50 Accomplishments

50 OBAMA ACCOMPLISHMENTS

I’d ask that these be read in the context of an opposition party openly pledged to see his presidency fail – imagine what he could have done with their cooperation – and read with the hope that, if he’s reelected, the opposition party will pledge instead to see the country succeed. It could work to their advantage.

A WASHINGTON POST BLOGGER ASKS:

Is there any limit to Mitt Romney’s dishonesty? His headline, not mine. ‘Romney,’ he suggests, ‘has crossed into groundbreaking levels of dishonesty.’ See if you agree.

I don’t. I think Bush’s refrain that ‘by far the vast majority’ of the benefits of his proposed tax cuts would go to people ‘at the bottom of the economic ladder’ was so blatantly, factually, and importantly false – importantly, because a truthful characterization would surely have cost him the election* – that his dishonesty must be credited as having broken that ground first.

*And also because it went a good long way toward wrecking our national balance sheet.

STEVE SCHMIDT ON SARAH PALIN

You’ve probably seen Game Change by now. Woody Harrelson plays McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt. And if you watch MSNBC, you’ve probably seen Steve Schmidt on lots of talk show by now.

But a shocking number of you ‘don’t watch TV’ (what is wrong with you people? Now that it’s all commercial-free, with TiVo or your DVR, television is wonderful), so let me offer up excerpts of his remarks on Monday’s ‘Morning Joe.’

When a result happens that puts someone who’s not prepared to be president on the ticket, that’s a bad result. I think the notion of Sarah Palin being president of the United States is something that frightens me, frankly. And I played a part in that. And I played a part in that because we were fueled by ambition to win.

I think there are important lessons to learn. The reality is that both parties have nominated people in the last decade who are not prepared to be anywhere near the Oval Office. John Edwards in the Democratic Party. Sarah Palin in the Republican Party. And we ought to take a pause and understand how that happened, why it happened and hopefully it’ll never happen again in our lifetimes.

☞ Asked whether Palin has a future as a national Republican leader:

I hope not. And the reason I say that is because if you look at, over the last four years, all of the deficiencies in knowledge, all the deficiencies in preparedness, she’s done not one thing to rectify them, to correct them. She has become a person who I think is filled with grievance, filled with anger who has a divisive message for the national stage when we need leaders in both parties to have a unifying message. . . . The lack of preparedness was a bad thing and the total disinterest in being more prepared and rectifying that is something that disqualifies.

☞ Good for Steve Schmidt. How many of us long for the Republican Party not of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin but of Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon (absent his darker side) and Nelson Rockefeller and even George H.W. Bush. Not to mention Abraham Lincoln, who would be nothing less than completely appalled.

Incidentally, I don’t buy the John Edwards equivalency suggestion in the middle paragraph above. There is no comparison with Edwards’ unreadiness and Palin’s. He is deserving of condemnation, for sure – how dare he run for President and then accept the vice presidential nomination knowing that his private life, if it came to light, could cost us the election? But does anyone imagine that Edwards didn’t know why North and South Korea were too separate countries? Didn’t know what ‘the Fed’ is? Didn’t know that Iraq did not attack on 9/11? Didn’t read newspapers or magazines? Didn’t know who runs the British government? (Hint: it’s not ‘the Queen.’)

To those upset with Obama, I’d note that the NASDAQ hit its 21st Century high yesterday . . . I’d note those ‘50 Accomplishments‘ (understanding that not everyone sees things like accelerated stem cell research as positive) . . . and I’d ask that they consider where things might have been three years into a McCain/Palin administration.