The only ad that mattered tonight….

Rise and Shine

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Today:

9:30 AM: President Obama observes a moment of silence in honor of the victims of the Newtown shooting

10:30 AM: President Obama and VP Biden deliver remarks at the funeral service for Senator Daniel Inouye

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NYT editorial: The National Rifle Association is scheduled to hold a news conference on Friday where it says it plans to provide details about its promise of “meaningful contributions” to prevent another a massacre like the one in Newtown, Conn.

We would like to believe that the N.R.A. will do as it says, but we have little faith that it will offer any substantial reforms. The association presents itself as a grass-roots organization, but it has become increasingly clear in recent years that it represents gun makers. Its chief aim has been to help their businesses by increasing the spread of firearms throughout American society.

In recent years, the N.R.A. has aggressively lobbied federal and state governments to dilute or eliminate numerous regulations on gun ownership. And the clearest beneficiary has been the gun industry – sales of firearms and ammunition have grown 5.7 percent a year since 2007, to nearly $12 billion this year….

Full editorial here

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Jonathan Bernstein: There was nothing but embarrassment for Speaker John Boehner and House Republicans as they were forced to pull the vote on Boehner’s “Plan B” tax bill at the last minute because, as Boehner said, they didn’t have the votes to pass it. The Speaker sent the House home for through Christmas, with the option of recalling them afterwards if there’s anything for them to do.

For tonight, it’s a debacle, and they look foolish. But I’d caution against reading too much into this episode….

…..other than everyone having good fun at the expense of the House Republican leadership — and no question, Boehner and the rest deserve it — it’s just not clear that tonight’s fiasco will change anything.

Full post here

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Steve Benen: The irony of last night’s drama on Capitol Hill was that the proposal at stake had far more symbolic value than substantive …. John Boehner pushed his “Plan B” knowing full well it would not, and could not, become law. Rather, Boehner hoped to use the measure to send a message.

Oh, he sent a message, all right. It’s just not the one the Speaker intended.

….. Boehner tried everything. He tried pleading with his Republican allies, threatening them, and offering them all kinds of goodies. The Speaker made appeals based on emotion, economics, loyalty, and pragmatism, at times, simultaneously.

But in the end, despite all the bravado and faux confidence, Boehner just couldn’t deliver. The party he ostensibly leads heard his impassioned pleas, and decided not to follow him.

Debacles of this magnitude are rare.

Full post here

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President Obama and First Lady Michelle ride in a golf cart at an Inaugural Ball in Washington, D.C, Jan. 20, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)

AP: With his nation under financial strain, President Barack Obama is restricting the inaugural balls to the lowest number in 60 years, with just two official parties plus a concert honoring military families.

…. Both balls are being planned at the Washington Convention Center on Monday, Jan. 21, the evening of Obama’s public inauguration at the Capitol on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Under the Constitution, the president’s second term begins Jan. 20 at noon, but he’ll be sworn in privately at the White House since inaugural celebrations traditionally aren’t held on Sundays.

One party will be the Commander In Chief’s Ball …. Tickets will be free for invited guests, including active duty and reserve service members, Medal of Honor recipients and wounded warriors, among others, with troops overseas participating via video. The other ball, simply being called the Inaugural Ball, will be larger than usual and held across all the halls in the vast convention center…..

More here

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The ridiculously cute clip at the end of WWW:

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MoooOOooooOoooorning everyone.

Chat away

President Obama returns to the White House after meeting with Wounded Warriors being treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, December 20

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Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone – hey, I survived my day 😎

So, how’s everyone been?

(Will catch up with the news in the morning)

#MittMath

Chat away, back in a while 😉

Rise and Shine

@BarackObama

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All times ET

11:50: President Obama departs Williamsburg, Va.

12:00: VP Biden travels to Penn Valley, Pa., to attend the funeral services for Senator Arlen Specter

12:55: President Obama arrives in New York

2:50: Michelle Obama speaks to grassroots supporters in Chapel Hill, N.C.

9:00: The Debate

11:05: President Obama departs New York

12:15: Arrives at the White House

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Greatest website ever:

RomneyTaxPlan

Thank you Bill!

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Washington Post: Romney’s 12-million job promise has garnered a lot of attention. We became interested in this ad after a reader asked whether the campaign had provided much detail on how he would reach this total …

…. the candidate’s personal accounting for this figure in this campaign ad is based on different figures and long-range timelines stretching as long as a decade — which in two cases are based on studies that did not even evaluate Romney’s economic plan. The numbers may still add up to 12 million, but they aren’t the same thing — not by a long shot.

… Clearly, some clever campaign staffer thought it would be nice to match up poll-tested themes such as “energy independence,” “tax reform” and “cracking down on China” with actual job numbers. We just find it puzzling that Romney agreed to personally utter these words without asking more questions about the math behind them.

Read the full article here

Greg Sargent: …. Let’s recap what Kessler has discovered here. The plan that is central to Romney’s candidacy on the most important issue of this election — jobs — is a complete sham. This is every bit as bad — or worse — than Romney’s claim to have created 100,000 jobs at Bain, or his vow to cut spending by eliminating whole agencies without saying which ones, or his refusal to say how he’ll pay for his tax cuts.

This could not have come at a better time for Obama. Here is the evidence he needs to spell out as clearly as possible that Romney is peddling economic hokum to the American people. Any fair reading of the backup the Romney campaign itself supplied for his plan reveals that it is nothing but a bill of goods. Obama needs to seize on this in a big way. This should be a big story.

Oh, and by the way: Economists have evaluated Obama’s jobs plan. And they concluded it would create one to two million jobs. The bottom line is simple: One candidate has a jobs plan, and the other doesn’t.

More here

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Rise and Shine

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Today (all times ET):

9:45: President Obama departs the White House en route Joint Base Andrews

10:0: Departs Joint Base Andrews en route Cincinnati, Ohio

11:30: Arrives in Cincinnati

12:25: PBO delivers remarks at Eden Park’s Seasongood Pavilion, Cincinnati

2:25: Departs Cincinnati en route Columbus, Ohio

3:00: Arrives in Columbus

3:0 First Lady Michelle Obama delivers remarks at the University of Florida in Gainesville

3:15: VP Biden delivers remarks at a campaign event at the Port of Burlington

4:20: PBO delivers remarks at Schiller Park, Columbus

6:40: Departs Columbus en route Joint Base Andrew

6:55: First Lady Michelle Obama delivers remarks at the Tallahassee Leon County Civic Center

8:05: PBO arrives at the White House

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NYT

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MoveOn

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Rise and Shine

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12:45: President Obama delivers remarks at a campaign event at the Colorado State Fairgrounds (CNN/CBS live streaming)

2:50: Departs Pueblo

3:20: Arrives in Colorado Springs

4:45: Delivers remarks at a campaign event (CNN/CBS live streaming)

6:25: Departs Colorado Springs

9:45: Arrives at the White House

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SacBee: The nation’s first lady is hitting the campaign trail in eastern Pennsylvania. Michelle Obama will stump for the president’s re-election on Thursday in the Philadelphia and Lehigh Valley areas.

She’ll first hold a rally in west Philadelphia at the University of the Sciences’ athletic center. She will then travel to suburban Fort Washington, where she’ll greet supporters at Upper Dublin High School, and end her trip with remarks at Moravian College in Bethlehem.

2:0 The First Lady delivers remarks at the Bobby Morgan Arena at the campus of the University of Sciences, Philadelphia

4:0 Delivers remarks at Upper Dublin High School in Fort Washington

7:10: Delivers remarks at Moravian College in Bethlehem

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NYT Editorial:  Mitt Romney’s campaign has hit new depths of truth-twisting with its accusation that President Obama plans to “gut welfare reform” by ending federal work requirements. The claim is blatantly false, but it says a great deal about Mr. Romney’s increasingly desperate desire to define the president as something he is not.

…. this is what happens when a flailing campaign searches for a wedge issue to gain popularity among blue-collar voters. Mr. Romney’s empty promises to magically turn around the economy are losing effectiveness, so why not vilify welfare recipients and portray the president as coddling them?

That approach was favored by an earlier generation of Republican operatives, and it helped divide the country into warring political classes. Mr. Romney, no less cynical, seems bent on repeating the past.

Full editorial here

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OFA

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E.J. Dionne Jr: …. Political commentary these days is obsessed with the triviality of this campaign. Most of it is rooted in the refusal of conservatives to be candid about the implications of how their beliefs and commitments would affect the choices they would have government make — and how they differ from the president’s.

In Romney’s case, this often requires him to invent an Obama who exists only in the imagination of his ad makers. So they take Obama’s statements, clip out relevant sentences and run ads attacking some strung-together words that have a limited connection to what the president said. In the welfare ad, Romney lies outright.

But this is part of a larger pattern on the right, illustrated most tellingly by conservative rhetoric around the Affordable Care Act. In going after Obamacare, conservatives almost never talk about the specific provisions of the law. They try to drown it in anti-government rhetoric….

….Here’s your chance, conservatives. Big, bad government is forcing those nice insurance companies to give people a break. From what you say, you see this as socialism …. You cannot possibly keep this money. So stand up for those oppressed insurers and give them their rebates back!

…. I’d also be curious to know whether Romney got a rebate on his health insurance premiums courtesy of Obamacare and whether he plans to return it. But given his attitude toward disclosure, we’ll probably never find out.

Full article here

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McClatchy

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Cagle

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Needless to say I’m not going to post it, but I just happened to see a listing for a Young Turks/Cenk Uygur video on YouTube posted two days ago, with the title ‘What If Trayvon Had Died In A Drone Strike?’ Yep, that’s the level to which the fraud has descended in his increasingly desperate campaign against the President. Uygur? **** off, you right wing piece of crap.

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Morning everyone 😉

beep beep beep

President Barack Obama talks to Secret Service Uniformed Division officers as he walks through the magnetometer in the Northwest Gatehouse at the White House, following his visit to Blair House, Dec. 9. The President told a reporter as he exited the gatehouse, “I just wanted to see what it was like getting in here.” (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Pool report: Pool was out of earshot during the president’s two or three minute visit to the gate house but (radio talk show host) Bill Press was at the stakeout spot and generously passes along some color.

Obama: “I just wanted to see what it was like getting in here.”

Bill Press: “Not so easy, is it?”

Obama, patting his pockets, as if for keys or phone: “I think I beeped a couple of times.”

Afterward, Bill talked to agents:

Potus shook hands all around. Talked football, said he was Chicago Bears fan. Wanted to know how entry worked. Went through metal detector. Set it off. Guard told him he’d probably left cellphone in pocket.

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Tomorrow:

2:05 The President departs the White House en route to Landover, Md.

2:15 Arrives Landover

2:30 Attends Army v Navy game with VP Biden and Jill Biden

5:25 Departs Landover

5:35 Arrives White House

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A Statement by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius:

Plan B One-Step is an emergency contraceptive, sometimes referred to as the “morning after pill.” Plan B One-Step is currently labeled over the counter to women ages 17 years and older, but is sold behind the pharmacy counter. It is available by prescription only to women 16 years and younger. My decision does not change any current availability of the drug for all women.

In February 2011, Teva Women’s Health Inc. submitted to the FDA a supplemental new drug application for Plan B One-Step. This application sought to make Plan B One-Step available over the counter for all girls of reproductive age. The science has confirmed the drug to be safe and effective with appropriate use. However, the switch from prescription to over the counter for this product requires that we have enough evidence to show that those who use this medicine can understand the label and use the product appropriately. I do not believe that Teva’s application met that standard. The label comprehension and actual use studies did not contain data for all ages for which this product would be available for use.

Full statement here

Thanks Meta

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Keith Humphreys (Washington Monthly): African-American Liberals Know How to Love Their President

Jonathan Chait’s much-discussed essay in New York magazine indicted the left for being perennially, loudly and unrealistically disappointed in Democratic Presidents. In Chait’s view, much of the left ignores the constraints on Presidential power (e.g., Congress, of which Drew Westen et al seem to be in ignorance) and doesn’t have the stomach or attention span for the slow, daily grind of governance. He also charges the left with crippling their own leaders with faithlessness and then blaming them when they are thereby forced to compromise with the other side. Chait sees these patterns as almost entirely independent of Obama, being instead a style, outlook and set of norms among liberals that goes back for decades….

All of this is true of a certain type of liberal in the U.S., but I wish Chait and Kristof had taken the time to exempt from criticism the most stalwart segment of liberal America: African-Americans. Perpetually indignant white liberals could learn a lot from them.

…. I cringe at the white, alleged liberals who call on Obama to acknowledge that his is a failed presidency. They want the first Black President in history to, effectively, announce that he is a bumbling affirmative action baby, apologize for being so uppity as to have ever assumed otherwise and resign in disgrace so that Hillary Clinton or some other qualified (i.e. white) person can lead the party…..

But all that said, my own question of why Blacks so love Obama elides the broader reality evidenced by their very high approval ratings of a white Democratic President, Bill Clinton. Blacks have a special place in the hearts for Barack Obama, but fundamentally, if you are a Democratic President, Black people in this country have your back…..

Read full post here

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Business Insider: When President Obama makes his pitch to voters next year on why they should elect him to a second term, he’ll likely point to some version of this chart.

What the chart shows is that Obama inherited a bum economy but that, under his watch, things have begun to turn around. In the past year, the unemployment rate has dropped a full percentage point amid improving job growth….

More here

Thank you eveingeorgia

afternoon all

Thanks M4O

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Michael Tomasky: A Progressive Defense of the White House on Plan B

Kathleen Sibelius is getting flak for her Plan B decision. But Michael Tomasky defends the administration’s position because of the ethical issues raised by minors using the pill.

I get the reasons for liberal outrage at the Obama administration’s Plan B decision. But I can’t quite join in the indignation. I know that I am a man – a fact I’ve been aware of for some time – and so readers male and female can factor that in here as they wish. But it seems to me that to call this merely a case of politics cynically trumping science is way too dismissive of some concerns that parents with all kinds of political views might have about their teenage daughters buying this pill without their knowledge…..

Full article here

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NPR: For the second week in a row, the Senate on Thursday voted down proposals to extend the payroll tax holiday through next year. In the case of the Democrats’ proposal, Republicans objected to the “millionaires surtax” that would be used to pay for it.

Ever since the idea of the surtax was introduced weeks ago, Republicans in Congress have railed against it, arguing that it is a direct hit on small-business owners and other job creators.

… We wanted to talk to business owners who would be affected. So, NPR requested help from numerous Republican congressional offices, including House and Senate leadership. They were unable to produce a single millionaire job creator for us to interview.

Full post here

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They’re eating each other alive, part 72,393:

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USA Today: As the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq is completed this week, President Obama will kick off a string of military-related events this month by attending the Army-Navy game Saturday.

The Cadets and the Midshipmen tee it up at 2:30 p.m. at Fed-Ex Field in Landover, Md.

Vice President Biden and his wife, Jill, will attend the game with Obama.

Wednesday, the president and first lady Michelle Obama will travel to Fort Bragg, N.C., where the president will address the troops stationed there.

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President Barack Obama attends a National Security Council holiday party at Blair House, across the street from the White House, December 9

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Steve Benen: Rick Perry unveiled a rather ugly campaign ad this week, condemning gays for being able to “serve openly in the military,” and promising voters he’ll “end Obama’s war on religion.”

The Texas governor talked to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer this week, and to his credit, the host asked Perry to back up the language in the ad.

PERRY: [W]e’ve got a federal judge for instance in San Antonio that said these kids couldn’t say an invocation in school. I mean, they say you can’t even use the word invocation at their commencement. I mean, that’s —

BLITZER: Is that President Obama’s war on religion?

PERRY: I’m just giving you suggestions after what we are seeing from the left of which I would suggest to you, President Obama is a member of the left and substantial left of center beliefs that you can’t even have a Christmas party. You can’t say a prayer at school.

I’m beginning to think Perry was not blessed with an overabundance of intelligence….

Full post here

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Oh dear:

Steve Benen: It’s generally not too much to ask that major party presidential candidates know how many Supreme Court justices there are. Alas, Rick Perry, who’s already struggled to be coherent on a wide range of issues, flubbed this one, too.

…. Let’s count the errors of fact and judgment, because this a doozy.

(see post)

I’d swear this guy is getting dumber as the campaign progresses.

Full post here

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Hey, I forgot, it’s Friday! Thanks for the reminder LOL!

hey, a rant!

Okay, so we all know about the decision of Kathleen Sebelius to block the Plan B morning-after pill from being sold over the counter to young teens.

Today the President was asked if he supported the decision, and he said he did.

So, everyone has their own position on this – some back the move, some are outraged by it.

It’s, obviously, a hugely important debate, and once you exclude the voices of the nutjobs whose ultimate fantasy is to control what women do with their bodies, the genuine opinions on both sides are fascinating to hear and read – not least for someone like me who is torn on the issue simply because children are involved. And that’s what, say, 12 or 13-year-old girls are: children. Just because they can have babies at that stage of their lives doesn’t make them adults. When I was a 12 or 13-year-old girl I had significantly less sense than a lump of wood, so, even then, would have laughed at the notion that I was an ‘adult woman’ capable of making big decisions.

Any way, some of the anger about this decision is coming from genuine people who just think it’s seriously wrong.

But then there are commentators like Rebecca Traister at Salon.

I know, I know, it’s ridiculous to give any thought to a post that appears on Salon these days, it’s a long, long time since you could take the site seriously. This, after all, is the home of my most loved comedian, the increasingly hysterical Greenwald creature, who has just become a caricature of a caricature of a caricature of himself, “OMG! I SO TOTALLY HATE OBAMA” the gist of what he writes all day, every day. Cutting edge journalism. And then there’s the embarrassment that is Arianna Huffington-wannabe Joan Walsh, not to mention Gene Lyons who so stylishly compared Melissa Harris-Perry to the KKK.

If they just renamed the place The Anti-Obama Diary they might get a few more hits. Crikey, at least us ‘Obots’ are honest about our affections, but Salon still bills itself as progressively righteous. As the young people say: LOL.

Any way, Rebecca Traister posted a fairly extraordinary article on Salon in response to the Plan B decision, which was a whole lot more about releasing some of her pent-up loathing of the President than it was about the actual issue.

The headline: “Obama’s woman problem – The president shamefully uses his daughters to justify limiting the healthcare options of America’s young women.”

Eh?

“When will Barack Obama learn how to talk thoughtfully about women, women’s health and women’s rights?”

(Funny, I thought he spoke pretty thoughtfully about women’s rights as early as his first month in office when he signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009. But, never mind. Maybe Rebecca was still recovering from the pain of seeing him inaugurated, so missed the historic occasion? And she probably skipped his appointments of Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court too, that level of woman-hating was way too much to take.)

“Obama pooh-poohed the findings of the FDA, which had concluded that Plan B pills posed no medical hazard.”

Really?

This is what the President said today (see his full remarks here):

“…. as I understand it, the reason Kathleen made this decision was she could not be confident that a 10-year-old or an 11-year-old going into a drugstore, should be able …. to buy a medication that potentially, if not used properly, could end up having an adverse effect …. It has been deemed safe by the FDA. Nobody is challenging that. When it comes to 12-year-olds or 13-year-olds, the question is can we have confidence that they would potentially use Plan B properly. And her judgment was that there was not enough evidence that this potentially could be used improperly in a way that had adverse health effects on those young people.”

So, no, the President didn’t poo-poo the findings of the FDA at all – on the contrary, he said that “nobody is challenging” their decision to deem the product safe. His argument, which was crystal clear – whether you agreed with it or not – was that there were concerns that “12-year-olds or 13-year-olds …. would potentially” use it “improperly in a way that had adverse health effects on those young people”.

Hey, by all means, dispute his argument, but why completely misrepresent what he said?

Next.

“But part of what was most disturbing about Obama’s statement was his reliance on language that reveals his paternalistic approach to women and their health. “As the father of two daughters,” Obama told reporters, “I think it is important for us to make sure that we apply some common sense to various rules when it comes to over-the-counter medicine.”

So, a father of 13 and 10-year-old girls expressing concern about their welfare is “disturbing”? And suggests his approach to women and their health is “paternalistic”?

Really?

Call me weird, I just thought he sounded like a father who cares about the welfare of his young daughters and girls of their age. Is that a bad thing now? Is it way more progressive for a father to say to his 13 and 10-year-old girls, ‘hey, go get pregnant, there’s always Plan B!’.

“…. as an American, I think it is important for my president not to turn to paternalistic claptrap and enfeebling references to the imagined ineptitude and irresponsibility of his daughters …. Obama is just laying down some Olde Fashioned Dad Sense …. he diminishes an issue of gender equality, sexual health and medical access. Recasting this debate as an episode of “Father Knows Best” reaffirms hoary attitudes about young women and sex that had their repressive heyday in the era whence that program sprang.”

Please forgive my language: what a load of complete ****ing bullshit!

I’ve been a fiery feminist all my friggin’ life, but this kind of crap is cringeworthy and just gives ammunition to enemies of women’s rights – it’s pitiful, lamentable, pathetic, whingy shit. Take your pick.

“….the imagined ineptitude and irresponsibility of his daughters….”

His daughters are 13 and 10!!!!! They’re not inept or irresponsible, and he never implied any such thing – they’re not “young women”, they’re CHILDREN!! That is why their father is protective of them, it’s what good, loving fathers do. Father might not always know best, but fathers loving and caring for their young daughters doesn’t make them enemies of women, it makes them decent human beings and great friggin’ Dads.

“When he says that he wants to “apply common sense” to questions of young women’s access to emergency contraception, he is telegraphing his discomfort with the idea of young women’s sexual agency, or more simply, with the idea of them having sex lives at all.”

Oh God. It’s hard to know where to start here, and it’s certainly hard to compete with her psychoanalysis of the President.

Again, Traister chooses to categorize children, as the law regards them, as “young women”.

Help me out here? Traister is saying that the President experiences “discomfort” at the notion of children “having sex”. Children maybe as young as 13 and 10? Does that make him a woman-hating freak? No, it makes him sound a bit like my late Dad, and every normal loving Dad. You know, the ones who become clinically depressed when their daughters first start using lipstick. Does that make them woman-hating monsters? No, it just confirms they are human beings who don’t want their beloved little girls to grow up. And the mere thought of their girls having sex nigh on drives them over the edge. Why? Again, because they’re human!

Which is why we love them, because they actually care. Is it more progressive to be a ‘deadbeat’ Dad who couldn’t give a shit if his 13-year-old daughter is risking becoming pregnant? Most daughters, especially fatherless ones, crave ‘Olde Fashioned Dad Sense’ – that kind of love is worth the price of gold.

So, who is the oddity here: the President or Traister?

“Moreover, Obama’s invocation of his role as a father is an insult to the commitments and priorities of those on the other side of this issue. Are we to believe that those who support the increased availability of emergency contraception do not have daughters? That if they do, they care less about those daughters than Barack Obama does about his? And that if they do not, they cannot possibly know better than a father of daughters what is best for young women?”

Right, at this point Traister has mislaid the plot. Completely.

By citing his love and concern for his daughters, the President was pissing on those who don’t have daughters?

Really?

And he insinuated that he cares for his daughters more than any other parent cares for theirs?

Seriously?

Hey, call me cynical, but methinks Traister heard what she wanted to hear today, her misrepresenting of the President’s comments laughably deceitful.

Then she went on to detail the President’s varying positions on late-term abortions over the years, just to beef up her argument that he doesn’t like women much.

You know, I truly envy Rebecca Traister’s glib and easy stance on “reproductive freedom”. She’s so lucky that it’s all so uncomplicated for her. For some of the rest of us it’s way more challenging than that, we actually have to stop and think. Some of us are passionately pro-choice, but are uneasy about late-term abortions. No, that doesn’t mean we hate women, or that we’re Rick Perry-ites, it just means we think about these things, unlike the ideologically pure, for whom every issue is a bumper sticker, rather than something that makes you pause.

Traister, though, excelled when she turned her attention to the President’s view of his wife.

“…. the president “often points out that he is surrounded by strong females at home,” an argument that not only mimics an old saw about how being henpecked by women is equivalent to respecting them, but reflects a dynamic as old as patriarchal power itself.”

Interesting. Traister assumes that the President saying he is surrounded by “strong females at home” automatically means he is “henpecked” …. does this not say a whole lot more about her assumptions than those of the President? Why does she take it that “strong females at home” automatically equals “henpecked”? Heck, maybe it just means….. they’re “strong females”?

Does Traister, you can’t but wonder, have a problem with the First Lady?

She reckons the President’s comments on The View in 2010 about his wife watching the show suggested she “just doesn’t have a head for news delivered by anyone other than Elisabeth Hasselbeck”.

Really? He suggested that? He implied his wife was an airhead?! Truly? And he’s never, ever pointed out that his wife watches this stuff for light relief, just to escape the relentless bile directed towards him on all the other channels, that she is Princeton and Harvard-educated, is way smarter than him, that she is his rock and the first person he seeks advice from – on a personal and political level? And next in line is his longest term advisor, Valerie Jarrett – a mere woman! Yep, the President is a misogynist.

“….  no one seems to have told him …. that the best way to address a question of women’s health and rights is probably not by making it about his role as a father.”

Really? Why is being a father to two young girls so inconsequential when discussing issues like these?

Why is a “role as a father” something not to be mentioned?

When he cites his daughters, in an attempt to explain how he is emotionally involved in an issue, he is exploiting them.

When he doesn’t ‘humanize’ an issue like this, he is an aloof, professorial robot.

Rebecca Traister’s Salon article was a whole heap of steaming crap, of the very worst dishonest and disingenuous kind.

Why? Who knows.

But, by the way, she was a diehard Hillary supporter in 2008 and really has never forgiven Barack Obama for beating her pick.

And that is what this is all about – along with a brand of demented feminism that regards with contempt any role, however benevolent, fathers try to play in their daughters’ lives.

Why did I even draw attention to her pathetic article? Good question!

I just did it to try and shine a little light, again, on the agendas of the President’s most bitter detractors on the so-called left.

The thing is, they sneer at us ‘Obots’, but at least we’re honest about where we stand – these people are deceitful to their core. There’s usually an agenda. As there was with Rebecca Traister’s piece in Salon – all she succeeded in doing was unveiling her bitterness, again.

By all means, while sticking to the facts, attack the President for his position on Plan B …. but attack him for his relationship with his wife and daughters? Ah, that’s when the professional left becomes indistinguishable from Limbaugh and Co.

And their core is just as ugly.