Time to call in the Dogs

Darrell Issa has been doing his damnedest to try to drag Obama into a scandal, but so far has only looked like the Congressional version of Glenn Beck with all his half-brained conspiracy theories. Issa simply won't let go of Benghazi, calling Jay Carney a "paid liar" the other day,which brought condemnation from within his own ranks. But, the GOP mostly stays mum about their McCarthyite pit bull, thinking if he digs around enough he might actually find something that they can all gnaw on.

Meanwhile, Obama pretty much defused the "Verizongate" scandal, noting that they only tracked phone calls, not listened in, which the Patriot Act allows the administration to do. For that matter, all the police needs is a court order to do the same, and the Obama administration has that too. But, the media-generated scandal does call attention to the fact that the Patriot Act was renewed for the second time, which Obama signed onto in 2011. So, if Americans are that concerned with unwarranted eavesdropping then they better urge their Congresspersons to not renew it again in 2015.

Still, there is this overall impression by those on the Left that Obama is continuing many of the same policies initiated under Bush, resulting in this caricature, while the Right continues to vilify him any chance it gets. David Frum effectively argued in his last piece on The Daily Beast, that the GOP would be wise to refrain from shibboleths about Obama and focus more on strategy in the coming months, because the midterms currently favor the Democrats.

Obama's "middle of the road" approach seems to infuriate persons on both ends of the political spectrum. Yet, his approval rating holds steady in the face of all these faux scandals, which I imagine is why Republican leaders would like to see Issa back off. The GOP runs the danger of being viewed purely as scandalmongers.

Comments

O Pioneers!

It is hard not to think of Nebraska without thinking of its greatest writer. Here is a marvelous piece by Capote, Remembering Willa Cather . I remember seeing a stage production of O Pioneers! and being deeply moved by its raw emotions. I had read My Antonia before, and soon found myself hooked, like Capote was by the simple elegance of her prose and the way she was able to evoke so many feelings through her characters. Much of it came from the fact that she had lived those experiences herself. Her father dragged the family from Virginia to Nebraska in 1883, when it was still a young state, settling in the town of Red Cloud. named after one of the great Oglala chiefs. Red Cloud was still alive at the time, living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, in the aftermath of the "Great Sioux Wars" of 1876-77. I don't know whether Cather took any interest in the famous chief, although it is hard to imagine not. Upon his death in 1909, he was eulogi

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Colonel

Now with Colonel Roosevelt , the magnum opus is complete. And it deserves to stand as the definitive study of its restless, mutable, ever-boyish, erudite and tirelessly energetic subject. Mr. Morris has addressed the toughest and most frustrating part of Roosevelt’s life with the same care and precision that he brought to the two earlier installments. And if this story of a lifetime is his own life’s work, he has reason to be immensely proud. -- Janet Maslin -- NY Times . Let the discussion begin!

Dispatches from Vilnius

Search This Blog