Ft. Meyers, FL

My God, he's brilliant.

President Obama, today was in Florida with Governor Crist, talking to the masses of unemployed, getting cameras there, getting the upset, sad, poor-as-crap Americans screen time. This is totally what he needed to do, to change the debate on the Hill. 

REFRAMING-THE-DEBATE-AS-WE-SPEAK!

"Just Like the Good Old Days"

Barack and his team are finally fighting back.
According to Robert Gibbs at the White House press briefing today, they're hitting the road, "pulling out all the stops" as one reporter put it.
It's about damn time. If there's one thing everyone can agree on, it's that Barack Obama is a good talker. Let's get him out there, converting popular opinion on the stimulus bill! If people don't like it, it's because they don't understand it. The President can make the case for stimulus and job creation without coming across as boring, or "preaching" the way, say, John Kerry would. The President of the United States is our most valuable weapon, and it's time we use him! Let's take that mandate out for a spin, no more trying to get House Republicans to change their [stupid] minds.

Oh, and Also

Also: Judd Gregg made his Governor promise not to replace him with someone with a different party afiliation. So, unless the Governor wants to look like a jerk publicly, the make-up of the Senate will stay the same. 58-41. Or, actually, 56-41-2, but whatever.

Oooooookay, Seriously, Stop It

Dear President Obama and Pals,

Hey, remember "vetting?" Yeah, sure you do. It's that thing where you take someone you want to nominate to a certain position, and you "investigate to discover... if there are any problems." Sounds fairly easy. So please do some of that.

~EVERYONE EVER

Come on, though. I'm getting a little sick of this "not knowing" there was going to be a problem with someone who hadn't paid a whole bunch of taxes being nominated to do something the opposition in the Senate doesn't want done in the first place [health care reform]. If we want to get this stuff accomplished, we need to have people in charge not bogged down in tiny squabbles over unrelated things. Daschle's tax problems have NOTHING to do with being able to make decisions regarding health care. However, Senate Republicans are AGAINST health care overhaul, so they'll take down anyone trying to accomplish that by any means necessary. And rightly so, if they think it's bad and wrong and evil. It's how the game is played. But we really need to start playing it better. We need people who cannot be objected to. People who are so squeaky clean that the debate has to focus on actual issues instead of character problems, like being a tax cheat.