Skip to main content

By The People

By

I found myself watching By The People: The Election of Barack Obama to remind myself why I voted for him.  Lately, I have to wonder what the hell is going on in his administration as they appear to be playing games rather than dealing directly with issues, such as this latest little play over and F-35 engine.  Meanwhile, Obama has put a lot of domestic cuts in his proposed budget while essentially leaving the defense budget in tact, leaving me to guess who he represents at this point in his administration. 

Comments

  1. avrdsFebruary 18, 2011 at 1:13 AM

    Moving to the center, assuming the Senate will catch his back.

    ReplyDelete
  2. MartiFebruary 18, 2011 at 2:13 AM

    I think he started at the center and moved right.

    ReplyDelete
  3. James FergusonFebruary 18, 2011 at 6:58 AM

    Reminding me more and more of Clinton as he absorbs the Right's agenda into his administration policy. Very disappointing, especially since he had some real domestic accomplishments he could point to, unlike Clinton.

    ReplyDelete
  4. James FergusonFebruary 18, 2011 at 9:40 AM

    This situation in Wisconsin may prove to be a watershed moment for Democrats who obviously sat on their collective ass these past midterms. Stunned that Wisconsin had turned red.

    ReplyDelete
  5. James FergusonFebruary 22, 2011 at 9:34 AM

    It just gets uglier, as Obama finds himself embroiled in yet another controversy,

    WASHINGTON – An American jailed in Pakistan for the fatal shooting of two armed men was secretly working for the CIA and scouting a neighborhood when he was arrested, a disclosure likely to further frustrate U.S. government efforts to free the man and strain relations between two countries partnered in a fragile alliance in the war on terror.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110222/ap_on_re_us/us_pakistan_detained_american

    Sure to stir up more unrest in Pakistan and other Muslim countries.

    ReplyDelete
  6. James FergusonMarch 4, 2011 at 10:24 AM

    Seems Barry has lost some of his Hollywood glamor,

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket/20110303/pl_yblog_theticket/matt-damon-joins-the-growing-list-of-celebrities-unhappy-with-president-obamaa

    I have to agree with Damon that Obama has misinterpreted his mandate. He needs to go back and watch this documentary on his campaign.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

By
  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
228 comments
Read more

Dylan in America

By
Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan.  Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose.  Looks like only yesterday.  Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.
182 comments
Read more

Team of Rivals Reading Group

By
''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005
293 comments
Read more