President Barack Obama blows a kiss to Oren Baer, son of Ken Baer, the departing Associate Director for Communications and Strategic Planning at OMB, during a visit to the Oval Office, July 12, 2012. Baer’s daughter, Avital, and wife, Caron Gremont, watch at left. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)
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CBS: President Obama’s biggest mistake during his first term, he told CBS News in an exclusive interview, has been putting policy over storytelling.
Mr. Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama sat down Thursday with “CBS This Morning” anchor Charlie Rose in the White House Blue Room, where they discussed the failures and successes of his administration as he heads into another election, among other things.
“When I think about what we’ve done well and what we haven’t done well,” the president said, “the mistake of my first term – couple of years – was thinking that this job was just about getting the policy right. And that’s important. But the nature of this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times.”
…. For more of the interview with President and Mrs. Obama, watch “CBS Sunday Morning” this Sunday, July 15, and “CBS This Morning” on Monday, July 16.
If the video isn’t ‘viewable’ in your country, you can see it at the link above
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Robin Wells (The Guardian): “Too much money” sounds like an oxymoron, especially when applied to American politics. But in the last week, Republicans are beginning to learn that lots of money can have its downside. Thursday’s story that Romney may have actively directed Bain Capital three years longer than he claimed – a period in which Bain Capital-managed companies experienced bankruptcies and layoffs – caps what must be the worst weekly news cycle of any modern American presidential candidate. From images of corporate raiding, to luxury speedboats, to offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands, to mega-mansions in the Hamptons, this week’s stories suggest that the candidacy of Mitt Romney – poster-boy for the symbiotic relationship between big money and the modern Republican party – is in serious trouble.
Paul Krugman: ….After all the whining over “class warfare”, the GOP has more or less forced an election that really is about the very rich versus everyone else – and the Romney supporters are so insulated by their wealth that they can’t even see the problem.
…. I agree with Robin that Romney is in very serious trouble. Think of the pattern that’s accumulating: the obfuscation over the Bain record on jobs, outsourcing, and all that, the mysterious offshore accounts (and the magical $100 million IRA), the stonewalling on past tax records, and now his insistence that he was no longer working at a company that continued to list him as CEO and pay him lots of money.
….I suspect that the honesty thing will finally gain traction …. This could be famous last words, but it looks to me as if Romney is in the process of getting defined – and his party won’t like the results.
Charles Pierce: This may horrify some editors at Politico, but Willard Romney really is demonstrably more comfortable around white people. The way you know that is that yesterday, after using the NAACP convention as set decoration for a feed-the-base photo op, he went on to Montana and said the following:
…. I had the privilege of speaking today at the NAACP convention and I gave them the same speech I am giving you …. When I mentioned I am going to get rid of Obamacare they weren’t happy … That’s ok, I want people to know what I stand for and if I don’t stand for what they want, go vote for someone else, that’s just fine. But I hope people understand this, your friends who like Obamacare, you remind them of this, if they want more stuff from government tell them to go vote for the other guy-more free stuff. But don’t forget nothing is really free.
….. he remains a singularly remarkable liar. He didn’t say anything of the sort to the NAACP, because he needed booing to charge up his base …. what he, in the full flush of his god-kissed whiteness, refers to as “Obamacare” is not “more free stuff.” Isn’t the entire conservative case against the Affordable Care Act the fact that the government is forcing you to “buy” a product…..
Obama’s campaign counsel Bob Bauer seemed to suggest on a campaign media conference call just now that Romney might have broken the law:
“Scores of filings, literally scores of filings, that make it very, very clear that, over a period of a time that Governor Romney claims he was not active with Bain, the Securities and Exchange Commission was informed…that, ‘W. Mitt Romney, an individual, is the sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president of the particular Bain entity in question.'”
If, in fact, as he now claims, that he was in fact not active with the company, he was not the controlling person that is described here, that means these statements are false. And, as I said, there are very, very serious legal consequences that would follow.”
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Media Bistro: “CBS This Morning” co-anchor Charlie Rose will interview President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama today. Highlights of the interview will air tomorrow across all CBS News programming, with the full interview airing Sunday on “CBS Sunday Morning” and Monday on “CBS This Morning.”
NYT Editorial: … Mr. Obama can make a convincing case that his policies — especially the stimulus and auto industry rescue — helped cushioned the effects of the recession he inherited, which pushed the jobless rate from an already elevated 7.8 percent in January 2009 to 10 percent by October 2009. It has come down, more or less, steadily since then. But it is still higher than when he took office — a point that Mitt Romney and Congressional Republicans have seized upon as evidence of failed policies.
Actually, it was the Republicans’ relentless opposition to constructive policies that has kept unemployment high, from their resistance to the 2009 stimulus to their blockage of Mr. Obama’s proposed $450 billion jobs bill in late 2011. Federal aid to states was a mainstay of both of those efforts. As the stimulus ended and further aid was delayed and denied, the effect on state budgets — and on jobs — has been catastrophic.
… if it weren’t for state and local budget austerity, the economy would have 2.3 million more jobs today, and the unemployment rate would be around 7 percent, not 8 percent. The lesson is that the best and easiest way to reverse job losses would be for Congress to provide fiscal aid to states. Thwarting such aid, as Republicans have done, is a way to keep unemployment elevated and their hopes to win the White House alive. Jobless Americans, struggling businesses and hard-pressed communities are hostages in the fray.
The farm fields here (in Malawi) are cemeteries of cornstalks: a severe drought has left them brown, withered and dead. Normally, a failed crop like that signifies starvation.
Then television cameras arrive and transmit images of famished children into American and European living rooms. Emergency food shipments are rushed in at huge expense.
Yet there is a better way, and it’s unfolding here in rural Malawi, in southern Africa. Instead of shipping food after the fact, the United States aid agency, U.S.A.I.D., has been working with local farmers to promote new crops and methods so that farmers don’t have to worry about starving in the first place.
…. President Obama has made agriculture a focus of his foreign aid programs with mixed results. On the plus side, these initiatives are smart, cost-effective and potentially transformative. On the negative side, they’re boring. At a time when there’s a vigorous political debate in America about foreign aid, outreach to African farmers doesn’t wow Congress or the American people.
The Obama Diary 
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