Motley Moose – Archive

There seems to be a niggling doubt creeping into Republican public comments on the narrative of themselves as the obstructionist party of ‘no.’  While it was pointed out recently that the Republican base is quite happy with this tactic it appears that some incumbents are having second thoughts as to how this increasingly widespread perception is playing out in their own constituencies, though it is still pretty thin on the ground:

Congressional Republicans are divided on how to change the public’s perception that they are not working with President Barack Obama.

According to a Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted earlier this month, 58 percent of the 1,004 respondents said Republicans have not reached out enough to Obama.

Molly K Hooper – Republicans divided on how to counter ‘party of no’ reputation in poll The Hill 14 Feb 10

Divided is good.  And though it seems to be taking a while to sink in, it appears that the fallout from Obama’s performance in Maryland is proving slightly radioactive to public opinion and Republican strategy.  At least in the House.  There even seems to be some traction elsewhere:

In a blow to Republican insistence that they have played a non-obstructionist role in slowing down the Democratic legislative agenda, one of the GOP’s senior senators acknowledged on Sunday that his party had gone too far in holding up presidential nominees.

Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called the blanket hold that his colleague, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), placed last week on all of President Obama’s nominees “wrong.”

Sam Stein – Richard Shelby Was ‘Wrong’ To Place Blanket Hold On Obama Nominees Huffington Post 14 Feb

It’s very encouraging to see increasingly conflicted messages emerging from the usually lockstep Republicans.

As you all know, I’m a pretty experienced journalist…a former TV producer (I was the man who told what questions the host should ask), and now a newspaper editor (I’m the dude who assigns stories). Lately a lot of us have been talking about to what extend the messaging has hurt the Democratic party and the progressive agenda, and we wonder if perhaps the administration or the party hasn’t used “it’s bully pulpit” enough to change the media narrative.

But as someone who works in the media, I tell you that person who decides the media narrative isn’t the voters, and it isn’t the President, it’s people like me who decide what the public hears, when they hear and what they don’t.

I’ll use this morning’s interview of Vice President Biden by David Gregory to show how even when the bully pulpit is used, the message doesn’t exactly get out there.  

While the Stars knocked the boys around last night pretty badly, I did get a chance to make a dish that I dearly love: Caponata. Caponatina. Literally, the only way I will eat eggplant.

Crossposted to The Suicidal Cactus Hour

Yes, there is still reporting being done from Haiti. Even though it has slipped from the headlines efforts continue here to keep it on our minds and in our pockets.

Please view this video, and read the following sobering report:

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

In the past few months and years, media coverage of Israel has had subtle but distinct change in tone. The mainstream media is taking a harder look at Israel’s policies, and has found not everything is to its liking.

There are several reasons why coverage of Israel has previously been so positive, and why recently a slight change has occurred. In the first place, Israel is a country culturally very attuned to us. Israel is part of the West; it shares Western norms and values. Many Jews would be comfortable living in the West and do so to this very day. Some of them work in the media and are sympathetic to the struggles their peers face.

Moreover, many in the media (and the vast majority of our country) believed that Israel had been in the right before 2006. Israel had – has – a democracy and a free press and all the things we like a country to have; the Palestine cause and their Arab supporters by and large do not. Israelis such as Yitzhak Rabin were calling for peace; meanwhile, Palestinian terrorist organizations such as Hamas were sending suicide bombers to kill Israelis civilians day after day.

Then came the 9-11 attacks by Muslim terrorists. In its aftermath media coverage of Israel was probably the most positive it had ever been.

There were three events, however, which changed things. At the very least, they have damaged Israeli prestige.

More below.

As the second year of his first term cranks up, President Obama is perhaps showing some of the maturity that comes with having been around the block already.  Perhaps he is following a plan he has intended all along.  In either case, he is showing a set of canines that Congress had forgotten about.

The New York Times is reporting that he is planning a raft of executive action in the face of congressional gridlock, something that will either light a fire under legislators on both sides of the aisle, leave them standing looking fooolish – or both.

With much of his legislative agenda stalled in Congress, President Obama and his team are preparing an array of actions using his executive power to advance energy, environmental, fiscal and other domestic policy priorities.

…and we in the good ole USA don’t, encountering stories like the one about artist Tom Fowler that Cary Tennis tells in Salon makes us regret the corrupt political/commercial alliances that have given us our current situation.

A clip:

Tom had died. He had gotten a toothache. He had gotten a toothache but had not gone to the dentist because he didn’t have health insurance to pay for the dentist. He lived with it. Then he got sick but thought he was OK. Then he collapsed and the emergency medical people came and they told him he should go right into the hospital. But after reviving he said he’d be OK and he went home and made himself some soup. He lasted a couple of more days like that. Then he got really, really sick and they put him in the hospital but by that point the infection that had begun in a tooth had spread massively throughout his body and despite the doctors’ best efforts Tom could not be saved.

He died because he didn’t go to the dentist and didn’t go to the doctor because he was trying to be an artist and didn’t have health insurance and didn’t think it would kill him.

It’s not often that I post a diary that consists almost entirely of something someone else wrote, but in this case I think it is excusable. John Cole of BalloonJuice.com fame posted a diary today that reminded me of why I like his writing so much. It should become required reading for anyone interested in how our political system works. If you have a few minutes to spare you should read the whole post instead of only reading the few bits I’ve posted here.

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2…

James Joyner reacts to the news that 1 in 8 Americans is on food stamps with surprise (a surprise I share) and has the following to say:

I’m of mixed minds on all this. We should help the working poor – and their children – get enough to eat. Ditto those too disabled to work and provide for themselves. De-stigmatizing aid to such people – and even reaching out to make sure they know help’s available – makes sense.

But, rather clearly, we’ve taken this to absurd levels, creating a self-licking ice cream cone in which the program’s main focus is on expanding the program. Do we really need to be providing food stamps to able-bodied college graduates who are Americorps volunteers? Or, indeed, if we think Americorps is so valuable, why not provide a stipend so its “volunteers” can afford to feed themselves rather than treating them as indigents?

Hey! We agree! We should help those who can not feed themselves otherwise, and if we value Americorps volunteers, we should afford them a stipend and not make them have to use a program designed to be a stopgap measure.

But here is the thing- we can’t do anything about it. I’m sure the House could pass a bill containing a small stipend for Americorps volunteers- in fact, I bet it would get a good bit of support. It might even be very popular with the entire country, as well as being good policy! Likewise, I bet almost all the Democrats and even some Republicans in the Senate would be in favor of passing that bill.

Except the bill would never pass, and I’m surprised James does not recognize that he is operating in a fantasy world. Once the bill hit the Senate, the fun would begin. Even though in the past there were probably numbers of Republicans who supported Americorps, the large majority of them would just flat out say no.

First off, we all know who loves Americorp- the Clenis. From there, it is all downhill. Breitbart would seize upon the bill, and claim that the anonymous stipend is just President Obama seeking to pay off his campaign volunteers- just like the KHMER ROUGE, POL POT, STALIN, AND DUVALIER! They would find some innocuous aspect of Americorps and turn it into something that is no doubt worse than Hitler. Like, for example- Americorps VISTA.

The subservient GOP drones in the blogs would pick up everything Breitbart has said. Instapundit and Reason magazine would wake from their glibertarian slumber to denounce this “vast, wasteful expansion of government.”

Malkin would start printing the addresses of Americorps volunteers, and would have her internet sleuths post a facebook picture of an Americorps worker drunk four years ago while in college. By this time, the noise machine is in full swing, and Rush, Glenn Beck, Hannity, the Heritage Foundation, the rest of the Koch funded “think tanks,” Fox News, the NY Post and the Washington Examiner, the NR, and the Weekly Standard and the other wingnut welfare publications would all embark on another disinformation campaign.

At around this point, the Democratic firing squad starts. The usual suspects would start blaming this on Rahm, and screaming “Why isn’t Obama using his bully pulpit more” and “Bush would have gotten his bill!” Folks like me would start yelling at the usual suspects, instead of the Republicans and the noise machine which is to blame for this mess.

And then, quietly, the bill that James and I and the majority of the House, Senate, and American people all agree would be a good thing, slowly and without any dignity dies. The beltway pundits, feeling no shame for their part in amplifying the bullshit from the noise machine, would then begin 100,000 horse race pieces discussing how this is bad for Obama and good for Republicans, and what role this will play in the 2010 elections.

Most frustrating of all, when you point this all out to reasonable conservatives like James Joyner, that Republican obstinacy is keeping legislation that even they in the past have supported from passing, they’ll just dismiss you and say the Republicans are just playing hardball politics.

And that sick feeling you have in your stomache [sic] right now? That just means you know I am right.

Go read the whole thing. I guarantee you’ll like it.

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

Some of you may recognize this map.



For those who don’t, this is Ronald Reagan’s landslide election over his hapless opponent Walter Mondale.

Unfortunately, for those who look for political trends, this map hides more than it reveals. For example, Reagan wins Massachusetts, but reasonable people would agree that Massachusetts is normally a Democratic state.

Here is a more revealing map.



You probably don’t recognize this map. There’s a good reason for that – there’s never been a presidential election with the above results.

More below the fold.

Tonight PBS will air:

“In Performance at the White House: A Celebration of Music from the Civil Rights Movement,” is a concert in the White House East Room. President and Mrs. Obama will host the event in honor of Black History Month, and the evening will feature songs from the Civil Rights Movement performed by top entertainers, as well as readings from famous Civil Rights speeches and writings. Artists include Yolanda Adams, Joan Baez, Natalie Cole, Bob Dylan, Jennifer Hudson, John Legend, John Mellencamp, Smokey Robinson, Seal, the Blind Boys of Alabama, the Howard University Choir and The Freedom Singers, featuring Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, Rutha Harris, Charles Neblett and Toshi Reagon. Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Queen Latifah and Joanne Woodward will be guest speakers. The music special airs on February 11 at 8 p.m. ET on PBS stations nationwide