It’s panic at 1600. The daily Gallup is depressing by itself, but amidst the economic carnage and America losing our AAA status under Obama’s watch, which will make for a snappy negative GOP ad, everyone is girding their loins for the battle.

But really, folks, have people forgotten Alice Palmer? Remember Obama hinting Hillary was “Bush-Cheney lite”? ..and who can forget that South Carolina memo? If it takes scorched earth that’s what Obama will deliver, because he’s done it many times before.

Did people really believe Obama could get by this time on hope and change, the sequel?

I can’t believe people are shocked by the latest news, which comes in a politically titillating article at Politico:

In a move that will make some Democrats shudder, Obama’s high command has even studied former President George W. Bush’s 2004 takedown of Sen. John Kerry, a senior campaign adviser told POLITICO, for clues on how a president with middling approval ratings can defeat a challenger.

“Unless things change and Obama can run on accomplishments, he will have to kill Romney,” said a prominent Democratic strategist aligned with the White House.

The onslaught would have two aspects. The first is personal: Obama’s reelection campaign will portray the public Romney as inauthentic, unprincipled and, in a word used repeatedly by Obama’s advisers in about a dozen interviews, “weird.”

[...] The second aspect of the campaign to define Romney is his record as CEO of Bain Capital, a venture capital firm that was responsible for both creating and eliminating jobs. Obama officials intend to frame Romney as the very picture of greed in the great recession — a sort of political Gordon Gekko.

I’ve always believed that Obama would have to go hard and go dirty, whether the GOP nominee is Mitt Romney or some other guy. Romney, however, is their worst nightmare, even give his innumerable flaws. The only difficulty for Obama would be if a woman rose to the top, which isn’t going to happen now that Rick Perry and his maleness is in the on-deck circle.

Let’s also not kid ourselves that Obama and Romney are all that different. Neither are ideologues. Both believe in nothing but their own fortunes and futures. Either would sell their soul to make a deal that makes them look good. And both are willing to do anything to get to live in the White House. They’re craven egotists who believe in their own persona and the preciousness of their own man self.

As an insider Dem told me months and months ago, Obama’s never run against a competent Republican, so Mitt Romney scares the crap out of them. But now that people have seen Barack Obama in action, revealing he isn’t all his marketing says he was (as I warned), well, they’re up against it now, because the old Axelrod-Plouffe bs won’t fly this time.

Besides the fact that the entire Politico piece is a gift to Mitt Romney and assumes he’s the nominee, let’s just accept that in 2012 these two unprincipled political chameleons, no insult meant to chameleons, are perfect for the times. Maybe we’ll all get lucky and they’ll tear themselves apart, making way for something novel in 2016: an independent progressive candidate who actually stands for something, but more importantly, is willing to go down fighting for it.

The post Scorched Earth is Nothing New for Obama appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

For the deal itself, given the available information, is a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. [...] Make no mistake about it, what we’re witnessing here is a catastrophe on multiple levels. It is, of course, a political catastrophe for Democrats, who just a few weeks ago seemed to have Republicans on the run over their plan to dismantle Medicare; now Mr. Obama has thrown all that away. And the damage isn’t over: there will be more choke points where Republicans can threaten to create a crisis unless the president surrenders, and they can now act with the confident expectation that he will. – The President Surrenders, by Paul Krugman

Waking up naked on Monday morning in front of the world is embarrassing. It’s even worse when people looking at you are laughing.

It left Obama loyalists in disarray, grasping for a way to handle the onslaught of outrage. TPM had an interesting way to go at it, providing headlines with question marks, emails from outraged readers, while Obama fell off a pedestal he’d never earned in the first place.

But regurgitating puma-esque headlines? It was not just sad, but disgraceful.

Buyer’s remorse?

Pres. Obama is our president and no matter your political party we all needed him to stand up to the Tea Party extortionists, who in the end proved the only principled people, however crazy their politics, in this mess. That they provided Mitch McConnell with the weapons he needed should go without saying at this point. That they unmasked progressives in Congress as not having half their courage does as well.

What was needed from the President’s loyalists was someone to do political analysis that pointed the blame where it belongs: Pres. Barack Obama, who not only surrendered, but set up a situation where we all get to revisit his cowardice until 2012, while Republicans now know beyond a reason of a doubt he hasn’t the character for his job.

Hillary Clinton is not only irrelevant in this discussion, she doesn’t deserve to be mentioned, because she’s so far out of Obama’s disastrous political “surrender,” to use Krugman’s words, that it’s unfair to drag her back in. Unfortunately, at the height of Pres. Obama’s collapse, some loyalists had nothing else to offer but Clinton redux.

Sen. Mitch McConnell used Barack Obama like a cat plays with an insect. Not quite wiping him out with the first swipe, just when you think it’s safe, your adversary closes in for the final assault. The only thing Obama had left at the end of the weekend was the whine and last gasp of a presidency that will continue, but doesn’t mean anything anymore, because he’s left the United States economically crippled for the foreseeable future.

The New York Times editorial page eviscerated the deal:

There is little to like about the tentative agreement between Congressional leaders and the White House except that it happened at all. The deal would avert a catastrophic government default, immediately and probably through the end of 2012. The rest of it is a nearly complete capitulation to the hostage-taking demands of Republican extremists. It will hurt programs for the middle class and poor, and hinder an economic recovery.

Politics isn’t Hollywood, but until people quit playing it as a reality show or a casting call, picking their favorite celebrity and thinking personality is the answer, relying on celebrity talk show hosts who pronounce politicians as “The One,” we’ll get bad endings and short stories about people who leave carnage in their wake, without ever caring what happens when they’re gone.

The post Republicans Fake Pres. Obama Out of his Shorts appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

It’s the Hillary effect again, this time on what it takes for a female candidate to run for president, including expenses a man doesn’t have to consider.

I’ve been following Michele Bachmann’s makeover, which was unveiled at one point in 2010 when Sarah Palin came to campaign for her in Minnesota. I did a piece on it at the time, because it was a signal Bachmann was gaming up for something.

But the Mother Jones piece by Andy Kroll has already made it to Minneapolis. Here’s one graph of Kroll’s story:

According to Bachmann’s latest campaign finance filings, her campaign spent nearly $4,700 on hair and makeup in the weeks after she entered the presidential race on June 13. Records show her campaign made three payments of $1,715, $250, and $2,704 to a Maryland-based stylist named Tamara Robertson. Robertson’s LinkedIn profile says she works as a makeup artist at Fox News in the DC area. She’s also listed in the “Make-up” section of the credits for the Citizens United-produced film A City Upon a Hill, hosted by Newt and Callista Gingrich—a pair who’ve raised eyebrows with their own spending.

No journalistic outfit should send a man to do a piece on a female candidate’s salon expenses, because they haven’t a flippin’ clue what’s required to maintain an image for the public or the media, let alone all day long.

Remember Hillary? The wrinkle effect blasted by Drudge, then picked up by Rush Limbaugh? Remember Hillary’s fabulous hairstyle during the campaign, the highlights within highlights? She’s never looked better than when she was running for president, but it was a lot of effort, which she quickly dropped once she became Pres. Obama’s secretary of state.

Women have a much higher bar on looks and appearance than men do, including in politics. So, there are a couple of ways to handle the challenge. Proclaim it’s your money and you’ll spend it however you want. Bachmann could also find a more modest stylist, take the pictures of appearances to this person and then ask he or she to replicate them.

Tamara Robertson obviously is incredibly talented and has done a formidable job turning the latest Tea Party star into a sensational knock out. But Bachmann looks fantastic in the video here from 2010 either, when she made Sarah Palin look dowdy. Bachmann now has a beauty road map to follow, which can be done on a budget (I do it all the time), though it will never be cheap.

The days of dowdy Phyllis Schlafly conservatism are over.

Like it or not, Bachmann’s makeover has been important to her image and profile rise. Crazy doesn’t seem so unappealing when a good looking broad is selling it.

Take Rick Perry, who’s nothin’ without his hair.

The post Bachmann’s Big Beauty Budget appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

Despite rising public concern about the federal budget deficit, Americans favor keeping Social Security and Medicare benefits as they are rather than taking steps to reduce the budget deficit (by 60% vs. 32%). – Public Wants Changes in Entitlements, Not Changes in Benefits

This is starting early, so it’s time to revisit the facts.

When I came out for Hillary Clinton in July 2007, I was told by Obama loyalists I’d never recover from the investigative coverage I gave candidate Barack Obama, while others of that ilk tried everything to discredit me through lies.

On the day Clinton conceded, I immediately backed Obama. This infuriated many of Hillary’s fans, which resulted in the same thing Obama’s fan boys did in reverse, add in the oh, so cruel de-linking from dozens of blogs where I was considered a “traitor,” which I still hear to this day.

Many of these same people became “pumas,” a group I disavowed and fought against from the start, including in every media forum where I was asked, on cable networks across the spectrum. It was obvious “puma” was going to try to hurt Barack Obama’s candidacy, which also meant hurting Hillary, so I twisted the arm of a blogger to guest post here until the Democratic convention, with a few of her posts here, here, here, here.

Liberalism means something to me and anyone trying to ignore it or destroy it deserves what he or she gets. That my analysis is solid infuriates many Obama loyalists, but the foundation of my criticisms directed toward Pres. Obama is that he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about Democratic principles, priorities or policies. The noise from fan boys and girls in my direction is because they can’t take the truth.

The other day I began a column with the following sentence: “If you want one reason why Pres. Obama doesn’t deserve reelection this is it.”

That was before the Washington Post broke the story that had been floating for weeks and weeks, which is that Obama was going to serve up the New Deal for real, something I’d warned about in November 2007. I could broaden the economic criticism to include matters of war and more war, because our Nobel Prize-winning President has created no peace, with his Bushesque stubbornness on Afghanistan proving the point, along with his illegal military action in Libya.

On the other side, after the post went up, more than one person suggested that Sarah Palin is the alternative! It’s puma, circa 2012, and just as delusional. Palin’s fans are the bookend on the Right to Obama fans, both sides infatuated with their One, with “pumas” part of this problem as well.

The notion that I’d ever vote for anyone like Palin who believes freedom is just for men is ludicrous, though it would be great fun to see Sarah freak out the current Republican field by running. But with Michele Bachmann tearing up Iowa, what’s the point of Palin? Her fans will provide an answer for that question, I’m sure.

What’s ensued under Pres. Obama’s watch has been deplorable, but nothing surprising to me, which amounts to a sell out of Democratic Party ideals for one man and his administration. What he’s done to the Democratic brand is incalculable, starting with moving the debate far right, which has set up Republicans in a dream scenario.

That is, if the American people didn’t have their say, too. Read the latest in the Pew Poll to see just how badly Pres. Obama has handled the public’s trust, which he no longer deserves.

Anyone who thinks I am obligated to aid Pres. Obama’s reelection because I’m a liberal is sadly mistaken. I’m under one obligation and that is to tell the truth as I see it and provide political analysis that, at its best, hopefully helps you get clarity on your own thoughts.

Barack Obama came into office with the people, the press and the world at his feet. What he’s done with the power he had in 2008 is nothing short of political malpractice, with his lack of leadership on the debt ceiling debate not only a travesty, but an embarrassment for Democrats and a horror for voters who put their trust in Obama’s hands.

There’s no way in hell Hillary would have been humiliated by Republicans as Obama has been in economic negotiations and there’s no flipping way she’d have served up entitlements. I don’t say this as a “fan,” but as someone who knew the record and the philosophical underpinnings of the politician I supported.

Obama loyalists can’t say that about him, because he hasn’t any.

Liberalism is the shining philosophical star that can change the world, set women free, marginalize misogynistic religious zealots and stabilize countries and regions around the world, equalize injustice and open doors to a wondrous future. We need more of it, not less.

There is no reason to support Barack Obama for the sake of it or because he’s not as bad as whoever is on the Right, because there’s no evidence that’s true. There’s not a Republican around who could force Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid cuts down Democratic throats and likely wouldn’t try.

Pres. Obama is not our friend. If you think he is, you’re part of the problem, too.

The post Fan Politics appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

Let’s see, Gaza or gossip, which shall it be? For almost every news outlet this week it was the latter, while the former is where the action is. From James Zogby writing over at Huffington Post:

When it comes to issues involving Israel, politicians in Washington can become quite hysterical, making the dumbest remarks or doing the most illogical things. Evidence of such bizarre behavior abounds, and this week provided several examples.

Taking top prize would be newly-elected Republican Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois. Kirk wants the U.S. to use military assets to stop the humanitarian flotilla on its way to Gaza. He wrote that the United States should “make available all necessary special operations and naval support to the Israeli Navy to effectively disable flotilla vessels before they can pose a threat to Israeli coastal security or put Israeli lives at risk”.

[...] … All this might just be dismissed as “political pandering” or more “harmless hot air” from politicians who specialize in both. But it is dangerous and has consequences. In the first place, actions and statements like these send absolutely horrible messages overseas about the inability of American politics to deal fairly with any Middle East issue that involves Israel. And so these behaviors end up undercutting U.S. diplomacy. Secondly, these actions, and the bizarrely skewed, one-sided politics they reflect, tie the hands (or, at times, force the hands) of Administrations, negatively impacting the ability of policymakers to act. And finally, in the end, these comments and actions embolden hardliners in Israel and the Arab World, who both come to believe that there are no restraints on Israeli behavior and no way that Arab concerns will be heard or respected in U.S. policy debates.

However, it’s just not on the radar of the American media. Too dangerous. Controversial. Inflammatory. It makes network heads uncomfortable.

Instead it’s all about Who’s more pro Israel?, one of the most dangerous political games we play in this country. But at every presidential election, play it we do. Stacy has an “In the News” diary up about Sec. Clinton announcing administration talks with the Muslim Brotherhood, which on cue is freaking out the Right.

There’s nothing more serious than Middle East politics and it shouldn’t be treated as a political parlor game, but that’s exactly what Politico did this week. In a long, gossipy piece, Ben Smith traded on 2008 canard that Obama is an iffy friend of Israel by mining staunchly pro Clinton Jewish quarters to stir the currents of discontent. It’s a continuation of the conservative campaign to discredit Pres. Obama and portray him as soft on Israel, which is a falsehood, but some media outlets just can’t resist.

Smith has written about this before. Here’s an example of the well from which Smith drew his alleged proof:

“I’m hearing a tremendous amount of skittishness from pro-Israel voters who voted for Obama and now are questioning whether they did the right thing or not,” said Betsy Sheerr, the former head of an abortion-rights-supporting, pro-Israel PAC in Philadelphia, who said she continues to support Obama, with only mild reservations. “I’m hearing a lot of ‘Oh, if we’d only elected Hillary instead.’”

Even Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who spoke to POLITICO to combat the story line of Jewish defections, said she’d detected a level of anxiety in a recent visit to a senior center in her South Florida district.

[...] The qualms that many Jewish Democrats express about Obama date back to his emergence onto the national scene in 2007. Though he had warm relations with Chicago’s Jewish community, he had also been friends with leading Palestinian activists, unusual in the Democratic establishment. And though he seemed to be trying to take a conventionally pro-Israel stand, he was a novice at the complicated politics of the America-Israel relationship, and his sheer inexperience showed at times.

Why does being “friends with leading Palestinian activists” make Obama less pro-Israel?

It takes a friend to tell you the truth sometimes, with Obama’s stance on Israeli settlements something that most experts agree must be dealt with by PM Netanyahu, though on the denial goes.

All of this precipitated by anxieties from a very small but vocal minority, with all hell breaking loose again when Pres. Obama stated, then defended, that Israelis and Palestinians should begin with the 1967 borders, with land swaps.

Now it appears Obama’s supporters are readying to hit back at this continuing media meme. From Greg Sargent:

A group of well-known figures in the Jewish community has been in discussions with senior Obama adviser David Axelrod about how to respond to the criticism, which is expected to intensify as the campaign heats up. Among them: Alan Solow, the former head of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; former Congressmen Mel Levine and Robert Wexler; and executive Penny Pritzker.

“We will have highly credible spokespeople and surrogates speak out in a general manner in support of what this administration has done, and articulate it in a way that we think will resonate with voters who care about this issue,” Solow said in an interview. “We will meet with supporters who have expressed concerns or want to be briefed on these issues on a one-on-one basis.”

“We got close to 80 percent of the vote among Jewish Americans in 2008, but we had to aggressively bat down efforts to divide the community and to inflame,” David Axelrod told me. “Plainly we have to be at least as assiduous about it this time. If we’re passive in response it would be a mistake.”

Politico’s Smith got in the usual comments, with divisions quickly revealed or satisfied when the name of Dennis Ross is invoked:

The qualms that many Jewish Democrats express about Obama date back to his emergence onto the national scene in 2007. Though he had warm relations with Chicago’s Jewish community, he had also been friends with leading Palestinian activists, unusual in the Democratic establishment. And though he seemed to be trying to take a conventionally pro-Israel stand, he was a novice at the complicated politics of the America-Israel relationship, and his sheer inexperience showed at times.

A Philadelphia Democrat and pro-Israel activist, Joe Wolfson, recalled a similar progression.

“What got me past Obama in the recent election was Dennis Ross — I heard him speak in Philadelphia and I had many of my concerns allayed,” Wolfson said. “Now, I think I’m like many pro-Israel Democrats now who are looking to see whether we can vote Republican.”

Pres. Obama has deep challenges for 2012, but “pro-Israel Democrats” voting Republican isn’t a main one.

Our media is incredibly juvenile when it comes to covering the Middle East. Intramural political gossip substituting for serious mining of the challenges in the region continue to be the norm.

James Zogby noted what’s said around here a lot.

And so, far from being harmless hysteria or just plain dumb, all this posturing can be damaging and dangerous. It is a good part of the reason why we are in the mess we are in the Middle East and why a just resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict appears to be so intractable.

Every time the media chooses gossip over big stories like what’s happening surrounding the Gaza flotilla, solving problems in the Middle East gets a little further away, which doesn’t help anyone, especially Israel.

That President Barack Obama would have popularized the phrase “audacity of hope,” after which we named our boat, now seems a cruel hoax, particularly as many of us recalled the high hopes we had once harbored for Obama the candidate. Instead of an “audacity of hope,” Obama the president has often displayed a “paucity of courage.” – Ray McGovern

The politics of “Israel versus the Palestinians,” which is the way the U.S. media reports on this region, as well as how our politicians play it, puts Pres. Obama in an untenable position.

The post Let’s Play ‘Who’s More Pro-Israel?’ appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

Bachmann told me in an interview Tuesday that she wouldn’t call herself a feminist—instead, she simply described herself as “pro-woman and pro-man.” When I pressed her on the matter, the Minnesota congresswoman said she sees herself as an “empowered American.” – Kirsten Powers

I’ve been waiting for this particular moment for a long time. The Hillary effect continues to produce political opportunities for women to break out, regardless of whether Michele Bachmann can rival Clinton’s 18 million cracks, though she’s on a course to be the first Republican female to win the caucus state of Iowa, much to T-Paw’s chagrin.

Political moments like this don’t come along often. This has the potential of being a seminal moment for the conservative movement and their outreach to women, though it remains to be seen whether the macho misogynists who run the Republican Party will see this for the historic opportunity it is.

Kirsten Powers gets the story, for which she deserves credit, with her Fox News channel access proving the perfect channel for Bachmann to broadcast the message. That it happens to be the most important breakthrough for the Right where women are concerned is undeniable, though we’ll have to wait to see if they understand what Michele Bachmann has done. I doubt she even knows the importance of what she said, because it takes a feminist to see it.

I’ve written about this for quite some time, wondering what woman on the Right would go beyond contorted conservative feminist-esque rhetoric by offering a positive alternative vision for Republican femmes that left their lame and divisive selective “pro life” mantra behind.

Then along comes a so-called gafferiffic “flake” named Michele Bachmann, the first politically competent conservative female to run for the presidency, offering a free at last path. That she did so in an off the cuff comment to a Democratic feminist is precious.

After watching Palin’s tortured conservative feminist cry when she spoke at the Susan B. Anthony event last year, I wondered when, if ever, conservative females would finally give up the ghost on feminism, a model that can never fit or worked for them, which history has proven. Asking continually why conservatives don’t disavow feminism, with the only answer from the Right sniping derision, which came off as petulant defensiveness.

Since Phyllis Schlafly ruined the Right’s coolness, the Republican Party has been struggling to break out of their past restraints and go beyond their abortion rights opponent stance and selective “pro life” mantra. That Bachmann’s comment comes when modern women are now primarily focused on economic issues makes the timing perfect.

Mrs. Bachmann could potentially change the conservative playing field, going well beyond Schlafly, as well as Sarah Palin’s unimaginative verbal femme contortions, while mining a seminal Republican talking point that is actually modern. Bachman’s premise is that women no longer need a separate activist wing to get what’s due them. Nothing fits the Supreme Court Wal-Mart decision era more perfectly than Bachmann’s “empowered American” mantra, coming in an age of austerity and amidst the Obama era’s diminished capacity for fighting for Democratic Party principles.

Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has also added to her authenticity while giving Republican female conservatives a genuine path to rhetorical relevancy.

The opening for them came in the 2010 midterms, with women breaking evenly for Republicans and Democrats.

For four decades, the Republican struggle among female voters has been tortured, with the last conservative star Sarah Palin adding to the pretzel logic by declaring an “emerging conservative feminist identity,” a ludicrous pronouncement, because there can be no such thing as “conservative feminism.”

You simply cannot be a feminist if you do not support women’s full freedoms, which the Right clearly does not. Their war against women, which is being waged through their Planned Parenthood assault, but also demeaning women’s personhood through state government ultrasound pregnancy tests, “heartbeat” bills and other invasive laws directed only at pregnant women, proves it conclusively, even as these onerous legislative laws make a mockery of “small government conservatism,” which now only aims to control women’s lives on the wings of extreme ideology.

Into this Michele Bachmann steps, not only declaring the Right’s separate status on the political playing field by rejecting the feminist label outright, but she instead simply offers another label saying she’s an “empowered American.”

Shorter Bachmann: Modern conservative women don’t need your stickin’ feminism. This is the 21st century and I’m an “empowered American.” It’s brilliant, for her purposes and for the agenda of the Republican Party.

It ends the Right’s feminist problem by refusing to play in that ballpark, which has always been the road to set Republicans free.

Most importantly for consevatives, it disavows a concept that’s weakened Republicans and made them seem anti-women, which they are, though with this rebranding they jump beyond the ’70s to a time when new generations have no loyalty to feminism or the times that forged the laws that aid women across the board, no matter a woman’s politics.

Feminism did the work, now Bachmann is trying to lead conservative women beyond the movement that hamstrung Republicans with women for 40 years, while also allowing Bachmann to run for president in a party that doesn’t respect women’s freedoms. Feminism made Bachmann’s “empowered American” possible, because of gains made through this movement. Hey, but who cares, right? Certainly anything that attempts to wash away feminism is good for the Republican Right.

Bachmann affirms equality unequivocally, with no separate status of “feminist” required for her. She is daring Republicans and the conservative Right to break with the divisive and retro “feminazi” Rush ranting and bashing once and for all.

With “empowered American,” Michele Bachmann looks modern, dare I say it, even post-feminism, a term Republicans have tried to use but no one bought, because they couldn’t sell it. But as women now turn to economics as their primary concern the moment is ripe.

This is potentially a phenomenal political moment for Republicans.

However, Republicans and conservatives like Michele Bachmann still can’t effectively answer the most important question of all: Is freedom just for men?

But they don’t care, because for conservatives, invoking God is the answer for everything else.

The post Bachmann Carves New Path on Feminism for Conservative Women appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

Two events on Monday of this week added to the conversations about marriage equality. One was from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who talked about international LGBT rights as “human rights.” And one from White House press secretary Jay Carney – responding to questions about marriage between same-gender couples from The Wall Street Journal’s Laura Meckler and Bill Press from The Bill Press Show – who talked about “states’ right”. It’s worth noting, as does Metro Weekly’s Chris Geidner, that Meckler and Press are not among the “Five writers with LGBT outlets or known for their LGBT writing” who were at the briefing, but not called on by Carney.

The context for both are the unhappy sounds from Queerdom and allies regarding the Obama administration’s spins on LGBT rights, at this moment, particularly marriage equality. To be clear, Clinton’s speech was not a response to the New York vote or a direct challenge to Obama, in whose cabinet she serves. But the contrast between LGBT equality framed as “human rights” and “states’ rights” is still relevant.

On Monday, Clinton spoke at an event co-hosted by the Department of State, and Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies. The scheduled event was in celebration of LGBT Pride Month, and included a panel discussion lead by Under Sec. Maria Otero regarding the status of LGBT people around the world.

You can read the transcript of Clinton’s remarks here. Video here.

She began:

… this is an especially momentous and extraordinary time for us to meet for the State Department’s annual Pride celebration, the third event we’ve had here at State since I became Secretary, and the first following the historic vote in New York, which I think gives such visibility and credibility to everything that so many of you have done over so many years …

Later in the speech, she added this:

If you followed closely … the debate in New York, one of the key votes that was switched at the end was a Republican senator from the Buffalo area who became convinced that it was just not any longer fair for him to see one group of his constituents as different from another. Senators stood up and talked about nieces and nephews and grandchildren and others who are very dear to them, and they don’t want them being objectified or discriminated against. And from their own personal connections and relationships, they began to make the larger connection with somebody else’s niece or nephew or grandchild and what that family must feel like.

No, she doesn’t say, “I support marriage equality,” and yes, I wish she would. Of course, as long as she’s Sec. of State, it’s highly unlikely she will. We’ll see about later. But I think it’s worth noting who she singles out: “a Republican senator from Buffalo.” Obviously the focus should be at the state level, not DC. But I, at least, find it significant that there is no mention of the Obama administration’s position on marriage equality. The only way she could have done that, of course, would have been to follow the same strange story line coming out of the WH, which among other things, emphasizes the right of states to make such decisions.

As AmericaBlog’s Sudbay writes about the WH “sticking with the ‘it’s for the states to decide’ talking point”:

This is when we realize that the White House really is very insular. The people who work there must have no concept of how ridiculous their talking points on same-sex marriage sound in the real world … .

I’d just add, Insider and Access individuals and organizations who continue indefinite support of the administration which is using such “talking points” also appear “very insular.”

Clinton goes on to highlight some of the successful efforts toward LGBT human rights on the international scene, from Honduras to Slovakia, as well as steps taken in the UN, including by the Human Rights Council, two weeks ago, which passed “the first ever UN resolution recognizing the human rights of LGBT people worldwide.” She notes, however, that “all this progress is worth celebrating, but we cannot forget how much work lies ahead. Because let’s just face the facts: LGBT people in many places continue to endure threats, harassment, violence … in public and private.”

As for that Carey “states’ rights” press briefing, an excerpt, via Metro Weekly:

Meckler asked, ‘[L]ast week the President spoke about gay marriage when he
was in New York and … talked about how this has been the province of the state … referring to what was happening in the debate in New York, he said that’s the power of democracy at work. Does that mean that he also respects the outcome of democracy at work in California where voters rejected the idea of gay marriage?’ …

MR. CARNEY: Well, I think as you saw in the decision we announced that we would no longer – this administration would no longer be participants defending the Defense of Marriage Act because we do not believe it’s constitutional, that it’s precisely because of his belief that this was a matter that needs to be decided by the states. So without commenting on a particular other state, I think he was making that clear with regard to the action in New York

Carney’s responses to follow-up questions from Meckler, and then from Press, didn’t get any better.

In addition to Clinton’s speech providing some comparison and context, Carey’s remarks also came as not only LGBTs and “progressives,” but mainstream media and conservatives, question Obama’s stance on marriage equality. From a column by Maureen Dowd in which she writes “Our president likes to be on both sides at once,” and an NY Times editorial, “Gay Marriage: Where’s Mr. Obama?,” to comments from former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum in which he says, “I was wrong about same-sex marriage,” and the reports that, among other Republicans, Ken Melhman, former head of the RNC, “played a key role in the NY marriage victory” – it’s clear that a “states’ rights” framing isn’t working.

I’m not sure which is worse: If the WH doesn’t realize that, or if it does and continues with the spin anyway. Whatever, it’s certainly not an example of leading. Or even of very good politics.

(An earlier, “In the News” version of this piece has additional quotes from Secretary of State Clinton’s “The Human Rights of LGBT People and U.S. Foreign Policy” speech.)

The post Queer Talk: ‘Human Rights’ (Hillary), ‘States’ Rights’ (Obama) appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

Forget political pedigree, executive experience or ties to deep-pocketed donors. No Republican presidential candidate is better positioned to capitalize on the recent tide of conservative anger toward President Barack Obama than Michele Bachmann. Her charisma and crossover appeal to both social and fiscal conservatives have the three-term Minnesota congresswoman rising in the polls and primed to make a serious impact on the GOP nomination fight. – Bachmann well-positioned for Iowa, and maybe beyond

So, the Hillary effect continues to pave the way for women, bringing forth the first serious right-wing conservative candidate with a worthy resume, Michele Bachmann, who has just announced her candidacy in Iowa.

photo via Jon Karl on Twitter

CNN’s Peter Hamby’s “charisma and crossover appeal to both social and fiscal conservatives” narrative gets it right.

Coming off her Fox News interview clash with Chris Wallace, today Michele Bachmann continues to gain traction with Republicans. But as Karl Rove said several weeks ago with Bill O’Reilly, the path to the presidency via the House is arduous, dismal and unsuccessful.

The National Journal has an interesting piece on Bachmann:

Bachmann goes out of her way to portray herself as a different kind of Republican. In an interview with National Journal last month, she talked about her teenage years as a Democrat (she worked on Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign), her post-doctorate degree in tax law, and the business she started with her husband, Marcus. As she has in other forums, Bachmann also spoke about the 23 foster kids the couple raised in addition to their own five biological children. “People don’t necessarily think of a Republican, especially a conservative Republican, as having a heart, much less compassion,” she said.

[...] All the while professing great admiration for Sarah Palin, Bachmann appears irked by the seemingly inevitable association between her and the 2008 vice presidential nominee. Both are polarizing figures who appeal to—and turn off—the same constituencies. But there is at least one striking difference between the two: While Palin remains at war with what she calls “the lame-stream media,” granting her only extended recent interviews to Fox News (where she’s employed as a commentator), Bachmann has opened her office and her life to the press. She’s also showing she has a lower gear: In an interview Sunday on CBS News’s Face the Nation, Bachmann more narrowly focused her criticism of Obama on his stewardship of the economy and suggested she regretted calling him “anti-American” in 2008.

Bachmann is understandably “irked” by the Palin association. While Sarah readies for her close-up in Iowa over a movie meant to reinvent her, Bachmann’s running for president with her stock going up on the Right every day, but not because of some publicity stunt. It’s because as she goes into the “lamestream” media’s sights she seems to have learned from her innumerable gaffes, with the pros on her team schooling her on being a disciplined candidate, with Bachmann humble and willing enough to listen, which is paying off.

Sarah Palin’s refusal to listen to Roger Ailes after the Loughner tragedy in Arizona is a prime example of why Sarah’s seen as frivolously silly in comparison.

Oh, how the flop sweat inside team Timmy Pawlenty’s campaign headquarters must by pungent about now.

There is no right-wing Republican candidate that can take it to Pres. Obama better than Bachmann. It’s early, but she’s making a case that she’d be a formidable vice presidential candidate on the GOP ticket, especially if Romney continues to soar with the establishment, if Republicans can get over their Sarah Palin veep disaster nighmares. Unlike Palin, in a debate with Joe Biden, Michele Bachmann wouldn’t be forced to ignore questions because she couldn’t answer them or rely on tricks to remember Biden’s name.

Bachmann won’t get the credit, but right-wing politics aside, she’s the first credible conservative female candidate in modern Republican Party history.

And though I don’t expect a nomination fight to rival 18 million cracks in the presidential glass ceiling, it’s always a good day when competent, serious females vie for the highest office in the land and in the modern world. It’s just alarming that women like Bachmann are doing it on a platform that includes taking freedoms away from women.

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With each equivocation, the man in the Oval Office shields his identity and cloaks who the real Barack Obama is. – Maureen Dowd

In a dead on devastating piece, I still have to say… Come come, Ms. Dowd, surely you jest.

Barack Obama is The Great Equivocator. It’s who he is.

Nate Silver provides important perspective:

But the type of leadership that Mr. Cuomo exercised — setting a lofty goal, refusing to take no for an answer and using every tool at his disposal to achieve it — is reminiscent of the stories sometimes told about with President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had perhaps the most impressive record of legislative accomplishment of any recent president.

It’s also a brand of leadership that many Democrats I speak with feel is lacking in President Obama.

This screen capture of the White House homepage, which has been live until recently, is representative of Barack Obama. When I visited the White House site and this image came up I found it jarring. Just why did Obama reelect pick this photo of Obama looking upward (an image they’ve used before), making it appear he’s got his head in the clouds and his nose in the air? It’s the oddest, most out of touch photo possible, aloof, but it does have a regal air to it reflecting the hubris of the man and his presidency. Someone who doesn’t so much care about people’s concerns as he does about projecting an image he finds presidential, even if it makes him look unreachable, out of touch, which it remains, with his “leadership” more in the minds of his speechwriters than in evidence through his actions.

As for Dowd invoking Catholic clergy, because of his two-faced political marketing he’s actually worse than New York’s Archbishop Timothy Dolan she mentions in her column, who as a representative of the Catholic Church is predictably reprehensible on marriage equality. Remember that the Catholic Church won’t give women power either and they actually might have been able to save these corrupt men from raping and pillaging the youth of the young boys under their charge.

More from Dowd:

The man who was able to beat the Clintons in 2008 because the country wanted a break from Clintonian euphemism and casuistry is now breaking creative new ground in euphemism and casuistry.

Obama is “evolving” on the issue of gay marriage, which, as any girl will tell you, is the first sign of a commitment-phobe.

Maybe, given all his economic and war woes as he heads into 2012, Obama fears the disapproval of the homophobic elements within his own party. But he has tried to explain his reluctance on gay marriage as an expression of his Christianity, even though he rarely goes to church and is the picture of a secular humanist.

While picking up more than three-quarters of a million dollars from 600 guests at a gay and lesbian fund-raising gala in Manhattan on Thursday night, the president declared, “I believe that gay couples deserve the same legal rights as every other couple in this country,” even as he held to his position that the issue should be left to the states to decide.

I don’t know what people like Ms. Dowd have to see in order to understand that Pres. Obama is taking the stance on gay marriage equality, because he’s trying to protect the part of his base, including people beyond the Democratic Party, that he cannot survive 2012 without, including African American and Hispanic churchgoers, a serious segment of the Dem base, but whom he feels cannot be lobbied or convinced to change their minds.

Andrew Cuomo is a corporate Democrat in the great tradition of our two-party duopoly, but he made Pres. Obama look like a mouse.

It’s not about Obama’s own religious beliefs. This is about Obama’s craven political opportunism, which mimics most every other ordinary politicians seeking reelection. His problem is he now is to the Right of New York Republicans.

It’s completely understandable that people don’t want to believe Barack Obama is who he is. I gladly voted for the man in ’08 and don’t regret it at all given the alternative. John Aravosis wants to believe the best, which I appreciate.

However, I’m not in the business of partisan fan politics anymore. I simply say it as I see it.

Pres. Obama is voting “present” on marriage equality.

While taking the LGBT’s money, he proves this community is too trusting and refuses to understand he’s only your friend when he’s got cover (see DADT). Like any president who wants a second term he’s thinking of himself and Obama reelect simply believes marriage equality will cost him the 2012 election, so they won’t fight for it, because he rarely fights for anything but Bushesque wars, proving Barack Obama is an old style mediocre politician from our 20th century past, contrary to his herculean marketing hype.

Perhaps it’s time for the LGBT community to take a lesson from Richard Trumka. Sure, he will likely land in Obama’s court come 2012, but he’s not going to play the sucker for nothing.

The Great Equivocator has spoken. “Evolving” is simply a word to keep people hanging on and it’s working, as Obama reelect knew it would.

But now that Republican New Yorkers have broken the LGBT community’s way, isn’t it time this community decoupled itself from Pres. Obama to see what can be accomplished beyond him, especially since Pres. Obama’s clearly not an ally on marriage equality?

The post The Great Equivocator appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

The Co-Chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus Peace and Security Taskforce call on Congress and the President to immediately end our war in Libya. The US has been engaged in hostilities for over 90 days without congressional approval, which undermines not only the powers of the legislative branch but also the legal checks and balances put in place nearly 40 years ago to avoid abuse by any single branch of government.

We call on our colleagues in Congress to exercise their legitimate authority and oversight and immediately block any funding for this war. Before the Executive branch further weakens the War Powers Resolution, and before we attack another country in the name of our “responsibility to protect,” we must recommit ourselves to our Constitutional duty and obligation to hold the purse strings and the right to declare war. For decades, the House recognized the need for appropriate checks and balances before another war was waged. We must do the same. We call on Congress to exhibit similar foresight by promptly ending this war and pledging to uphold the laws that characterize America’s commitment to democratic governance.

This statement makes a mockery of the obsequiese White House stenography in the Politico piece entitled “Libya vote a rebuke the White House can live with.”

____________original column below____________

Congress proved its ineptitude, with David Dayen having a perfect description of Speaker Boehner’s incompetence, which cost him the votes of Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann. Say what you will about Nancy Pelosi, but she wouldn’t bring up such a critical vote if she didn’t have the numbers.

To sum up House preferences on Libya: we don’t like POTUS not asking us for permission, but we don’t want any responsibility either. – Daniel Drezner

Politico has the rundown on the arm twisting, with three dozen Dems voting to rebuke Pres. Obama, ignoring Sec. Clinton’s campaign for him, while stopping shy of using their power of the purse:

It appears that a last-minute White House lobbying effort to stave off Democratic defections worked — at least on the spending-limitation bill. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked House Democrats to back their president in a closed-door meeting in the Capitol Thursday, and National Security Adviser Tom Donilon summoned a small group of liberals to the Situation Room at 7 a..m. Friday morning for a classified briefing that may have influenced a handful of votes.

Still, the House rejection of a one-year authorization of the use of force in Libya earlier on Friday represented the most serious congressional challenge to the president’s war-making authority in more than a decade. It was a symbolic vote, but one that was felt on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Now comes Josh Rogin with an “exclusive” confirming what was said on the audio here by “Buck” McKeon (h/t BF), with Rogin naming the man making the assassination allegations.

So, regardless of the Obama administration saying they are not trying to assassinate Libya’s Gadhafi that’s exactly what’s going on, to no one’s surprise. From Rogin:

House Armed Services Committee member Mike Turner (R-OH) told The Cable that U.S. Admiral Samuel Locklear, commander of the NATO Joint Operations Command in Naples, Italy, told him last month that NATO forces are actively targeting and trying to kill Qaddafi, despite the fact that the Obama administration continues to insist that “regime change” is not the goal and is not authorized by the U.N. mandate authorizing the war.

“The U.N. authorization had three components: blockade, no fly zone, and civil protection. And Admiral Locklear explained that the scope of civil protection was being interpreted to permit the removal of the chain of command of Qaddafi’s military, which includes Qaddafi,” Turner said. “He said that currently is the mission as NATO has defined.”

“I believed that we were [targeting Qaddafi] but that confirmed it,” Turner said. “I believe the scope that NATO is pursuing is beyond what is contemplated in civil protection, so they’re exceeding the mission.”

Now, I’m not squeamish in the least about killing Gadhafi in a declared war where our vital interests are at stake, providing Congress weighs in to approve the funding and the action.

But Pres. Obama waging a “kinetic military action” with NATO as a fig leaf for an assassination plot to effect regime change is something else, especially when the President is doing it on the fly, without oversight and by lying to the American people about what he’s doing.

Pres. Obama has chosen a path that pretends we’re not at war or that “hostilities” don’t exist, as he tries to dance around the War Powers Act. The Pentagon blew this out of the water by giving “imminent danger” pay to “service members who fly planes over Libya or serve on ships within 110 nautical miles of its shores,” as reported by the Washington Post.

All of this kabuki while NATO targets Gadhafi for assassination, because Pres. Obama waved his commander in chief wand.

There goes the republic.

The post Obama Loses Dems as Reports of Gadhafi Assassination Plan Surface **UPDATED** appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

From Chris Cilliza, who doesn’t believe Van Jones can replicate on the Left what the Tea Party did on the Right. Of course, Cilizza says it’s “unlikely,” which in traditional journo speak means not a chance in hell.

“We think we can do what the tea party did,” Jones said in an interview with The Fix. “They stepped forward under a common banner, and everybody took them seriously. Polls suggest there are more people out there who have a different view of the economy, but who have not stepped forward yet under a common banner.”

Cilizza gets points from me for using “liberal” in the title of his post. I’ve never called myself a progressive, though I support most of what movement progressives are doing and admire them greatly. I just don’t have much use for congressional progressives and their caucus who caved on health care, causing more grief for Democrats than if they’d stood up and fought.

Unlike One Nation, in which long-standing liberal groups agreed to collaborate, Jones’ movement is hoping to attract people who are ideologically aligned but not politically active. Those people will define their own goals. But Jones is also in conversations with many of the labor and civil-rights groups that were involved in the One Nation effort. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka recorded a web video for the campaign.

Institutional involvement does not go against the tea-party model. The tea-party movement has its own benefactors — Americans for Prosperity, Our Country Deserves Better PAC, and other groups backed by longtime Republican donors and strategists. Those groups capitalized on disparate protest movements around the country, many of whom say they have no connection to the political battles fought in their name.

Still, it will likely be hard to get liberals and supporters of more progressive economic policy to rally in the same way. Tea-party activists tend to be wealthy and well-educated; Jones is hoping to reach unemployed veterans, struggling homeowners, and other groups who likely have less time to organize and grow more politically active…

I’m skeptical for one reason. If you’re going to stand up to feckless Democratic “leadership” the place to start would have been to primary Pres. Obama, no matter the outcome or the inevitable race-baiting that would occur. But because the inevitable would have manifested in a loss it wasn’t attempted. There is simply no evidence that today’s progressive Democrats have the taste for the jugular you have to have to become a Left version of the Tea Party, a group that takes no political prisoners.

A debate on Pres. Obama adopting Bush foreign policy tactics, as well as adopting Republican economics, would have been worthy of the effort. Because no one person is more important than the liberal policies that have allowed generations of Americans to maintain middle class lifestyles in the midst of herculean efforts to stack the deck for the richest against the working class who made American the great country it’s been since founded.

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When Sec. Clinton was first chosen for her job at State some were skeptical she’d have Pres. Obama’s back when it was needed. There was never a doubt in my mind, however, that she would not only be a team player, but one of Pres. Obama’s strongest advocates. It’s who she is, because she knows what a president needs and expects from those inside his administration, especially when he gets himself in trouble.

The rhetorical tactic Clinton uses to make her case on Libya while in Jamaica during a question and answer period, which the State Dept. chose to highlight in a video clip that can’t be embedded, is unbefitting a person of her stature, as she suggests those in Congress questioning Obama on Libya check his or her loyalties.

So I know we live in a hyper-information-centric world right now, and March seems like it’s a decade ago, but by my calendar, it’s only months. And in those months, we have seen an international coalition come together unprecedented between not only NATO, but Arab nations, the Arab League, and the United Nations. This is something that I don’t think anyone could have predicted, but it is a very strong signal as to what the world expects to have happen, and I say with all respect that the Congress is certainly free to raise any questions or objections, and I’m sure I will hear that tomorrow when I testify.

But the bottom line is, whose side are you on? Are you on Qadhafi’s side or are you on the side of the aspirations of the Libyan people and the international coalition that has been created to support them? For the Obama Administration, the answer to that question is very easy.

This is the type of reprehensible rhetoric that Sen. Clinton abhorred when she was criticizing Pres. George W. Bush. But now that it’s a Democratic president, she hypocritically chooses the cowards way out by challenging critics in a way that she wouldn’t if Obama was a Republican.

It’s always been clear to me that Libya could come back to haunt Pres. Obama and those who helped him make this disastrous decision, which includes Sec. Hillary Clinton, along with Samantha Power and U.N. ambassador Dr. Susan Rice, among others. So, it’s circle the wagons time. People are obviously getting nervous, with TIME magazine showing the dangers as the Libya misadventure drags on.

Even if NATO can accomplish its objective or drives Gadhaffi out, it still doesn’t make Pres. Obama’s decision right or legal.

More from John Burns in the New York Times from earlier this week:

Originally envisaged as lasting a matter of weeks, the air campaign is now into its fourth month. It has seen NATO conduct nearly 12,000 air missions over Libya, about one-third of them involving strikes by bombs or missiles, some of them seemingly intended to kill the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

The airstrikes have virtually obliterated Colonel Qaddafi’s Bab al-Aziziya command compound in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, and reduced the fighting capacity of the Libyan forces by about 50 percent, according to Pentagon estimates. But there has been no sign that the Qaddafi government is at risk of crumbling under the pressure, at least not soon.

Much of the pressure NATO is facing over the Libyan operation comes from the dissent within NATO itself, with some member nations saying the campaign has gone beyond the mandate given by a United Nations Security Council resolution in mid-March that approved NATO action to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya and to undertake other missions to protect the country’s civilian population from the Qaddafi forces.

As Clinton’s bookend and to illustrate the political gamesmanship going on from all quarters, let’s also look at Sen. Mitch McConnell’s remarks:

MCCONNELL: The only thing I can tell you at this point is that there are differences. I’m not sure that these kind of differences might not have been there in a more latent form when you had a Republican president. But I do think there is more of a tendency to pull together when the guy in the White House is on your side. So I think some of these views were probably held by some of my members even in the previous administration, but party loyalty tended to mute them. So yeah, I think there are clearly differences and I think a lot of our members, not having a Republican in the White House, feel more free to express their reservations which might have been somewhat muted during the previous administration.

Now you know why Congress and the Executive Branch don’t work like the founders intended, which is why this country is so profoundly screwed up. It’s all petty politics depending on if your side is being hit and is in power or not. Sec. Clinton and Sen. McConnell openly representing the worst of this example in their comments, proving the juvenile leadership being affllicted on foreign policy decisions, among others.