We see it when we partner to keep the peace — from East Timor to the Balkans — and when we pursue our shared vision: a world without nuclear weapons.

We see it in the development that lifts up a child in Africa; the assistance that saves a family from famine; and when we extend our support to the people of the Middle East and North Africa, who deserve the same liberty that allows us to gather in this great hall of democracy.

This is the alliance we reaffirm today — rooted in our values; renewed by every generation.

This is the partnership we've worked to deepen over the past three years.

And today I can stand before you and say with confidence that the alliance between the United States and Australia has never been stronger.

As it has been to our past, our alliance continues to be indispensable to our future. So, here, among close friends, I'd like to address the larger purpose of my visit to this region-our efforts to advance security, prosperity and human dignity across the Asia Pacific.

For the United States, this reflects a broader shift.

After a decade in which we fought two wars that cost us dearly, in blood and treasure, the United States is turning our attention to the vast potential of the Asia Pacific region.

In just a few weeks, after nearly nine years, the last American troops will leave Iraq and our war there will be over.

In Afghanistan, we've begun a transition, a responsible transition so Afghans can take responsibility for their future and so coalition forces can draw down. And with partners like Australia, we've struck major blows against al Qaeda and put that terrorist organisation on the path to defeat, including delivering justice to Osama bin Laden.

So make no mistake, the tide of war is receding, and America is looking ahead to the future we must build.

From Europe to the Americas, we've strengthened alliances and partnerships.

At home, we're investing in the sources of our long-term economic strength — the education of our children, the training of our workers, the infrastructure that fuels commerce, the science and the research that leads to new breakthroughs.

We've made hard decisions to cut our deficit and put our fiscal house in order — and we will continue to do more. Because our economic strength at home is the foundation of our leadership in the world, including here in the Asia Pacific.

Our new focus on this region reflects a fundamental truth — the United States has been, and always will be, a Pacific nation.

Asian immigrants helped build America, and millions of American families, including my own, cherish our ties to this region.

From the bombing of Darwin to the liberation of Pacific islands, from the rice paddies of Southeast Asia to a cold Korean peninsula, generations of Americans have served here, and died here. So democracies could take root. So economic miracles could lift hundreds of millions to prosperity.

Americans have bled with you for this progress, and we will never allow it to be reversed.

Here, we see the future.

As the world's fastest-growing region — and home to more than half the global economy — the Asia Pacific is critical to achieving my highest priority and that is creating jobs and opportunity for the American people.

With most of the world's nuclear powers and some half of humanity, Asia will largely define whether the century ahead will be marked by conflict or cooperation, needless suffering or human progress.

As President, I have therefore made a deliberate and strategic decision — as a Pacific nation, the United States will play a larger and long-term role in shaping this region and its future, by upholding core principles and in close partnership with allies and friends.

Let me tell you what this means.

First, we seek security, which is the foundation of peace and prosperity. We stand for an international order in which the rights and responsibilities of all nations and people are upheld. Where international law and norms are enforced. Where commerce and freedom of navigation are not impeded. Where emerging powers contribute to regional security, and where disagreements are resolved peacefully.

That is the future we seek.

Now, I know that some in this region have wondered about America's commitment to upholding these principles. So let me address this directly.

As the United States puts our fiscal house in order, we are reducing our spending. And yes, after 'a decade of extraordinary growth in our military budgets — and as we definitively end the war in Iraq, and begin to wind down the war in Afghanistan — we will make some reductions in defence spending.

As we consider the future of our armed forces, we have begun a review that will identify our most important strategic interests and guide our defence priorities and spending over the coming decade.

So here is what this region must know.

As we end today's wars, I have directed my national security team to make our presence and mission in the Asia Pacific a top priority. As a result, reductions in US defence spending will not — I repeat, will not — come at the expense of the Asia Pacific.

My guidance is clear.

As we plan and budget for the future, we will allocate the resources necessary to maintain our strong military presence in this region.

We will preserve our unique ability to project power and deter threats to peace. We will keep our commitments, including our treaty obligations to allies like Australia.

And we will constantly strengthen our capabilities to meet the needs of the 21st century. Our enduring interests in the region demand our enduring presence in this region.

The United States is a Pacific power, and we are here to stay.

Indeed, we're already modernising America's defence posture across the Asia-Pacific.

It will be more broadly distributed — maintaining our strong presence in Japan and on the Korean peninsula, while enhancing our presence in Southeast Asia.

Our posture will be more flexible — with new capabilities to ensure that our forces can operate freely. And our posture will be more sustainable — by helping allies and partners build their capacity, with more training and exercises.

We see our new posture here in Australia.

The initiatives that the Prime Minister and I announced yesterday will bring our two militaries even closer. We'll have new opportunities to train with other allies and partners, from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean.

And it will allow us to respond faster to the full range of challenges, including humanitarian crises and disaster relief.

Since World War II, Australians have warmly welcomed American service members who've passed through.

On behalf of the American people, I thank you for welcoming those who will come next, as they ensure that our alliance stays strong and ready for the tests of our time.

We see America's enhanced presence in the alliances we've strengthened.

In Japan, where our alliance remains a cornerstone of regional security. In Thailand, where we're partnering for disaster relief.

In the Philippines, where we're increasing ship visits and training. And in South Korea, where our commitment to the security of the Republic of Korea will never waver.

Indeed, we also reiterate our resolve to act firmly against any proliferation activities by North Korea.

The transfer of nuclear materials or material by North Korea to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States and our allies.

And we would hold North Korea fully accountable for the consequences of such action.

We see America's enhanced presence across Southeast Asia.

In our partnership with Indonesia against piracy and violent extremism, and in our work with Malaysia to prevent proliferation.

In the ships we'll deploy to Singapore, and in our closer cooperation with Vietnam and Cambodia. And in our welcome of India as it "looks east" and plays a larger role as an Asian power.

At the same time, we're re-engaged with regional organisations.

Our work in Bali this week will mark my third meeting with ASEAN leaders, and I'll be proud to be the first American president to attend the East Asia Summit.

Together, I believe we can address shared challenges, such as proliferation and maritime security, including cooperation in the South China Sea.

Meanwhile, the United States will continue our effort to build a cooperative relationship with China.

All of our nations — Australia, the United States, all of our nations — have a profound interest in the rise of a peaceful and prosperous China-and that is why the United States welcomes it.

We've seen that China can be a partner, from reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula to preventing proliferation.

And we'll seek more opportunities for cooperation with Beijing, including greater communication between our militaries to promote understanding and avoid miscalculation.

We will do this, even as continue to speak candidly to Beijing about the importance of upholding international norms and respecting the universal human rights of the Chinese people.

A secure and peaceful Asia is the foundation for the second area in which America is leading again — and that's advancing our shared prosperity.

History teaches us the greatest force the world has ever known for creating wealth and opportunity is free markets.

So we seek economies that are open and transparent.

We seek trade that is free and fair. And we seek an open international economic system, where rules are clear and every nation plays by them.

In Australia and America, we understand these principles. We're among the most open economies on earth.

Six years into our landmark trade agreement, commerce between us has soared.

Our workers are creating new partnerships and new products, like the advanced aircraft technologies we build together in Victoria.

We're the leading investor in Australia, and you invest more in America than you do in any other nation, creating good jobs in both countries.

We recognise that economic partnerships can't just be about one nation extracting another's resources.

We understand that no long-term strategy for growth can be imposed from above.

Real prosperity — prosperity that fosters innovation and prosperity that endures — comes from unleashing our greatest economic resource and that's the entrepreneurial spirit, the talents of our people.

So even as America competes aggressively in Asian markets, we're forging the economic partnerships that create opportunity for all.

Building on our historic trade agreement with South Korea, we're working with Australia and our other APEC partners to create a seamless regional economy.

And with Australia and other partners, we're on track to achieve our most ambitious trade agreement yet, and a potential model for the entire region-the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The United States remains the world's largest and most dynamic economy. But in an interconnected world, we all rise and fall together.

That's why I pushed so hard to put the G20 at the front and centre of global economic decision-making — to give more nations a leadership role in managing the international economy, including Australia.

Together, we saved the world economy from a depression. Now, our urgent challenge is to create the growth that puts people to work.

We need growth that is fair, where every nation plays by the rules — where workers rights are respected and our businesses can compete on a level playing field; where the intellectual property and new technologies that fuel innovation are protected; and where currencies are market-driven, so no nation has an unfair advantage.

We also need growth that is broad — not just for the few, but for the many, with reforms that protect consumers from abuse and a global commitment to end the corruption that stifles growth.

We need growth that is balanced, because we'll all prosper more when countries with large surpluses take action to boost demand at home.

And we need growth that is sustainable.

This includes the clean energy that creates green jobs and combats climate change, which cannot be denied.

We see it in the stronger fires, the devastating floods and the Pacific islands confronting rising seas.

And as countries with large carbon footprints, the United States and Australia have a special responsibility to lead.

Every nation will contribute to the solution in its own way, and I know this issue is not without controversy, in both our countries.

But what we can do — what we are doing — is to work together to make unprecedented investments in clean energy; to increase energy efficiency; and to meet the commitments we made at Copenhagen and Cancun.

We can do this. And we will.

As we grow our economies, we'll also remember the link between growth and good governance — the rule of law, transparent institutions and the equal administration of justice.

Because history shows that, over the long run, democracy and economic growth go hand in hand. And prosperity without freedom is just another form of poverty.

This brings me to the final area where we are leading — our support for the fundamental rights of every human being.

Every nation will chart its own course.

Yet it is also true that certain rights are universal, among them freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and the freedom of citizens to choose their own leaders.

These are not American rights, or Australian rights, or Western rights. These are human rights.

They stir in every soul, as we've seen in the democracies that have succeeded here in Asia.

Other models have been tried and they have failed-fascism and communism, rule by one man and rule by committee.

And they have failed for the same simple reason.

They ignore the ultimate source of power and legitimacy — the will of the people.

Yes, democracy can be messy and rough, and I understand you all mix it up good during Question Time.

But whatever our differences of party of ideology, we know in our democracies we are blessed with the greatest form of government ever known to man.

So, as two great democracies, we speak up for these freedoms when they are threatened.

We partner with emerging democracies, like Indonesia, to help strengthen the institutions upon which good governance depends.

We encourage open government, because democracies depend on an informed and active citizenry.

We help strengthen civil societies, because they empower citizens to hold their governments accountable.

And we advance the rights of all people-women, minorities and indigenous cultures — because when societies harness the potential of all their citizens, these societies are more successful, they are more prosperous and they are more just.

These principles have guided our approach to Burma, with a combination of sanctions and engagement.

Today, Aung San Suu Kyi is free from house arrest.

Some political prisoners have been released and the government has begun a dialogue.

Still, violations of human rights persist. So we will continue to speak clearly about the steps that must be taken for the government of Burma to have a better relationship with the United States.

This is the future we seek in the Asia Pacific-security, prosperity and dignity for all. That's what we stand for. That's who we are.

That's the future we will pursue, in partnership with allies and friends, and with every element of American power.

So let there be no doubt: in the Asia Pacific in the 21st century, the United States of America is all in.

Still, in times of great change and uncertainty, the future can seem unsettling. Across a vast ocean, it's impossible to know what lies beyond the horizon. But if this vast region and its people teach us anything, it's that the yearning for liberty and progress will not be denied.

It's why women in this country demanded that their voices be heard, making Australia the first nation to let women vote and run for parliament and, one day, become prime minister.

It's why people took to the streets — from Delhi to Seoul, from Manila to Jakarta — to throw off colonialism and dictatorship and then build some of the world's largest democracies.

It's why a soldier in a watch tower along the DMZ defends a free people in the South, and why a man from the North risks his life to escape across the border. Why soldiers in blue helmets keep the peace in a new nation. And why women of courage go into the brothels to save young girls from modern-day slavery, which must come to an end.

It's why men of peace in saffron robes faced beatings and bullets, and why every day — from some of the world's largest cities to dusty rural towns, in small acts of courage the world may never see — a student posts a blog; a citizen signs a charter; an activist remains unbowed, imprisoned in his home, just to have the same rights we cherish here today.

Men and women like these know what the world must never forget.

The currents of history may ebb and flow, but over time they move decidedly, decisively, in a single direction.

History is on the side of the free-free societies, free governments, free economies, free people. And the future belongs to those who stand firm for these ideals, in this region and around the world.

This is the story of the alliance we celebrate today. This is the essence of America's new leadership, it is the essence of our partnership. And this is the work we will carry on together, for the security, the prosperity, and the dignity of all people.

So God bless Australia, God bless America, and God bless the friendship between our two peoples.

Thank you very much.

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(Photo SMH)

Elsewhere, check out what our USSC experts have to say about the visit. Previously, Erin Riley speculated that had the Gulf of Mexico oil spill not prevented Obama from making his previously scheduled visit, Australia might still have Kevin Rudd as its prime minister.  

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On the other side of the internal debate was a faction of unlikely allies within the White House and the State Department who viewed Libya as an opportunity to enact a new form of humanitarian intervention, one that they had been sketching out for nearly a decade. Up until this point, their views hadn't held much sway within an administration marked by its pragmatism and caution. Their formative experience in foreign policy wasn't Iraq or Afghanistan, but memories of the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans and Rwanda during the 1990s, a period in which they firmly believed that the United States had failed in its responsibilities to other countries. They would now be to Obama what the neoconservatives had been to Bush: ardent advocates for war in the name of a grander cause. Libya, in effect, represents the rise of the humanitarian Vulcans.

Neoconservatism was so damaged by its failures in Iraq and Afghanistan that over the past decade that it's easy to forget it's a doctrine based on noble intentions: that human rights and democratic rule are important and the US should support them. Though it's inconsistently applied — witness America's cautiousness over Bahrain and Syria — it's evidence that the neoconservative method is not the only means of achieving outcomes that neoconservative would favour.

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I expect also that we'll hear more about the "special relationship" over the next week and a half, and with no mention that the phrase was coined by Winston Churchill to describe the United Kingdom's feelings about the US. Browse the archives of the New York Times for the term, and you'll find a raft of references to Great Britain and occasional attempts to reconfigure it to the US's attitude to Germany, India, Israel, or France. Here, in an opinion piece by Philip Bowring, is one of the rare occasions on which the term is used in reference to Australia:

It is easy enough to understand why President George W. Bush wanted war with Iraq, whether or not it will harm broader U.S. interests. But what is it that has made Britain and Australia so keen to sign up for an uncertain agenda of "regime change" that may remake the map of the Middle East?

Both countries have long labored under the belief that they have a special relationship with the United States, although that has seldom been reciprocated.

In an earlier article, the same author used the phrase in regard to the US's view on China.

Of course, Australia and the United States have a valuable and fruitful alliance, underpinned by the ANZUS treaty. But Australians should not mistake it for more than it is, and not misunderstand the flattering comments of visiting leaders or dignitaries as evidence of anything unique.

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The above graph is from a Goldman Sachs report [PDF] released earlier this month, and it shows pretty clearly how much of a hole the economy is still stuck in. That big dip in GDP that occured around 2007 and 2008 has been turned around, and growth is once more headed in an upward direction. It is, however, still far below its pre-2007 trend, and whilever growth remains just average, it won't get there. 

Yet for a real recovery to take place, GDP growth does need to catch up to that trendline. There's no reason why it should not be able to do so, either. The American workforce still has the same skills and talents it had in 2007. What's missing is the demand required to put those skills and talents to use. When Obama says that the economy is not where it wants to be, he's saying that the United States has the resources to achieve the level of output it was maintaining prior to 2007 decade, it's just not putting them to use.

But it doesn't have to be that way! To put those resources to use, the government can take advantage of the extremely low borrowing rates available to it, and use that money to put unemployed Americans to work. Those Americans, who now have money in their pockets, will do things like replace their old car, or move out of the place they're sharing with a family member because they can't afford rent, or buy some fancy new gadgets. This activity will put money into the pockets of people who build houses or sell cars or run gadget stores, and those people will go shopping for the things they want. Before you know it, things are humming along nicely once again!  

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So the September 21 speech reveals the abandonment of previously stated US policy on Israel’s borders and of any US attempt to drive the peace process. In doing so President Obama indicated that he was uninterested in even appearing even handed between Israel and Palestine — which will further harm the US’s position in the Middle East. His reference to the Holocaust, which is of zero relevance to the Israeli treatment of Palestine, but which seems to be used as an excuse for Israel’s behaviour, confirmed that.

The consequence of Obama’s speech was that Netanyahu, at a press conference with Obama afterwards, said "I want to thank you, Mr President, for standing with Israel and supporting peace through direct negotiations" — remarks very different from the ones that Netanyahu made after the
May 19 speech.

It is reasonable to infer that Obama’s speech was approved by Netanyahu prior to it being given. It is inconceivable that Obama abandoned his previously expressed views without the slightest explanation and without knowing that Netanyahu would respond appropriately. Hence the appearance of the US President going cap in hand to the Israeli prime minister for approval.

What is even more amazing is that, in light of the lack of enthusiasm that American Jews, especially the younger ones, have towards the policies of the present Israeli government, President Obama felt that he needed such an endorsement. Such American Jews seem unwilling to abandon their liberal principles when judging Israel’s actions, despite the Israeli lobby urging them to do so. In this regard see Peter Beinart's “The failure of the American Jewish establishment” in the New York Review of Books on June 10, 2010, and the correspondence on June 24.

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Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, and fellow Americans:

Tonight we meet at an urgent time for our country. We continue to face an economic crisis that has left millions of our neighbours jobless, and a political crisis that’s made things worse.

This past week, reporters have been asking, “What will this speech mean for the President? What will it mean for Congress? How will it affect their polls, and the next election?”

But the millions of Americans who are watching right now, they don’t care about politics. They have real-life concerns. Many have spent months looking for work. Others are doing their best just to scrape by — giving up nights out with the family to save on gas or make the mortgage; postponing retirement to send a kid to college.

These men and women grew up with faith in an America where hard work and responsibility paid off. They believed in a country where everyone gets a fair shake and does their fair share — where if you stepped up, did your job, and were loyal to your company, that loyalty would be rewarded with a decent salary and good benefits; maybe a raise once in a while. If you did the right thing, you could make it. Anybody could make it in America.

For decades now, Americans have watched that compact erode. They have seen the decks too often stacked against them. And they know that Washington has not always put their interests first.

The people of this country work hard to meet their responsibilities. The question tonight is whether we’ll meet ours. The question is whether, in the face of an ongoing national crisis, we can stop the political circus and actually do something to help the economy. The question is — the question is whether we can restore some of the fairness and security that has defined this nation since our beginning.

Those of us here tonight can’t solve all our nation’s woes. Ultimately, our recovery will be driven not by Washington, but by our businesses and our workers. But we can help. We can make a difference. There are steps we can take right now to improve people’s lives.

I am sending this Congress a plan that you should pass right away. It’s called the American Jobs Act. There should be nothing controversial about this piece of legislation. Everything in here is the kind of proposal that’s been supported by both Democrats and Republicans — including many who sit here tonight. And everything in this bill will be paid for. Everything.

The purpose of the American Jobs Act is simple: to put more people back to work and more money in the pockets of those who are working. It will create more jobs for construction workers, more jobs for teachers, more jobs for veterans, and more jobs for long-term unemployed. It will provide — it will provide a tax break for companies who hire new workers, and it will cut payroll taxes in half for every working American and every small business. It will provide a jolt to an economy that has stalled, and give companies confidence that if they invest and if they hire, there will be customers for their products and services. You should pass this jobs plan right away.

Everyone here knows that small businesses are where most new jobs begin. And you know that while corporate profits have come roaring back, smaller companies haven’t. So for everyone who speaks so passionately about making life easier for “job creators,” this plan is for you.

Pass this jobs bill — pass this jobs bill, and starting tomorrow, small businesses will get a tax cut if they hire new workers or if they raise workers’ wages. Pass this jobs bill, and all small business owners will also see their payroll taxes cut in half next year. If you have 50 employees — if you have 50 employees making an average salary, that’s an $80,000 tax cut. And all businesses will be able to continue writing off the investments they make in 2012.

It’s not just Democrats who have supported this kind of proposal. Fifty House Republicans have proposed the same payroll tax cut that’s in this plan. You should pass it right away.

Pass this jobs bill, and we can put people to work rebuilding America. Everyone here knows we have badly decaying roads and bridges all over the country. Our highways are clogged with traffic. Our skies are the most congested in the world. It’s an outrage.

Building a world-class transportation system is part of what made us a economic superpower. And now we’re going to sit back and watch China build newer airports and faster railroads? At a time when millions of unemployed construction workers could build them right here in America?

There are private construction companies all across America just waiting to get to work. There’s a bridge that needs repair between Ohio and Kentucky that’s on one of the busiest trucking routes in North America. A public transit project in Houston that will help clear up one of the worst areas of traffic in the country. And there are schools throughout this country that desperately need renovating. How can we expect our kids to do their best in places that are literally falling apart? This is America. Every child deserves a great school — and we can give it to them, if we act now.

The American Jobs Act will repair and modernize at least 35,000 schools. It will put people to work right now fixing roofs and windows, installing science labs and high-speed Internet in classrooms all across this country. It will rehabilitate homes and businesses in communities hit hardest by foreclosures. It will jumpstart thousands of transportation projects all across the country. And to make sure the money is properly spent, we’re building on reforms we’ve already put in place. No more earmarks. No more boondoggles. No more bridges to nowhere. We’re cutting the red tape that prevents some of these projects from getting started as quickly as possible. And we’ll set up an independent fund to attract private dollars and issue loans based on two criteria: how badly a construction project is needed and how much good it will do for the economy.

This idea came from a bill written by a Texas Republican and a Massachusetts Democrat. The idea for a big boost in construction is supported by America’s largest business organization and America’s largest labor organization. It’s the kind of proposal that’s been supported in the past by Democrats and Republicans alike. You should pass it right away.

Pass this jobs bill, and thousands of teachers in every state will go back to work. These are the men and women charged with preparing our children for a world where the competition has never been tougher. But while they’re adding teachers in places like South Korea, we’re laying them off in droves. It’s unfair to our kids. It undermines their future and ours. And it has to stop. Pass this bill, and put our teachers back in the classroom where they belong.

Pass this jobs bill, and companies will get extra tax credits if they hire America’s veterans. We ask these men and women to leave their careers, leave their families, risk their lives to fight for our country. The last thing they should have to do is fight for a job when they come home.

Pass this bill, and hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged young people will have the hope and the dignity of a summer job next year. And their parents — their parents, low-income Americans who desperately want to work, will have more ladders out of poverty.

Pass this jobs bill, and companies will get a $4,000 tax credit if they hire anyone who has spent more than six months looking for a job. We have to do more to help the long-term unemployed in their search for work. This jobs plan builds on a program in Georgia that several Republican leaders have highlighted, where people who collect unemployment insurance participate in temporary work as a way to build their skills while they look for a permanent job. The plan also extends unemployment insurance for another year. If the millions of unemployed Americans stopped getting this insurance, and stopped using that money for basic necessities, it would be a devastating blow to this economy. Democrats and Republicans in this chamber have supported unemployment insurance plenty of times in the past. And in this time of prolonged hardship, you should pass it again — right away.

Pass this jobs bill, and the typical working family will get a $1,500 tax cut next year. Fifteen hundred dollars that would have been taken out of your pocket will go into your pocket. This expands on the tax cut that Democrats and Republicans already passed for this year. If we allow that tax cut to expire — if we refuse to act — middle-class families will get hit with a tax increase at the worst possible time. We can’t let that happen. I know that some of you have sworn oaths to never raise any taxes on anyone for as long as you live. Now is not the time to carve out an exception and raise middle-class taxes, which is why you should pass this bill right away.

This is the American Jobs Act. It will lead to new jobs for construction workers, for teachers, for veterans, for first responders, young people and the long-term unemployed. It will provide tax credits to companies that hire new workers, tax relief to small business owners, and tax cuts for the middle class. And here’s the other thing I want the American people to know: The American Jobs Act will not add to the deficit. It will be paid for. And here’s how.

The agreement we passed in July will cut government spending by about $1 trillion over the next 10 years. It also charges this Congress to come up with an additional $1.5 trillion in savings by Christmas. Tonight, I am asking you to increase that amount so that it covers the full cost of the American Jobs Act. And a week from Monday, I’ll be releasing a more ambitious deficit plan — a plan that will not only cover the cost of this jobs bill, but stabilize our debt in the long run.

This approach is basically the one I’ve been advocating for months. In addition to the trillion dollars of spending cuts I’ve already signed into law, it’s a balanced plan that would reduce the deficit by making additional spending cuts, by making modest adjustments to health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid, and by reforming our tax code in a way that asks the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to pay their fair share. What’s more, the spending cuts wouldn’t happen so abruptly that they’d be a drag on our economy, or prevent us from helping small businesses and middle-class families get back on their feet right away.

Now, I realize there are some in my party who don’t think we should make any changes at all to Medicare and Medicaid, and I understand their concerns. But here’s the truth: Millions of Americans rely on Medicare in their retirement. And millions more will do so in the future. They pay for this benefit during their working years. They earn it. But with an aging population and rising health care costs, we are spending too fast to sustain the program. And if we don’t gradually reform the system while protecting current beneficiaries, it won’t be there when future retirees need it. We have to reform Medicare to strengthen it.

I am also — I’m also well aware that there are many Republicans who don’t believe we should raise taxes on those who are most fortunate and can best afford it. But here is what every American knows: While most people in this country struggle to make ends meet, a few of the most affluent citizens and most profitable corporations enjoy tax breaks and loopholes that nobody else gets. Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary — an outrage he has asked us to fix. We need a tax code where everyone gets a fair shake and where everybody pays their fair share. And by the way, I believe the vast majority of wealthy Americans and CEOs are willing to do just that if it helps the economy grow and gets our fiscal house in order.

I’ll also offer ideas to reform a corporate tax code that stands as a monument to special interest influence in Washington. By eliminating pages of loopholes and deductions, we can lower one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. Our tax code should not give an advantage to companies that can afford the best-connected lobbyists. It should give an advantage to companies that invest and create jobs right here in the United States of America.

So we can reduce this deficit, pay down our debt, and pay for this jobs plan in the process. But in order to do this, we have to decide what our priorities are. We have to ask ourselves, “What’s the best way to grow the economy and create jobs?”

Should we keep tax loopholes for oil companies? Or should we use that money to give small business owners a tax credit when they hire new workers? Because we can’t afford to do both. Should we keep tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires? Or should we put teachers back to work so our kids can graduate ready for college and good jobs? Right now, we can’t afford to do both.

This isn’t political grandstanding. This isn’t class warfare. This is simple math. This is simple math. These are real choices. These are real choices that we’ve got to make. And I’m pretty sure I know what most Americans would choose. It’s not even close. And it’s time for us to do what’s right for our future.

Now, the American Jobs Act answers the urgent need to create jobs right away. But we can’t stop there. As I’ve argued since I ran for this office, we have to look beyond the immediate crisis and start building an economy that lasts into the future — an economy that creates good, middle-class jobs that pay well and offer security. We now live in a world where technology has made it possible for companies to take their business anywhere. If we want them to start here and stay here and hire here, we have to be able to out-build and out-educate and out-innovate every other country on Earth.

And this task of making America more competitive for the long haul, that’s a job for all of us. For government and for private companies. For states and for local communities — and for every American citizen. All of us will have to up our game. All of us will have to change the way we do business.

My administration can and will take some steps to improve our competitiveness on our own. For example, if you’re a small business owner who has a contract with the federal government, we’re going to make sure you get paid a lot faster than you do right now. We’re also planning to cut away the red tape that prevents too many rapidly growing startup companies from raising capital and going public. And to help responsible homeowners, we’re going to work with federal housing agencies to help more people refinance their mortgages at interest rates that are now near 4 percent. That’s a step — I know you guys must be for this, because that’s a step that can put more than $2,000 a year in a family’s pocket, and give a lift to an economy still burdened by the drop in housing prices.

So, some things we can do on our own. Other steps will require congressional action. Today you passed reform that will speed up the outdated patent process, so that entrepreneurs can turn a new idea into a new business as quickly as possible. That’s the kind of action we need. Now it’s time to clear the way for a series of trade agreements that would make it easier for American companies to sell their products in Panama and Colombia and South Korea -– while also helping the workers whose jobs have been affected by global competition. If Americans can buy Kias and Hyundais, I want to see folks in South Korea driving Fords and Chevys and Chryslers. I want to see more products sold around the world stamped with the three proud words: “Made in America.” That’s what we need to get done.

And on all of our efforts to strengthen competitiveness, we need to look for ways to work side by side with America’s businesses. That’s why I’ve brought together a Jobs Council of leaders from different industries who are developing a wide range of new ideas to help companies grow and create jobs.

Already, we’ve mobilized business leaders to train 10,000 American engineers a year, by providing company internships and training. Other businesses are covering tuition for workers who learn new skills at community colleges. And we’re going to make sure the next generation of manufacturing takes root not in China or Europe, but right here, in the United States of America. If we provide the right incentives, the right support — and if we make sure our trading partners play by the rules — we can be the ones to build everything from fuel-efficient cars to advanced biofuels to semiconductors that we sell all around the world. That’s how America can be number one again. And that’s how America will be number one again.

Now, I realize that some of you have a different theory on how to grow the economy. Some of you sincerely believe that the only solution to our economic challenges is to simply cut most government spending and eliminate most government regulations.

Well, I agree that we can’t afford wasteful spending, and I’ll work with you, with Congress, to root it out. And I agree that there are some rules and regulations that do put an unnecessary burden on businesses at a time when they can least afford it. That’s why I ordered a review of all government regulations. So far, we’ve identified over 500 reforms, which will save billions of dollars over the next few years. We should have no more regulation than the health, safety and security of the American people require. Every rule should meet that common-sense test.

But what we can’t do — what I will not do — is let this economic crisis be used as an excuse to wipe out the basic protections that Americans have counted on for decades. I reject the idea that we need to ask people to choose between their jobs and their safety. I reject the argument that says for the economy to grow, we have to roll back protections that ban hidden fees by credit card companies, or rules that keep our kids from being exposed to mercury, or laws that prevent the health insurance industry from shortchanging patients. I reject the idea that we have to strip away collective bargaining rights to compete in a global economy. We shouldn’t be in a race to the bottom, where we try to offer the cheapest labour and the worst pollution standards. America should be in a race to the top. And I believe we can win that race.

In fact, this larger notion that the only thing we can do to restore prosperity is just dismantle government, refund everybody’s money, and let everyone write their own rules, and tell everyone they’re on their own — that’s not who we are. That’s not the story of America.

Yes, we are rugged individualists. Yes, we are strong and self-reliant. And it has been the drive and initiative of our workers and entrepreneurs that has made this economy the engine and the envy of the world.

But there’s always been another thread running throughout our history — a belief that we’re all connected, and that there are some things we can only do together, as a nation.

We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union. Founder of the Republican Party. But in the middle of a civil war, he was also a leader who looked to the future — a Republican President who mobilized government to build the Transcontinental Railroad — launch the National Academy of Sciences, set up the first land grant colleges. And leaders of both parties have followed the example he set.

Ask yourselves — where would we be right now if the people who sat here before us decided not to build our highways, not to build our bridges, our dams, our airports? What would this country be like if we had chosen not to spend money on public high schools, or research universities, or community colleges? Millions of returning heroes, including my grandfather, had the opportunity to go to school because of the G.I. Bill. Where would we be if they hadn’t had that chance?

How many jobs would it have cost us if past Congresses decided not to support the basic research that led to the Internet and the computer chip? What kind of country would this be if this chamber had voted down Social Security or Medicare just because it violated some rigid idea about what government could or could not do? How many Americans would have suffered as a result?

No single individual built America on their own. We built it together. We have been, and always will be, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all; a nation with responsibilities to ourselves and with responsibilities to one another. And members of Congress, it is time for us to meet our responsibilities.

Every proposal I’ve laid out tonight is the kind that’s been supported by Democrats and Republicans in the past. Every proposal I’ve laid out tonight will be paid for. And every proposal is designed to meet the urgent needs of our people and our communities.

Now, I know there’s been a lot of skepticism about whether the politics of the moment will allow us to pass this jobs plan — or any jobs plan. Already, we’re seeing the same old press releases and tweets flying back and forth. Already, the media has proclaimed that it’s impossible to bridge our differences. And maybe some of you have decided that those differences are so great that we can only resolve them at the ballot box.

But know this: The next election is 14 months away. And the people who sent us here — the people who hired us to work for them — they don’t have the luxury of waiting 14 months. Some of them are living week to week, paycheck to paycheck, even day to day. They need help, and they need it now.

I don’t pretend that this plan will solve all our problems. It should not be, nor will it be, the last plan of action we propose. What’s guided us from the start of this crisis hasn’t been the search for a silver bullet. It’s been a commitment to stay at it — to be persistent — to keep trying every new idea that works, and listen to every good proposal, no matter which party comes up with it.

Regardless of the arguments we’ve had in the past, regardless of the arguments we will have in the future, this plan is the right thing to do right now. You should pass it. And I intend to take that message to every corner of this country. And I ask — I ask every American who agrees to lift your voice: Tell the people who are gathered here tonight that you want action now. Tell Washington that doing nothing is not an option. Remind us that if we act as one nation and one people, we have it within our power to meet this challenge.

President Kennedy once said, “Our problems are man-made – therefore they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants.”

These are difficult years for our country. But we are Americans. We are tougher than the times we live in, and we are bigger than our politics have been. So let’s meet the moment. Let’s get to work, and let’s show the world once again why the United States of America remains the greatest nation on Earth.

Thank you very much. God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

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His record as Texas' governor proves that he knows you grow the economy with less government, by controlling spending, cutting taxes, reforming tort laws and reducing regulatory red tape for employers. One of the important areas is reigning in over-regulation.

Perry is running for president, and the federal regulations presidents oversee are not the type identified by Friedersdorf that are burdensome to the average American. In fact, the regulations Inhofe points toward, such as those governing the environment and the workplace tend to benefit the general public. The freedom to breathe polluted air, drink polluted water, or experience dangerous conditions at work is not one many voters are interested in pursuing.

I suspect though that when politicians like Inhofe talk about "over-regulation," voters have in mind the kind of absurd laws put in place by local governments rather than the standards the Federal government has jurisdiction over. Voters, however, are wont to take out their frustrations on the most visible politicians, whether they are responsible for the problem or not. Presidents get blamed for the actions of Congress. State politicians suffer for economic conditions largely out of their hands. And if voters feel over-burdened by regulation, they may well gravitate to candidates who speak out against regulation, even if those candidates have no jurisdiction over the regulations displeasing voters.

This may well explain why Barack Obama has ordered his administration to review its regulations and remove unnecessary ones. (Though he probably thinks that doing so is just a sensible idea, as well.) The public will be much more amenable to sensible regulations if it isn't regularly stymied by silly ones. But this is a fight the presidents' political allies must also pursue at a local level. A council that makes it easier for someone to run a small business might also make it easier for a president to curb the excesses of a larger one.

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Like Obama in 2010, Truman suffered a "shellacking" in the mid-term elections of 1946. In 2010 Democrats lost 63 House seats and 6 Senate seats. Democrats in 1946 lost the majority in both Houses by losing 55 seats in the House and 13 in the Senate. Truman also faced a hostile Congress, a poor economic climate and an increasingly disillusioned public. Similar to Lauren Haumesser’s assertion that the Tea Party is damaging itself through its "willingness to hurt Americans to conserve their ideological purity," Ornstein argues that the actions of the 80th Congress only hurt themselves and helped Truman to victory.

The historian William Leuchtenberg points out that the GOP’s mid-term elections in 1946 led them to believe that this victory was indicative of a "lasting ideological victory." Believing it had a national mandate, the 80th Congress stymied necessary legislation to "advance their brand of conservatism." This backfired and alienated farmers, Westerners and labourers, who all turned back to Truman and ensured presidential and congressional victories for the Democrats in 1948. Not only was Truman re-elected, but Democrats picked up 9 seats in the Senate and 75 in the House, recapturing both.

This has not been lost on Obama. In a speech in Michigan, which Jonathan Cohn described as the President finding "his inner Harry Truman," Obama said that "there are some in Congress right now who would rather see their opponents lose than see Americans win." This echoes Truman’s open fight against the "Do-Nothing Congress," furthering the Obama/Truman narrative. While Obama needs to be conscious of an America tiring of the Congressional blame game, he also needs to rise about the perception that he has done very little. Instead of continuing a passive-aggressive approach to policy, Obama should take lessons from Truman and employ more of the rhetoric used in Michigan to reconnect with the American public.

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A significant part of the president's problem springs from a major source of his appeal in 2008. Obama was swept to power partly on the back of a promise to remedy the corrosiveness of Washington politics. Taking on a messianic like quality, Obama portrayed himself as being above the fray — unspoiled by the turgid waters of D.C politics, the only man capable of delivering to Americans the kinder, gentler politics that they sought. Since his election, Obama has diligently sought to keep faith with this promise and trying to replicate at the national level the conciliatory skills he perfected in the Illinois State legislature. But Washington isn't Springfield. Here, Obama cuts a lonely figure at the peace table — he has found no partner for peace.

The Republican Party has long forsaken compromise as the essence of good governance and has instead steered itself for an all out ideological assault against the structures of the post New Deal federal government. With the Tea Party at its throat, today's GOP will accept nothing less from Obama than total capitulation, and they have proven themselves only too willing to take the administration, and the nation, at large, hostage to engineer this outcome. Whether one looks at the debate surrounding the extension of the Bush tax cuts or the recent conflict over the debt ceiling, it is clear that it is Boehner and the freshman in his caucus that are dictating the agenda in Washington while Obama, guided by his conciliatory instincts, appears content to march to their tune — compromising not with congressional Republicans but with himself.

The seasoned political figure knows when to recalibrate his strategy in light of changed circumstances. Yet, Obama has proven reluctant to abandon the pledge he made to Americans in 2008. Perhaps this is because compromise is less a political tactic to Obama than a personality trait. After all, the man spent much of his early life attempting to reconcile his two identities. But unless Obama discovers his inner pugilist he may find himself replaced in a little over a years' time by a Republican who does not share his timidity when it comes to executing his agenda.

At a time when America's place in the world has never been less assured, when unemployment and a dearth of opportunity are rife at home, the country is hungry for leadership. It is time for Obama to remind Americans that he is still the same inspirational and transformative figure that they elected in 2008 — the only person capable of lifting the nation out of its present predicament. Unless he wishes to continue taking an axe to his vision for the country, and in the process alienate all those who were drawn to him, Obama must stop trying to appease the hostage taker. Now, more than ever, America needs the sort of agenda Obama outlined in 2008, the one that emphasised investing in infrastructure, education, and research and development rather than the GOP's program of reckless spending cuts and tax breaks for the rich.

Since the 2010 midterms, Obama has been missing. Too busy making concessions to appease the GOP, he has forgotten to lead. That must end.

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• Chart of the week is this handy Venn diagram by Nate Silver, which breaks down the Republican field's strengths and weaknesses.

• Nate Silver ponders Rick Perry's electability:

Over all, Mr. Perry has won his three elected terms with an average victory margin of 13 percentage points. That’s certainly not a disaster, but it lags the 19-point margin for other Texas Republicans running in those years. In the most recent two elections, Mr. Perry was losing quite a few voters who were voting for Republican for almost every other office.

• Michael Agger explains why the Internet likes President Obama so much.

Obama also benefits from his blackness and perceived coolness. Successful memes often approach sensitive subjects, like race, but stop short of being offensive. Many of the positive memes surrounding Obama emphasize his decisive, almost Shaft-like authority.

• Vogue profiles Jon Huntsman:

But when Huntsman speaks, he doesn’t act like he’s pinned down behind enemy lines or tailor his explanation of why he’s running to the audience. He says he’s running on his rec­ord as a “conservative problem-­solver” in Utah and on his grasp of America’s economic challenges.

• The Daily Beast has a neat infographic listing every book Obama has read while in office.

• Social Studies DC has produced this handy guide to the stereotypes defining different Washington neighbourhoods.

• Sean Fennessey thinks Mitt Romney is utterly compelling:

It wasn't what he was saying—the hybridized big-business conservative rhetoric dancing awkwardly with East Coast liberalism leaves me cold, bored, and sometimes revolted. It's how effortful and cheerily programmed he seemed. It was as if he had never had an actual conversation with a human before, though he had been hardwired to assume the tendencies of someone who had. It was cyborgian.

• Damon Young outlines the phenomenon he calls "Eating while black":

From a race perspective, a manifestation of this mindset is you wondering if all things that happen to you are somehow related to you being black; a too heightened racial awareness that makes it increasingly difficult to discern between legitimate racism and race-based discrimination — both of which definitely still exist — and mere happenstance.

• Conor Friedersdorf suggests what CEO recruiters might ask the Republican presidential field:

[T]he focus among political candidates is often on what they'll endeavor to do if elected, whereas a CEO candidate, brought in for an interview, is inevitably pressed not just on what he or she would accomplish, but how it would be accomplished.

• Song of the Week is from country singer Miranda Lambert's new project, a band called the Pistol Annies. This is "Hell on Heels," and is as fiery as the title suggests.

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So does Putnam and Campbell’s theory of religious tolerance apply to the unreligious? Atheists are similar to other minority religious groups in that that are not highly visible in the community and are often concentrated in certain regions of the country. But beyond this, there are two other key factors that are likely to reduce the tolerance of atheism in American politics. One is the deeply embedded belief in god that Putnam and Campbell identify as serving to bind the nation together. For the more secular Australia, the common invocations of God in American political life are often jarring. To not believe in God at all is to opt out of this civil religion. Secondly, the broad prevalence of religion in the political and social spheres of America makes it difficult for atheists to openly discuss their views on religion. Admitting to no religious belief is much more difficult than admitting to a different religious belief. If the broader community is unlikely to come into contact with atheists and atheists themselves are reluctant to talk about their lack of religion, it’s hard to imagine how the My Friend Al and Aunt Susan principle would apply.

When asked on his recent speaking tour whether an atheist could be elected to the White House, Robert Putnam answered that, while someone who was quiet about their religion, or lack thereof, may be a viable Presidential candidate, he didn’t believe that an open atheist could be elected. This is plausible considering there are currently no openly atheist or “unaffiliated” members of Congress, leaving 16 per cent of the population unrepresented. (Democratic Congressman Pete Stark of California is an atheist who is a member of the Unitarian Church.)

Given the apparent antagonism towards non-believers in the political realm, it is unlikely that we will see an openly atheist Presidential nominee in the same vein as Julia Gillard, or even one with the frank agnosticism of a Bob Hawke, any time soon. Yet many within the blogosphere claim that there is already an atheist in the White House, though Obama is a churchgoer who has long identified as a Christian. If this claim of atheism is true, it could well be critical to President Obama’s political survival to stay in the closet.

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One criticism of President Obama’s economic record hits the bullseye: the stimulus was too small and was poorly executed by Congress. At a time when America’s public infrastructure (airports, schools and collapsing bridges) is crumbling and Treasury can borrow at rates close to zero, the political leadership in Washington ought to have borrowed and made investments that could accrue substantial economic benefits over time. Economist Joseph Stiglitz made this point on Tuesday in the Financial Times, but laments that “the politics, however, are elsewhere”. President Obama has lost the initiative to the Tea Party and their anti-deficit fetish.

I agree with Garrett when he goes on to suggest that after the Tea Party has mauled the President sufficiently, moderate Republican Presidential candidates like Mitt Romney, or possibly Jon Huntsman, will emerge, claiming the wherewithal to lead the country back. The axiom is “Democrats fall in love, but Republicans fall in line,” and Romney will most likely gain the nomination despite misgivings over his religion and gubernatorial record.

Mitt Romney has a very impressive commercial and managerial record, and since voters’ desire for presidential economic leadership is not going away, in this respect Romney may truly be “The One we have been waiting for.”

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The ALL, like the Tea Party, built its ideology on the American creeds of local control and respect for the Constitution. One pamphlet called on Americans’ abiding localism in opposition to the National Recovery Administration (NRA), crying, “There can be no defense of the policies which seek by subterfuge to usurp the rights of the States!” ALL members also shared the Tea Party’s proclivity for appealing to the Constitution in their campaign against a growing government bureaucracy. These ideologies, among others, drew in a large number of supporters — registered American Liberty Leaguers numbered over 125,000 by mid-1936.

If the ALL successfully appealed to certain basic American political instincts, why did support for the organization wane?

The ALL failed to maintain its influence for one fundamental reason: its ideological rigidity led the organization to advocate against legislation that sought to help struggling Americans. The ALL opposed popular bills that sought to protect Americans and mitigate economic woes, from the creation of the NRA to a reformed and more flexible Federal Reserve.

It is to this fact, above all others, that the Tea Party must pay attention if it hopes to retain its sway in American politics. Reaction to the recent debate over the debt ceiling indicates future trouble for the Tea Party. The Tea Party-supported candidates’ inflexibility in the debt debate turned off many Americans. An early August New York Times/CBS News poll showed 40 per cent of Americans characterized their view of the Tea Party as “not favorable,” compared to only 18 per cent in April 2010. The debt ceiling debate was a political battle in which the Tea Party seemed willing to hurt Americans to conserve their own ideological purity. This time, the Tea Party averted disaster. But if the Tea Party continues to champion ideology over the common man, it may well go the way of the ALL — into the annals of American history as an extreme group that could not learn the American tradition of compromise.

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If they can, it will be widely interpreted nationwide as a rebuke to the hard conservative policies Republicans have sought to implement — and to the Tea Party movement that has so loudly championed them. There are indications that the Tea Party's popularity peaked with the GOP's electoral victories last November, and though they exerted a great deal of influence in the debt ceiling dispute over the past few months, a poor showing in Wisconsin today will suggest the public has tired of the movement's absolutist rhetoric and right wing policies.

If Democrats are successful today, it will be the triumph of a style of old school liberal brand of populism centred on labour unions and class warfare. Given President Barack Obama's desire to transcend partisanship and elevate the discourse, he would be unlikely to look to Wisconsin Democrats for re-election tips even if they are successful. But if Democrats have a good day today, Obama's opponents should be concerned. It will be a sure sign that while the Republican base may be as enamoured with unbending conservatism as ever, voters have tired of it.

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• Mike Barthel explains what the U.S. government has in common with Foursquare:

"There's never been anything quite like the trigger," Justin Marlowe, a professor at the Evans School of Public Affairs, said in an email. ... [It] "is a game-changer. It shifts the default from inaction to action."

Though it's not much used in politics, new media folks have a term for systems like this which embed artificial consequences or rewards in a real-world situation: gamification.

• Bill Clinton handled a dispute over the debt ceiling better than Obama did, argues Kara Brandeisky:

Republicans appeared to dig in their heels in early November, when the House passed a bill increasing the debt limit—but only through the next month—as well as a continuing resolution that included higher Medicare premiums and other spending cuts. Instead of attempting to negotiate over the cuts, Clinton simply vetoed both bills. “America has never liked pressure tactics, and I would be wrong to permit these kind of pressure tactics to dramatically change the course of American life,” Clinton said. “I cannot do it, and I will not do it.” The government shut down.

• Republican New Jersey Governer Chris Christie has harsh words for people who criticise the Islamic faith of a judge he's nominated to the New Jersey court.

• Kevin Drum looks at President George W. Bush's record and argues he did little to advance the Republican Party's legislative goals.

• In cities hit hard by foreclosures like Cleveland, vacant lots are bringing patches of wilderness to urban areas, reports the New York Times:

One abandoned yard is a mess; 20,000 abandoned yards is an ecosystem. At this scale, Cleveland’s vacant land begins to look less like a sign of neglect and more like an ecological experiment spread over some 3,600 acres.

• Comments Cleveland blogger K.:

I don’t want the east side to become a hipster bee farm that can produce expensive organic honey (this is our best case scenario???) and I don’t want the population influx that supposedly lies somewhere down the line to result in a NEW, BETTER city being built somewhere nearby while Cleveland becomes a playground for urban explorers

• Elizabeth Drew examines why Congress has been focused on "spending less money, making job creation more difficult":

The Tea Party’s strength was larger than its numbers—about eighty in the House and as few as four in the Senate—because the entire House Republican freshman class and some more senior members were sympathetic to its views, and because the ghost of Bob Bennett now haunts many Republicans. Bennett (still alive), a solid conservative three-term senator from Utah, was, astonishingly, rejected for reelection last year by the Utah Republican caucus for having been insufficiently pure in his conservatism. (His vote in 2006 against a constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning was seen as heresy.)

• Colin Rich spent six months putting together a pretty time lapse video of Los Angeles.

• And since we're on the subject of L.A., I'll give the Song of the Week award to Best Coast's "Our Deal." The video is gorgeous and directed by Drew Barrymore.

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Obama offered little praise for the $2.1 trillion deficit package during a press conference at the Rose Garden, instead vowing to fight for “new jobs, higher wages and faster economic growth” in the coming months — an agenda he has tried to resurrect at least a half-dozen times in the past two years.

Democrats on Capitol Hill are backing up Obama, hoping to take up various proposals dropped from the debt ceiling compromise or sidetracked by the winding debate, such as approving trade deals, extending the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance, and allocating funding for new highway infrastructure and a clean energy program.

Even though Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has declared his party's "single most important" goal "is for Barack Obama be a one term President," I believe that most Republicans want to see America return to full employment, though they certainly are not prioritizing that goal. (And many may see making Obama a one-term President the best way to bring it about.) As such it's fallen to Democrats to try to boost employment, while Republicans will be looking to keep the government from accomplishing anything.

Many on the left have argued that the further economic stimulus required to boost unemployment would be impossible to get through a Republican-controlled House. This may well be so, but there's a better chance of Congress achieving something productive on this front if Congress can keep the conversation on jobs. Republicans, however, would be best served by bringing up more of the same distractions they focused on during the debt ceiling battle.

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The idea here is to neutralise debt as an issue. To be sure, in the medium term, the US needs to do something to dramatically reduce its deficits, and not just so it can focus on policies for which liberals have a special fondness. The country should be focusing on jobs in the short term because creditors think it hasn't borrowed more money than it can pay back. That assurance can't be assumed to last forever, and a return to the balanced budgets of the Clinton era should be on the agenda as soon as unemployment has fallen to a manageable level.

I would like Obama's analysis to be right, particularly if it would allow him to immediately pivot to talking about creating jobs — whether with a payroll tax cut of some kind, or, more fancifully further stimulatory spending. (The latter, let me stress, is quite fanciful.) And, as Jonathan Bernstein points out, Democrats have been successful before in neutralising Republican talking points and shifting focus to their own priorities. But there's good reason to believe Obama's wrong. Jonathan Cohn explains one problem:

The big problem seems to be that opposition to government spending, at least as a general proposition, doesn’t really have much to do with the deficit. Rather, it reflects an overall lack of trust in government, one that’s lingered in the public consciousness ever since the 1960s and early 1970s, when issues like Vietnam, race, and Watergate made the public increasingly wary of what Washington was doing. "There is a lot of general public distrust of government, and specific public skepticism about government waste and corruption," says Larry Bartels, a political scientist at Princeton. "But these attitudes do not seem very sensitive to short-term political developments, and I would be surprised if they turned out to be very sensitive to deficit or debt levels."

This is true. In fact, Americans have a record of thinking the deficit increased when it actually diminished. I'll also add that when, during the '90s, Bill Clinton returned the budget to surplus, he didn't usher in an era of great enthusiasm for investment in infrastructure and social programs, or not at the agenda-setting elite level, anyway. What happened was that the Chairman of the Federal Reserve at the time, Alan Greenspan, argued that the surplus was too large, and had to be reduced via tax cuts. When George W. Bush won office, he did exactly that, which did a lot to usher in the country's current deficit problems. Republicans are enamored with tax cuts now, when the government needs greater revenue. What would lead them to support investment if the country's fiscal position was actually strong?

Joan Walsh has more on this.

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When ordinary citizens have a chance to pose questions to political leaders, they rarely ask about the game of politics. They want to know how the reality of politics will affect them — through taxes, programs, scholarship funds, wars. Journalists justify their intrusiveness and excesses by claiming that they are the public's representatives, asking the questions their fellow citizens would ask if they had the privilege of meeting with Presidents and senators.

In fact they ask questions that only their fellow political professionals care about. And they often do so — as at the typical White House news conference — with a discourtesy and rancor that represent the public's views much less than they reflect the modern journalist's belief that being independent boils down to acting hostile.

I can understand why political journalists behave as they do. Political journalists, by definition, tend to be knowledgeable individuals who pay close attention to politics. Politicians tend to state their views on policy matters over and over again, and also tend to come from parties who, as internally varied as they may be, are organised on an ideological basis, and push policies consistent with that ideology. Journalists hear the same policies over and over again, and don't think they're discovering anything new by asking about them. Considering those policies are based on the broad ideological underpinning defining the politician's party, those journalists likely know why a politician favours a policy even if they don't ask. Further, journalists are ideologically neutral for a different reason to the public: journalists pursue neutrality for reasons of professionalism, while the ideologically neutral members of the public tend to be low-information voters. It makes sense that a low-information neutral voter would seek more policy information, but a highly informed neutral journalist would think that unimportant.

This is a mistake, of course. The political journalist's job is to help inform the public and help it hold the government accountable. That's why the First Amendment to the US consitution recognises freedom of the press as distinct from freedom of speech. If journalists are failing to find out the things the public wants to know from its representatives, it's failing at its job. The worst failure of this kind is when the presse engages in the recursive loop of navel-gazing, when it tries to discern — or even predict — how the media will respond to some superficial aspect of a political event, as if their response were not part of the very response they are discussing. The New York Times article I linked to at the top of this post apparently considered the main point of Obama's Town Hall to not be the answers he gave, but the length of them. "It took a while," snarked the writer, Michael D. Shear, on the president's answer to a question about the debt ceiling, as if more information was somehow undesirable.

I'm a politics geek, so I like the horse race stuff. There is a place for that kind of thing in journalism, but it should be on politics-focused blogs, and as an analytical supplement to bread-and-butter issues voters want to know about. It should not be the primary focus for political reporting. I will, however, make one defence of the journalistic obsession with process.

In 1994, when President Richard Nixon died, the gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson wrote an obituary for the president in Rolling Stone. In it, he said:

It was the built-in blind spots of the objective rules and dogma that allowed Nixon to slither into the White House in the first place. He looked so good on paper that you could almost vote for him sight unseen. He seemed so all-American, so much like Horatio Alger, that he was able to slip through the cracks of Objective Journalism. You had to get Subjective to see Nixon clearly, and the shock of recognition was often painful.

Lord knows Thompson should never be held up as a model for political journalism, as great a writer as he was. And as far as political devious goes, Nixon was worse than most. But Thompson has a point. Politicians know how to get out of answering the kind of fact-based questions the public wants answers to. Ask the Republicans or the Democrats about health care, and politicians from both parties will tell you they want to save Medicare, while their opponents want to destroy it. Some clever questioning and a lot of time will allow a good journalist to straighten out some of the spin, but most reporters aren't that clever, and nor do they have that much access. "Tough" questions end up being the faux-confrontational type Conor Friedersdorf criticises here.

The way reporters compensate for media-savvy politicians who have an interest in denying the public useful information is to get meta. Discuss the process, analyse the way rhetoric changes, debate ephemeral but out of the ordinary events. If you spend enough time watching a game, you begin to understand why the players do the things they do, even if they would deny it.

The problem is that political journalists forget the point of going meta. I'm all in favour of pointing out that politicians from a certain party have changed their rhetoric on an issue, but only if you subsequently explain how that affects the stance on an issue. Horse-race coverage is a tool, not a means to an end. Treating process analysis as an endpoint in itself isn't political journalism, it's just bad journalism.

(And, yes, like most efforts at media analysis, this is a hypocritical post. I'm analysing the media reaction to an event rather than the event itself. In my defence, i'm not a part of the White House press pool. Analysis is my job.)

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This is not a new argument. Garrett Epps proposed it back in April, and Bruce Bartlett echoed him. I am in two minds about it. Certainly, the Constitution appears to forbid the kind of default that is otherwise expected to occur in early August should Congress not raise the debt ceiling. The President is obliged to preserve, protect and defend the constitution, and would be entitled to act to ensure the government does not do something forbidden by that document. And the debt owed by the government only arises from laws passed by the Congress and enacted by the executive. At the same time, however, Congress clearly intended to limit the amount of money the government could borrow. If two of Congress's desires come into conflict, may the executive simply choose which law to ignore so it can fulfill its constitutional duty to ensure the validity of the public debt?

Whatever the answer to that question — and I could be persuaded either way — the practical outcome is that if the President decides to ignore the debt limit, Congress may not be able to do anything about it. Jonathan Zasloff details the argument:

But if the administration takes the position that it must continue to borrow to comply with the Fourteenth Amendment, who would stop it? Put another way, who would have standing to sue? Taxpayers clearly would not. Individual members of Congress? No: the Supreme Court’s 1997 decision in Raines v. Byrd would seem to foreclose that. Congress as a whole? Perhaps; but what would it require for Congress as a whole to bring the lawsuit? A joint resolution would be blocked by Senate Democrats. That leaves the House to bring the lawsuit, and one could easily argue that one house would not have standing any more than individual members of Congress would.

The only solution I could see to such an impasse would be for Congress to use the one power it has to check Presidents who disregard the constitution: Impeachment. Certainly, I could imagine an outraged Republican-controlled House may impeach President Obama if he decided to ignored the debt limit, but it's difficult to see the Democratic-controlled Senate coming up with anywhere near the two-thirds majority required to convict.

The problem with all this is that the United States would prefer not to spook the markets — that's the point of avoiding a default — and a protracted constitutional crisis of this sort certainly wouldn't have a calming effect. It's the sort of brinksmanship it would be better for everyone to avoid, though the same is true for any brinksmanship over the debt limit to begin with. Further, Congress would not be eager for if the administration to declare the debt ceiling unconstitutional. As the current negotiations have shown, it's a source of great power for the legislative branch, and Congress would have a lot to lose if the executive credibly threatened to take that power away. Such a threat might even convince Republican negotiators to back down from some of their more extreme demands — some conservatives are hoping to extract a balanced budget amendment from the Democrats. I don't see it as particularly likely however. Whatever the tactical wisdom of such a move, such extreme measures are not Obama's style.

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This sounds nice, but gay marriage should be considered an equal protection issue, not a state's rights issue. Allowing state legislatures to take charge of it rather than the courts is paying dividends at the moment, and I can understand why folks in charge might not want to force the issue too hard. Fundamentally, though, discussion of this being part of the debate had in democratic societies unreasonably frames the private lives of gay Americans as being a matter of public interest.

So, yes, we have more work to do. Yes, we have more progress to make. Yes, I expect continued impatience with me on occasion. But understand this — look, I think of teenagers like the one who wrote me, and they remind me that there should be impatience when it comes to the fight for basic equality. We’ve made enormous advances just in these last two and a half years. But there are still young people out there looking for us to do more, to help build a world in which they never have to feel afraid or alone to be themselves. And we know how important that is to not only tell them that it’s going to get better, but to also do everything in our power to ensure that things actually are better.

With Obama, there's often the temptation to think he secretly agrees with you, and that it's only by political necessity that he publicly takes a different stance. (Then, the debate becomes about the political necessity of that stance.) On this issue, however, it really does seem like Obama is sympathetic to demands for marriage equality, but knows that the best way to achieve that is for him not to forcefully insert himself into the debate. That would polarize further the opposing sides, and make the issue a lightning rod for those who would like to criticize Obama as a president. That doesn't mean his tactics are always laudable, or his stance above reproach, but I can understand why he might not publicly pursue gay rights as vigorously as his supporters might want him to.

As Ezra Klein put it:

Presidents campaign promising to create change, but they govern by facilitating it ... When presidents succeed in presiding over great change, they do so by recognizing an existing opportunity, not squeezing one from the stone of existing opposition. Obama correctly saw that 60 Democrats in the Senate and 240 in the House had cleared the way for health-care reform. Bush realized that 9/11 opened the door for the Iraq War. Clinton understood that the preferences of the Republican Congress and the economic growth of the ’90s created space for a Democrat to balance the budget and reform welfare. Reagan sensed that stagnation had prepared the American people for a radically different economic philosophy. FDR knew to push America’s intervention into World War II by incrementally moving forward with arguments based on new events.

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It's highly unlikely that voters really care that Republicans are blocking Commerce Secretary nominees (in addition to the CFPB and NLRB that Kuttner mentions). And for swing voters, loud complaints about GOP obstruction are just as likely to be interpreted as whining about losing as they are "leadership and toughness."

I'm with Bernstein on this. In American politics, it's usually a pretty safe bet to assume voters are not interested in process. Indeed, whenever voters notice anything about process at all, they tend to get upset and assume everyone involved is not doing their job correctly. That is why, for instance, Americans didn't get upset about Republican filibusters of the health care bill, despite Democrats urging for an "up or down vote." It's also why Americans didn't get upset about Democrats threatening to use tricksy "deem-and-pass" manouevers to get their legislation passed. It's why disputes over "the nuclear option" for judicial confirmations in the Bush years went nowhere. That sort of inside baseball seems important to insiders, but to the average voter, it doesn't make much sense, and looks like politicians are quibbling over minutiae instead of solving problems. 

Process is important inside Capitol Hill, but only there. If one side of politics believes the other is abusing a process to give itself extra leverage, the solution is to fight process with more process — or remove the processes giving the unfair advantage. After all, a lot of these rules are procedural oddities that  exist due to legislative inertia rather than constitutional design. Voters cannot be expected to referee these fights.

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Secondly, in America, just like the rest of the world, the lack of progress achieved by the United Nation's 2009 Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen sapped a lot of momentum from the environmental movement. It didn't help that Democrats were occupied for a large majority of Obama's first two years trying to pass and defend their reforms to the health care system.

However, it wasn't entirely due to misfortune that climate change has fallen off the agenda. American conservatives responded to Obama's election and a Democratic congressional majority by heading to the right. For ambitious Republicans, support for a carbon tax or cap and trade scheme has become anathema. Where prominent Republicans like Tim Pawlenty or Lindsay Graham once recognised the importance of fighting global warming, conservatives requires of their leaders a near-blanket denialism.

It is to this trend that Governor Christie, who is talked about as a possible Presidential candidate, has succumbed. Not only will it weaken, and possibly enocurage other states to drop out of, one of the most significant subnational efforts to fight climate change in America, it will further harden the right against greenhouse gas reduction.

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Whereas a swathe of Democrats fell in love with Obama from the moment he addressed the party convention as an unknown first term Senator in 2004, Pawlenty has been struggling to get the electorate to notice him for years. A Gallup poll released today has his support amongst Republican voters behind Herman Cain, who has never held public office, and just one point behind Michele Bachmann, who has taken no formal steps in pursuing the nomination. Further, for all his supposed Blue State appeal, Pawlenty never won a majority in a gubernatorial contest, with his best showing being the 2006 election, in which he, as an incumbent, held on by a one point margin and captured a plurality of 46.7 per cent of the vote. There is still plenty of time for Pawlenty's numbers to change, but it's fair to ask when and how that change is supposed to occur.

Nonetheless, while Obama-comparisons are distracting, Pawlenty could succeed if he eventually wins the nomination. As Matt Bai says, gaining a party's nomination does a lot to boost a candidate's prestige, and as Josh Kraushaar correctly observes, no matter how weak the Republican field may seem now, running during a down economy is a tough task for even a charismatic and well-funded incumbent. And Weigel is correct that a boring candidate is also one who has not accumulated any troublesome scandals that may derail their campaign.

But an early reputation for blandness has dogged nominees before. Al Gore, for instance, was perceived as a dull technocrat in the 2000 race, and he ended giving up Democratic control of the Oval Office to a not particularly skilled Republican challenger during a time of peace and prosperity. Pawlenty is less well known than Gore was — he has neither the advantage of having been Vice President for eight years, nor the disadvantage of having his image so fixed in the public mind. But the most memorable aspect of his candidacy so far has been the skill of his video producer:

Regardless of the advantages of minimising drama, that's not the kind of impression any candidate wants to leave.

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David is pointing to something else, something which I tried to get at in my Malcolm piece. Throughout the 80s and 90s, there were a lot of black folks on the public stage who many of us loved, but never really held up as role models or hoped would be "accepted." You can understand why, say, Mike Tyson, Chuck D, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, OJ Simpson, NWA, or Snoop Dogg might be polarizing. A lot of these folks were polarizing even within the black community. You didn't really expect these people to be received as your ambassadors.

But Common is the dude in the Gap ad. His mother is a teacher. Shirley Sherrod is a victim of white supremacist terrorism, who lectures black people on seeing their own prejudice. Eric Holder went to Stuyvesant. Michelle Obama's mother was a homemaker. Her parents forfeited a full athletic scholarship to send Michelle Obama's brother to Princeton. They used to watch the Brady Bunch together.

The point is that Common is not NWA. In fact, though he's deservedly a hip-hop icon, I see him as someone kinda corny these days. He hasn't made a great album in years (2005's Be was aight), he's dropped some seriously wack verses in high profile appearances ("Get 'Em High" on Kanye West's College Dropout is the most egregious offender), and his music has lately devolved into this kind of fluffy, grown-folks wallpaper. If ever a rapper were going to be invited to the White House for a poetry reading, it would be someone as friendly and unabrasive as Common. Which is Coates's point, though I don't know if he shares my distaste for the rapper's latest musical adventures: When conservative opinion-makers get themselves worked up for no good reason about a parade of nice, perfectly innocuous folks, you start wondering whether it might be their skin colour that is the problem.

Even so, Fox News is right on one point. Inviting a rapper to a White House function is a bit out there. Rap is more than thirty years old now, and it has never been accepted by the establishment — musical or political. While listeners outside the genre accused it of being noise, lobby groups tried to ban it for its foul language, its distate for law enforcement, its violence, and its at times lunkheaded attitude to women and gay folks. As you can see from some of the examples Conor Friedersdorf gives of previous White House musical guests, people for some reason get a lot more worried when less-than-kosher speech is coming from the mouth of a young, angry black kid than when it originates from, say, a mop-topped British white man.

So, just like when Barack Obama made reference to the Wu-Tang Clan at this year's White House Correspondents Dinner, or when Jay-Z, Nas, and Kanye West were involved with his campaign or inauguration, it's a small but significant shift in the American cultural landscape. Hip-hop is now considered respectable enough to be heard inside the confines of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. This is partly because hip-hop is getting older, but it's also, I believe, a conscious part of the Obamas' effort to expand the cultural language spoken by the powerful so as to include a broader swathe of America.

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There are many problems with the now-retired nomenclature of the War on Terror, and for the most part treating a nebulous extra-military tactic as an enemy that can be crushed with military operations is counter-productive. It is equally foolish, however, to suppose the NYPD might have trundled up to bin Laden's Abbotabad compound, flashed an arrest warrant, and lead him away in handcuffs, pausing only to ensure that he did not hit his head while being directed into the back of a squad car. The Al Qaeda leader had declared war on the United States, had attacked its people, buildings, embassies, and military around the world, and had holed himself up in a compound without the knowledge of the country in which he was staying. That he could do so for so long under the nose of a government officially allied with the United States should dispel any notion that he was within a jurisdiction that could meaningfully detain him. Osama bin Laden was not Al Capone. It was entirely appropriate for the attack on his compound to be a military, and not a law enforcement, venture.

I sincerely hope that the order given to the Navy Seals who assaulted bin Laden's compound was to, if possible, capture. The prospect of a summary execution, like that of, say, Nguyễn Văn Lém during the Tet Offensive, would be extremely distasteful, and I hope if bin Laden had surrendered that would not have been the outcome. Military operations, however, are violent and allow little room for an enemy to not be killed. The shots fired on the 20 strong special forces team that invaded bin Laden's compound were few, and occured at the beginning of the raid, but indicate nonetheless that the American presence was resisted. The lack of continued fire suggests the American presence was overwhelming, not improper. As for the engagement specifically with bin Laden, it was recounted thus by the New York Times:

When the commandos reached the top floor, they entered a room and saw Osama bin Laden with an AK-47 and a Makarov pistol in arm’s reach. They shot and killed him, as well as wounding a woman with him.

A police officer who did this would be out of line. I find it hard to quarrel with a soldier taking such action in battle, however. Allied troops did not storm the beach at Normandy on D-Day and request that any Germans unfortunate enough not to be holding their weapons to kindly put their hands up. For those interested in any further thought on the correctness and legality of the United States killing bin Laden in such a fashion, Matt Yglesias has a good argument.

Geoffrey Robertson had a thoughtful piece in the Sydney Morning Herald last week arguing that it would have been better to have put bin Laden on trial. A portion:

Bin Laden could not have been tried for the attacks on the twin towers at the International Criminal Court, since its jurisdiction only came into existence nine months later. But the United Nations Security Council could have set up an ad hoc tribunal in The Hague, with international judges (including Muslim jurists), to provide a fair trial and a reasoned verdict that would have convinced the Arab street of his guilt.

This would have been the best way of demystifying this man, debunking his cause and de-brainwashing his followers. In the dock he would have been reduced in stature - never more to be remembered as the tall, soulful figure on the mountain, but as a hateful and hate-filled old man. Since his videos exult in the killing of innocent civilians, any cross-examination would have emphasised his inhumanity. These benefits that flow from real justice have been forgone.

Certainly Robertson's argument in the second paragraph has force. There is a risk that bin Laden's most fervent supporters will martyr their leader, and a trial may have punctured the aura he had built for himself. And certainly, if capture and trial had been possible, it would have been preferable. I dread to imagine such a proceeding however; instead of the uniting event of his swift demise, a trial would have been long and torturous for the American public, and it would have been accompanied by bitter disputes over how it should properly be conducted — or whether it should be conducted at all. Politicians and citizens on all sides would be accused by opponents of being too lenient or too bloodthirsty; of giving comfort to America's enemies or not caring sufficiently about the American people; of being too unconcerned with the rule of law or too unconcerned with the realisation of justice. The security headaches would have been astronomical, and the eventual outcome could only be that of bin Laden being found guilty and being coldly, gruesomely strapped to a gurney and executed by lethal injection. No matter any misgivings about the death penalty, for a man who has committed such crimes as bin Laden has, there would be no prospect that a justice system that permits it would in this case do anything but use it. None of this is cause to argue against a trial had one been able to be arranged. I bring it up only to explain why I am relieved such a trial was not brought about.

Roberton's suggestion of an ad hoc trial at the Hague is well-intentioned but entirely implausible. The United States public would have accepted nothing but submitting bin Laden to their own justice system — and quite rightly, as well. International law is an awkward and imperfectly applied doctrine, established by networks of treaties and conventions. That does not make it meaningless, just occasionally unsatisfactory. The American people would have been quite right in wanting a man who planned mass murders in New York and Washington D.C. to be tried by the less intangible authority of their federal government.

At the end of 2009, Mike Barthel argued that after 9/11, the entirety of the United States went crazy — that it experienced a kind of collective mental breakdown. This makes a lot of sense. What changed on that morning wasn't the power of terrorism in the world or the risk it posed Americans, or those of us in the rest of the West. What changed was something essential about the way America understood itself, and related to the world around it and to each other. The country wandered through the ensuing decade in a shellshocked daze, unable to right itself and begin the process of turning a horrific event into history. Even as days, weeks, and years went by without Al Qaeda launching another attack within American borders, even as the fear began to recede and security worries ceased to be the paramount concern of U.S. public life, the ache and uncertainty of that morning endured like a bruise.

Bin Laden's death will not end terrorism, and though it will hinder it, it will not destroy Al Qaeda. But it does seem like it might bring about an end to the prolonged trauma of the last ten years. For me, that was a relief. For others, it was a cause for celebration.

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This isn't something new from Obama — it dates back at least to his brushing his shoulders off moment — but it's an important part of his public identity. Making sly reference to popular rappers alone doesn't convince young people Obama is a good guy, but it does signal that he is a politician who occupies the same cultural territory as they do, in much the same way Sarah Palin's talk of lipstick, pitbulls and hockey moms does for a different constituency.

This approach to politics is often disdained as being a distraction from the issues, but that point of view has little understanding of the voter's task. Yes, a voter should know if a politician's policies work against that voter's interests, but judgements of politicians must frequently be more nuanced. People are busy and politics is complicated, and culture can be a useful heueristic to reduce the time-consuming work of understanding complex problems and the policies that might solve them. So too are other heueristics voters use, such as party identification, media endorsements, or elite signalling. Culture is a way for politicians to tell voters that they speak their language. This isn't a guarantee that a voter will reward that with a vote, but it's much easier for a voter to believe a politician is interested in representing her and her interests if that politician can demonstrate he shares a common outlook on the world with the voter. Often, that includes style as well; in the link above, Mike identifies a "kind of triumphant swagger" in Obama's style that resonates with younger voters — and that references to hip-hop help conjure that swagger.

So does partnering Joe Biden with a song about the pleasures of unprotected sex really make young voters think Obama is a good president? Of course not, but politicians have always sprinkled their speeches with reference to pop culture. It's just that usually, that pop culture belongs to an older, whiter audience, and as such doesn't seem so unusual. (What was notable about George H.W. Bush's quip that America needs more families like the Waltons and fewer like the Simpsons was that he was talking about something on TV at the time, not something from the '60s.) Obama's politics is one that welcomes people who are more likely to recognize an Ol' Dirty Bastard song than know what kind of family the Waltons were.

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At least some fraction of the people who tell pollsters that Mr. Obama was foreign-born are probably kidding around, just as they are when the same question is asked of Mr. Trump. I’d imagine that you could substitute virtually any name in the place of Mr. Trump or Mr. Obama — Bill Clinton, or Ronald Reagan, or Oprah Winfrey, or Dwight D. Eisenhower, or Mark Zuckerberg, or Sarah Palin — and find that at least a few Americans reported themselves to be “birthers.”

[...]

Clearly, some people do believe the lies and distortions about Mr. Obama’s birthplace; I’m just not sure that the fraction is as great as overly-literal readings of these surveys might suggest. I’m also not sure that news organizations are necessarily doing all that much good by constantly debunking the rumors, which both legitimizes the topic as a point of discussion, and which may encourage some conservatives to say they have doubts about Mr. Obama’s birthplace in order to poke fun at the press. If you’re a mainstream conservative who is firmly convinced that Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii, you might nevertheless find it amusing when CNN credulously sends some of its top reporters to Honolulu to investigate the story ... Some voters who don’t have any particular doubts about Mr. Obama’s birthplace might nevertheless appreciate that Mr. Trump is “in on the joke” by raising questions about it.

As I've said before, birtherism is more about identifying oneself as an opponent of the President, and not about literally having doubts that he was born inside the United States. It follows on from a belief that Obama does not fit in with a certain conception of Americanness, and that therefore he must also be literally foreign.

Birthers will not change their mind about the President because of this document. Some of them already believed he was an American-born citizen, and claimed to suspect he was not as an expression of their dislike for him and his policies. The rest have shown themselves impervious to any rational argument, and there is no reason to think this will change their minds. It's disappointing that the White House is bothering to argue with people who will not be reasoned with, and it's disappointing that it feels it has to.

You tell 'em, Bruce.

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Coincidentally enough, that's precisely what Obama wants to do. But even if he didn't agree so strongly with the president about so many issues on gun policy, it was outrageous for LaPierre to reject the White House's invitation. As a free citizen he has every right not to meet with his nation's leader. But as the leader of a group aiming to influence public policy, he direspects the citizens of the United States by refusing to meet with their democratically elected representative.

In the case of Wisconsin labour relations, I thought the impasse between the two sides resulted from one side declaring political war. With guns, however, i believe the problem is mistrust. There is no doubt that some gun owners think Obama wants to ban their weapons. Gun sales surged in 2008 after he was elected President. As a result, though Obama says that he "believe[s] that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms" and acknowledges that "the courts have settled that as the law of the land," many gun rights advocates still feel the need to oppose any legislation aimed at making gun ownership safer. They fear any capitulation on their behalf will just lead to gun control advocates getting bolder in their attempts to make weapons harder to own.

This is and is not a legitimate fear. Yes, gun control advocates have long wanted to put in place laws gun owners feel are excessively onerous. But gun rights activists have beaten those back, and then some. The Supreme Court has acknowledged an individual right to bear arms, and Congress has refused to put back in place a ban on semi-automatic weapons, even after one nearly claimed the life of one the institution's own members. Serious efforts at gun control gain little traction in American politics today, and Obama's column reflected that. Indeed, the Washington Post's E.J. Dionne criticized Obama for being too conciliatory to the NRA. It's time for the NRA and its sympathisers to relax and not assume every Democrat is out to confiscate their guns.

This is an ideal place for Washington to arrive at a consensus. Both gun control and gun rights activists should be happy to ensure that guns are kept in the hands of the sensible and law-abiding, and that there aren't ways for the unscrupulous to get around those restrictions — such as by heading to a gun show to skip the mandatory background check. In his column, the President wrote:

I know that every time we try to talk about guns, it can reinforce stark divides. People shout at one another, which makes it impossible to listen. We mire ourselves in stalemate, which makes it impossible to get to where we need to go as a country.

True. And there'll be plenty of time to carry on doing that once both sides have worked to put in place the measures they all agree on.

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• Just who are the rebels? The Republican Senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham put it well:
  

  I would love to give arms to opposition forces, but I don't know who they are, and I don't know what they believe in... One thing I've learned from Afghanistan and Iraq is that you need to know who you're dealing with. There are 30 different tribes in Libya.

  In spite of this warning, Graham has critiqued Obama for taking too long to intervene.
• What is the plan? Writes Ross Douthat, "But the difficulty is that nobody has even defined what success would mean. The survival of the rebellion? Qaddafi’s ouster? Complete regime change? A democratic Libya at peace with its neighbors?" These are all good questions, and there are too few answers to them.
• Was it fanciful to expect continued support from the Arab League? One of the better trump cards the US and its allies had for intervention was that the Arab League supported the No Fly zone. It didn't take long for that to change, and critics of the war say that's no surprise; the Arab League could never have been expected to support prolonged Western incursion on a Muslim country.
• Clintonian foreign policy wasn't always successful. Douthat decries the success rate of "liberal internationalist intervention." Wars like that tend to be fought slowly and by committee, he says, and are too tenuously connected to the US national interest. He finds fault with the '90s peacekeeping in Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, and Kosovo, saying they encouraged short term bloodshed and took too long to resolve.
• What about the constitution? Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution unequivocally reserves to Congress the power to declare war, and like every President since Harry S. Truman, Obama did not seek Congressional approval for this military action. Matt Yglesias argues that Congress has abdicated its responsibility to decide whether or not to use force, which may be correct: Congress would probably approve the action if it were asked, and by not having to vote on the matter, politicians will be able to gripe about the war if things should turn out for the worse. Further, since this is a multilateral military action, Congress can be said to have approved it when it approved the United States' entry into NATO and the UN. Being a part of those organisations is fairly meaningless if the US will not act without fresh Congressional authorisation each time they decide to do something. Ironically, by allowing the rest of the world to lead on this matter, Obama has become yet another President to commit forces to military action in way that smells at least a little bit fishy under the constitution. Even if convention has practically made a Congressional declaration of war redundant, Obama should have revived it. He would have received much credit if he had.

If I were forced to choose, I'd come down on the side of the intervention. I do believe that if the world is able to stop atrocities, it should act to do so, and I think that the United States should be a part of that action. In Libya it seems like the world is able to make a difference. However, the arguments against intervening are strong, and should definitely be heeded. One of the worst aspects of the war in Iraq was that the Bush administration consistently disregarded and demeaned the opposition to the war. Wars are often fought better when they are fought with an ear to those who would prefer to see them not fought at all.

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And, well, I'm sympathetic to that point of view. I have few firmly held beliefs on nuclear power, but I am open to the notion of it playing a valuable role in shifting energy production away from carbon-intensive mechanisms such as burning coal. Fukushima Daiichi is demonstrating the dangers of this form of energy production, but as Ilya Gener points out, coal and oil causes far more deaths than nuclear even before you take into account the public health impact of the pollution such sources cause. It should also be remembered that Daiichi is still holding together after being struck by an earthquake measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale and a tsunami. Unless America was planning to build nuclear plants directly on top of the San Andreas Fault, its reactors would not even need to be as sturdy as Japan built theirs.

However, the cautionary tale from the disaster in Japan, as well as Deepwater last year, is one of regulation. The Gulf of Mexico oil spill could have been prevented by better oversight from government regulators, and we've seen of late far too much willingness from the United States to cut corners on oversight in a misguided attempt to cut costs — or worse, to attack government itself. If there is to be a bipartisan agreement on further pursuing nuclear energy in the United States, there must be as firm an agreement on properly regulating that industry and putting in place stringent safety requirements.

Then again, I am open to being convinced either way. Is the response to the Japanese nuclear disaster from the Admininistration and Congress evidence of a refusal to get drawn into panicky reactions, or are these politicians failing to heed what should be a straightforward lesson on the dangers of nuclear energy?

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Howard's unwavering support for the [Iraq] invasion successfully promoted the Australian alliance in Washington. But paradoxically it sapped support for the US alliance in Australia. Thanks to its political support (the troop commitment was small), Australia was now taken more seriously in the US, but the US alliance was taken less seriously by Australians A poll commissioned by the Lowy Institute for International Policy published three months before the election found that 76 per cent of Australians liked Americans, but a smaller 60 per cent said they had a "favourable" view of the US as a country. ... Asked whether they regarded the ANZUS alliance as very important for Australia's security, 45 per cent of respondents to a 2005 poll said yes. In 2007, only 36 per cent did. Howard had managed to animate support for ANZUS in the US, yet inadvertently engineered a loss of support for it in Australia. He had strengthened the compact at one end, but weakened it at the other.

Of course, much of the animosity the Australian public held for the US at the time related specifically to President Bush and the war in Iraq. The election of Barack Obama and the winding down of the middle eastern conflict has helped ease that tension. But seeing Gillard in Wasington last week celebrating the 60th anniversary of the ANZUS treaty, it's notable exactly how low-key and amicable the visit has been. Gillard's address to Congress and public appearances with Barack Obama — complete with jokes about AFL and Vegemite — are a far cry from Clinton's snub of Howard, but they are also have largely avoided rankling the Australian public, as Howard's interactions with Bush did for a large portion. At the 60 year mark, and after ten relatively tumultuous years, the alliance has to a great extent been re-normalised. The greatest accomplishment of Gillard's 2011 DC trip was how blandly amicable it was.

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Let us look at the United States, with 19.7 per cent of global CO2 emissions. We know that they will not adopt a cap-and-trade system at any time in the near future. The most likely combination to have done that—the House of Representatives, Senate and the President—has passed. One of the Democrats’ own Senate candidates, Governor Joe Manchin from West Virginia, stood up with a gun, nailed the cap-and-trade bill to a tree and shot the cap-and-trade bill. That is what the friends of the bill do—they shot the bill on national television. There will be no change in the United States.

Manchin's stunt was a campaign commercial for West Virginia, and as a representative of a coal mining state, he'll almost certainly be pleased to hear that his words are having such a wide hearing. Good or bad, what America does influences the whoe world. Not just West Virginia.

Indeed, if Gillard is to say anything to America on the subject of climate change, it should be defensive, not offensive. Manchin refers in this commercial not just to cap and trade, but to the EPA. That's the Environmental Protection Agency, and it is currently required to regulate carbon emissions. Republicans — and some Democrats — would like to strip it of that power. The success of such an attempt is by no means assured, and it is to be hoped that it should fail. America does have the capacity to play a leadership role on this issue, and the world does not need it to lead in the wrong direction.

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Mike Huckabee has been struggling with the imaginary Kenyan childhood he attributed to President Obama. The president is still anti-American, says Huckabee, he just didn't learn that quality from his African father. Huckabee misspoke and was referring to the years Obama spent in Indonesia with his mother. I think most revealing about the Republican presidential hopeful, however, is this quote:

"I do think [Obama] has a different worldview and I think it's, in part, molded out of a very different experience. Most of us grew up going to Boy Scout meetings and, you know, our communities were filled with Rotary Clubs, not madrassas."

This cozy portrait of the average American childhood is cute, but Huckabee is wrong: this is not the typical American experience, and it never has been. The experience of Americans has always been more diverse than the country's conservatives will acknowedge. The enormous number of kids who grew up in big cities will likely not recognise Huckabee's Mayberry ideal, I daresay few women in the country would have regulary attended Boy Scout meetings when they were younger, and heck, there may even be kids from small town Arkansas who don't see themselves in Huckabee's picture. While I appreciate the strength these images of Americana possess, they become deepy problematic if they're used to suggest they hold some kind of truth about what is and isn't legitimately American. Republican commentator David Frum encapsuated that divide in his book Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again:

"There is one thing that has never changed: Republicans have always been the party of American democratic nationhood. Democrats, by contrast, have historicay tended to attract those who felt themselves in some way marginal to the American experience: slaveholders, indebted farmers, immigrants, intellectuals, Catholics, Jews, blacks, feminists, gays — people who identify with the ‘pluribus' in the nation's motto, 'e pluribus unum.'"

This is a bit self-serving; trying to lump slaveholders in with more recent Democrats ignores the way the parties have substantially reshuffled themselves over the past 150 years. But it's an incisive look at the American political spectrum, and sure enough, Huckabee's conception of the ordinary American childhood claims itself as the unum by ignoring the nation's pluribus. As such, it makes sense to Huckabee to have his spokesman say: 

"The Governor would however like to know more about where President Obama’s liberal policies come from and what else the President plans to do to this country – as do most Americans."

And this after Obama has been President for two years! But it makes sense; Obama is a liberal, and as a part of the pluribus, this conservative framework considers that his policies are not from America – or, at least, not from the America of Boy Scouts and Rotary Clubs. Birtherism merely takes to the extreme this insistence that Obama and his supporters are outsiders.

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Bernstein:

I don't buy it. This is where birtherism gets tricky. In its wildest forms, birtherism is about a massive conspiracy to install a conscious, deliberate enemy of the United States in the White House. It's nice that Mike Huckabee doesn't subscribe to that. But in its more plausible, and presumably more popular forms, it's really just a way of saying that Barack Obama isn't a "real" American.

Serwer:

Even with post-birtherism, though, the ultimate objective, to undermine the president by portraying him as un-American, is achieved -- without sounding like you have a closet full of tinfoil hats.

(You might recall that I made a similar argument last year about people who think Obama is a Muslim.)

Let us suppose for a moment that somehow the Birthers are correct and Obama genuinely is not a natural born citizen of the United States. In which case: So what? Yes, our fictional Kenyan-born Obama would not constitutionally be permitted to be president, but it would not change the fact that he was elected to the position by a significant majority of the vote. Were those 2008 voters really casting a ballot for Obama because of his birthplace, or was it because they actually wanted him to be their president? 

I'm quite confident in saying it was the latter. Arguing technicalities does not change the fact that Obama is president because America wants him to be. I realise the futility in trying to apply sense to conspiracy theories, but birtherism as a concept only makes sense if it is seen as a symbolic argument that really claims Obama is not legitimately American at all. In that conception, the 2008 electorate was duped by a nefarious outsider, and his foreign-birth is proof not of his illegitimacy for the presidency, but of his outsider status.

America, it is oft said, is a nation founded on an idea. It's less often said that nobody in America really agrees on what that idea is, beyond nebulous conceptions of freedom and opportunity. To many on the right, Obama's policies are fundamentally at odds with what they conceive the American idea to be. That's why some of them grasp for proof that he is literally, and not just metaphorically, unAmerican. It's a sufficiently widely-held belief that more Republican leaders need to be working to refute it. It's a shame, however, that they tend to use Huckabee's technique, rather than that of Arizona GOP Congressman Jeff Flake:

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If the Democratic base is as depressed as the media reports, it showed no sign of it that morning. And the speeches were not measured, centrist placations for nervous undecideds. This was a rally for the true believers. After a vocal group delivered a cappella performances of standards like "Amazing Grace" and "God Bless America" and a Marine had lead the Pledge of Allegiance (an act of groupthink I still find a touch creepy), the university's student body president introduced the King County executive who introduced Suzan DelBene, the Democrat challenging for a seat in Seattle's eastern suburbs. DelBene, to great cheers, proclaimed that she was a Husky (that is, a UW alumna), and explained that she was interested in "moving forward" for "working families" — this Australian thought for a moment that our Prime Minister Julia Gillard had entered the arena and was recycling talking points from her most recent campaign.

DelBene was followed by politicians of successively greater importance, all delivering speeches about how great they thought Patty Murray was, and how proud they were to be Huskies. Norm Dicks, a ruddy-faced Congressman representing the Olympic Peninsula seemed as interested in talking about the double-overtime win the university's football team had the previous weekend as anything political, and no one really seemed to mind. But after the sports talk had wrapped up and Washington Governor Christine Gregoire had delivered a speech filled with jabs at Dino Rossi, the man she had beaten in her previous two gubernatorial elections, it was time for the President to take the stage.

Or, rather it was time for another interminable wait, and then time for the President to take the stage.

Photo by the Seattle Times

Obama strode out with Senator Murray to deafening cheers from the crowd, a roar bordering on the hysterical. Supporters waved bright red signs supporting the senator, and shouted "I love you" to the President, who replied "I love you too!" And then... he stood and watched Murray give a speech.

We watched courteously, and to be fair, Murray is an adept politician who delivered a fine speech. "Pork" was not the dirty word it usually is in politics here; Murray boasted of the federal projects and associated jobs she had brought home to the state, and the crowd cheered appreciatively when she talked of supporting workers for hometown industries like Boeing and Microsoft. When she brought up legislation supposed to be unpopular in the rest of the nation, like the health care bill and the Wall Street reform, she was greeted with wild applause.

But Murray knew whom everyone had really came out to see, and she kept her remarks brief. As she handed over to Obama, the massive roar filled the pavillion once again, and the President was forced to stand patiently at the lectern waiting for cheers that seemed as if they might never subside. When they did, however, he spoke with the full force of the engagement and passion for which he's famed. It seemed almost inevitable that he would astonish, but a small part of me worried he would be unable to live up to the high expectations his reputation had built up.

But he was exactly as good as you have heard. This was not the dry, professorial Obama; it was the soaring and impassioned orator that propelled himself from first term senator to President in the space of four years. He led the crowd in chants of "Yes we can," and had fun delivering jabs at the Republican Party's economic management. He delivered his favoured campaign parable of America being a car driven into a ditch under GOP watch, and deftly inserted new twists. Patty Murray, in this take, was helping him push the stricken vehicle — "She's small, but she's tough," he said. We all surely knew the punchline by heart, but he piled it on anyway, because, of course, we wanted to hear it: "When you want the car to go forward, you put in D; when you want it to go backwards, you put in R!" His audience enjoyed it so much they didn't need to listen, and they nearly drowned out his words in response.

When it was all over, he and Murray climbed down from the stage and worked their way along the barrier shaking hands and exchanging smiles. Supporters surged toward the stage, but Obama reached out to grasp as many outstretched hands as he could, progressing at snail's pace.

Outside the arena and after the president had stepped on to Air Force One to make his way to the next rally in support of the next embattled Democratic politician, the scene is quite different. The Democrats will lose a swathe of seats. There's a better than average chance they'll lose one house of Congress, and they might even lose both. Turnout won't reach the heights it did in 2008, and Obama's approval rating looks good only when compared to how bad it should be given the state of the economy. But for a few hours inside a University of Washington sports arena, it felt just like 2008 again. 

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"The president has taken a very consistent position here, and that is: 'Look, I will not use my discretion in any way that will step on Congress' ability to be the sole decider about this policy here," said Diane H. Mazur, legal co-director of the Palm Center, a think tank at the University of California at Santa Barbara that supports a repeal.

Remember, until now, Congress has failed to repeal the policy because Republicans (and a few Democrats) in the Senate started squabbling over a procedural issue. While the courts have every responsibility to protect a minority's Constitutional rights against the wishes of the government, it can't even be argued in this case that they are circumventing the will of the people's representatives. Where Don't Ask Don't Tell is concerned, the Senate's lack of action has been due to incompetence, not a lack of will.

So there's no defensible reason for Barack Obama or his Justice Department to appeal Judge Phillips's ruling. The Administration has a responsibility to uphold the law, and that includes defending current interpretations of it in court. But that does not mean it must defend it beyond its hearing. The government made a case for the law, and lost. The right thing to do, particularly for an administration opposed to the policy, is to allow Don't Ask Don't Tell to end here.

It would have better for Obama and the Democrats if a Congress controlled by the party could have put a bill on the President's desk so he could take credit for ending the policy, but as it is, the folks who put the final nail in the coffin might just have been a bunch of Republicans.

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That was a moment, perhaps, when Mr. Obama might have given one of his trademark orations to an anxious public, an opportunity to lay out the different dimensions of the economic crisis in a way that had eluded his predecessors. You could have imagined Mr. Obama’s explaining then that the country had to respond in two related but distinct ways: first by spending hundreds of billions of dollars in the short term to avoid a depression, and second by making a series of large-scale investments over time that would modernize the foundation of the economy.

Of course, the President has spoken exactly in this way, though perhaps not in one of his "trademark orations." Suggesting the President give a paradigm-shifting speech is a favourite device of political commenters who wish to give the administration some advice. It rather ignores what Obama's most memorable speeches have been about. Career highlights such as his inaugaural address, his keynote speech to the Democratic Convention in 2004, or his 2008 race speech in Philadelphia were not persuasive arguments for specific policy approaches, but were instead descriptions of Obama's vision of America; its ideals, and what it can be. He has been so successful an orator because he has been able to describe America's ideas in a left-of-centre way that resonates equally with centrists. That doesn't mean he's a slouch at talking about policy, but Bai's complaint misses what distinguishes what Obama has and has not been able to do with his speeches.

I wonder if a recession actually is the time to be separating out short term and long term investment the way Bai suggests. Though both approaches are necessary, few people at the moment are interested in anything that doesn't address the immediate problem of their being too few jobs and too little demand. (And some people believe spending is the wrong approach to take anyway, whether in the long or short term.) Compare the situation with Australia's in the mid '00s. In those years, the Australian economy was overheating as it began butting up against the limits of its capacity. As a result, voters were quite amenable to politicians' suggestions of long term investment, and proposals like the "education revolution" were part of the reason Labor won power in 2007.

By contrast, America in its current slump does not want to hear about what will happen down the road. It wants to hear about what can happen today. And though it may be a touch confusing, that means arguing that, in effect, "stimulating the economy today and reordering it for decades to come are basically the same thing." In terms of doing what's right for America's, they are. In a bad economy, there are limits to how good a message can be.

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First, speculation that the President might be a Muslim seems driven more by political ignorance than any deep concern. The 43 per cent figure is high, but I wonder what exactly a "don't know" answer entails. Perhaps these people have heard conflicting reports of the President's faith, and, having thought deeply about it, have been unable to settle their doubts as to whether he is a Christian or a Muslim. But more likely, having been asked a question they had no knowledge about, they responded honestly that they did not know.

Secondly, as Pew shows, people who dislike the job Obama is doing are much more likely to believe the President to be a Muslim. I suppose they might dislike the job he's doing because they believe he is advancing Islamic goals or something like that, but my guess is that in an America where the most important issues are jobs and the economy, Obama isn't losing massive chunks of his constituency because they believe he prays five times a day facing Mecca.

A better explanation would be that people who don't like the President are willing to choose the "worst" option a pollster presents to them, simply because they think nothing nice about him anyway. There's a difference between saying "Obama's a Muslim," meaning "I don't like him," and saying "Obama's a Muslim," and holding a sincere belief that the President considers the Koran to be the literal word of Allah. Others might simply agree that Obama is a Muslim because they've heard that story, and they don't want to appear ignorant by not answering a question.

Let's consider the alternate scenario, however. If a good chunk of America does indeed believe it has a disciple of the Islamic faith in the Oval Office, it is being remarkably sanguine about it. Indeed, as you can see from the table above, a full quarter of the people who think Obama is a Muslim still say that he's doing a good job. And according to the survey, a plurality of the population approves of his performance. Keeping in mind that Obama has a higher approval rating than the assuredly Christian Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan or Jimmy Carter had at this point in their first terms, the level of misinformation about his religion doesn't seem to be doing him any harm.

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Although police blocked off the square enclosed by 5th and 6th Ave and Virginia and Stewart Streets, protesters were permitted along the side of the road opposite the hotel. The activists were low-key and disparate.

The expected band of conservatives showed up, carrying "Don't Tread On Me" flags and signs opposing the Federal Reserve. Compared even to the moderate crowd that had filled Westlake Park on April 15 this year, however, they were few in number.

Almost as many protesters came from the left as the right. Some of these were anti-war activists, but the most organised group on either side were immigration rights protesters, who came equipped with large banners and speeches.

A good many people showed up just to have a look at what was going on and take some photos.

The only really controversial bunch was a handful of people waving signs for the loony activist Lyndon LaRouche. I'm loathe to even show them, because they represent no actual constituency or ideology; their biggest interest is in drawing Hitler mustaches on people and handing out leaflets filled with conspiracy theories. They can be reliably expected to show up to any rally held for whatever reason in Seattle. But for the sake of completeness...

Whether any of this protesting did any good is doubtful; the President likely saw none of it. His motorcade, a succession of white vans, black SUVs, police cars, and motorbikes rocketed down Virginia Street, and apparently delivered the man himself into the bowels of the hotel. It was over in a flash and seemed even less eventful than the protests that had preceded it. And even these protests were characterised more by friendly banter and chit-chat between the crowd and the police rather than angry yelling. Maybe Seattle was just feeling particularly tame today, but apart from a brief parade of motorbikes, whose riders had to dismount and hang around in a comically large crowd a block down the street once the whole thing was over, this Presidential visit was just another day in America.

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Though the race is closer than you might expect in blue Washington, I suspect Murray will be likelier to win another term than not this November. But a couple of GOP hopefuls think they can swing the seat. The Tea Party pick is the Sarah Palin-endorsed farmer and ex-footballer Clint Didier, a fiery fellow from the conservative eastern side of the state. However, Washington Republicans have apparently not heard that this is the year of the political outsider, and the GOP favourite is still Dino Rossi. Rossi is a well known politician in the state, and he ran for governor here in 2004 and 2008, losing narrowly both times. Rather than try to remake himself as a Tea Party convert, he has campaigned as a straight-up Republican, and though I've said before that I have my doubts how welcoming the state will be of a two time loser, this is probably his best strategy. He's clearly hoping that this is indeed the year of the Republican Party, and that Democratic unpopularity can tip him over the top. And if the GOP is to have any chance at all of performing the unlikely feat of gaining control of the Senate, Washington is the kind of state it will have to win.

The most likely outcome from today is that Dino Rossi and Patty Murray will be selected to face each other in November. However, it's not assured, particularly considering Washington's unusual primary system. Called a Top Two Primary, it is unlike most other primary contests in that the races are not segregated by party; for each political office up for grabs, the two candidates who receive the most number of votes today will compete in the general election in November, even if they're both from the same party. In fact, the Washington State primary doesn't even acknowledge party affiliation, and considers each candidate to be running as an individual. Candidates signal their party membership by listing on the ballot which party they prefer.

It's a symptom of the West's grizzled independent streak — or its obstreperousness, if you'd prefer. Between 1935 and 2003 voters could cast their primary ballot in any race they chose; voting, for instance, in the Democratic Senate race before making a selection in the Republican mayoral contest. The system was found unconstitutional because it infringed on the party's right to free association. The Top Two Primary was the state's means of retaining a primary that kept control with voters while thumbing its nose at the major parties.

It's worth keeping an eye on the races today, because California has recently adopted the same system, in hopes of clearing some of the partisanship out of its dysfunctional government. The only upset we have a chance of seeing in Washington's Senate race would be a scuttling of Rossi by his party's right wing in favour another Tea Party insurgent. But keep an eye on the race, and try to imagine what chaos the voters of California might cause when they get their hands on this system...

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Let's not forget, Obama announced that he would approve new offshore oil drilling mere weeks before the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, inopportunely declaring that, "oil rigs today generally don't cause spills." The announcement was intended as a compromise to attract Republican support for a climate change bill, but it instead made the President look overly friendly to the interests of big oil companies. His calm, controlled response to the spill, coupled with reports that the government was working with BP officials to prevent the media from covering the clean-up confirmed in the public's mind that Obama had a bit too much sympathy for BP. 

It probably helped the administration when various British political figures began complaining how mean Obama was in criticizing the UK company. (London mayor Boris Johnson sniffed that "It starts to become a matter of national concern if a great British company is being continually beaten up on the airwaves,” because, apparently, the the true victims of this disaster are Britons.) But if the Poms started reminding Americans that their president wasn't exactly full of praise for BP, the Republicans really reinforced the message.

The Ranking Member on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Republican Joe Barton, apologised to BP executives this past Thursday for the "tragedy" of the company being subject to "a shakedown" — that is, paying into a $20 billion compensation fund negotiated by Obama. The President had announced in his Tuesday speech that he would make BP "pay for the damage the company has caused,"  and Barton made sure that everyone knew Obama deserved the credit. Republican leaders made sure Barton apologised for his apology, but the damage had been done. In the public's mind, the Republicans had become the real allies of BP. The GOP wasn't helped by the fact that more than a few conservatives agreed with Barton.

The other thing Obama will be hoping Americans remember from this week is that the leak won't be plugged any time soon. But even if he finds that the nation's patience is in as short supply as it ever was, Joe Barton has proved for the president that, with a bit of luck, even a bad speech can ease the pressure. 

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The New York Times reported last week that Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder have "outdone every previous president in pursuing leak prosecutions," charging run-of-the-mill whistleblowers under anti-espionage laws. This is not OK. It was not OK when the George W. Bush assigned five prosecutors and 25 FBI agents to work out who told the Times about the National Security Agency's warrantless wire-tapping program, and it's not OK now. The United States is a nation that guards the freedom of the press so jealously that it enshrines that freedom in its first amendment. Governments that hunt down whistleblowers with this intensity instead of addressing the problems they revealed are not only working against the spirit of the First Amendment, they're badly serving the public that elected them to office.

This photograph shows Obama signing the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act. That law requires the State Department to determine whether foreign governments are violating the rights of a free press. That's a good thing for the State Department to do. But the U.S. needs to maintain the freedom of its own reporters, as well as of the sources who deliver them information. The President has already reversed his stance on a badly-needed Federal shield law for reporters. Obama, like every president before him, should worry less about reporters and the folks delivering them their info, and more about the job he was elected to do.

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He'd want to be Treasurer before the Dems would consider him worthy of the leadership, or at least have a high profile portfolio like Defence or Foreign Affairs. So he'd have to endure a few more years of cabinet reshuffles. Then he'd have to wait until the current PM, whoever he or she may be, was in enough political trouble to make the party push them into retirement. Let's suppose the leadership spill occurred in 2009, and the country was led by Prime Minister John Edwards, a more than feasible proposition. The Democrats would have been in disarray after Prime Minister Edwards was revealed to be conducting an adulterous affair with Rielle Hunter, one of his campaign staff.

Of course, we'd be assuming that Hillary Clinton, a more senior member of Cabinet than Obama, would also be interested in the PM position, and since she is more of a party insider than Obama, she'd easily win the numbers in the party room. Then again, the party would be aware of a perception Clinton was highly unpopular with the electorate (remember that piece of received wisdom back before the '08 primaries?), and so for PM they'd probably want someone much safer. Obama would be mentioned, but the junior minister would still be considered too green, and, internally, the party would tell itself America was not ready for a black Prime Minister. And not Nancy Pelosi, either. She'd be a member of the party's left wing faction, and PMs come from the centre-right. Which is another strike against Obama, by the way; he would struggle to garner the support of his party's right wing. No, for PM think inspiring gentlemen like Chris Dodd, Harry Reid or Max Baucus. (I'm assuming these senators would have run for the more influential House of Representatives.)

So Obama would toil away as Minister for Tourism or Sports and Recreation, his most high-profile activities consisting of lobbing the occasional Dorothy Dixer at Finance Minister Timothy Geithner. He probably would not stand out as a parliamentary performer, since his inspirational style of oratory would be a poor fit with the pugilistic rigour of Question Time. The loathed antics of Joe "You lie!" Wilson and Randy "Baby killer!" Neugebauer would be just an average day on Capitol Hill, and the partisanship the American people revile so much would be institutionalised. And if the Member for Hyde Park found that his party was proposing a policy he disagreed with and that his constituents despised, he wouldn't be able to vote or campaign against it. He'd have to go back to Chicago and tell his electorate how fantastic he thought it was.

America's system of government could do with some reforms to make it run a little more smoothly and prevent minority obstructionist tactics. Making it tougher to filibuster would be a good start. But removing the executive branch from the legislative branch has created an American government more resistant to the ossifying effect of party-loyalty and more responsive to the people who elected it. Yglesias's fantasies of an Obama with Prime Ministerial powers ignores that in a Westminster system, very few of us would know who Barack Obama is.

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I mean, I get that you assume your audience knows nothing about American politics, but would it have hurt you to set it up with a bit of background (it's not like the audience would have gone anywhere!!). That way you could have asked the President for actual insight, rather than just answers you could have got from wikipedia.

And you know what? There is SO MUCH MORE to US Foreign policy than Iraq and Afghanistan, and the questions about Iraq and Afghanistan have been asked a thousand times.  What about focusing on the US's role in the Pacific region- NO, not just China, the Pacific- since we are actively involved in that?  What about asking about the role of the G20, since we're not involved?  Why not ask questions about the continuing nature of US-Australian relations?  

You have a genuinely once-in-a-lifetime experience, to sit down with the sitting President of the United States, and that is really the best you can come up with?

I, for one, would have asked him about the United States' position on Mandatory Internet Filtering.  I know, I know, it's my question, but still, it's easily the biggest story in Australian-US relations in the last month or so, so why not ask about that.

In trying to produce an epic, sweeping interview, you've instead produced one that says absolutely nothing new, Kerry.  It was not impressive.

Oh, and one more thing.  At the end, you said "Barack Obama, Thank You."  It's PRESIDENT Barack Obama, thank you. To not use his title was exceptionally disrespectful.

So, anyone have any BETTER questions O'Brien could have asked President Obama?

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When Souter retired, Obama said he was looking for someone "who understands that justice isn't about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a casebook; it is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives." That echoed comments he made on the passing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act just after he took office in January 2009: "Justice isn’t about some abstract legal theory, or footnote in a casebook – it’s about how our laws affect the daily realities of people’s lives: their ability to make a living and care for their families and achieve their goals."

But this sense pre-dates his presidency. In the final presidential debate in 2008, Obama said he would "look for those judges who have an outstanding judicial record, who have the intellect, and who hopefully have a sense of what real-world folks are going through." Even back in 2005, when he was a Senator voting against the confirmation [PDF] of Chief Justice John Roberts, he was hinting at what become the "real world" doctrine:

"What matters on the Supreme Court is those 5 percent of cases that are truly difficult. In those cases, adherence to precedent and rules of construction and interpretation will only get you through the 25th mile of the marathon. That last mile can only be determined on the basis of one's deepest values, one's core concerns, one's broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one's empathy."

That empathy requirement has been criticised by conservatives. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said last year that it indicated Obama wanted to pick Justice's on the basis of their "perceived sympathy for certain groups or individuals." Around the same time, Wendy Long, who clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas and was legal consul to the right wing Judicial Crisis Network, argued, "If you have empathy for both sides then that's the same as having no empathy at all. So what he means is he wants empathy for one side and what's wrong with that is it is being partial instead of being impartial. A judge is supposed to have empathy for no one but simply to follow the law."

Despite attacks like these, which will surely be repeated this time around, the Real World doctrine shouldn't necessarily be a bad thing for the left. Conservatives have done well by pushing their strict constructionist and textualist notions of constitutional scholarship, even though these can often fail to be meaningful when applied to actual law. By seeking justices who understand "how the law affects the lives of daily people," Obama is not saying that he expects the court to misinterpret or abuse the letter of the law; he's merely saying that the law should not be, as the saying goes, an ass. Just as conservatives have succeeded by painting liberal judges as "activists," Obama has the opportunity to succeed by portraying his nominees as people on the side of simple common sense. Few would argue, after all, that the law should be an ass.

UPDATE: Over at Newsweek, Dahlia Lithwick argues that empathy is dead, though it was Stevens' best quality:

That's too bad. Because if John Paul Stevens's career stood for anything, it's the proposition that walking a few miles in the other guy's moccasins will always make you a better judge. As Americans now begin the ritual clamor for a court that looks more like them—for more racial, gender, and ethnic diversity at the court—it's worth taking a moment to recognize that often more than anyone else at the court, it was an 89-year-old white Protestant guy who devoted his judicial career to standing in the shoes of teenage schoolgirls, pregnant women, gay Boy Scout leaders, and poor African-Americans.

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There’s a lovely quote about Lincoln from W. E. B. Dubois which, I think, beautifully captures what made him great:

“I love him, not because he was perfect, but because he was not perfect, yet triumphed. There was something left so that at the crisis, he was big enough to be inconsistent.”

To which Blight added:

“I’d argue that the most important thing you can understand about Abraham Lincoln is tat he had the capacity for growth.” 

Big enough to be inconsistent. A leader who owned his mistakes, who bided his time, who changed his mind.  A leader who acted on principle, but could be convinced.  A leader who put his conviction about what was the right thing to do ahead of his own political fate.

Later in the lecture series, Blight tells the story of when Abraham Lincoln called Frederick Douglass to the White House, a few months ahead of the 1864 election.  With the war dragging on, and that summer’s crucial victories yet to swing the momentum, Lincoln was genuinely concerned- in fact, genuinely believed- he would lose the presidency, and that his successor would make a treaty with the Confederacy.  So he called Douglass to the White House, and asked him if he would lead an effort to smuggle as many enslaved persons from the South to protection behind Union lines, ahead of the election. Douglass returned to his home, flabbergasted, and began to make plans and ask advice on how he might begin such an endeavour. 

Union victories soon rendered the plans redundant, but the story illustrates the greatness of Lincoln.  When his defeat seemed likely, he wanted not to protect act in a manner that would sure up electoral success, but to ensure that what he had fought for would be preserved. He was a pragmatist, a realist, yet at the same time one who pursued high ideals.  He was a real politician who governed in the real world he faced, at the same time he sought to change it.

On Saturday, Barack Obama addressed the House Democratic caucus, and he quoted Lincoln:

"I am not bound to win, but I'm bound to be true. I'm not bound to succeed, but I'm bound to live up to what light I have."

How very appropriate for that sentiment to have echoed with the Obama, for the nature of his approach to leadership, more closely than any President since, resembles Lincoln’s own.  He too demonstrates an understanding for the need to carefully balance one’s sense of duty with political realities. Obama’s patience- his powerful patience- is much like Lincoln’s own.  Both waited to act, thought over what they were doing, and took the long, difficult road, rather than acting impulsively.

Obama’s thoughtfulness is also much like Lincoln’s.  Unlike so many other leaders, he is both open to being convinced by good ideas, and willing to admit his own error.  There was a powerful moment, during the health care summit, when John McCain brought up the Florida Medicare Advantage deal, claiming it was unfair.  Yes, Obama admitted, it was, and he’d prefer to see it gone.  There was no attempt to justify it, or deny that McCain had a point.  For Obama, the right thing was to simply acknowledge the truth.

And it is, in part, by emulating the best of Lincoln that Obama was able, with obvious help, to usher this health care bill through.  After 100 years of trying, the United States has universal health care.  And it took a leader with statesmanship much like Lincoln’s to get it done.

And Obama’s own oratory sometimes even broaches the soaring height’s of Lincoln’s own. I am certain some of yesterday’s remarks after the bill passed will be quoted for generations:

In the end, what this day represents is another stone firmly laid in the foundation of the American Dream. Tonight, we answered the call of history as so many generations of Americans have before us. When faced with crisis, we did not shrink from our challenge -- we overcame it. We did not avoid our responsibility -- we embraced it. We did not fear our future -- we shaped it.

*Again, I cannot recommend this lecture series more highly.  It has enhanced my understanding of the United States in a way I can hardly articulate.  Understanding the American Civil War only serves to enhance your understanding of every aspect of American life: politics, culture, inequality, religion. And beyond that, Blight, who visited the USSC last year, is simply a phenomenal lecturer.  The entire series- 26 hour-long lectures- is available entirely free of charge online at the Open Yale site or through iTunes U.  Download a few and take a listen. I challenge you not to be blown away.

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True, it is easy to be critical of Obama's plan sitting here in Sydney, particularly when I'm a young man of military service age in a country with troops directly involved in this conflict who has made no moves to enlist for duty. And Obama's dilemma is not an easily solved one. All but the most idealistic hawks must have abandoned hopes that Afghanistan could be transformed into some kind of South Asian version of South Korea. And even an ardent dove must fear that a destabilised Pakistan and Taliban-administered Afghanistan with huge swathes of wild, poor, rural and mostly lawless country is a dangerous combination once nuclear weapons are added to the mix - to say nothing of the inevitably brutal disregard for human rights that would follow.

Of course, neither option is really on the table for the Administration; the arguments have revolved around exactly what shape the twin courses of staying and going should look like; whether the focus should be on counter-insurgency, or nation building, or some other approach. I don't mean to trivialise the important arguments being undertaken by important men and women that will lead to every day American (and Australian) men and women to be put into harm's way. But America's unfortunate situation seems to be as much about a grand historical shift in policy that hasn't been matched with an equally large change in the nation's temperament.

The historian Ken Burns said in his PBS series, "if you want to know about this thing called the United States of America you have to know about the Civil War," and I'm wondering if the Vietnam War should be seen as a modern equivalent. Prior to that war, the American mentality regarding foreign action was generally consistent: they didn't do it very often, but when they did, they won. Sure, the Korean War left behind a communist state that troubles the U.S. to this day, but it also established a thriving, modern democracy in the south of the country. Until Vietnam, it wasn't hard to see America as something like a cautious poker place from the old West, one who kept his cards close to his chest and played few hands, but when he went in, he went all in. Remember, for instance, how difficult it was to convince America to enter World War II, surely a war the U.S. had both a moral and pragmatic interest in, even prior to 1941. But such was America's reluctance to involve itself in a foreign conflict that even when German submarines sunk the USS Reuben James in October 1941, America remained officially neutral until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor dragged it into war.

By contrast, Vietnam was a long, drawn-out affair based on at-best contentious policy objectives, that involved a relatively small sacrifice from the American public at large, disproportionately focused on the young, mostly working-class young men who qualified for the draft and could not or would not gain a deferment. Vietnam was expensive, and not paid for; Lyndon Johnson continued implementing his Great Society programs rather than convert to a wartime economy.

Poker aficionados will be aware of the concept of "tilt", the frame of mind a good player gets into after a bad loss. The player will make bad decisions, chase risky hands and watch helplessly as his or her good luck goes bad. Since Vietnam, America's military action seems to have been on tilt.

That's a bad state of mind for a populace that expects to win its wars. But Vietnam set a bad precedent for American military action, and while comparing wars is a dangerous venture, the one comparison that can be made between the war in South East Asia and the current one in Afghanistan is the mentality behind them. Despite some small successes in the '80s and '90s, mostly about giving temporary backing to governments friendly to American interests, in major conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. still believes it can prosecute a war while not troubling the lives or wallets of the majority of its population. Congress is currently grappling with a surtax that would cover a very tiny portion of the amount the U.S. has spent on Iraq and Afghanistan this decade, and despite a population that is lukewarm about the war and increasingly concerned about the deficit, this is unlikely to pass.

At the Washington Post, Ezra Klein says:

What began as fiscal irresponsibility is slowly transforming into hard precedent. The original deployment to Afghanistan was a rapid reply to a devastating attack that took place amidst an economy shaken by terrorism and the stock market collapse. I get why no one stopped to levy a new tax. It was arguably the right decision.

But then the war in Iraq, which was a war of choice begun amidst a stronger economy, wasn't paid for either. The surge in Iraq, and the escalation in Afghanistan, both will be strategies of choice, and they won't be paid for.

We've had wars of necessity, wars of choice, and the escalations of those wars stretching across both good and bad economies, and both Democratic and Republican presidents. And none of them have been paid for. The political system is learning to think of war as an off-budget expense, which is bad both from the perspective of the deficit, but also from the perspective of forcing us to confront the costs and tradeoffs of war.

I would argue that Americans not only think of war as an off-budget expense, they also think of it as an out-of-mind expense; that is, a problem they can delegate to a professional military rather than invest in personally. That is not only unfair to the men and women serving abroad, it's also unsustainable. Obama is in a deep bind in Afghanistan, and the best that can be hoped for is that his troop influx helps brings thing to an acceptable close as quickly as possible. But once that happens, without disavowing small, practical, humanitarian exercises, America must return to its pre-Vietnam state of mind. It must see war as a rare exercise that requires it to go all in, psychologically and economically.

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In his first post on the subject, Fallows highlighted that the results of the trip were entirely predictable- and were, in fact, widely predicted- and that judging the trip as a failure was incorrect and dangerous.  He said:

Why bring this up? Because it's bad all around when American press coverage makes people feel that perfectly predictable results constitute a shameful failure for the country and its leadership.

Fallows continued to compile the reactions of people familiar with China who believed that Obama's visit was misrepresented in the American press.  He amassed an impressive collection of quotes and links, all pointing to the fact the trip was vastly more successful than it was represented to be in the American press, and that illustrated the fact the trip has been largely misunderstood by the American public.

Then Fallow's coverage took a turn: instead of illustrating that the talks weren't unsuccessful, he started to point to examples of exactly why it was successful.  This was my particular favourite, posted on Thanksgiving, collecting headlines that demonstrated interesting developments regarding China.  The visit, it would seem, was anything but unsuccessful. 

In his most recent post on the subject, Fallows quoted a reader with valuable insight into Chinese political culture:

Those media people who portraited Obama's visit to China as a failure simply had little idea about Chinese political culture. The way the Chinese government does things is that they cannot give people the impression that they are yielding to other governments' pressure. So if you come to lecture the Chinese government, you'll be disappointed. But if you come and show your respect and humility, you may well get what you wanted. Last time the Renminbi was re-evaluated [allowed to float], it did not occur when American politicians were lecturing China to do so, but when the shouts from Washington were relatively mild. This time, China stressed that its announcement of carbon emission targets was a "voluntary" action, even though we all know it had something to do with Obama's visit"

The entire saga was notable for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, it demonstrated how important cultural awareness is in analyzing political events.  What to the outsider may have seemed like little-to-no progress appeared very differently within China.  In the years to come, as the US-China relationship grows even further in importance, a nuanced understanding of Chinese culture generally, and Chinese political culture more specifically, will be vital in order to properly understand and represent the nature of interactions between the two nations. 

Furthermore, though, it demonstrated the tendency in the American press toward a pack mentality.  Once a narrative of the trip had been determined, the American media largely stuck to it.  Even when the evidence pointed so clearly to the contrary, they stuck to the narrative of failure, and in doing so failed to assist the audience in understanding the complex nature of the relationship between the nations.

Though, as one of Fallows' readers suggested, perhaps the media portraying Obama's trip as a failure gave the Chinese government the political cover they needed in order to agree to some of the American government's requests...

Be sure to check out the Fallows' whole series on Manufactured Failure: Press Coverage of Obama in Asia.  It's fascinating reading, and well worth the time.

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But Jackman's pessimism on America is unfortunately convincing. It is true that the American separation between the executive and the legislative branch means its leader lacks the power of a government in the Westminster system to push through a policy agenda. The filibuster and the crawling pace of Congress allow a minority party to determinedly chip away at a majority's mandate - according to Jackman 57% of Americans believe climate change is real and man-made and only 52% are willing to put force households to pay a cost ($80) to do something about it - and look how much opposition a far more popular proposition like health care reform has faced.  

However, his analysis misses one vital component of the American system of government: the Presidential bully pulpit.

As much as the Jackman's research enunciates the steep challenges faced in getting America to take legislative action on climate change, it also reveals the path ahead for any American leader with climate change solutions on their agenda. Most important is that a thin majority of Americans believe anthropogenic climate change is real, and the biggest portion of deniers are Republicans. A majority of both Democratic and independent voters are convinced by the science. That means that Barack Obama has a naturally supportive base to work with on the issue, even if that base might not like the details of any plan he proposes, get cold feet due to the economic environment, or not be so enthusiastic as to cast votes in support of his environmental efforts. The American public, as guarded and divided as they are, want something to be done. As the USSC's CEO Geoff Garrett puts it, it's not yet the case that pushing hard on climate change is politics as well as good policy.

That means if America is to act, it will be because it was led by a President determined to make a change. That Obama is championing action against climate change is a solid step. As Ezra Klein argued, even when Obama's policy detail is not particularly liberal, his agenda is firmly located in the left. But Obama can't sit back and use the soft touch on this issue as he has with health care, stepping up only when Congress had allowed the public debate to get off track. American public opinion lies precariously with the Democrats on climate change, and the Republicans are significantly out of touch (28% of Republicans attribute global warming to human activities, as compared to 57% of Americans). But there is not enough support to sustain the issue on its own, particularly considering Democrats will not be anywhere near as unified as they have been on health care; few Democratic Senators representing states with a strong reliance on polluting industries will support a pollution reduction scheme. Obama must use his bully pulpit to convince the American public that this is something America needs, and something that will benefit it. Considering the state of the economy, it will help if he can strongly connect the fight against climate change with creating new, green jobs (California and Texas are good examples of this happening).

Yes, there are institutional obstacles to America doing something solid about climate change, but Presidents, from Roosevelt with the New Deal to Reagan and his economic reforms, have been able to overcome those by throwing the hefty weight of their office behind it. That Obama has decided he will go to the Copenhagen summit is a good start. It shows he cares about the issue. But he will have to do more; Obama must not meanly lose this fight by staying on the sidelines. If something will be done, it will be done through his efforts.

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Obama landed in Japan on Friday to meet with the country's new Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. Obama has the same celebrity status in Japan as he has in much of the rest of the world; his speeches are sold there as instructional tapes to teach English, and there are even reports that his name has been adapted as a verb, obamu, meaning to ignore setbacks and express a "Yes We Can!" spirit of optimism. But that doesn't mean his trip is an easy one; the U.S. has a couple of unexpected problems in Japan (leaving aside that silly spat over whether he was right to bow to Emperor Akihito or not). One of these has gained a bit of attention in the States, but the more serious one has attracted less discussion.

Hatoyama is a left winger elected after fifty years of basically uninterrupted conservative rule. The U.S. installed a democratic government in Japan after its surrender at the end of World War II, but that democracy took the shape of a permanent governing majority of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, and a left wing opposition. Hatoyama upended that this year, leading his Democratic Party in a campaign against "market fundamentalism" and urging a more "equal partnership" with the United States. This included tough talk about renegotiating the American military presence in the Futenma Base on Okinawa, and all of a sudden, the once solid alliance between Japan and America seemed like an agreement only between America and Japan's now out-of-power Liberal Democratic Party.

That worry is overstated. True, Obama and Hatoyama have been negotiating a new relationship between their respective countries, involving reduced Japanese involvement in Afghanistan, and possible shifts in American military deployments on Japanese soil. Hatoyama has offered US$5 billion in aid to Afghanistan to offset the end a Japanese naval refuelling mission in the South Asian region, and Obama has offered to discuss the finer points of the 2006 agreement between the two countries on American presence in Okinawa. That was a smart move by Obama, even though it has been criticised as weak. His Defence Secretary Robert Gates refused to renegotiate the 2006 agreement, and although America has every right not to do so - an agreement is an agreement - it seems tone deaf to ignore the objections of Okinawans to the American presence, and in so doing, snubbing Hatoyama, who campaigned on moving the base off the island. Those are the actions of the imperial power America firmly believes itself not to be.

The alliance has caused some tension between the Japanese and the Americans, but whatever disagreements the incoming Hatoyama government has with the U.S., the Japanese are basically happy with a partnership that protects them from a growing China and a nuclear-armed North Korea, while the Americans have no desire to lose their "unsinkable aircraft carrier" in the north Pacific. The New York Times explained it as Obama "overreacting to what [political analysts] say is essentially language aimed at a domestic audience and for failing to see that Tokyo's government has little stomach for big changes to the alliance." At the same time, Japan has been inconsistent in stating its concerns, causing the Americans to raise public pressure. So far, there's no reason to anticipate too substantial a shift in American-Japanese relations.

Less talked about, but potentially more disruptive is another Hatoyama plan: to create an Asian-Pacific community modelled after the European Union. If that sounds an awful lot like the ideas of our own PM, Kevin Rudd, that's because it is. There's one big difference between the two proposals, however: Rudd's organisation would involve the U.S., while Hatoyama's would exclude it. With Japan slipping behind China as the U.S.'s biggest trading partner, Japan sees its future in Asia, and Hatoyama is clearly looking to shore up his country's interests in that part of the world.

The Sydney Morning Herald's Peter Hartcher describes Hatoyama's plan as "deliberately constructed to create an alternative for the US, not a forum for it." At a conference with Obama last Friday, Hatoyama spoke carefully of a Japan with a continued alliance with America but a deeper, "vital" role in Asia, saying, "I have set out the concept of East Asian community, and this is because I believe that there is this alliance as the cornerstone on which we can rely."

Hatoyama's proposed community has room for Australia, but we would still be better off with an arrangement that involves the U.S. The SMH's Phillip Coorey's believes such a community would likely replace APEC, which does include the U.S., and while better ties with its trading partners in Asia can only benefit Australia, the U.S. is not going anywhere as an economic power any time soon, and the greater access derived from including it in an Asia Pacific Community would benefit Australia. It might also serve to increase the legitimacy of the community as a useful organisation.

The USSC's American Media Chair, James Fallows, describes Australia as having as "intermediary role" between the East Asia and the West, and Australia would be able to best play out that role if it has ready access to both. It's a good thing that America is interested in Rudd's ideas about an Asia-Pacific community, and we should be ensuring that interest doesn't go to waste.

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As much as anything else, this may be the best way to understand a president whose entire career has been spent defying labels. A common critique from the Right has been that Mr Obama is a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, but this is simplistic and shoehorns a lot of illiberal positions, from his maintenance of George W Bush's policies on detention of terror suspects to his feelings about gay marriage, which put him somewhere to the right of Dick Cheney on the topic.

Franklinism may be the best frame through which to understand the President's decision-making process, and show the way for Republicans looking for a way out of the wilderness. Urbanites - Franklinites - have, as much as they may deny them, their own set of prejudices which are as well-set as those you'd find in any Mississippi hollow or Bronx barroom.

Indeed the entire script which is playing out with American automakers, in which GM will be forced to make what might as well be solar-powered golf buggies that nobody really wants at prices no one can afford because they will not be allowed to be made oversees is a confirmation of urban prejudices against factory workers and big cars. (Never mind that the government takeover is a huge sop to the United Auto Workers; this is a magician's sleight-of-hand to pay off his Democratic power base that will be revealed by the ultimate unsustainability of the new-look Government Motors, an unsustainability that will eventually see see these blue-collar workers cast aside once their political purpose has been served).

Of course, this also provides an opportunity for Republicans. Sure, America may be a pretty urbanised place, but that's not necessarily by choice. As P.J. O'Rourke pointed out recently, Americans don't like cities and have traditionally fought to escape the "rotten public schools, idiot municipal bureaucracies, corrupt political machines, rampant criminality and the pointy-headed busybodies" within. Indeed, it would be harder to come up with a better description of Barack Obama's Chicago, where recent governors have been felled by a fifty-percent conviction rate, seven people were murdered in shooting deaths in one recent 24-hour period, and yet the City Council manages to find the time to fight over foie gras.

As well, Franklins may be flashy, and attractive, but ultimately it's the Orthogonians, the urban but not urbane, who traditionally win the marathon in America. In his enjoyable if patchy recent study of the Nixon era, Nixonland, Rick Perlstein hones in on the genius of Richard Nixon's political thinking, which when one strips away the venality and paranoia was as astute as that of any American president: "Nixon always had a gift for looking under social surfaces to see and exploit the subterranean truths that roiled underneath. It was an eminently Nixonian insight: that on every sports team there are only a couple of stars, and that if you want to win the loyalty of the team yourself, the surest, if least glamorous, strategy is to concentrate on the nonspectacular --- silent --- majority. The ones who labor quietly, sometimes resentfully, in the quarterback's shadow: the linemen, the guards, the punter ... Nixon beat a Franklin for student body president. Looking back years later, acquaintances marveled at the feat of this awkward, skinny kid the yearbook called 'a rather quiet chap around Campus' ... They hadn't learned what Nixon was learning. Being hated by the right people was no impediment to political success. The unpolished, after all, were everywhere in the majority."

President Obama has made a fair few enemies already. With each day that passes, and the possibility of blaming present troubles on the previous administration recedes further, and - perhaps most importantly - the implications of legislation such as the Waxman-Markey climate change bill (which is little more than a vast transfer of wealth from ordinary citizens to connected corporations) become clear, there will be a big enough base of disaffected voters for another political party to capitalise upon.

The worry is how much damage will be done in the interim.

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