By Ross Colvin and Glenn Somerville Ross Colvin And Glenn Somerville
–
2 hrs 47 mins ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on
Tuesday interviewed investment banker Roger Altman, a former Treasury
official, as a candidate to replace departing economic adviser Larry Summers, a White House official said.
Altman, 64, is a veteran of both Washington and Wall Street, steeped in
the ways of politics and finance and potentially able to act as a bridge
to the private sector that business observers say the Obama White House badly needs.
Summers' replacement will also play an important role in helping Obama
find new ways to stimulate a sluggish economy after voters punished the
president's fellow Democrats in November 2 congressional elections for
stubbornly high unemployment and government deficits.
The process of picking a new National Economic Council director, who
coordinates economic policy for the president, is in its early stages,
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
"The president is considering a number of qualified candidates, but he
has only begun the process and no decisions have been made," Psaki said.
Another White House official said Obama appeared to be narrowing his choices for the job.
Consideration of Altman could signal a move to the center because he is
closely associated with moderate economic policies of the Clinton
administration.
He served two stints at the Treasury Department, first in 1977-81 as assistant secretary in the administration of President Jimmy Carter, and second in 1993-94 as deputy secretary under President Bill Clinton.
WHITEWATER SCANDAL
Altman resigned in 1994 after lawmakers questioned his truthfulness over
testimony he had delivered before Congress during hearings that dealt
with the Clintons' Whitewater real estate dealings.
Altman had answered a question about any White House-Treasury contacts
by mentioning just one meeting of many and did not say that some of the
discussions dealt with a sensitive political point.
The resignation did no harm to Altman on Wall Street,
where he founded a boutique advisory firm called Evercore Partners in
1996 that handles mergers, acquisitions and restructuring but also
offers investment management services to wealthy clients.
Altman also kept his hand in the political arena, serving as a top
economic adviser to Democratic Senator John Kerry in his unsuccessful
bid for the White House in 2004, and to Hillary Clinton in her bid for
the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.
Altman had a reputation in the Clinton Treasury as a "deficit hawk," a
potentially attractive credential when Obama has made halving record
government deficits a top priority.
A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Obama
held talks with Altman at the White House on Tuesday but declined to
give further details.
Altman's business background would help to counter criticism that
Obama's administration lacks senior officials with business expertise
and could help the president heal his rift with the business community.
Other names that have surfaced in connection with the search for Summers' replacement include Treasury Department adviser Gene Sperling, who held the post during the Clinton administration, and current NEC Deputy Diana Farrell.
Speculation has also centered on Jared Bernstein, an economic adviser to Vice President Joseph Biden, and Laura Tyson, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley who was a top adviser to President Bill Clinton.
(Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Obama’s Trade Strategy Runs Into Stiff Resistance
Doug Mills/The New York Times
President Obama and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany talked, and disagreed, at the Group of 20 meeting on Thursday.
By SEWELL CHAN, SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: November 11, 2010
Doug Mills/The New York Times
President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea, with his wife, Kim Yoon-ok, helped position President Obama for a photo on Thursday.
SEOUL, South Korea — President Obama’s hopes of emerging from his Asia trip with the twin victories of a free trade agreement with South Korea and a unified approach to spurring economic growth around the world ran into resistance on all fronts on Thursday, putting Mr. Obama at odds with his key allies and largest trading partners.
The most concrete trophy expected to emerge from the trip eluded his grasp: a long-delayed free trade agreement with South Korea, first negotiated by the Bush administration and then reopened by Mr. Obama, to have greater protections for American workers.
And as officials frenetically tried to paper over differences among the Group of 20 members with a vaguely worded communiqué to be issued Friday, there was no way to avoid discussion of the fundamental differences of economic strategy. After five largely harmonious meetings in the past two years to deal with the most severe downturn since the Depression, major disputes broke out between Washington and China, Britain, Germany and Brazil.
Each rejected core elements of Mr. Obama’s strategy of stimulating growth before focusing on deficit reduction. Several major nations continued to accuse the Federal Reserve of deliberately devaluing the dollar last week in an effort to put the costs of America’s competitive troubles on trading partners, rather than taking politically tough measures to rein in spending at home.
The result was that Mr. Obama repeatedly found himself on the defensive. He and the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, had vowed to complete the trade pact by the time they met here; while Mr. Obama insisted that it would be resolved “in a matter of weeks,” without the pressure of a summit meeting it was unclear how the hurdles on nontariff barriers to American cars and beef would be resolved.
Mr. Obama’s meeting with China’s president, Hu Jintao, appeared to do little to break down Chinese resistance to accepting even nonbinding numerical targets for limiting China’s trade surplus. While Lael Brainard, the under secretary of the Treasury for international affairs, said that the United States and China “have gotten to a good place” on rebalancing their trade, Chinese officials later archly reminded the Americans that as the issuers of the dollar, the main global reserve currency, they should consider the interests of the “global economy” as well as their own “national circumstances.”
The disputes were not limited to America’s foreign partners. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner got into a trans-Pacific argument with one of his former mentors, Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, after Mr. Greenspan wrote that the United States was “pursuing a policy of currency weakening.” Mr. Geithner shot back on CNBC that while he had “enormous respect” for Mr. Greenspan, “that’s not an accurate description of either the Fed’s policies or our policies.” He added, “We will never seek to weaken our currency as a tool to gain competitive advantage or grow the economy.”
Much of the rest of the world seemed to share Mr. Greenspan’s assessment. Moreover, Mr. Obama seemed to be losing the broader debate over austerity. The president has insisted that at a moment of weak private demand, the best way to spur economic growth is to have the government prime the pump with cheap credit and government stimulus programs. He quickly found himself in an argument with Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.
“You do hear the argument made sometimes: If you have a deficit, put off the action to deal with it because taking money out of the economy will reduce your growth rate,” Mr. Cameron said at the meeting. “I simply don’t accept that.” Even as he spoke, back home his ministers were announcing new cuts in Britain’s famed welfare system.
Mrs. Merkel, reflecting a more traditional German view born of her country’s history of hyperinflation before World War II, was equally adamant. “I am not one, and Germany is not one, who says growth and fiscal consolidation are contradictory,” she said during a lunchtime address in Seoul. “They can go together, and it is essential to return to a sustainable growth path.”
She also suggested that it was the job of deficit countries — like the United States and Britain, though she diplomatically avoided citing them — to increase their competitiveness rather than put limits on countries that had figured out how to get the world to buy their goods. “In the task ahead, the benchmark has to be the countries that have been most competitive, not to reduce to the lowest common denominator,” she said.
The differences with Mr. Cameron and Mrs. Merkel were particularly striking because during Mr. Obama’s first Group of 20 meetings — in London, Pittsburgh and Toronto — he managed to get all of the major economies to pursue something of a coordinated stimulus strategy.
But that consensus began fracturing at the June meeting in Toronto. While the administration had warned that rolling back fiscal stimulus programs too quickly could endanger the fragile recovery, the pressure on European nations to slash their deficits was becoming overwhelming. Ultimately the Group of 20 countries committed to cutting government deficits in half by 2013, a goal the United States insists it will meet.
But much has now changed. Mr. Cameron is following his conservative instincts and has made budget-cutting a signature issue. Mrs. Merkel is credited with avoiding spending heavily on stimulus programs and emerging with the most successful recovery in Europe.
And Mr. Obama faces new political constraints. Jeffry A. Frieden, a political scientist at Harvard, noted Thursday that the administration “feels it does not have the domestic political support for embarking on potentially difficult cooperative measures.”
The White House decided it was smarter for Mr. Obama to return home with no free trade accord than with one in which it could be accused of making concessions at a time that the consensus on trade has been shattered, particularly within the Democratic Party.
Similarly, accusations that China has manipulated its currency for its own advantage — and now the countercharge that the Fed is doing the same — are part of what Mr. Frieden calls an argument over “who will bear the burden of adjustment.”
“Will it be the creditor or debtor countries?” he said. “Who’s going to take a hit for our debt?”
Indeed, the struggle for advantage, which ultimately may be a struggle to set the rules for a new global financial order, was the unspoken subtext of the meeting between Mr. Obama and Mr. Hu.
Mr. Hu, in the most indirect terms, told Mr. Obama that Beijing was focused on the Fed’s role in pushing down interest rates, and its effect on weakening the dollar. The code words were obvious. For days Chinese officials have characterized the Fed’s actions as an effort to drive “hot money” to developing nations, pushing up their currencies and their interest rates, and perhaps fueling inflation. Mr. Obama had hoped to make the meeting about a related subject: China’s continuing refusal to allow rapid appreciation of its currency, which fuels its huge trade surplus.
At a press briefing in Seoul, Zheng Xiaosong, director general of the Chinese Ministry of Finance’s international department, indirectly accused the United States of ignoring its international responsibilities. “The major reserve-currency issuers, while implementing their monetary policies, should not only take into account their national circumstances but should also bear in mind the possible impacts on the global economy,” he said.
Sewell Chan and Sheryl Gay Stolberg reported from Seoul, and David E. Sanger from Washington.
Obama: ‘America Is Not and Never Will Be at War With Islam’
Wednesday, November 10, 2010 By Erica Werner, Associated Press
Jakarta, Indonesia (AP) - Declaring that "Indonesia is part of me," President Barack Obama issued a strikingly personal appeal to the Muslim world to join the West in an unrelenting battle to defeat al-Qaida and violent extremism.
In the world's most populous Muslim nation, a place where he spent several years as a boy, Obama on Wednesday acknowledged the fraying that remains in U.S.-Islamic relations despite his best efforts at repair. He urged both sides to look beyond "suspicion and mistrust" to forge common ground against terrorism.
Obama praised this nation of islands for progress in rooting out terrorists and combatting violent extremism, and he resurrected a theme he sounded last year during visits to Turkey and Egypt: "I have made it clear that America is not and never will be at war with Islam. ... Those who want to build must not cede ground to terrorists who seek to destroy."
Returning to Indonesia for the first time in decades, Obama beamed with obvious pride as he delivered what perhaps was the most deeply personal speech of his presidency, including many phrases and words in Indonesian.
"Let me begin with a simple statement: Indonesia is part of me," he said in the language, cheering the audience of more than 6,000 mostly young people gathered at the University of Indonesia.
Afterward, Obama headed for South Korea and a meeting of the Group of 20 major economic powers in Seoul. There, Obama will find himself on the defensive because of plans by the Federal Reserve to buy $600 billion in long-term government bonds to try to drive down interest rates, spur lending and boost a slow-growing U.S. economy.
Obama has defended the move, which has triggered alarm among leaders from Berlin to Beijing. Critics say the result of the Fed's action is that American goods will benefit from an unfair competitive edge in world markets.
In his university speech, Obama said he learned to appreciate the "humanity of all" people during the time he spent in Indonesia, with its thousands of islands, hundreds of languages and people from many different regions and ethnic groups.
His brief but nostalgic visit lent an unusually personal touch to the speech, portions of which were devoted to his childhood here. Obama reminisced about living in a small house with a mango tree out front, and learning to love Indonesia while flying kites, running along paddy fields, catching dragonflies and buying food from street vendors.
He also spoke of running in fields with water buffalo and goats, and of the birth of his half-Indonesian sister, Maya.
Obama, a Christian who was born in Hawaii, moved to Indonesia as a 6-year-old and lived with his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, and Indonesian stepfather, Lolo Soetoro. He attended public and Catholic schools while in Indonesia and returned to Hawaii when he was 10 to live with his grandparents. Obama took care in his remarks to note that he is Christian; back home in the U.S., he continues to fight erroneous perceptions that he is Muslim.
Obama occasionally studied the Quran and visited a local mosque when he lived here. But he spent hardly any time in the speech discussing Islam or his religious background, except to describe Islam as a "great world religion."
The president's homecoming had been twice-delayed -- first because of the congressional battle over health care and then because of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. This trip was to be cut short, too, so Air Force One could depart ahead of a big ash cloud from the erupting Indonesian volcano Mount Merapi.
Reaching out to the Islamic world, Obama said efforts to build trust and peace are showing promise but remain incomplete.
He said both sides can choose to either "be defined by our differences and give in to a future of suspicion and mistrust" or "do the hard work of forging common ground and commit ourselves to the steady pursuit of progress."
On the Middle East, Obama noted the "false starts and setbacks" in getting the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians back on course. But he said the U.S. will "spare no effort in working for the outcome that is just and that is in the interest of all the parties involved: two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security."
A reminder of that difficult road awaited Obama when he landed in Indonesia on Tuesday. Israel's decision to build more apartments in east Jerusalem, a disputed territory claimed by Palestinians, had already earned a rebuke from American diplomats before a tired, traveling president weighed in at a news conference with Indonesia's president.
"This kind of activity is never helpful when it comes to peace negotiations," Obama said alongside President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. "I'm concerned that we're not seeing each side make the extra effort involved to get a breakthrough. ... Each of these incremental steps can end up breaking down trust."
Obama a Muslim? Rumors gain steam, defying facts
AP – President Barack Obama is greeted by Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., as he deplanes from Air Force One at …
By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer Hillel Italie, Ap National Writer – Aug 19, 2010.
NEW YORK – "President Obama is a Muslim." "He's not an American citizen." "He wasn't even born here."
None of this is true. But to surprising levels, it is believed.
Blame it on the media, or on human nature. All presidents deal with image problems — that they're too weak or too belligerent, too far left or far right. But Obama also faces questions over documented facts, in part because some people identify more with the rumormongers than the debunkers.
"Trust and distrust — that explains almost all of it," says Nicholas DiFonzo, professor of psychology at the Rochester Institute of Technology and an expert on rumor and gossip research. "We are in such a highly polarized political environment. Our country is sorting itself into more closely knit, opposing factions each year" — factions, DiFonzo suggests, that in turn become "echo chambers" for factoids that aren't fact at all.
Nearly one in five people, or 18 percent, said they think Obama is Muslim, up from the 11 percent who said so in March 2009, according to a poll released Thursday. The proportion who correctly say he is a Christian is just 34 percent, down from 48 percent in March of last year.
The White House even felt compelled to respond with a terse knockdown from spokesman Bill Burton: "The president is obviously a Christian. He prays every day."
Obama is the Christian son of a Kenyan Muslim father and a Kansas mother. Born in Hawaii, he lived from ages 6 to 10 in predominantly Muslim Indonesia with his mother and Indonesian stepfather. His full name, Barack Hussein Obama, sounds Muslim to many.
Confusion about Obama's religion was common, and sometimes encouraged, during the 2008 campaign. An Associated Press photograph that circulated on the Internet, and was posted on The Drudge Report, showed Obama dressed in traditional local garments — a white turban and a wraparound white robe — during a visit to Kenya in 2006. Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton may have contributed through her response to a question, during a "60 Minutes" interview, about whether he was a Muslim. "There's nothing to base that on," she said. "As far as I know."
Others have helped keep rumors about Obama's religion and birth alive. Conservative commentators including radio talk show host Michael Savage have repeated debunked claims that Obama attended a radical Muslim madrassa in Indonesia. Rush Limbaugh has facetiously referred to "Imam Obama" in recent days, and last year praised a woman who at a Delaware town hall meeting questioned Obama's citizenship. Lou Dobbs gave significant air time to such "birther" claims on CNN — despite his own insistence that he believed Obama was born in the U.S.
The new survey, conducted by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center and its affiliated Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, is based on interviews conducted before the controversy over whether Muslims should be permitted to construct a mosque near the World Trade Center site. Obama has said he believes Muslims have the right to build an Islamic center there, though he's also said he won't take a position on whether they should actually build it.
We have never been without misperceptions, but they are speeded and multiplied in the Internet age. Last month, right-wing bloggers — citing unnamed sources within the Laredo Police Department in Texas — reported that the Mexican drug cartel Zetas had captured two Laredo ranches. The story was picked up by author-pundit Michelle Malkin and other conservatives.
Inquiries from local media and the liberal Web site Talking Points Memo turned up different news: The raids never happened.
"The Internet has made it worse," says Lori Robertson, managing editor of the website FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan project run under the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. "Any of these rumors are more rampant, and there's more stuff about them — blogs writing about conspiracy theories. People are exposed to it more."
Robertson says her organization has been asked hundreds of times about Obama's religion, even after FactCheck published an explanatory article in early 2008 called "Sliming Obama." It focused on the chain e-mail that many believe helped spread the lie.
Despite what the e-mail claimed, FactCheck.org has noted that Obama was sworn into office as a U.S. senator using the Bible instead of the Quran; a photograph was posted to prove it. FactCheck also posted videos of Obama reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in the Senate, in an attempt to counter claims that he refused.
Still, the questions about Obama's faith didn't stop.
"Did Obama order creation of a postage stamp to honor a Muslim holiday?" FactCheck.org's answer: "The first class stamp honoring Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha was first issued eight years ago. Obama has followed Bush's practice of reaching out to Muslims on Ramadan."
Superstitions and myths are timeless and universal, and so are the people who exploit them, whether Holocaust deniers, race supremacists or conspiracy theorists.
Misinformation in the mass media age was captured by the author-columnist Walter Lippman in his classic "Public Opinion," published in 1922. Finding that world events were driven by a tiny minority manipulating the rest, Lippman noted "the comparatively meager time available in each day for paying attention to public affairs, the distortion arising because events have to be compressed into very short messages, the difficulty of making a small vocabulary express a complicated world."
The problem wasn't only with the media, but with the public.
"People, he wrote, "live in the same world, but think and feel in different ones." Lippman believed many "suffer from anemia, from lack of appetite and curiosity for the human scene."
And so millions have thought that the country was overrun with communists, that John F. Kennedy was taking orders from the pope, that AIDS spreads through casual contact, that Saddam Hussein or even the George W. Bush administration helped plan the Sept. 11 attacks. In the 1990s, when the government was running a surplus under the Clinton administration, a poll showed substantial numbers of people thought it was running a deficit.
DiFonzo was stunned when he heard one of those rumors stated as fact in his upper-level social psychology class last year. A student raised her hand and insisted, "But George Bush was behind the bombings of Sept. 11."
"She was serious," DiFonzo said, adding that he believes she accepted the rumor because other people in her life gave her the impression that it was plausible.
"This isn't a partisan thing," he said. "It's not a characteristic of Democrats or of Republicans. It's a human characteristic. It's a place that we happen to be at in our culture today. What seems outlandish is often based on what we think may be plausible."
Obama: We'll Get Back Money From Auto Bailout
President Says US Auto Companies Now Posting Profits
KEN THOMAS, Associated Press Writer
Posted: 2:41 pm EDT July 29, 2010Updated: 6:25 pm EDT July 29, 2010
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama said the government will recover all the taxpayer money his administration provided to bail out the auto industry last year. In an interview aired Thursday on the ABC daytime talk show "The View," Obama said the auto industry "tells a good story" of his administration's efforts to rescue the economy. He planned to highlight that story with stops at three auto plants over the next several days, including stops at General Motors and Chrysler plants in Detroit on Friday. "You now have all those U.S. auto companies showing a profit. They've rehired 55,000 workers. We are going to get all the money back that we invested in those car companies," Obama said in the interview. The Obama and Bush administrations poured $85 billion into General Motors, Chrysler, auto lenders and suppliers to avoid an industrywide meltdown in 2008 and 2009. The companies have shown signs of improvement and Obama plans to discuss the progress in the auto industry following the government-led bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler. The White House said Obama's proclamation on recouping funds referred only to the $60 billion his administration spent rescuing the auto industry, not the $25 billion spent under the Bush administration. The most recent government estimate found that taxpayers will lose $24.3 billion on the auto bailout. Obama will visit GM's Hamtramck plant, which is planning to assemble the Chevrolet Volt rechargeable electric car. The plant is one of nine the automaker will keep open during the typical two-week summer shutdown to boost production of popular models. In nearby Detroit, Obama will tour Chrysler's Jefferson North plant, which recently added a second shift of production, adding about 1,100 jobs. Next week, the president will visit the Chicago plant where Ford builds the Taurus sedan and plans to assemble a new Explorer sport utility vehicle. In a report on the status of the auto industry, the White House said failing to intervene would have led to the loss of nearly 1.1 million jobs. The auto industry has added 55,000 jobs in the year since the automotive bankruptcies, making it the strongest year of job growth in the industry since 1999. White House officials estimate that Detroit automakers could add 11,000 new jobs before the end of 2010. The administration pointed to several signs of progress: plans by GM and Chrysler to skip the typical summer shutdown of several auto plants to meet demand for hot-selling vehicles and the addition of shifts at GM, Chrysler and Ford Motor Co. plants. The report notes that the three companies are beginning to post profits. GM has repaid $6.7 billion that the government considered loans, with the remaining $43.3 billion converted into a 61 percent stake in the company. GM is expected to conduct an initial public offering of shares in the company later this year, a move that could help the government recoup some of its investment. United Auto Workers President Bob King said in a statement Thursday that GM would file paperwork in mid-August to start the process of selling stock to the public. After the statement was issued, the UAW said King based his statement on media accounts and had not been told by GM when the paperwork would be filed. Chrysler received about $15 billion in government help and was placed under control of Italian automaker Fiat as part of its bankruptcy. The company has repaid about half of the $4 billion loan portion of its aid and is considering a public stock offering sometime in 2011. Ron Bloom, the administration's senior counselor for manufacturing policy, said it was unclear how long the government would hold ownership stakes in the companies. "We don't like having this investment, but we're not going to sell it at a fire sale," he said.
Obama: Master of the 'speed vacation'
During a 48-hour trip to Maine, the Obamas packed in a
week's worth of activities. Why does the president insist on vacationing
in overdrive?
posted on July 19, 2010, at 10:50 AM
Obama and his family return from a weekend
vacation in Bar Harbor, Maine. Photo: GettySEE ALL 12 PHOTOS
"President George H.W. Bush did
speed golf," says Politico's Carol E.
Lee. Well, "President Barack Obama does speed vacationing." Obama
and his family took a whirlwind 48-hour vacation to Bar Harbor, ME, last
weekend, packing dozens of tourist stops in their two days outside of
Washington. (Watch
the Obamas race through Maine.) Here's a brief look at what the
Obamas managed to do, and how the 44th president's vacationing habits
compare with his predecessors':
What was on the president's itinerary? Upon
landing Friday afternoon, the First Family took a bike ride in Arcadia
National Forest (90 minutes), hiked Cadillac Mountain (39 minutes),
stopped for ice cream (11 minutes), visited the Bass Harbor Head
Lighthouse (10 minutes), took in a boat ride and lobster dinner (two
hours), skipped rocks and played with the dog (one hour), and played
tennis and swam (two hours). Later, the president and first lady had a
date night (90 minutes). Saturday ticked along at a similar pace,
with five activities in 11 hours.
Why so many activities? "He doesn't get a lot of
time outside of Washington with his family, so he enjoys taking in as
much as he can on these brief trips," explained
White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton. The logistics of
presidential trips also make shorter stops friendlier for locals and
fellow tourists, who are often inconvenienced by the president's
motorcade.
How many presidential vacations have the Obamas taken? The whole family visited Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon last
summer, Martha's Vineyard in late August, Hawaii at Christmas, and
Chicago over Memorial Day. In all, Obama has spent all
or part of 65 days on vacation, including at Camp David, according
to CBS News' Mark Knoller. George W. Bush had spent 120 days on vacation
at the same point in his presidency.
How have other recent presidents vacationed? Bush
spent much of his time outside Washington at his Texas ranch. Ronald
Reagan similarly had a ranch in California, while George H.W. Bush
largely vacationed in Kennebunkport, ME. Richard Nixon owned a house in
Florida, and John F. Kennedy had the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port,
MA. Like Bill Clinton (who frequented Martha's Vineyard), Obama does not
own a summer home.
Was it a working vacation? Undoubtedly. "We in
the press corps who traveled with him didn't see any official activity,"
says
the
Chicago Tribune's
Mike Memoli. But "the president never stops being president."
Still, unlike almost every other vacation the Obama family has taken,
this one was uninterrupted by a notable death (Sen. Ted Kennedy, on
their Martha's Vineyard trip), national security incident (Christmas Day
underwear bomber, on their Hawaii vacation), or disaster (BP spill,
ongoing during their Chicago weekend).
So should presidents even bother taking vacation? Conservatives
have criticized Obama for taking some time off, just as liberals made
sport of Bush for his long trips to Crawford, TX, says
Reihan Salam in The
Daily Beast, and they were equally wrong. Being president is
perhaps the most stressful job in the world, with some of the most
unrealistic expectations placed on it, and "just as we don't want
codeine-sipping insomniacs operating heavy machinery, we have very good
reason to want President Obama to take a restorative weekend off."
Obama poses with a local resident during his trip to the Gulfport, Mississippi. (Photo Credit: Getty Images)
Theodore, Alabama (CNN) - President Barack Obama used a lemon-lime snow cone to show that parts of the Gulf Coast remain unaffected by the oil spill –and that he's fully engaged in the ongoing crisis on a day and a half visit to the region.
At his first stop in Gulfport, Mississippi, the president was briefed by Admiral Thad Allen and other officials on the latest effort to cap and contain the oil. And the president said that many locations are still open for tourism and unaffected by the spill.
"We just want to make sure that people who have travel plans down to the Gulf area remain mindful of that, because if people want to know what can they do to help folks down here, one of the best ways to help is to come down here and enjoy the outstanding hospitality," the president said.
The president said he was updated on the need for better coordination of Skimmers and other assets involved in the effort, so that more oil is kept off area beaches.
Obama said they also discussed concerns about problems residents are facing as they file claims to recover money from BP.
In another Gulf state where the president heads next, there is optimism and despair.
Some residents around Theodore, Alabama, where Obama will tour a staging area in which booms are cleaned and de-contaminated, are glad to be getting the administration's attention.
But one man says it's nothing more than a "photo op." Jim Hall, a retired executive and longtime local resident who has lived and fished on the Gulf since the 1980's, wants the administration to talk less and do more.
There is plenty of pain to go around.
Harry Jemison, the owner of Jemison's Bait-N-Tackel shop reeled in a nice trout that he cooked up for breakfast, but the longtime family business is hurting.
He was on course to realize a record year for his small business. But the oil spill put a stop to his season.
Everyone is "afraid to fish," he said.
Some days he shuts down early. Sunday was so slow that he sent two employees home early.
The ocean views are still spectacular here. Large pelicans are perched on what once was a dock. Sometimes, it's hard to imagine that a crisis bubbles below. Or, in some spots, on the surface.
What to Eat on a $17,600 Date With the President
President Obama hosts a star studded dinner at the Getty mansion with a menu to match
Mr. Obama's 19-hour whirlwind Bay Area fundraising trip filled Sen. Barbara Boxer's wallet with $1.75 million and he used a $17,600 a person dinner at the Getty Mansion in San Francisco to bring in the big bucks.
The president's 80 dinner guests were treated to an elaborate meal prepared by chef Jennifer Johnson, according to SF Gate, who got the scoop on the menu.
Diners were treated to quail egg with caviar and salmon ceviche with jicama and avocado on a tortilla chip as their starting hors d'oeuvres. Next they were served a spring onion-asparagus tartlet with Meyer lemon vinaigrette-dressed frisee salad.
The main course was braised Kobe beef short ribs with potato puree and a salsa verde-topped spring vegetable ragout. And the evening was topped off with buckwheat crepes with roasted cherries and almond ice cream.
Of course guests were given the opportunity to smile and take a picture with their favorite fundraising president. Worth the $17,600 price tag? You tell us.
Obama bemoans 'diversions' of IPod, Xbox era
(AFP)
– 5/9/2010.
HAMPTON, Virginia — US President Barack Obama lamented Sunday that in
the iPad and Xbox era, information had become a diversion that was
imposing new strains on democracy, in his latest critique of modern
media.
Obama, who often chides journalists and cable news outlets
for obsessing with political horse race coverage rather than serious
issues, told a class of graduating university students that education
was the key to progress.
"You're coming of age in a 24/7 media
environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to
all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank all that high
on the truth meter," Obama said at Hampton University, Virginia.
"With
iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, -- none of which I know
how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of
entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means
of emancipation," Obama said.
He bemoaned the fact that "some of
the craziest claims can quickly claim traction," in the clamor of
certain blogs and talk radio outlets.
"All of this is not only
putting new pressures on you, it is putting new pressures on our country
and on our democracy."
Obama, who uses the handful of
Commencement addresses that he delivers each year to meditate on
societal developments broader than the minutiae of everyday politics,
warned the world was at a moment of "breathtaking change."
"We
can't stop these changes... but we can adapt to them," Obama said,
adding that US workers were in a battle with well-educated foreign
workers.
"Education... can fortify you, as it did earlier
generations, to meet the tests of your own time," he said.
Hampton
University is a historically black college, and Obama noted the huge
disparity in educational achievement between African Americans and other
racial groups in the United States and the world.
But he urged
the graduates to take inspiration from the example of Dorothy Height, a
civil and women's rights icon who died, aged 98, last month, who fought
racial prejudice to secure a college education.
"A black woman, in
1929, refusing to be denied her dream of a college education," Obama
said, reprising Height's life story.
"Refusing to be denied her
rights, refusing to be denied her dignity, refusing to be denied... her
piece of America's promise."
Obama argued that from the days of
the pioneer politicians who founded the United States, until the modern
day, education and knowledge had been the key to progress and US
democracy.
He drew a line between Thomas Jefferson, the principal
author of the Declaration of Independence, and today's challenges.
"What
Jefferson recognized... that in the long run, their improbable
experiment -- called America -- wouldn't work if its citizens were
uninformed, if its citizens were apathetic, if its citizens checked out,
and left democracy to those who didn't have the best interests of all
the people at heart.
"It could only work if each of us stayed
informed and engaged, if we held our government accountable, if we
fulfilled the obligations of citizenship."
Obama's 17-minute, 2,500-word response to woman's claim of being 'over-taxed'
by Anne E. Kornblut
CHARLOTTE - Even by President Obama's loquacious standards, an answer he gave here on health care Friday was a doozy.
Toward the end of a question-and-answer session with workers at an advanced battery technology manufacturer, a woman named Doris stood to ask the president whether it was a "wise decision to add more taxes to us with the health care" package.
"We are over-taxed as it is," Doris said bluntly.
Obama started out feisty. "Well, let's talk about that, because this is an area where there's been just a whole lot of misinformation, and I'm going to have to work hard over the next several months to clean up a lot of the misapprehensions that people have," the president said.
He then spent the next 17 minutes and 12 seconds lulling the crowd into a daze. His discursive answer - more than 2,500 words long -- wandered from topic to topic, including commentary on the deficit, pay-as-you-go rules passed by Congress, Congressional Budget Office reports on Medicare waste, COBRA coverage, the Recovery Act and Federal Medical Assistance Percentages (he referred to this last item by its inside-the-Beltway name, "F-Map"). He talked about the notion of eliminating foreign aid (not worth it, he said). He invoked Warren Buffett, earmarks and the payroll tax that funds Medicare (referring to it, in fluent Washington lingo, as "FICA").
Always fond of lists, Obama ticked off his approach to health care -- twice. "Number one is that we are the only -- we have been, up until last week, the only advanced country that allows 50 million of its citizens to not have any health insurance," he said.
A few minutes later he got to the next point, which seemed awfully similar to the first. "Number two, you don't know who might end up being in that situation," he said, then carried on explaining further still.
"Point number three is that the way insurance companies have been operating, even if you've got health insurance you don't always know what you got, because what has been increasingly the practice is that if you're not lucky enough to work for a big company that is a big pool, that essentially is almost a self-insurer, then what's happening is, is you're going out on the marketplace, you may be buying insurance, you think you're covered, but then when you get sick they decide to drop the insurance right when you need it," Obama continued, winding on with the answer.
Halfway through, an audience member on the riser yawned.
But Obama wasn't finished. He had a "final point," before starting again with another list -- of three points.
"What we said is, number one, we'll have the basic principle that everybody gets coverage," he said, before launching into the next two points, for a grand total of seven.
His wandering approach might not matter if Obama weren't being billed as the chief salesman of the health-care overhaul. Public opinion on the bill remains divided, and Democratic officials are planning to send Obama into the country to persuade wary citizens that it will work for them in the long run.
It was not evident that he changed any minds at Friday's event. The audience sat politely, but people in the back of the room began to wander off.
Even Obama seemed to recognize that he had gone on too long. He apologized -- in keeping with the spirit of the moment, not once, but twice. "Boy, that was a long answer. I'm sorry," he said, drawing nervous laughter that sounded somewhat like relief as he wrapped up.
But, he said: "I hope I answered your question."
Doctors tell Barack Obama to quit smoking
The American president has been trying to kick the habit for sometime, apart from the smoking he is in excellent health
Barack Obama has had his first medical examination since becoming president. Photograph: Charles Dharapak/AP
Barack Obama is still struggling to kick smoking, according to his first medical examination since becoming president.
Obama is sensitive about his cigarette habit and tetchy with reporters who raise it. But after his 90-minute medical at the Navy hospital outside Washington yesterday morning, his doctors confirmed he had not yet managed to conquer the habit and suggested he "continue smoking cessation efforts".
The doctors said the president used medication to try to ease the pangs, they described it as "nicotine replacement therapy, self-use".
Obama promised Michelle when he embarked on his campaign to become president he would quit, at the time he said he was smoking about eight a day.
He told reporters last year he had quit but still had an occasional cigarette, without specifying how many.
His health was described as excellent and he does not have to return for another medical until 2012. Obama, who is 48, has 20-20 vision, weighs 179 llbs in his shoes and clothes, and requires little medication. Apart from the nicotine replacement, he uses a non-steroid anti-inflammatory medication associated with physical activity: he regularly plays basketball at the White House.
The doctors also recommended "moderation of alcohol intake".
Obama unhappy with criticism of his NYC date night
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama says only once since Jan. 20 has White House life annoyed him.
It was the Saturday in May when, trying to be a good husband, he kept a campaign promise to take his wife, Michelle, to New York after the election for one of their "date nights" - dinner and a Broadway play.
Conservative commentators and Republican officials criticized him for doing so.
"People made it into a political issue," Obama told The New York Times Magazine for an article about the Obamas' marriage, appearing in the Nov. 1 issue. The article was posted on the Times' Web site on Wednesday.
"If I weren't president, I would be happy to catch the shuttle with my wife to take her to a Broadway show, as I had promised her during the campaign, and there would be no fuss and no muss and no photographers," he said. "That would please me greatly."
Presidents, however, don't travel by any means other than secure government aircraft or vehicles.
Obama added: "The notion that I just couldn't take my wife out on a date without it being a political issue was not something I was happy with."
The article explores the effects of the presidency on the couple's 17-year union, and revisits well-documented tension between them in earlier years as Obama pursued his political career in Illinois, leaving Mrs. Obama largely home alone in Chicago with their daughters.
It also delves into her roles in the presidential campaign and in the White House.
Mrs. Obama, who sat with her husband for the interview in the Oval Office, said marriage doesn't necessarily become easier just because a couple moves into a big white house with servants and security at every turn.
"The strengths and challenges of our marriage don't change because we move to a different address," she said. Mrs. Obama said "the bumps" happen to everybody all the time "and they are continuous."
"The last thing we want to project," she said, is the image of a flawless relationship.
"It's unfair to the institution of marriage, and it's unfair for young people who are trying to build something, to project this perfection that doesn't exist," Mrs. Obama said.
Obama Ridicules Olympic Criticism at Fundraiser
Some Republicans criticized Obama for flying to Denmark earlier this month to boost Chicago's Olympics bid.
By Eve Zibel
FOXNews.com
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Obama, in New York for a series of fundraisers, told a friendly audience that he doesn't understand how anybody could root against health care reform, and even more egregious, root against the Olympics.
"What I reject is when some people sit on the sidelines and root for failure on health care, or they root for failure on reforming our energy system, or they root for failure on getting the Olympics," Obama said. "I mean, who's against the Olympics? What's up with that? You know it's a sad thing, isn't it? I mean, I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican, you know. It's the Olympics, come on!"
Obama took heat from Republicans when he flew to Copenhagen in the beginning of October to help the United States Olympic Committee try to win the 2016 games for the city of Chicago.
The president was on the ground in Denmark for about four hours, but Chicago was shut out of contention in the first round of voting, receiving only 19 votes. Rio de Janeiro won the bid.
The loss and the cost of the trip, almost $900,000, led many to say the voyage was not worth the president's time and not worth the money.
Nine-year-old to Obama: 'why do people hate you?'
Oct 15 06:30 PM US/Eastern
Obama, caught up in a divisive political row over his plans for health care reform, called on the boy, Tyren Scott, in a public meeting during his first visit to hurricane-ravaged New Orleans as president.
"I have to say, why do people hate you? They supposed to love you. God is love," Tyren, from Paulina,Louisiana asked.
Obama, appeared tickled by the question, saying "hey, that's what I'm talking about," adding "I did get elected president, so not everybody hates me now... I got a whole lot of votes."
"If you were watching TV lately, it seems like everybody's just getting mad all the time. And you know, I think that you've got to take it with a grain of salt. Some of it is just what's called politics."
OSLO (Reuters) - President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for giving the world "hope for a better future" and striving for nuclear disarmament, in a surprise award that drew both warm praise and sharp criticism.
The decision to bestow one of the world's top accolades on a president less than nine months into his first term, who has yet to score a major foreign policy success, was greeted with gasps of astonishment from journalists at the announcement in Oslo.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised Obama for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." But critics -- especially in parts of the Arab and Muslim world -- called its decision premature.
Obama's press secretary woke him with the news before dawn and the president felt "humbled" by the award, a senior administration official said.
When told in an email from Reuters that many people around the world were stunned by the announcement, Obama's senior adviser, David Axelrod, responded: "As are we."
The first African-American to hold his country's highest office, Obama, 48, has called for disarmament and worked to restart the stalled Middle East peace process since taking office in January.
"Very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said in a citation.
While the decision won praise from statesmen like Nelson Mandela and Mikhail Gorbachev, both former Nobel laureates, it was also attacked in some quarters as hasty and undeserved.
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip and opposes a peace treaty with Israel, said the award was premature at best.
"Obama has a long way to go still and lots of work to do before he can deserve a reward," said Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri. "Obama only made promises and did not contribute any substance to world peace. And he has not done anything to ensure justice for the sake of Arab and Muslim causes."
"EMBARRASSING JOKE"
Issam al-Khazraji, a day laborer in Baghdad, said: "He doesn't deserve this prize. All these problems -- Iraq, Afghanistan -- have not been solved...The man of 'change' hasn't changed anything yet."
Liaqat Baluch, a senior leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, a conservative religious party in Pakistan, called the award an embarrassing "joke."
But the chief Palestinian peace negotiator, Saeb Erekat, welcomed it and expressed hope that Obama "will be able to achieve peace in the Middle East."
Nobel Committee Chairman Thorbjoern Jagland rejected suggestions from journalists that Obama was getting the prize too early, saying it recognized what he had already done over the past year.
"We hope this can contribute a little bit to enhance what he is trying to do," he told a news conference.
The committee said it attached "special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons," saying he had "created a new climate in international politics."
Without naming Obama's predecessor George W. Bush, it highlighted the differences in America's engagement with the rest of the world since the change of administration in January.
"Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play.
"Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts," it said, and the United States was playing a more constructive role in tackling climate change.
Obama laid out his vision on eliminating nuclear arms in a speech in Prague in April. But he was not the first American president to set that goal, and acknowledged it might not be reached in his lifetime.
He is negotiating arms cuts with Russia, and last month dropped plans to base elements of a U.S. anti-missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. Moscow had seen the scheme as a threat, despite U.S. assurances it was directed against Iran.
On other pressing issues, Obama is deliberating whether to send more troops to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan, and is still searching for breakthroughs on Iran's disputed nuclear program and on Middle East peace.
Israel's foreign minister said on Thursday there was no chance of a peace deal for many years. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters: "The Nobel prize for peace? Obama should have won 'the Nobel Prize for escalating violence and killing civilians'."
At home, Obama's popularity is flagging under the pressure of rising unemployment and a divisive, sometimes bitter debate over his healthcare reform plans.
Abroad, he is still widely seen around the world as an inspirational figure.
Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, who had been tipped as a favorite for the prize, told Reuters that Obama was a deserving candidate and an "extraordinary example."
Obama's uncle Said Obama told Reuters by telephone from the president's ancestral village of Kogelo in western Kenya: "It is humbling for us as a family and we share in Barack's honor... we congratulate him."
Obama is the third senior U.S. Democrat to win the prize this decade after former Vice President Al Gore won in 2007 along with the U.N. climate panel and Jimmy Carter in 2002.
The prize worth 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.4 million) will be handed over in Oslo on December 10.
(Additional reporting by Oslo newsroom, Kamran Haider in Pakistan, Mohammed Assadi, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Mark Denge in Nairobi, Jason Webb in Spain; writing by Mark Trevelyan, editing by Janet McBride)
Obama’s Olympic failure will only add to doubts about his presidency
Tim Reid in Washington
(Charles Dharapak/AP)
Barack Obama fails to make the case for Chicago to the IOC in Copenhagen!
There has been a growing narrative taking hold about Barack Obama’s presidency in recent weeks: that he is loved by many, but feared by none; that he is full of lofty vision, but is actually achieving nothing with his grandiloquence.
Chicago’s dismal showing today, after Mr Obama’s personal, impassioned last-minute pitch, is a stunning humiliation for this President. It cannot be emphasised enough how this will feed the perception that on the world stage he looks good — but carries no heft.
It was only the Olympic Games, the White House will argue — not a high-stakes diplomatic gamble with North Korea. It is always worthwhile when Mr Obama sells America to the rest of the world, David Axelrod, his chief political adviser, said today. But that argument will fall on deaf ears in the US. Americans want their presidents to be winners.
Mr Obama was greeted — as usual — like a rock star by the IOC delegates in Copenhagen — then humiliated by them. Perception is reality. A narrow defeat for Chicago would have been acceptable — but the sheer scale of the defeat was a bombshell, and is a major blow for Mr Obama at a time when questions are being asked about his style of governance.
At home, it is difficult to turn on a television and not see Mr Obama giving a press conference, or an interview, or at a town hall rally, in his all-out effort to sell his troubled reform the US health insurance system. After three months of enormous exposure, Mr Obama has achieved this: the growing likelihood of ramming a Bill through Congress with — at most — just one Republican vote.
Abroad, Mr Obama promised in his Inauguration address to engage America’s enemies, and he has done just that. He has very little to show for it. Yes, Iran took part in bilateral talks with the US this week over its nuclear weapons programme — but that is something Tehran has wanted for years. There is still a very good chance that the meetings will prove to be an exercise in futility and a time-wasting ploy by Tehran.
Mr Obama also scrapped a plan for a missile defence shield in the Czech Republic and Poland, hoping to get in return Russian co-operation behind new sanctions against Tehran. There was optimism when President Medvedev said “sanctions are seldom productive, but they are sometimes inevitable”. Yet Vladimir Putin, and the Chinese, remain fiercely opposed to sanctions.
Meanwhile, America and its allies are being forced to witness a very public agonising by Mr Obama and his advisers over his Afghan strategy — six months after he announced that strategy.
This has all added to the perception that Mr Obama’s soaring rhetoric — which captured the imagination during last year’s election — is simply not enough when it comes to confronting the myriad challenges of the presidency. His spectacular Olympic failure will only add to that
Obama loves to hear himself talk – about himself. In just 41 speeches so this year, not including this week's big speech at the United Nations, Obama has talked about himself nearly 1,200 times – 1,198 to be exact. (That breaks down to 1,121 “I”s and just 77 "me"s.)
In mythology, Narcissus was the guy who fell in love with his own reflection.
In 2009, he’s the president of the United States.
Instead of adoring his own image, Obama loves to hear himself talk – about himself. In just 41 speeches so far this year, not including this week's big speech at the United Nations, Obama has talked about himself nearly 1,200 times – 1,198 to be exact. (That breaks down to 1,121 “I”s and just 77 “me”s.) And that just includes 34 weekly addresses and his seven major speeches. Count the hundreds of other public speeches and he’d be off the charts.
And if you needed any more confirmation, there was this past Sunday’s Obama-palooza on the network talking head shows. Obama pulled a presidential first, going back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back on five different networks. He hit “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on ABC, “Meet the Press” on NBC, “Face the Nation” on CBS, as well as interviews on both CNN and Univision.
“We’re essentially roadblocking the time by appearing on each station,” David Axelrod, senior adviser to the president, told The New York Times. -- Pretty easy to monopolize a message when you block all five networks. And yes, the media didn’t just let him, they reveled in it. CNN’s Howard Kurtz and others even did stories about Obama’s overexposure, only mildly hinting at the irony that they were making the problem worse at the same time.
The interviews went off as expected. Obama kept his “I” on the nation’s problems. He mustered 387 personal mentions in just 82 minutes of air time. Forget the economy, health care, racism or whatever. Every 13 seconds, Obama was talking about … Obama. Next stop, David Letterman on Sept. 21. You already know the topic.
That’s to be expected for a TV hound like Barack Obama. Martha Joynt Kumar, a political science professor at Towson University in Maryland, said Obama has had nearly three times the number of interviews either Bush or Bill Clinton had at this time in his presidency. The New York Times Caucus blog reported: “As of his seven-month in office mark in August, he had done 114 interviews, compared to 37 by former President George W. Bush and 41 by former president Bill Clinton.”
At this rate, he’ll top all presidents combined by the time he and his ego leave office.
It’s so bad, it’s either humorous or pathetic. Let’s try humorous first. Obama loves himself so much that …
· When he goes to the optometrist, he uses an “I” chart. Bada bing. · When he got his new iPhone, he thought it was named after him. (If GE made it, the phone might have been named after Obama, after all.)
Not bad enough? Then let’s try the pathetic. To do that, we need a point of comparison and few things are more pathetic than Congress.
But Obama can forget the members of Congress. At least he tries to. It doesn’t matter if they’re Republicans, Democrats, Blue Dogs or progressives. Obama outnumbers them – in his own mind. In just 41 speeches, he has mentioned himself more than twice the number of every member of Congress combined.
Remember, there are 435 members of the House. Another 100 in the Senate. And you can throw in five delegates, if you want. That’s 540. In just 41 speeches, Obama talked about himself double all of that. He has enough leftovers to add another state with 59 representatives – or more than any state including California.
That’s also more than a bit ego-maniacal. But call Obama on anything and you are a “racist,” a “hater” or both. Any way you slice it, your opinions are somehow a threat to the body politic – the big “I” in the WhIte House.
The media have gone out of their way to paint this picture. It was especially obvious last weekend when anti-Obama protesters held more than 200 9.12 events around the nation. Tens of thousands of ordinary Americans gathered together to protest the excessive growth in government. How were they treated by America’s sycophantic media?
They're called racists of course. The New York Times’ wacky Maureen Dowd put it all in black and white. She skewered South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson for saying the truth, that Obama lied. Dowd called him a “milquetoast Republican backbencher,” but then proceeded to blast him, other Republicans and pretty much anyone who didn’t vote Obama in the entire state of South Carolina. Dowd went on to remind readers that South Carolina was the “state that fired the first shot of the Civil War.”
That happened in 1861, nearly 150 years ago. That’s what passes for current events in The New York Times.
This past weekend the networks followed that racism theme, repeatedly asking Obama if his opponents were racist. Even Obama didn’t play ball. But racism was still the big issue for the media. They were unwilling to call Obama for his own self interest.
The best we can hope is that one day journalists will wise up and see Obama eye to I.
Dan Gainor is The Boone Pickens Fellow and the Media Research Center’s Vice President for Business and Culture. His column appears each week on The Fox Forum and he can be seen on Foxnews.com’s “Strategy Room.”
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