Clearing the Desk of Debris

Washington is actually pleasant with Congress out of session.

The Republicans are scurrying around to meet tomorrow to figure out how to minimize the damage from their votes for the Ryan Budget Plan. Apparently, word has come from the hustings that the natives are angry with plans to eliminate Medicare and Medicaid. The plan of hoping that the geezers are so selfish they won't mind as long as they got theirs apparently hasn't succeeded. It's the geezers who know what the Republicans are planning and don't like it.

Gary Bauer, one-time Christian Right candidate for President,says that everyone should get down on their knees and be thankful America is a Christian nation.

Gordon Robertson, son of, says that since President Obama was raised as a Muslim (he was not), he could be enlisted to help "other" Muslims to convert to Christianity.

Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Conference says that people who question where Obama was born or whether he is a Muslim are "nuts and emotionally unbalanced". I'm surprised he came out that strongly since he opposes President Obama.

Congresscritter Allan West, who last week described President Obama as a low-life socialist organizer says that "liberal women are neutering American males." I'll have to ask my liberal wife whether that's true.

Haley Barbour called it quits in the presidential race. After setting up the organizational apparatus, Haley decided that he didn't have the fire in the belly. I never thought he could make a strong run of it because of his drawl. But Haley had the organizational genius to mount a credible campaign as well as the access to money from his lobbying days. GOP observers claim this lets Mitch Daniels enter the race as he didn't want to run against his friend.

As for Mitch, whom the Beltway pundits see as representing a true believer on deficits, his strength is also his weakness. Remember he was the OMB director who blew Clinton's surplus. He was one of three people credited by President Bush for the tax-cuts which created the road to nowhere. And Daniels under-estimated the cost of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars by about---$2 trillion. Not the greatest advertisement for fiscal responsibility.

Mitt Romney gets loopier by the minute. The other year he gave a foreign policy speech at Heritage where he argued for steep increases in defense spending and almost declared war on China. Then in his hardback campaign book, he praised President Obama's stimulus package; then in the paperback he re-wrote these passages to blast it as having created no jobs--saved or created about 3 million. But who's counting? Today,he blasted President Obama for engaging in the largest "peacetime" spending binge in American history. His whole op-ed made it seem America was not active in any war--let alone 3 hot ones. These are not the words of an adroit politician. The words "Empty Suit" rapidly come to mind.

Meanwhile, the new darling of Fox News, the Christian Right and the teabaggers, Donald Trump says that President Obama wasn't qualified to attend Ivy League Schools. What are the odds the Donald's investigators will bill him for going to the Hall of Records in Hawaii to read the same birth certificate as the AP reporter. Donald also says that Bill Ayers wrote "Dreams of my Father", another right-wing favorite. Bill Ayers'comment is "I hope you enjoy your time in the Twilight Zone." But the Donald has the support of Meghan McCain and is going to Vegas--naturally--to test how he does with the GOP there.

Meanwhile, more on Fox News' exclusive that President Obama is waging a war against Easter. Steve Benen over at Washington Monthly has followed this all day, including the poor White House press officer answering questions about this. Apparently, it's not only President George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan never signed proclamations about Easter but no President in modern history has. And I am sure if you really wanted to probably none have. Except maybe the Thomas Jefferson of David Barton's revisionist dreams.

Meanwhile, reporters are going to have their job cut out for them when covering Mike Huckabee. Apparently, he has destroyed all records of his time as governor of Arkansas and his sermons while a Baptist preacher. Some note he has very delicate problems with explaining away some of his sons "illegal" activity. My advice--don't run. Plus, observers note the jovial bass-player is personally nasty and quick to anger.

I watched President Obama's campaign manager talk about his 2012 campaign plans. A few problems I see. First, the Republicans now have $120 million in the bank from undisclosed corporate donors. We know the Koch Brothers have pledged $66 million. And that's only now so early in the campaign cycle. The second is that like 2008 the Obama campaign intends to expand the voter base. It was wonderful in 2008 when they captured two-thirds of new voters. But after the 2010 mid-terms, several states are imposing voter suppression laws, particularly aimed at killing off the first -time voter. Basically the strategy of getting more younger voters, Hispanic and minorities will run up against the new voter suppression strategies. And the third, if you look at the map behind him on the video, many of the blue states are now purple, which is another negative factor. But followers of President Obama on Facebook now exceed 1 million. Early in the 2008 campaign, he topped this by a small amount.