So you take a year to write a book on your heroic life and few people are interested in reading it. It’s at 343,222 on the Amazon ranking and sinking fast. What to do?

Easy. Take a page out of Arizona’s Gov. Jan Brewer’s playbook and start a confrontation with the President of the United States the next time he comes by for a visit. Make sure photographers get a good pic of you wagging your finger at the President in a manner which suggests he’s getting a well deserved scolding. And should the President not take the bait and instead remains cool and calm, follow Jan’s lead: spin the hell out of the story and tell the world how tense and awful it all was.

If you do all that, here’s what can happen to that book of yours.

…the governor has used her version of the encounter to get plenty of air time, seeing an increase in sales of her book which she has called a “truth telling” tome. Amazon ranked “Scorpions for Breakfast” at No. 7 on its best sellers list on Friday. The day of the event, the book had been at No. 343,222.

It’s that easy.  So go out there and put together that book you’ve always dreamed of writing. Worry little about the writing style and even less about making it truthful. It matters not. Brewer has been going around saying that her dad died fighting Nazis in WWII even though he died from lung cancer in California in 1955. So don’t get caught up in thinking your book has to be factual. It doesn’t. All that counts is that the book makes you look good and everyone else comes off as a putz.

Once the book is published, practice your ‘ooh, the big black man is scaring me’ look in the mirror. Do all that and you’re ready to invite Barack Obama for Sunday brunch and watch your book sales soar.

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There’s a lot out there on the President’s SOTU, so I’ll keep my thoughts short and sweet.

• The speech did what it had to do which was target liberals and independents and set in motion the 2012 election campaign.
• It took on the right’s case against him (weak, job-killing socialist) and threw it back in their face as the job-creating, bin Laden-killing, commander-in-chief willing to tackle the big problems facing the country.
• Made the case that the economy IS improving. Slow as the recovery might be, the numbers point to an economy which is in a better place than it was in 2009.
• Painted the opposition as the obstructionist, power hungry entity it is.
• And all this while coming off as the adult in the room.  What more do you want?

Whatever criticism liberals might have of this President, he did not disappoint last night and gave every indication that he’s more than ready to face Mitt or Newt.

UPDATE

Draw your own conclusions from this.

An overwhelming majority of Americans approved of the overall message in President Obama’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday night, according to a CBS News poll of speech watchers.

According to the poll, which was conducted online by Knowledge Networks immediately after the president’s address, 91 percent of those who watched the speech approved of the proposals Mr. Obama put forth during his remarks. Only nine percent disapproved.

Last year, 83 percent of viewers approved of Mr. Obama’s State of the Union remarks.

This year, 82 percent of those who watched the speech said they approve of the president’s plans for the economy, up from 53 percent who approved before the speech. Eighty percent said they approved of Mr. Obama’s plans for the deficit — in contrast to 45 percent before the speech. Eighty-three percent approved of Mr. Obama’s proposals regarding Afghanistan, which received only a 57 percent approval rating beforehand.

The sight of Democrats and Republicans sitting side by side gave speech watchers more confidence about the possibility of bipartisan cooperation: 62 percent said they expect more bipartisanship now than in years past.

Encouraging but the 62 percent who are expecting Republicans to play nice and compromise on some issues, sorry but it won’t happen. If you can be sure of anything in this election year, it’s that Republicans are going to obstruct any and all measures to create jobs and improve the economy.  Their only hope for victory in November, regardless of whom they choose as nominee, is that the economy deteriorates and unemployment climbs back up over 9 percent.

Bipartisanship?  Not from this crew of cutthroat, lying Republicans who refuse to place country before party.

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The following letter from a Dish reader is printed in its entirety.

Personally, I am praying that Obama’s messaging improves drastically. (It has failed on multiple occasions – not the least of which was during August/September of 2008.)

The truth is that this President has done a good job in what has been one of the most difficult periods of modern history. He saved the economy from ruin (until the Tea Party took over Congress) with a stimulus that was as large as possible given the political realities, presided over a stock market that fairly quickly recouped many of its losses, presided over almost consecutive monthly increases in private sector job growth (unfortunately balanced by monthly decreases in public sector jobs which I attribute to the GOP further starving government), enacted the only meaningful healthcare reform ever in our history, passed financial reform (no matter what the Left says, he did this), saved the auto industry (which Romney is on record opposing), fired the first salvo of the Arab Spring with his address in Cairo no less, drawn down our footprint in Iraq in a responsible way (and headed toward almost total withdrawal), stopped numerous terrorist attacks in this country, stopped torture as policy, repealed DADT, joined the international community in a measured and responsible way to bring down an odious tyrant in Qaddafi, and killed a whole generation of al Qaeda leaders. And taking out Osama bin Laden the way he did will go down as one of the bravest military actions in American history.

I know this President is not popular, and it is very unpopular to defend him in such a way. I don’t care. For this country to dump him for anyone on the other side would be a terrible thing. Progress is slow and painful, but we are doing it. Is that fashionable to say? No. Again, I don’t care.

Bottom line: If the administration fails to find a way to get the message out on its accomplishments and the economy shows no sign of recovery in the next 12 months, winning a second term will be iffy.  But if the White House does find a way to be heard above the noise, bullshit and misinformation, then regardless of the state of the economy, Barack Obama wins in 2012.  And doubly so given the pathetic field of candidates vying to become the Republican nominee.

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During World War II, the U.S. Office of Strategic Services was mandated to write up a psychological profile of Adolf Hitler.  As part of their report, they wrote the following of the madman:

His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

As I sat watching the Republican debate last night, it became more apparent than ever that the GOP’s demonization of Barack Obama, both the man and his record, was taken right out of Hitler’s playbook.  Their refusal to take blame in any measure for the current economic collapse either by way of George W. Bush’s policies or by their obstructionist ways over the last three years in preventing economic recovery would have made Adolf proud.  As would their tendency to not only spew lie after lie but to also ensure that the lies are so unbelievably huge that it makes the naive doubtful that anything so outrageous could be anything but the truth.  Last night’s debate was a perfect example.

Via Politifact:

WOLF BLITZER: “Gov. Perry, the president in his new plan has a lot of tax cuts, payroll tax cuts, middle-class tax cuts, tax credits for hiring veterans, tax credits for hiring long-term unemployed people. Are those things you would support?”

RICK PERRY: “And he’s going to pay for them all with raising your taxes. That is the issue. He had $800 billion worth of stimulus in the first round of stimulus. It created zero jobs, $400-plus billion dollars in this package. And I can do the math on that one. Half of zero jobs is going to be zero jobs.”

A blatant, “monstrous” lie which rated a Pants on Fire rating from the fact checkers.

…the president’s Council of Economic Advisers estimated that between 2.5 million and 3.6 million jobs were created or saved by the stimulus through the fourth quarter of 2010.

Separately, the council’s report cited four independent analyses by the Congressional Budget Office and three private economic analysis companies. Here’s what the groups found:

• CBO: Between 1.3 million and 3.6 million jobs saved or created.

• IHS/Global Insight: 2.45 million jobs saved or created.

• Macroeconomic Advisers: 2.3 million jobs saved or created.

• Moody’s Economy.com: 2.5 million jobs saved or created.

Then there was this beaut from Bachmann.

We know that President Obama stole over $500 billion out of Medicare to switch it to Obamacare.

Again, Politifact to the rescue.

The bill doesn’t take money out of the current Medicare budget but, rather, it attempts to slow the program’s future growth, curtailing just over $500 billion in anticipated spending increases over the next 10 years. Medicare spending will still increase, however. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects Medicare spending will reach $929 billion in 2020, up from $499 billion in actual spending in 2009.

And so it goes.  If the Office of Strategic Services was asked to write a psychological profile of today’s Republican party, here’s what they’d most likely write.

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Damn, I wish the following animation had it totally wrong but you do need to view it with this in mind.

(h/t: Foolocracy)

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The President has taken quite a beating over the last while from both conservatives and liberals. Yet his approval ratings are not as bad as one would expect, especially compared to the dismal numbers being posted by Congress, Republicans and teabaggers. Jonathan Capehart reminds us of what this President has been through over the first two and a half years of his term.

Ever since Obama walked through the doors of the Oval Office for the first time as president, he has been beset by one crisis after another that would sap his support or raise doubts about him and his leadership. There was the imploding economy in early 2009 and the actions taken to prevent another Depression; the politically debilitating health-care debate and the law that helped fuel the rise of the Tea Party and the loss of the House; the response to the gulf oil spill and the swine flu epidemic; the struggling economic recovery and frustration over the lack of jobs; the debt-ceiling fiasco; the delegitimizing birther nonsense that gained traction; and a Republican minority in the Senate and then a Republican majority in the House that see their sole purpose as thwarting anything that might be viewed as a success for the president, even if it might do right by the country.

Given all that, a 48 percent approval rating is damned impressive.

Compare the number in the latest NYT-CBS poll.

• Obama:  48% approval
• Boeher:  30% approval
• Republicans in Congress:  21%
• Democrats in Congress:  28%

When asked about who they would trust more to make the right decisions about the economy, the President or Republicans in Congress, Obama wins it hands down 47 to 33 percent. And despite the endless lies and spin put out by Republicans and conservative media over the economy and debt, 44% of respondents rightly put the blame for the budget deficit on Bush while only 15% place it on Obama. Nice. Teabaggers might be loud and boisterous and are the ones getting the headlines, but it is good to be reminded that they are nothing more than a minority.

It’s still too early to give up on this guy, especially given the alternatives available. There is much to criticize in the President’s handling of Republicans and one hopes that he’s finally come to the realization that there is no hope of bipartisanship with this gang of thugs and teabagging terrorists. Clearly, there is no reasoning with insanity. Republicans understand that their only chance for victory in 2012 is to continue with their mission to slow down economic recovery. On that front, they’re winning but polling indicates that Americans, for now, are still willing to put their money on this President.

Through the wreckage of the last month emerges Obama. Battered and bruised, for sure. But still standing.

Standing but teetering. Has the debt ceiling craziness taught him anything?

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A little over a week left before the August 2nd deadline to reach a deal and the Tea Party and Grover Norquist still have a stranglehold on Republicans in Congress.

Debt-reduction negotiations between President Obama and House Speaker John A. Boehner collapsed Friday, derailing an effort to reach a landmark agreement to cut spending, overhaul the tax code and avert a government default.

In subsequent statements, both sides blamed the other for an impasse that threatens to plunge the nation into a fiscal crisis if the government fails to meet a looming deadline to raise the federal debt ceiling.

Barack Obama offered Republicans a deal which was slanted further to the right than anything a Ronald Reagan could have imagined in his wildest dreams. And John Boehner said no. Boehner walked away from a deal which had over $1 trillion in cuts in domestic and defense spending as well as $650 billion in cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Make no mistake about it, Republicans have broken government. Their refusal to compromise even when presented with a proposal which could easily have been written by the most staunch of conservatives a few years back, is a grim reminder of their ultimate goal – take down this president at any cost. Republicans have made the conscience decision to sacrifice the economic welfare of their country in pursuit of that goal.

Andrew Sullivan:

Coming from abroad, this country seems as if it is beyond dysfunctional. It looks like a banana republic on the verge of economic collapse. Now that Nixon’s dream has come true and the GOP is fundamentally the party of the Confederacy, it was perhaps naive to think they could ever accept the legitimacy of this president, or treat him with respect or act as adults in the governing process.

But this is who they are. I longed for Obama to bridge this gulf in ideology. But he cannot bridge it alone, especially when the GOP is determined to burn the bridge entirely, even when presented with a deal so tilted to the right only true fanatics could possibly walk away from it. And so the very republic is being plunged into crisis and possible depression by a single, implacable, fanatical faction. Until they are defeated, the country remains in more peril than we know.

In a perfect world, the consequences of Republican’s indefensible actions would be isolated to the fools who empower the madmen at the voting booth – the Ailes’ zombies who have turned over all responsibility to reason for themselves to a right-wing lying, noise machine they pay allegiance to. The actions of a few has put into jeopardy the economic welfare of the U.S. and, in large measure, an entire world.

In this imperfect world, a minority of lunatics have taken over the asylum.
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For every idiot still clinging on to the memory of George W. Bush and whatever role they imagine he had in the death of Osama bin Laden, Andrew Sullivan has a message for you.

What’s staggering to me is how the right insisted, immediately after Obama’s inauguration, that all responsibility in the war on terror was now his, just as responsibility for the debt was now his, and the near-depression was now his. Any errors, even minor ones, were plastered on his face.

But more than two years later, the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden is primarily George W. Bush’s doing.

Unfuckingbelievable. Except, of course, it isn’t.

And leave it to another Brit to get it just right. Matthew Norman of The Independent:

But Obama did more than quell the screechings of the wingnuts, chat-show rabble-rousers, the Birthers and those we should term the Placentas (the After-Birthers who have now progressed to post-certificate conspiracy theories to question his legitimacy). He reminded the world why it fell in love with him in the first place.

[...]

People have criticised him for being “professorial” as well as arrogant. They will do so no longer. He pondered for months, studied the research, weighed up the evidence, and reached the right conclusion. This is one cool, tough prof, and the lesson he has taught by example won’t quickly be unlearnt.  [...]

If that sounds childishly simple, it defeated the simpleton Bush and his brutish cabal as they confused two-bit fake patriotism with American self-interest, and indiscriminate crusader cruelty with military wisdom. Let no one hear attempts to share Obama’s credit with Dubya without revulsion. He failed pitifully in this, as in almost every thing else, and even if waterboarding a key al-Qa’ida operative helped to identify the courier, it cannot begin to justify holding boys of 14 and senile 89-year-olds at Guantanamo Bay. Guantanamo remains open. Obama hasn’t honoured on every promise, nor will. He is not the Messiah, although if the Kool Aid truck has redelivered at last, make mine an octuple. For tempering vengeance with mercy, by refusing to reckon countless civilian lives a price worth paying to safeguard himself, he deserves to sleep easy in his bed, and leave all the sweaty 3am angst to Donald Trump and the other malevolent midgets who will never trouble him again.

Perfect…and lest we forget…
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Political statements don’t get too much more ridiculous than this one by Mickey Kaus. Commenting on a post by Jay Cost over at the Weekly Standard titled “Obama is just plain bad at politics“, Kaus writes:

“I think Cost’s on to something…”

[...]

“Cost doesn’t go into why Obama managed to get to the top of politics without being all that good at it. The answer is distressingly obvious: Obama’s the biggest affirmative action baby in history.  When other pols are trying, failing, learning, while climbing up the middle rungs of the ladder, he got a pass;”

In a single paragraph, Kaus makes the claim that not only is President Obama bad at politics but that his climb to the White House is due to his blackness. Dumb. Not only does that statement negate the intellectual and oratorical skills which makes Obama a formidable political figure but it ignores the amazing accomplishments of the current administration in a span of two years.  In fact, the argument can be made that no other president has done so much in so little time.

The man, who according to Kaus is not “all that good” at playing the political game, (defeating the Clintons to win the Democratic nomination I imagine was a matter of pure luck and skin color) has in the first 24 months of his presidency:

• Passed an $8 billion economic stimulus package.
• Passed the most comprehensive health care reform bill of the last 50 years.
• Introduced major financial regulations affecting Wall Street, banks and credit card companies.
• Repealed DADT.
• Rescued GM and Chrysler from total collapse.
• Appointed two women to the Supreme Court.
• Has brought about the gradual withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.

And those are just some of the biggies.  Add to this the fact that these measures were done in an environment of bitter divisiveness and venom-spewing hate by the right-wing noise machine.  It has become impossible to count the number of lies and distortions put out by conscienceless conservative politicians and media types in their effort to take down this president.  Death panels, terrorist sympathizer, Nazi, Kenyan born…we’ve heard it all a hundred thousand times from the likes of Beck and Fox and teabaggers and Republicans in Congress.  And yet, Obama’s accomplishments are remarkable.

If you’re interested in a more comprehensive list, check out President Obama’s 244 Accomplishments.

The bottom line is this: President Obama is open to criticism and some of it is definitely justified.  Both liberals and conservatives can rattle off dozens (hundreds?) of policy measures which they disagree with in some measure.  Fine and good.  That’s how democracy functions.  But to suggest that Obama sucks at politics or that the color of his skin is the determining factor for he being the President of the United States, is delusional thinking at its highest level.  You can throw in a hint of racism for good measure.  Get real.

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Ezra Klein proposes that presidents present the following pie chart at all future SOTU addresses.

Quickies…

• In the aftermath of the Tucson shooting, the tone was overly sober.   The mixed seating had its effect too.  Battles resume tomorrow.
• Where was the President on gun control?
• Where was the President on the failing state of mental health care?
• Where was the President on climate change?
• The ‘I’ll veto any bill coming to my desk which contains earmarks‘ line sounded way too John McCainish for my liking.
• Only six of the nine Supremes showed up. Missing were conservatives Scalia (hasn’t been to one of these in the last 15 years), Alito and Thomas.  Roberts might not show up for the next one.
• John Boehner (“working class hero”) held back his tears.  Nice.
• There was a little bit of something for everyone – e.g. affirmation of DADT for the left and talk of malpractice reform for the right.
• Paul Ryan’s speech was what you’d expect from Republicans:  stimulus bad, obamacare bad, lower taxes good, fewer regulations good, limited government good, Obama bad, we good. Thank you and good night.
• As for Michele Bachmann’s teabag speech, same as above with one added bonus: Constitution very, very good.

And ’cause you’re dying to know, here’s what the SOTU word cloud looks like.

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