From: ep
To: Thomas

I agree, the Bush administration did a great job of putting us in comical situations that Obama has to fix.  Good to see you are finally coming around.

-ep

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From: Thomas
To:ep

Get over it! You wanted it; you got it. Stop whining!

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From: ep
To: Thomas

I’m actually happy with how things are going.
I was running out of jokes about how incompetent Bush was so if Palin would have got in I wouldn’t have had any left.

-ep

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From: Thomas
To: ep

Focus on today Eric, not on the past or what might have been. Bush was not perfect, but he never claimed to be. Talk is cheap, and when you can’t back it up you look incompetent. I would never want to see an American President as clueless. He appears to be the taking the Jimmy Carter route.

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From: ep
To: Thomas

I think he is really starting to get his legs under him in the past few months, it is like he hit Presidential Puberty…or got tired of waiting for Pelois and Reid do their job.  That said I don’t like everything going on but I don’t think that is a realistic expectation.

-ep

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From: Thomas
To: ep

Are you living in a parallel universe?  I think he enjoyed more success a year ago. The last few months have been comical. He is focused on passing health care reform. That is the only thing he is focusing on to his detriment. He let Pelosi and Reed set the agenda and the liberals have lead him into a ditch. I can’t think of any successful policy moves that he has made since August. It is one mess up after another. From dithering on OEF to bringing KSM to NYC. Calling out the Supreme Court at a SOTU that turned into a stump speech. He is under attack from all sides. The White House will be turning on itself after 3/18/10 if they can’t devise a way to cram HC down our throats. What are you looking at? Do you like government running your life? Are you not capable of deciding what is best for you and your family?

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From: ep
To: Thomas

I will agree that Obama was more effective in pushing legislation through early last year.  There were several reasons for that:

• No bill in the past 20 years has been as big as the health care bill, so naturally it has been the toughest
• The economy was still in crisis mode last year
• It wasn’t an election year
• Republicans had not settled on a, “We are against ANYTHING the President is for (except, begrudgingly, Afghanistan).  Even tax cuts”

However I think he was doing it in a much different way than he has started to do things now.  Examples:

• Previously he wasn’t putting as much pressure on his own party members (Reid was an impediment to this) and now he is
• He was actively muzzling the some liberal activists to try to encourage a move to the middle.  However you need the wackos on the far left to serve as a ballast against wackos on the far right
• He let his “Organizing For America” group fall under the DNC and no longer leveraged it.  So a lot of the energy of the Obama movement got lost b/c they were no longer engaged.

Maybe all of this goes away again once health care passes.

Afghanistan
I think he played the Afghanistan thing perfectly.  It was politically tricky issue and ultimately he arrived at the correct course of action and had the proper amount of political theater so everybody could feel comfortable with either the choice or the process used to arrive at it.

KSM
KSM isn’t being tried in NYC anymore.  The administration realized it wasn’t’ the best idea, they corrected their mistake.  I appreciate he didn’t stick by a bad idea just to try to stick by it.

Calling out the Supreme Court
It isn’t unprecedented for a President to call out the Supreme Court during the State of the Union.  Teddy Roosevelt and FDR did it and Regan did a few times on much more politically sensitive issues (abortion).  On a related note, is it fair to call this Supreme Court an “Activist Court” especially after that particular ruling?  I’m thinking the answer is clearly a yes.

Does the Government know best?
Here is the part you are going to jump all over and probably rightly so.  The answer to your last question is:

No, the government doesn’t know what is best for me or my family.  But there are a lot of people who are complete and total idiots, lazy and generally of little value to society.  Generally I don’t care if these people go and screw up their lives, that is their choice…I do care if it affects me.  SO, I am in favor of government regulation when it is addressing other people’s greed, laziness or stupidity affecting me.

-ep

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From: Thomas
To: ep

I repeat are you living in a parallel universe? Do you live inside the beltway?

No bill has ever sought to take over 1/6 of our economy. It screams of a mistake in that one Republican voted for it. The economy suffered because of uncertainty and threats from the White House.  They created an atmosphere that caused business to stay out of the lime light. The WH was openly hostile to business.  They were friendly to the institutions too big to fail, and allowed regional banks to be absorbed by their friends.

The Republicans were not allowed at the table to even present their ideas on “common sense reforms” until Obama’s summit, which showed America that the Republicans did have a plan. The tactic blew up in Obama’s face and showed what a partisan he really is.

Tax cut. That is a bait and switch! Wait until the Bush tax cuts expire!

Pressure on Pelosi and Reid?  They are using Chicago style thuggery to intimidate people who disagree with them. Don’t you mean ACORN?

Played Afghanistan well! Tell that to the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who died waiting for him to make the only logical choice. He had to find a way to placate the liberals who voted for him to stop the war. He wanted it both ways. He is executing Bush’s plans for OEF and OIF. He puts an idiotic deadline on progress in OEF. Gates tells the truth, conditions on the ground will determine when and if we withdraw. He is weak.

KSM. He should use the same logic on HC. Cut your losses and move on. He is adopting Clinton’s strategy on terrorism.  You remember what that got us?

Activist court? You think that political speech should be limited to favor incumbents?  If the politician is swayed by the unlimited $ of a corporation, he is a criminal!  That’s what expected of a Democrat, a la Charles Wrangle! The court is an equal branch of the government; I would have walked out. He is a big mouth from Chicago. He does not act presidential.

Eric, my son, you have fallen for the oldest trick of government. Give up your freedom and we will protect you. It is a lie from the pits of HELL! This government does nothing well. It only creates more government. It creates a problem, and convinces people that they have the answer to the problems they created. You are much too smart to fall for this blatant manipulation. The freedom of the individual is what makes this nation great. You are abdicating your responsibility to the government. A people unwilling to take responsibility for themselves deserves to be slaves. I thought you were smarter than that. Think for yourself, go with your gut. Think! It ain’t illegal yet!

Thomas

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From: ep
To: Thomas

Well, I guess this means the Obama Administration isn’t going to turn on itself over passing health care.  Do you think it might energize and empower them to tackle other issues?  If they can pass legislation that Presidents have been trying to pass for 100 years you would think they will be able to get other less contentious bills through too.  Immigration reform, financial reform and eduction don’t seem nearly as daunting when the President has already secured a legacy in the first 18 months in office.

Regarding health care I think we can agree that on this:

• Health care costs per person in the US are about double what they are in other industrialized countries
• Health care costs as a percentage of GDP are about double what they are versus other industrialized countries
• More people with access to medical care is fundamentally a good thing

Clearly the previous administration and Republican controlled Congress either didn’t have any plan to address this or didn’t care about it or else they would have passed some legislation to address the issue (since they had the votes).  Clearly the American people thought this should be a higher priority and it was one of the reasons that we had a Democratic sweep of congress and the Presidency this past fall.  The policies Obama has pursued are congruent with what he said he was going to during the campaign.  Since those policies got him elected, and by a margin 14 points higher than Bush’s best showing, it is clear
that he is executing what the People voted him in to do.  It is interesting that people only trust and defend the democratic process when they are in the majority.

It wouldn’t matter if the health care bill was perfectly written, the Republicans as a whole have placed their bet that they needed to prevent it from going through and use this as their campaign platform this fall.  That isn’t to say that many of them surely have legitimate philosophical differences, I’m sure that the majority of them do.  However, universally opposing health care is probably their best political play and although it is frustrating, I understand why some Republicans must have voted their party over their conscious.

I must have misinterpreted one of your statement because I know you can’t possibly believe that money doesn’t affect politics and policies.  In fact later in the same email you said, “follow the money”.  Which makes it all the more stunning that you support foreign and domestic corporations having the ability to spend unlimited amounts of money on getting their candidate elected.  Outside of slavery I can’t think of a single decision that is more of an affront to the spirit of the Constitution and more of a realization of the Founding Fathers worst fears.  Tell me that I misread the intent of your comment.

I’m not sure if you followed my thought process on Obama not leveraging all of his tools until recently.  The good news for people who helped to get Obama elected is he is finally starting to engage them again.  His grass roots organization was re-engaged after the loss of Ted Kennedy’s seat and from what I can see it is only gaining more momentum.  This was the carrot and the stick that he wasn’t using to motivate his own party as well as the moderate Republicans previously.

It is interesting that you find Obama to be less than Presidential because I can’t imagine anybody less Presidential than our last President.

I eagerly await your response,
-ep

I will continue to post the email exchanges as they occur and when I’m motivated.

“Something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about,” Robertson said Tuesday on his 700 Club show. “They were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the prince.’ True story. And so the devil said, ‘Ok it’s a deal.’ And they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got something themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another.”

He also thinks this is a blessing because now anybody that doesn’t die can build some better buildings especially if they turn to god.  I’m assuming he is talking about the 5% of Haitians who currently don’t claim Christianity as their religion (1).  I’m betting those 5% are also gay and don’t tip their waitress well.

1)    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Haiti

The original news cast:

The Sound Board:

Soundboard sourced from: http://www.millerarts.com/

Thanks to my friend Brian I know have an honest answer to what I want for my birthday.  The Obama action figure: http://i.gizmodo.com/5136576/best-obama-action-figure-ever-battles-darth-vader-terrorists-karaoke

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/George_W._Bush

On a more serious note, the Boston Globe put together a great compilation of the 2008 year in pictures.  Check it out if you get a chance:

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/12/the_year_2008_in_photographs_p.html

THE inspiring and transformative choice by the American people to elect Barack Obama as our 44th president lays the foundation for another fateful choice that he — and we — must make this January to begin an emergency rescue of human civilization from the imminent and rapidly growing threat posed by the climate crisis.

The electrifying redemption of America’s revolutionary declaration that all human beings are born equal sets the stage for the renewal of United States leadership in a world that desperately needs to protect its primary endowment: the integrity and livability of the planet.

The world authority on the climate crisis, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, after 20 years of detailed study and four unanimous reports, now says that the evidence is “unequivocal.” To those who are still tempted to dismiss the increasingly urgent alarms from scientists around the world, ignore the melting of the north polar ice cap and all of the other apocalyptic warnings from the planet itself, and who roll their eyes at the very mention of this existential threat to the future of the human species, please wake up. Our children and grandchildren need you to hear and recognize the truth of our situation, before it is too late.

Here is the good news: the bold steps that are needed to solve the climate crisis are exactly the same steps that ought to be taken in order to solve the economic crisis and the energy security crisis.

Economists across the spectrum — including Martin Feldstein and Lawrence Summers — agree that large and rapid investments in a jobs-intensive infrastructure initiative is the best way to revive our economy in a quick and sustainable way. Many also agree that our economy will fall behind if we continue spending hundreds of billions of dollars on foreign oil every year. Moreover, national security experts in both parties agree that we face a dangerous strategic vulnerability if the world suddenly loses access to Middle Eastern oil.

As Abraham Lincoln said during America’s darkest hour, “The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.” In our present case, thinking anew requires discarding an outdated and fatally flawed definition of the problem we face.

Thirty-five years ago this past week, President Richard Nixon created Project Independence, which set a national goal that, within seven years, the United States would develop “the potential to meet our own energy needs without depending on any foreign energy sources.” His statement came three weeks after the Arab oil embargo had sent prices skyrocketing and woke America to the dangers of dependence on foreign oil. And — not coincidentally — it came only three years after United States domestic oil production had peaked.

At the time, the United States imported less than a third of its oil from foreign countries. Yet today, after all six of the presidents succeeding Nixon repeated some version of his goal, our dependence has doubled from one-third to nearly two-thirds — and many feel that global oil production is at or near its peak.

Some still see this as a problem of domestic production. If we could only increase oil and coal production at home, they argue, then we wouldn’t have to rely on imports from the Middle East. Some have come up with even dirtier and more expensive new ways to extract the same old fuels, like coal liquids, oil shale, tar sands and “clean coal” technology.

But in every case, the resources in question are much too expensive or polluting, or, in the case of “clean coal,” too imaginary to make a difference in protecting either our national security or the global climate. Indeed, those who spend hundreds of millions promoting “clean coal” technology consistently omit the fact that there is little investment and not a single large-scale demonstration project in the United States for capturing and safely burying all of this pollution. If the coal industry can make good on this promise, then I’m all for it. But until that day comes, we simply cannot any longer base the strategy for human survival on a cynical and self-interested illusion.

Here’s what we can do — now: we can make an immediate and large strategic investment to put people to work replacing 19th-century energy technologies that depend on dangerous and expensive carbon-based fuels with 21st-century technologies that use fuel that is free forever: the sun, the wind and the natural heat of the earth.

What follows is a five-part plan to repower America with a commitment to producing 100 percent of our electricity from carbon-free sources within 10 years. It is a plan that would simultaneously move us toward solutions to the climate crisis and the economic crisis — and create millions of new jobs that cannot be outsourced.

First, the new president and the new Congress should offer large-scale investment in incentives for the construction of concentrated solar thermal plants in the Southwestern deserts, wind farms in the corridor stretching from Texas to the Dakotas and advanced plants in geothermal hot spots that could produce large amounts of electricity.

Second, we should begin the planning and construction of a unified national smart grid for the transport of renewable electricity from the rural places where it is mostly generated to the cities where it is mostly used. New high-voltage, low-loss underground lines can be designed with “smart” features that provide consumers with sophisticated information and easy-to-use tools for conserving electricity, eliminating inefficiency and reducing their energy bills. The cost of this modern grid — $400 billion over 10 years — pales in comparison with the annual loss to American business of $120 billion due to the cascading failures that are endemic to our current balkanized and antiquated electricity lines.

Third, we should help America’s automobile industry (not only the Big Three but the innovative new startup companies as well) to convert quickly to plug-in hybrids that can run on the renewable electricity that will be available as the rest of this plan matures. In combination with the unified grid, a nationwide fleet of plug-in hybrids would also help to solve the problem of electricity storage. Think about it: with this sort of grid, cars could be charged during off-peak energy-use hours; during peak hours, when fewer cars are on the road, they could contribute their electricity back into the national grid.

Fourth, we should embark on a nationwide effort to retrofit buildings with better insulation and energy-efficient windows and lighting. Approximately 40 percent of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States come from buildings — and stopping that pollution saves money for homeowners and businesses. This initiative should be coupled with the proposal in Congress to help Americans who are burdened by mortgages that exceed the value of their homes.

Fifth, the United States should lead the way by putting a price on carbon here at home, and by leading the world’s efforts to replace the Kyoto treaty next year in Copenhagen with a more effective treaty that caps global carbon dioxide emissions and encourages nations to invest together in efficient ways to reduce global warming pollution quickly, including by sharply reducing deforestation.

Of course, the best way — indeed the only way — to secure a global agreement to safeguard our future is by re-establishing the United States as the country with the moral and political authority to lead the world toward a solution.

Looking ahead, I have great hope that we will have the courage to embrace the changes necessary to save our economy, our planet and ultimately ourselves.

In an earlier transformative era in American history, President John F. Kennedy challenged our nation to land a man on the moon within 10 years. Eight years and two months later, Neil Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface. The average age of the systems engineers cheering on Apollo 11 from the Houston control room that day was 26, which means that their average age when President Kennedy announced the challenge was 18.

This year similarly saw the rise of young Americans, whose enthusiasm electrified Barack Obama’s campaign. There is little doubt that this same group of energized youth will play an essential role in this project to secure our national future, once again turning seemingly impossible goals into inspiring success.

Jefferson, Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, Reagan all shared this quality.  The ability to remind us, that we are Americans before we are conservatives or liberals.  To remind us there are common ideals that we all agree on.  To remind us that we have a shared destiny and more in common than we have separating us.
From this foundation our greatest Presidents were able to forge a country, to abolish slavery, to save the Union, to navigate us through a depression, to lead us to victory in a World War, to put Americans on the moon, to defeat communism and make us believe in ourselves again.  Nothing great has ever been achieved in this country or anywhere else without that type leadership.

Only one of the candidates running now has the potential to bring us together to do such great things.  Only one candidate now has the ability to inspire us as a country to work harder, sacrifice more and believe we will have a better future because of it.

It is clear that Obama has this potential.  You can see it in the size of the crowds that come to hear him speak in places ranging from Arizona to Florida to New York to Berlin.  You can see it in the millions of people he has inspired to become engaged in the political process for the first time or the first time in a long time.  You can see it in the millions and millions of people that have donated to the campaign in a way that Newt Gingrich describes as ‘historic’.

Caroline Kennedy recognized this almost a year ago.  She wrote a great piece stating that Obama made her feel the same the way people always told her father made them feel about this country, inspired and hopeful about America.   It struck her because nobody else had ever made her feel that way about politics, read the full piece here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/opinion/27kennedy.html

I do like Obama’s policies better than McCain’s, that is why my brain is with Obama.  My heart is with Obama because I feel with his leadership our generation has the opportunity for great things.  I would like to be a part of doing great things.

Here are some of our other great Presidents at work:

Reagan:

Obama- DNC

Obama- Yes We Can

JFK- Ask What You Can Do for Your Country

Lincoln

Jefferson

FDR