On Friday, President Obama took the unusual step of sending video greetings to the people of Iran to mark the celebration of Nowruz, the Persian New Year. Unsurprisingly, many on the right were quick to scoff at Obama's call for "engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect" and paean to "the true greatness […]

The right-wing blogosphere is predictably abuzz in the wake of President Obama's shockingly insensitive off-the-cuff joke comparing his bowling to the Special Olympics. Following as it did Joe Biden's request at a rally last year that a wheelchair bound man "stand up," Obama's unfortunate appearance with Jay Leno isn't going to help matters for the […]

During his first post-presidential appearance yesterday in Canada, George W. Bush said he would refrain from criticizing his successor, insisting President Obama "deserves my silence." Apparently, Dick Cheney did not read the memo. In a blistering attack on Obama just two days earlier, Cheney ignored Bush's Golden Rule. And as I noted Sunday, Dick Cheney […]

One day after Dick Cheney claimed President Obama is making the nation less safe, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs joked that CNN invited the former vice president only because "Rush Limbaugh was busy" and Cheney was "the next most popular member of the Republican cabal" available. But when CBS' Chip Reid protested the "sarcastic" […]

Two days after Americans learned that U.S. household wealth plummeted by a staggering $11 trillion (an 18% drop) in 2008, the Washington Post featured a critique of President Obama's rhetoric attributing the recession to George W. Bush. But while Obama's statement that "by any measure, my administration has inherited a fiscal disaster" is inescapably true, […]

As part of his twilight struggle to remain relevant in national politics, failed Republican White House hopeful John McCain has apparently launched a new effort to block some of President Obama's executive branch nominees. But while the Arizona Senator claims his opposition to Christopher Hill as ambassador to Iraq is based on concerns over his […]

It's not for nothing that Politico is (or should be) known as the ESPN of politics, highlighting the contest but not the content of American democracy. One day after President Obama as promised signed an executive order reversing the draconian Bush restrictions on stem cell research, Politico focused on the grievances and disappointment of hard […]

Within minutes of President Obama's reversal of George W. Bush's strict limits on federal support for embryonic stem cell research, the Republican noise machine was reliably regurgitating its "distracted president" talking point. But while House Minority Whip Eric Cantor's sound bite was faithfully repeated by Time's Mark Halperin, apparently lost in the phony debate which […]

As the New York Times revealed Monday, President Obama has instructed administration officials not to rely on the hundreds of signing statements issued by his predecessor. That move should please John McCain. After all, the Republican presidential candidate not only pledged "never to issue a signing statement." Back in 2005, McCain was doubled-crossed when President […]

On Monday, President Obama as promised reversed George W. Bush's draconian restrictions on federal support for stem cell research in the United States. But just as important as that key step was its larger message that this White House rejects the politicization of science which has dominated Republican strategy for a generation. And at the […]