Back in January, a CNN poll revealed that "nearly three out of four Americans think that at least half of the money spent in the federal stimulus plan has been wasted." But one year after the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was signed into law, the numbers - and the overwhelming consensus […]

Last week, former Bush speechwriter and full-time torture apologist Marc Thiessen introduced perhaps the most comically hypocritical talking point in the perpetual Republican jihad against the Obama administration's war policies. In "Dead Terrorists Tell No Tales," Thiessen fretted that under President Obama, the United States is killing its enemies before getting a chance to torture […]

Back in September, "10 Lessons for Tea Baggers" documented a set of inescapable truths which the frothing-at-the-mouth followers of the Tea Party movement nevertheless manage to deny. Number one on that list then and now is "President Obama cut your taxes." As Steve Benen related today, the Tea Baggers themselves and their ideological water carriers […]

In case you missed the reaction to Robert Gibbs' lighthearted mockery of Sarah Palin's "telepalmter", the White House press corps has a new rule. NBC's Chuck Todd, who previously defended Palin by declaring, "We've all done notes," protested Wednesday "I was surprised by the stunt myself." In her report, CNN's Suzanne Malveaux groused, "so much […]

If nothing else, Barack Obama is a glutton for punishment. Apparently confident in his ability to manhandle the Republican leadership in the wake of his televised beat-down of the House GOP caucus two weeks ago, Obama has invited McConnell, Boehner and company to the White House for a health care summit. But instead of applying […]

On February 2, 1948, President Harry Truman declared in a special civil rights message to Congress that he "had instructed the Secretary of Defense to take steps to have the remaining instances of discrimination in the armed services eliminated as rapidly as possible." On July 26, 1948, Truman issued Executive Order 9981 instituting the new […]

Shaking his head at the bad economics and worse politics of the White House's proposed spending freeze, Paul Krugman deemed President Obama not a deficit hawk, but a "deficit peacock." "You can identify deficit peacocks," he wrote, "by the way they pretend that our budget problems can be solved with gimmicks like a temporary freeze […]

Barack Obama's first State of the Union address last night was a needed reminder that Americans elect presidents and not popes. Throughout a speech which was well received by viewers for both style and substance, Obama acknowledged his failures. But if his language about "so much disappointment" and "deserved" political "setbacks" seemed unusual coming from […]

The dictionary describes the "Stockholm Syndrome" as "the psychological tendency of a hostage to bond with, identify with, or sympathize with his or her captor." By that definition, then, Barack Obama has been in its grip from the moment he took the oath of office. On the economic recovery, health care, reform of the financial […]

During his first State of the Union address Wednesday, President Barack Obama will apparently endorse two bad ideas whose time hasn't come. The first, a freeze affecting $477 billion in domestic spending, has been rightly labeled "appalling" (Paul Krugman), "a mistake on par with John McCain's 'suspending my campaign' gaffe" (Nate Silver), "fundamental unseriousness" (Brad […]