President Barack Obama has received glowing reviews once again for his performance at the 2013 White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, D.C. last Saturday night. Audience members, pundits and comedians alike marveled at Obama’s comic timing and his combination of self-deprecating humor and effective jabs at political opponents, and that praise was well-deserved. However, what may have hindered an A performance from being an A+ was that it seemed at times that the President’s self-deprecating humor went too far against himself. You can follow along with the video above and see what you think:
Time to go to war against the Republicans
When Osama bin Laden declared war on the United States twice in the 1990s, Americans didn’t react until the 9/11 attacks years later. That didn’t work out so well. Yet Republicans quietly, then more noisily, declared war on the Democrats years ago, and have successfully fought their war against the Democrats, and America, every day since then, with near-impunity. It’s time for Democrats to go to war against the Republicans.
The media are dead; long live the media
The Boston Marathon bombings showed America and the world once and for all that the 24-hour cable news network model is dead. Here are some of the cable coverage lowlights of the week:
Enjoy your low Obama taxes today
One of the many Republican lies is that President Obama has raised your taxes. Other than for a miniscule sliver of top-salaried Americans, the opposite is true — President Obama has lowered a number of taxes, and today, Tax Day, most Americans enjoy some of the lowest federal income taxes of their lifetimes.
The Republican disconnect
Pig at the barrel, Via Flora, West Palm Beach, FL
Here in a little corner of Southeast Florida, it’s Republican Land. You’ve got your gun-clinging rednecks, your Bible thumpers, and your One Percenters. The last group is something to behold. Their car of choice this year is the $200,000 Bentley convertible. Their home of choice is the Spanish style mansion behind the gates guarded by security personnel in starched uniforms. And their expression of choice is “I hate Obama.”
The hate behind DOMA, finally revealed
Credit U.S. Supreme Court Justice (and Obama appointee) Elena Kagan with outing the Republican discrimination behind their 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). At today’s hearing before the Supreme Court, Kagan read from the Republican-drafted House Report that accompanied the original DOMA legislation:
Congress decided to reflect an ‘honor of collective moral judgment’ and to express ‘moral disapproval of homosexuality.’
Here’s the entire quote from pages 15-16 of the 1996 House Report:
Messaging Maxim #4: Feed the Narrative
MSNBC’s Ed Schultz solved a 2012 election mystery on Wednesday, by featuring the man who shot the infamous Willard Mitt Romney “47% video” in a one-on-one interview. What made the video by bartender Scott Prouty so devastating to Romney’s presidential campaign was that Romney’s controversial “47%” remarks, as well as other statements, such as those regarding a brutal Chinese sweatshop that Romney visited with the purpose of purchasing for Bain Capital, fed into a narrative that already existed about Romney as:
Let’s all be from Missouri
Aside from its position as a somewhat centrist state both geographically and politically, Missouri is of course most famous for its no-nonsense “Show me” motto. That motto was embodied in one of Missouri’s favorite sons, President Harry S. Truman. As Truman might have said, “Show me” should be the first response to any ridiculous Republican talking point.
Cult of presidency
Last September, we published a post about how, under the Constitution, presidents don’t have individual control over the economy, and that economic improvement requires the assistance of Congress. We noted that many voters seem to be under the mistaken impression that presidents control America’s direction themselves, in part because of the cult of personality that the media have built up around the office of the president. Sure enough, at President Barack Obama‘s press conference on the sequester last Friday (see video above), two “reporters” furthered this erroneous cult of the presidency. Here, from the press conference transcript, are their exchanges with President Obama:
The Republican Supreme Court’s Voting Wrongs
Incredibly, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is under attack, and that attack has made its way all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. Perhaps not so incredibly, some of the right wing Republican justices who hold a 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court trashed the Voting Rights Act during oral arguments today. The grand trash prize goes to Justice Antonin Scalia, who, during the argument, called the Voting Rights Act a “perpetuation of racial entitlement.” Scalia was joined by fellow Republicans Anthony Kennedy, who said that “times change” (implying that one or more sections of the Act may have outlived their usefulness), and Chief Justice John Roberts, who stated similarly that “things have changed in the South.”
