February 12, 2009 – 11:39 am
In today’s Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove – no slouch when it comes to Republican strategy – agrees with Josh and disagrees with me about whether stimulus opposition will be good for Republicans. I agree with Karl that Republicans successfully branded this particular stimulus package a bloated, ill-prioritized porker. But they overshot. They forgot to […]
February 10, 2009 – 12:47 pm
Last night during his opening remarks, President Obama said: “[A]s we’ve learned very clearly and conclusively over the last eight years, tax cuts alone can’t solve all of our economic problems, especially tax cuts that are targeted to the wealthiest few Americans. We have tried that strategy time and time again, and it’s only helped […]
February 10, 2009 – 10:52 am
As others have pointed out, one trillion dollars–which is what this stimulus “ye dare not call it pork” bill is going to cost–divided by 4 million jobs is……$250,000 per job! Where does one apply for one of these jobs? More to the point, wouldn’t it have been possible for at least one of our numerically-challenged […]
February 9, 2009 – 8:19 pm
I tuned into President Obama’s East Room statement/press conference this evening mainly to see if he’d use the teleprompter. He did use it during the first segment of his remarks and I think it hurt him. The prompter, as I noted earlier, is designed to help the speaker look at his audience more naturally. In a large […]
February 9, 2009 – 12:40 pm
On Friday I noticed that President Obama used a teleprompter when delivering his remarks on the economy in the East Room. I thought it was unusual because the East Room is a pretty intimate venue. I usually associate the teleprompter with bigger crowds and bigger spaces. I can’t think of a time when President Bush […]
February 9, 2009 – 10:25 am
Question: how does the spirit of bipartisanship jibe with Obama’s message (which I paraphrase only slightly), “You lost, we won, so stuff it!” Of course, the administration can count on the mainstream media to carry its water for them. The Washington Post seized on the total of three Republicans to go along with the stimulus […]
February 7, 2009 – 3:14 pm
According to Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff, the Obama administration is searching for a phrase to replace the “War on Terror.” Good luck. This, of course, is the classic bureaucratic backwards approach to communications, in which people desperately search for just the right word or phrase to communicate a policy they can’t explain or an objective they […]
February 6, 2009 – 1:02 pm
The power of the podium was in evidence this morning as President Obama announced his new team of economic recovery advisors. The president jumped on today’s dismal labor report to urge action on a stimulus bill. He also got in a few lashes at obstructionists in the Senate. While he did not identify Republicans explicitly, […]
February 5, 2009 – 6:22 pm
Maybe I’m just used to hearing President Bush talk about Iraq all the time, but it seems like President Obama has been awfully quiet about Iraq’s provincial elections. To recap, on Saturday Iraq undertook what have to be considered spectacularly violence-free elections for provincial councils across the country. Prime Minister Maliki, once written off by […]
February 5, 2009 – 1:25 pm
Obama’s warning yesterday that failure to act quickly on the stimulus “will turn crisis into a catastrophe” demonstrates both the President’s great strengths as a communicator and what may well become his fatal flaw. First the strengths: I don’t know who writes this stuff, Obama himself, his ace speechwriter, or some symbiotic combination of the […]
February 4, 2009 – 2:53 pm
The AP recently examined President Obama’s efforts to shift away from the phrase “War on Terror”: Since taking office less than two weeks ago, President Barack Obama has talked broadly of the “enduring struggle against terrorism and extremism.” Another time it was an “ongoing struggle.” He has pledged to “go after” extremists and “win this […]
February 4, 2009 – 10:10 am
By Thomas Daly, Guest Contributor It was so refreshing to hear the president yesterday. No big press conference, no convoluted statement just when talking about the Tom Daschle appointment for health secretary in an interview he said, “I screwed up”. I was so excited by this. Not by the fact that he “screwed up.” But […]
February 3, 2009 – 10:47 pm
Tuesday afternoon President Obama tackled head-on the question of who’s to blame for the problems surrounding some of his nominees, including Tom Daschle. “I think I messed up,” the president told Katie Couric. “I screwed up in not recognizing the perception that … ordinary people are out there paying taxes every day and whether it’s […]
February 2, 2009 – 2:44 pm
Is President Obama’s good government message running off the rails? As much as the president may be trying hard to back up his words with actions, he seems to be falling short of the mark now that two Cabinet nominees have been caught playing fast and loose with their tax returns. Latest victim: Tom Daschle, […]
