On Fox and Friends today, Gretchen Carlson wonders if President Obama will “GBC,” which in Carlson’s world, stands for “Give Bush Credit.” She was referring to Obama’s scheduled speech tonight about the Iraq war.

It’s laughable to think that Obama would give Bush credit for ending the Iraq war. Bush isn’t the president. It’s entirely possible that if Bush were still president, that he would have kicked the withdrawal can down the road for another few more years, despite the Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government to end all combat operations this year and to completely withdraw all troops by the end of 2011.

We don’t know what would have happened if Bush were still president, but what we do know that he’s not the president. Obama will rightfully take credit for ending the war. He campaigned to end the war, and he’s making good on that campaign promise.

There’s no reason to think that Bush, McCain or Palin would have ended this war. And if you’re inclined to think that Bush gives a rat’s ass about the legal aspects of breaking the agreement with the Iraqi government to withdraw, don’t forget that the initial invasion of Iraq was seen by most of the world as illegal. The entire war was illegal, and a violation of international laws and treaties that the US agreed to abide by, such as, the Geneva Convention.

So that little piece of paper that says that the US needs to withdraw from Iraq wouldn’t have prevented a Republican administration from continuing to escalate the war.

Also, just because we’re leaving Iraq doesn’t mean we won. It could mean that we can’t win, and so we’re coming home. The war was a mistake from the beginning and everyone should be happy that it’s finally coming to an end, but to “Give Bush Credit” sounds a lot like right-wing propaganda to me.

Related news about the Iraq War:
U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement, 2008 (Complete text)
The Iraq War Ending, but Have we Won?

I don’t know anyone who actually still listens to Bill Kristol, The Weekly Standard founder and editor, other than Fox News. I can’t think of one single issue he’s ever gotten right. His most recent error was when he fell in love with Sarah Palin and convinced John McCain to pick her as is running mate. Thanks for that one Kristol, I’ve gotten a lot of laughs and a few good stories out of that move.

Well, today on Fox News, with his trademark cocky and ignorantly confident style, Kristol told Fox News viewers that President Obama showed “patronizing condescension” by referring to 9/11 as a “traumatic event.”

That’s all you’ve got Bill, criticizing the president for calling 9/11 a traumatic event? To people who have a soul and who are capable of even a modicum of emotion, 9/11 was a traumatic event you ignorant buffoon.

Kristol must be running out of material. He reminds of the comedian that blows up big with great material, and then when it comes time to keep her act fresh, she can’t do it and fades away.

The difference with Kristol is that he never had any great material. Nope. None. Bill Kristol is the son of Irving Kristol. Like most prominent conservatives he’s never had to work for anything in his life. He was born with a silver-spoon in his mouth and he road his father’s coattails to where he is today.

I don’t know much about Bill’s father, but I’m willing to bet he had twice the intellectual might in his little toe than his son will ever be able to muster. Bill Kristol is on TV because of one thing and one thing only – nepotism. He’s a tool, and anyone that still listens to anything has to say for anything but the laughs is even a bigger tool.

For a good laugh, here he is making an ass out of himself – again.

I know Sarah Palin’s supporters don’t give a rip about facts, details or being right, but Palin sure is wrong a lot.

The former half-term governor of Alaska has put her proverbial foot in her mouth again. PolitiFact.com fact-checked her recent statement that “Democrats are poised now to cause this largest tax increase in US history.” They gave her a “Pants on Fire” rating – meaning liar liar pants on fire.

Obviously Palin lashed out at being called a liar. On her Facebook page she said, “Yesterday, PolitiFact.com fact-checked my statement about the coming $3.8 trillion Obama tax hike – the largest tax increase in history. They did such a bad job of it, however, that I feel compelled to fact-check the fact-checkers.”

Go on Mrs. Palin, fact-check your little heart out.

According to her “analysis,” Democrats have failed to put forward any plan to deal with Bush’s tax cuts, which are set to expire if Congress doesn’t renew them. Tax cuts? Tax hikes? You say potato – I say po-tah-toe. She’s correct that if Congress doesn’t do anything, the tax cuts will expire, but she’s wrong that Democrats don’t have a plan to do with them – she either doesn’t like it, or she doesn’t know about it.

“In fact,” PolitiFact responded, “Democrats have repeatedly stated they only intend to let lower tax rates expire for individuals making more than $200,000 or couples making more than $250,000. And that’s nowhere near the largest tax increase in history, as we noted in our rating.”

That’s not how Palin sees it.

“Unfortunately for PolitiFact, no such proposal exists. … Plan? What plan?,” Palin moans. “There is no plan. All we have is smoke and mirrors based on an old Obama campaign pledge that if elected, he would exempt families making less than $250,000 a year from ‘any form of tax increases.’ …

“To prevent PolitiFact from making similar mistakes in future, it would be helpful if the White House and the Democratic Congressional leadership finally mustered the courage to table their plans to let the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire. Mr. President, publish your proposals, and we’ll duke it out. You can argue in favor of a multi-trillion dollar tax hike in an age of economic uncertainty and mass unemployment, and we’ll argue for fiscal sanity combined with serious spending cuts. I for one look forward to such a debate.”

But PolitiFact says that Obama has indeed put forth a rather detailed plan on how to deal with the expiring Bush tax cuts. The president has addressed the issue at least twice in the annual budget documents that the White House releases.

PolitiFact can take it from here, but the bottom-line is that Palin needs to do her homework before she shoots her mouth off, this isn’t high school debate class, she needs to actually do some research or she’s going to keep looking like a fool.

The president’s 2011 budget, for example, says on page 39, “Allow the Bush Tax Cuts for Households Earning More Than $250,000 to Expire.”

“In the last Administration, those at the very top enjoyed large tax breaks and income gains while almost everyone else struggled and real income for the middle class declined. Our Nation cannot afford to continue these tax cuts, which is why the President supports allowing those tax cuts that affect families earning more than $250,000 a year to expire and committing these resources to reducing the deficit instead. This step will have no effect on the 98 percent of all households who make less than $250,000.”

Lest you think that’s too general and vague, there are detailed estimates in the budget summary tables, starting on page 164, for provisions such as, “Upper-income tax provisions devoted to deficit reduction: Expand the 28-percent rate and reinstate the 36-percent and 39.6-percent rates for those taxpayers with income over $250,000 (married) and $200,000 (single) … Reinstate the personal exemption phaseout and limitation on itemized deductions for those taxpayers with income over $250,000 (married) and $200,000 (single) … Impose 20-percent tax rate on capital gains and dividends for those taxpayers with income over $250,000 (married) and $200,000 (single).”

In Congress, key Democratic leaders have indicated they are using the plan outlined in the federal budget as the framework for their legislation. The Senate Finance Committee held a hearing on dealing with the expiring tax cuts. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the committee’s chair, said in a July 14, 2010, statement, “I support extending the middle-class tax cuts permanently, as soon as possible, so working families can keep more of their hard-earned money.”

The committee released a budget analysis from the Joint Committee on Taxation, “Estimated Effects on Economic Growth and Distribution.” That document showed estimates for the cost to make the Bush tax cuts permanent for those who are now taxed at rates of 10 percent, 25 percent, 28 percent, “and part of the 33%.” That 33 percent tax bracket, by the way, includes taxpayers who make slightly below and slightly above the benchmarks Obama described.

And then there’s also the U.S. Treasury Department’s “General Explanations of the Administration’s Fiscal Year 2011 Revenue Proposals,” known by policy wonks as “the green book.” It outlines in even more detail how the Obama administration plans to increase taxes for high-earners and keep the current rates for everyone else.

“It is very much an official statement of policy. It’s what they propose to do,” said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow with the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. “Obviously, Congress will do or won’t do what it will. But I have heard no one on the Hill saying we should let everything expire.”

News coverage from other publications from The Wall Street Journal to our fellow fact-checkers at Factcheck.org have also noted the Democratic proposals and ideas on these issues.

“The Democrats’ plan seems to me to be quite explicit: keep the tax cuts for those under $250,000 and let those for the rich expire,” said Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, and a longtime watcher of Congress. “Does that mean never, ever taxing the under-$250 (thousand) populace? No. But it is a straightforward policy plan.”

The PolitiFact story can be found here.
Palin’s Facebook post can be found here.

The Washington Times is a giant steaming pile of crap, and Pamela Geller’s column “Borderline Obama” adds another lump of fresh cow dung to the heap.

She makes the feeble, and unsubstantiated, claim that President Obama is purposely leaving the border with Mexico unprotected so that terrorists can sneak into the country to kill Americans. It’s all part of his plan to destroy America, kill Americans and rid the world of capitalism once and for all.

Yeah, I’m not exaggerating.

“With fresh evidence of Hezbollah activity just south of the border, and numerous reports of Muslims from various countries posing as Mexicans and crossing into the United States from Mexico, our porous southern border is a national security nightmare waiting to happen,” Geller screams to her mouth-breathing minions.

What reports? Where are they? Why no link? Oh I see, they don’t exist, at least not from a credible news source. Huzzah rightblogger!

Geller does provides statistics from the Department of Homeland Security’s 2008 Yearbook of Immigration Studies.

“Federal law enforcement agencies detained 791,568 deportable aliens in fiscal year 2008, and 5,506 of them were from 14 ‘special-interest countries’ – i.e., nations full of jihadists such as Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan.”

Oh I get it, filthy ragheads from Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan are pretending to be “mexicans” – they’re all terrorists. That makes sense, but isn’t Pakistan an ally? And is Afghanistan really the enemy – I thought it was the Taliban and Osama bin Laden? Also, if these people were captured and deported, doesn’t that mean that the border isn’t as porous as you say it is? Oh right, that was when Bush was running the show, but Obama just doesn’t give a shit? Keep it coming rightblogger!

“Informants are telling us that those numbers continue to swell.” Ah yes, “informants” are telling the Washington Times stuff. They’re not Moonies are they?

Geller assures her “readers” that all of this is part of Obama’s plot to overthrow the very government he’s in charge of, and to destroy capitalism as we know it.

“Domestically, Mr. Obama is contemptuous of capitalism and rugged individualism,” grrr manly men stuff, “and with his socialist programs has gone to war against the American economy. Internationally, he is not only inveterately hostile to Israel, but he has turned a blind eye to Iran’s genocidal intentions and nuclear program, and generally appears intent on turning America’s historical enemies into friends and friends into enemies,” Geller exclaims.

Why is Obama seeking to destroy America? Because he’s a closet Muslim who hates Jews and capitalism – duh.

“Throughout his life and his political career, Mr. Obama has been consistent – right up to and into his presidency,” Geller explains. “And today, his policies in Arizona and Israel – not connected or related to each other by any analyst on the scene – are two separate manifestations of the same anti-American, anti-Semitic, pro-jihad core convictions that have guided his actions and associations since the beginning of his political career and even before.”

Bring it home Geller.

“It is all a result of how he was brought up, of what shaped his mind and heart. It is all a result of what drives him. And what drives him is not American. He said it himself: ‘I was a little Jakarta street kid’ who found the Islamic call to prayer to be ‘one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.’

Now the little Jakarta street kid has grown up. And America hangs in the balance.”

There you have it folks, from the newspaper that’s owned by Sun Myung Moon the spiritual leader for the Unification Church (i.e. Moonies), Obama is a jihadist.

Geller’s story today is just that – a story. She provides no concrete policy decisions Obama has made that lends any credibility to the assertion that Obama hates capitalism, Jews or Americans. Only someone who’s the editor of AtlasShrugs.com can possibly come up with such idiotic hate-speech. And only the Moony-owned newspaper has the sufficient lack of credibility to publish it. I think it’s time for Geller to get a real job, perhaps guessing people’s weight at the county fair.

Mort Zuckerman is a liar. Like the vast majority of conservative commentators he lies through his teeth on a regular basis and his sloped-forward mouth-breathing readings go, “Yup. Uh-huh.”

Well today, Paul Krugman calls out Zuckerman for a recent op-ed he wrote in the Financial Times. Zuckerman sprinkles right-wing lies throughout the entire story, but one Krugman found particularly interesting was his total bullshit out-of-context accusation that President Obama was bashing the business community in a recent speech.

Here’s what Obama said:

Too much regulation or too much spending can stifle innovation, can hamper confidence and growth, and hurt business and families. A government that does too little can be just as irresponsible as a government that does too much — because, for example, in the absence of sound oversight, responsible businesses are forced to compete against unscrupulous and underhanded businesses, who are unencumbered by any restrictions on activities that might harm the environment, or take advantage of middle-class families, or threaten to bring down the entire financial system. That’s bad for everybody.

Nothing shocking here, right? Well, here’s what Zuckerman wrote:

The predilection to blame business was manifest in one of President Barack Obama’s recent speeches. He was supposed to be seeking the support of the business community for a doubling of exports over the next five years. Instead he lashed out at “unscrupulous and underhanded businesses, who are unencumbered by any restriction on activities that might harm the environment, take advantage of middle-class families, or, as we’ve seen, threaten to bring down the entire financial system.”

This kind of gratuitous and overstated demonization – widely seen in the business community as a resort to economic populism on the part of Mr Obama to shore up the growing weakness in his political standing – is exactly the wrong approach.

Obama wasn’t “blaming business.” What he said is that without some government regulation, we’ll have a race to the bottom. One company may want to do the right thing by the environment, but if their competition doesn’t care and doesn’t have to incur the costs associated with caring, well, the good company can’t compete. This is pretty basic stuff. It’s something that the Financial Times should be able to recognize.

Here’s what Krugman had to say:

I think this is telling. This is the only actual example of Obama’s alleged demonization of business that Zuckerman offers — and it’s essentially a mini-Breitbart, a quote taken out of context to make it seem as if Obama was saying something he wasn’t. That’s typical of the whole argument.

Oh, and one more thing: are there no copy editors at the FT? When I quote someone in my column, I supply the source material, and my copy editor checks, not just to be sure that the quote is accurate, but that it’s not taken out of context. But I guess such rules don’t apply if you’re a conservative.

Today, rightblogger Dick Morris said that Andrew Breitbart’s phony racist video of Shirley Sherrod, and her subsequent firing, is having its intended negative effect on Obama because Obama’s black.

He didn’t say those exact words, but that’s Morris’ point. He believes, perhaps correctly, that anytime the right can make Obama deal with a race issue, it makes him look bad.

You see it didn’t make Bush look bad when he had to deal with race because he’s white and the former governor of Texas, the expectations were low.

But dealing with race, according to Morris, makes Obama look bad because he’s supposedly representing the fictitious post-racial America that racist white people invented a couple years ago.

“Any involvement in racial politics has to hurt Obama at his core. It goes to his fundamental selling point: That he is post racial,” Morris explained. “By dealing with race repeatedly, he is vulnerable just as Bill Clinton was when he had always to deal with sexual scandal. It is not his strength but can ultimately destroy his credibility.”

See there’s the strategy, make the black guy feel uncomfortable by making him talk about racism all the time.

Yep, that’s a good strategy, go for it.

After Rolling Stone published a profile called “Runaway General” about General Stanley McChrystal, in which the Afghanistan commander criticized President Obama, Vice President Biden and Obama’s national security staff, McChrystal was fired.

Technically, Obama accepted the general’s resignation, but in reality he was fired.

Obama said today that McChrystal’s comments were not appropriate and they were disrespectful of the chain of command and civilian leadership of the military.

General Petraeus will now be the commander in Afghanistan.

You can view Obama’s speech here.

You can read the Rolling Stone story here.

This week, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd puts her finger on the problem with President Obama.

He’s too passive, too willing to compromise and too comfortable sitting back and letting things play out. As a result, Dowd said, Obama is losing control of the storyline.

Right now the story line is oil is spilling into the Gulf of Mexico at an alarming rate and there’s apparently nothing anyone can do about it. For some reason, BP was allowed to drill with no plan on what do if there’s a blow out.

But Obama’s been afraid to step up and take control of this mess. He sat back and waited to see if BP could get a handle on it. When they couldn’t stop it, Obama held a press conference and took ownership of the disaster.

That was more than a month after the initial explosion April 20.

That’s been Obama’s strategy, to sit back and see how things play out.

Calculate the risk. Process the data. Then act.

While that strategy can work in the political world, when you’re dealing with an actual crisis, waiting to see how it all plays out probably isn’t the wisest course of action to take.

White House press conference on Mar. 31, 2010. The video and complete transcript were provided by WhiteHouse.gov on Apr. 2, 2010 at 9:06 p.m. eastern.

Press Briefing by Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton, 3/31/2010
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

12:38 P.M. EDT

MR. BURTON: Hi, guys. So we’re just going to go ahead and just get started.

Q Going to leap right in?

MR. BURTON: Yes.

Q So can we talk about the politics of the offshore drilling announcement?

MR. BURTON: Sure.

Q Both sides. How can — can you guys afford to kind of anger the environmentalists, sort of liberal side of your base, with the pretty expansive decision on offshore drilling? And then, on the other side, how much do you think it can actually help in bringing Republicans along on climate change?

MR. BURTON: Well, it’s the President’s view that what we need to do here is take a comprehensive approach to energy policy. And there are people on the right who support some aspects of that; there’s people on the left who support some aspects of that. But he didn’t go into this looking at what the political coalition was going to be getting if this passed. He went into this thinking what’s the best policy for our country and how do we get it done.

It’s something that he talked about on the campaign trail; it’s something that he’s talked about for a very long time. So I think that for people who have followed the President, a lot of this policy isn’t much of a surprise to them.

Q Right, but –

MR. BURTON: One thing I would say, though, Jennifer, is just that I was — the President was encouraged this morning to see Senator McConnell’s spokesperson say that this was an issue that he had spoken specifically with President Obama about. And so it does look like there’s some support on both sides of the aisle. We’ll have a rigorous debate about this and hopefully get something done.

Q Well, can you talk, though, specifically about environmentalists? Obviously they’re not happy with the way this decision played out. So how much can you afford — understood that it’s a decision he had kind of hinted at, hinted he was going to make, but at the same time he has to deal with the fallout from that decision. So how does that play out for you?

MR. BURTON: Sure. Well, we’re the Democratic Party; we often have disagreements among our friends. But the President is going to continue to talk to folks in the environmental community, and people in the Democratic Party, and people in the Republican Party, to make the most amount of progress that we can make on this critical issue. It’s important because we need to decrease our dependence on foreign oil and we need to move forward on some of these investments in order to create some of the most important jobs that we can create here in the 21st century.

The President’s view is that the country that comes out on top — on investments in renewable energy and on creating new technology — is going to be leader in the 21st century, and he’s not playing for second place.

Q So the drilling announced today — there was no thought about the implications this might have for advancing the climate change legislation that seems to be running into obstacles in Congress?

MR. BURTON: Well, I would say that it’s obviously a part of the climate legislation and the entire package that the President is working with Congress to move forward. So I would say that this is mostly about coming through on a promise that he made to the American people that he would have a comprehensive energy plan that would include some increased domestic production of energy but also some big investments in renewable technology, as well as finding ways to promote efficiency and things like that. So all these things are connected.

Q Well, Robert yesterday showed sort of acceptance of a timetable of getting financial regulatory reform through Congress onto the President’s desk by no later than September. What is the timetable you all are thinking of for climate change legislation?

MR. BURTON: I don’t have specific dates for you necessarily, but this is something that the President thinks we need to move forward on as quickly as possible. As recently as a couple weeks ago he had a bipartisan group of senators into the White House to talk about some of the proposals that they have, some ways that we can come together in order to make progress on this issue. And he’s going to continue to work with them in order to make progress as fast as we can.

Q Does the President believe that this can be done before the midterm elections in November?

MR. BURTON: His goal is to do this as fast as he possibly can.

Yunji.

Q I’m curious, what changed? I mean, the President, again and again on the campaign trail, said that this was — this would be insignificant, that expanding these kind of leases would not do much in terms of consumer relief, short term or long term. So what’s different?

MR. BURTON: Well, what the President said was that there’s no silver bullet when it comes to decreasing our dependence on foreign oil and having a comprehensive view on energy. If you remember the conversation that was being had, a lot of people treated offshore drilling as a panacea to solve all of our problems as it related to energy. But what the President thought was that it just had to be one part of a comprehensive strategy to dealing with that.

That’s why, over the course of the presidency, you’ve heard him, at the State of the Union, talk about this, and in other venues talk about it. He’s talked about increasing production of domestic oil. He’s talked about finding ways to get nuclear energy moving in this country, clean coal moving in this country, and all those different things.

But along with the increased production, he’s talked about ways to make vehicles more efficient. There’s new fuel-efficiency standards, which is something that was very hard to get an agreement on but, bringing all the relevant parties to the table, he was able to. He’s done things to make the federal fleet more fuel efficient, using hybrid vehicles, buying plug-in cars, to make sure that we’re doing everything we can, from the federal government’s standpoint, in order to decrease our dependence on foreign oil.

So nothing has changed. What you see here today is a fulfillment of what the President said he was going to do.

Q But the President said that this was insignificant. If it’s insignificant, then — and you have the kind of political fallout that Jennifer is talking about potentially happening, then what makes this worth it?

MR. BURTON: What the President said was that this in and of itself would not be enough to get us on a path to energy independence, and so as one part of his strategy, finding places where you can reasonably and safely drill offshore to increase production is a key part of that. So — but it’s just one part of that. And that’s what he said in the campaign and that’s what he’s following through on today.

Dan.

Q Why did the President not go further in terms of drilling off of Alaska where it’s believed there are a lot of resources?

MR. BURTON: Well, what the President thinks we ought to do is use the best science available and the safest methods that we can in order to find oil and gas, and then go and retrieve it and use it domestically. So what this proposal represents is what he and the team of experts around him think is the best way to go about that in the most responsible and safe way.

Q On health care, what’s going on behind the scenes in terms of the President selling to the American people — beyond just the trip that we’re seeing this week — selling to the American people the short-term and long-term benefits of this new law?

MR. BURTON: Well, as the President said when we were going through this process to get health care passed into law, he was going to spend some time going out talking to the American people specifically about the short-term and the long-term benefits that they were going to get out of it. And that’s what you see. Tomorrow the President will be in Maine where he’ll be talking about some of the benefits that small businesses will get in the short term and the long term as it relates to health care.

So you’ll see the President travel and talk about it. You’ll see members of the administration talking about it. And we’re going to continue to make sure the American people know exactly what’s in this bill for them and when it comes into effect.

Q Bill, I want to revisit a health care issue from yesterday. Regarding the write-downs for big companies like AT&T, Caterpillar, I’m unclear — is it the White House’s position that these write-downs are purely political; that they could have been done in a more gradual way? Or is it the position that, yes, their hands are tied by accounting rules and they had to take these write-downs immediately?

MR. BURTON: Well, I’m not going to make a statement on the motivations of people announcing what 30-year projections are saying about the impact that health care reform will have on their business. But it’s the White House’s view that all the benefits in health care reform will have a much greater positive impact on those businesses than the loss of a double subsidy will to their business.

Q You seem to be scoffing at a breakdown over 30 years. Is that true that you’re saying this –

MR. BURTON: No, I’m not scoffing at it. I’m just pointing it out.

Q Okay, and secondly — it sounded like scoffing. Secondly, I sent you a high-priority email yesterday — I’m sure you saw it — but I was questioning the reading habits of Mr. Gibbs. Has Mr. Gibbs actually read all the reports he cited yesterday to justify — to claim that there will a bending of the cost curve in the health care bill?

MR. BURTON: I assume that he has, because he’s a really fast reader and he’s been very interested in the subject. But the good news for you is that I’m just doing this part-time, and you’ll have your chance to ask him directly.

Bill.

Q Does the President believe that his proposal today will make it easier to raise the cap and trade bill and actually get it debated in the Senate?

MR. BURTON: Well, the President’s view is that what he did today is an important part of moving it forward. And so the President has been –

Q But I’m asking about the politics.

MR. BURTON: I understand that. And I know that here in Washington — I haven’t been here that long, but I know that everything is viewed through a lens of who does this help, who does this hurt, who’s up, who’s down. The President’s view is that this is the best policy, and that working with members of the Senate on both sides — the Republicans and the Democrats — this is policy — that there are things that people of both political persuasions can agree to and we can move forward on it.

Q Presumably you’ve also been here long enough to know that that’s the way they think inside, too.

MR. BURTON: Well, I wouldn’t go that far. Having talked to the folks who I work with here in the West Wing all day today, I know that there is a real belief that what we’ve proposed today doesn’t just follow through on what the President promised on the campaign for the sake of following through on it. It also would put our country on a new track towards more domestic production of energy, towards more renewable energy use, and towards creating jobs of the future.

Q If you’re willing to set deadlines for other legislation, will you set a deadline for getting cap and trade passed?

MR. BURTON: I don’t have a deadline for you today. I just know the President wants to move forward on this as fast as possible.

Savannah.

Q Given that you guys haven’t considered the politics at all with this, is it possible there was a strategic blunder here by conceding so much — doing offshore drilling, you’ve announced new grants for nuclear reactors — without getting any concessions from Republicans? You didn’t have any Republicans standing up there with the President today. Is it possible that you’ve kind of given away the store without any guarantees that you’ll get Republican support in exchange for that?

MR. BURTON: Well, I’d start by saying that actually Senator McConnell’s spokesperson’s statement was very encouraging, that this was an issue that he had brought up specifically with the President and that we believe that we’ll be able to work with Republicans on. But also, like I said, this — none of this should have been a surprise to anybody. We’ve been talking about all these different elements for a very long time and the President is following through on promises that he made to have a comprehensive energy strategy.

So in terms of the politics of this, we think that there are good things in this package that appeal to people of all political persuasions and that in the short term, not the long term, we’re going to be able to move forward and pass some of this into law.

Q Well, McConnell — in his statement, which I just read, actually, since you mentioned that, kind of frames it as a small step. All the Republican statements say — have kind of a lukewarm response to it. Will the President get involved as closely as he was by the end of health care? Did he learn something from the health care debate that he plans to use in this debate?

MR. BURTON: Well, I would say for starters I don’t think there is anybody who anticipated that the President would roll out an energy plan and people on the Republican side would be cheerleading it right from the get-go. But if you saw what happened over the course of the health care debate, where you had senators saying that this would be the President’s Waterloo, stop this at all costs, this is the way that we can halt the agenda of the President, I think even lukewarm statements are a step in the right direction.

Mark.

Q Bill, to what extent is the administration joining the chorus of those who chant, “drill, baby, drill”?

MR. BURTON: Well, I would say that this comprehensive approach is a lot less “drill, baby, drill” and more “drill where it’s responsible, promote efficiency, invest in clean energy, and create jobs of the future.” I know that doesn’t fit on a t-shirt quite as well, but that’s a lot more about what President Obama thinks is the right direction for this country.

Q And is it the plan to expand oil and gas leases throughout the Atlantic Ocean? I read a figure of 160 million acres of ocean would be available for new oil and gas drilling.

MR. BURTON: I don’t know the specifics on the acreage. I think there’s actually a call happening right now that some of your colleagues are on where they’re going through some of those particulars.

Roger.

Q Bill, looking ahead to Friday, the jobs report comes out, as you know, and the President is going to be down in North Carolina. The analysts so far seem to suggest that this will be showing job creation for the second time since the recession started. Does that suggest that the White House will stop now on offering any more jobs plans, or are you going to kind of lay back and let things take hold and see where it goes?

MR. BURTON: Well, unless the jobs report comes back and says that we’ve created 8.5 million jobs in this last month, the President is going to treat this jobs report the same way he’s created all the — he’s treated all the rest of them, which is to say that we’ve got a lot more work to do.

And there’s analysts across the spectrum who have different views of what the jobs report is going to say, and I know there’s different factors that will play into this specific one. Last month there was the huge snowstorm, and this month we might see some of the reverse effects of that. I’ve seen reports that the Census Bureau has hired thousands of folks. So there’s a lot of different factors that we’ll see in this jobs report.

But the President is committed to putting the American people back to work and keeping this economy on track. And the jobs report that comes out on Friday is just going to be one set of data, but it’s not necessarily going to mean the President is going to change course when it comes to doing everything that he can to move through some of the ideas that he’s put forth on helping small businesses, helping big businesses, helping everybody who’s hiring that he can to create an environment where people can create jobs.

Q So you’re leaving the door open for another jobs creation package at some point, if needed?

MR. BURTON: Well, keep in mind that some of the things that the President has talked about even as recently as December have not come to a vote, haven’t been passed, and so some of his jobs ideas are still out there, including some of the things to — since this is energy day — but to make homes more efficient and give people credits to retrofit their own houses and that sort of thing. So the President is still very much focused on creating jobs.

Q One just minor housekeeping question. Will the First Family’s tax returns be released either Friday or over the weekend?

MR. BURTON: I don’t know the timing on that, but they’re generally released and they’ll be out sooner than you think. I don’t have a date for you.

Lester.

Q Thank you very much. And thank you for your very crisp answers. Does the President believe that the Holy Father has been fairly treated by The New York Times and The Washington Post?

MR. BURTON: That’s not something I’ve spoken to him about. I’ll see what I can find out.

Q You will? Good. (Laughter.) Why does the President believe that it is fair to bar all private-school children from the Easter Egg Roll, including scholarship students at Sidwell Friends?

MR. BURTON: I’m not familiar with the Easter Egg Roll policy, but I would direct you to –

Q But it’s been announced. You must be aware of the announcement.

MR. BURTON: Like I said, I’m not fully familiar with the Easter Egg Roll policy. I appreciate the question. But you should direct it to the East –

Q You’ll get me an answer then?

MR. BURTON: No, I would direct you to the East Wing where they know a little more about it.

April.

Q Yes, today is March 31st, the deadline for the Black Farmers $1.25 [billion] congressional approval for its settlement. Robert was supposed to come back with information about if the President supported an extension — because we understand that CBC members as well as the Black Farmers were looking for an extension. Do you have any information about the President supports an extension to this deadline after 15 years of their wait?

MR. BURTON: I checked in with Leg Affairs after you asked that question yesterday, and they told me that they are in fact working with Congress with some urgency to get this done as fast as possible. I don’t have any specific timing for you, but this is something that they’re working to make progress on to make sure that we get this done.

Q So it’s not going to happen today, but you mean that they could possibly use the extension — I mean, because today is the deadline and they’re not there –

MR. BURTON: Well, not knowing the particulars of the specific settlement, I’m letting you know that the legislative team is working to get this done as fast as possible.

Q Well, let me ask you this as well — since they have been waiting for 15 years in this Pickford case, the Black Farmers want to know if they can meet with the President, especially after he announced it in his 2011 budget and put out a paper saying he strongly supports it. And they wanted to know if they could sit down and talk to the President to push more so this administration to make it happen, since they’ve waited 15 years.

MR. BURTON: I don’t know if there’s a meeting in the works. I can certainly check on it, but I don’t know if that’s in the works.

Q Is this administration open to meeting with them at least?

MR. BURTON: I haven’t spoken to anybody on that, so I don’t know.

Bill.

Q Bill, you said a couple times already today that the President’s policy is to drill where it’s responsible. So far I’ve only heard about Virginia. Can you give us an idea of other places where the administration believes it’s responsible to drill?

MR. BURTON: Well, some of the other areas that were talked about in the reports today are up on the northern coast of Alaska, down in the Gulf region — areas like that.

Q Are there any plans for drilling off the coast of California?

MR. BURTON: That is not a part of this.

Q Out of consideration?

MR. BURTON: I can’t speak to the entire rest of this administration, but I can tell you that it’s not a part of the President’s energy plan.

Q I’m sorry if this has already been mentioned, but to what extent was this discussed with Democratic leaders on the Hill before it was rolled out today?

MR. BURTON: We speak with Democratic leaders on the Hill every day and –

Q They were well aware this was coming? I mean, have you taken the temperature of Democrats on the Hill?

MR. BURTON: I assume that that has happened. We talk to Democratic leaders every day. It wasn’t a secret that our energy policy was coming out. Folks got a heads-up that it was happening. And obviously the President has a very close relationship with Speaker Pelosi and Harry Reid and it’s, of course, one of the things that they do talk about from time to time.

Ann.

Q On the West Coast of Florida, when you’re talking about the eastern part of the Gulf of Mexico — he says that he would — if the ban were to be lifted, he’d like to see more exploration there. Will the President ask Congress to lift the ban?

MR. BURTON: Well, everyplace has specific regulations that they have to deal with in order to move leases, to actually put in the rigs. There’s the exploratory phase that they have to go through. So — what’s your specific question about the Eastern Gulf?

Q The statement you all put out says that in the Eastern Gulf, which remains under a congressional moratorium — right? But if it were to be lifted, he thinks there should be more drilling closer to the western coast of Florida.

MR. BURTON: Well, I don’t want to get into water that’s too deep for me when we’re talking about the Gulf of Mexico. (Laughter.) But I would encourage you to ask the folks at Interior.

Q Bill, how about — for years, some of the arguments that opponents of drilling used is that, first of all, as the President said when he was a candidate, it doesn’t come up with a single gallon of gas in the short term, it’s way long off; and, number two, that the — well, answer just that part. When he pounded the lectern back in 2008 and said, I won’t do it because it won’t come up with anything immediate — what flipped him on that?

MR. BURTON: Well, the President’s view — and I was saying this earlier — is that this is not a silver bullet to the answer to the energy question that we have.

Q But what changed?

MR. BURTON: But it’s one part. It’s one part. And this is something that he has said over the course of the campaign. So people who voted for him, people who covered him, people who were watching this election knew that if you pulled the lever for Barack Obama in November of 2008, what you were going to get was a President who, as part of a comprehensive energy strategy, was going to support some drilling where it made sense, was going to promote efficiency, was going to invest in renewables. But he was going to take a comprehensive view, and not just take the short view that drilling was the answer to all of our answers.

Q And the other aspect of that is the complaint against it was that the drilling — there are a lot of leases out there sitting there untouched for years. How many leases, and what kind of exploration could go forward that the private companies just aren’t doing?

MR. BURTON: I actually, Ann, have to say, regret this — I have the specific numbers for you. They’re sitting upstairs on my desk.

Q Well, I’ll be up to see you. (Laughter.)

MR. BURTON: But I will make sure that I get you those numbers — and anybody else who is interested in them.

Glen.

Q Bill, in the run-up to Copenhagen, the administration took its share of criticism from conservative groups who said that you were sort of in the pocket of the environmental community. What do you think this says about the President’s attitude towards environmentalists and his willingness to stand up for them even if they don’t agree with him?

MR. BURTON: Well, I — Glen, I was saying this earlier, but I just — I don’t see it in that political lens necessarily. If the President had done something today that he hadn’t promised that he was going to do, that we hadn’t telegraphed from the campaign through the State of the Union of this year, through all the different things that we’ve said about energy, then I would say that maybe we could have a conversation about what this means for standing up to whomever. But this is something the President said he was going to do, and I think that for the most part, people oughtn’t feel surprised about it.

Q Just to follow up on what Sam was asking about the contact with the Hill. If you sort of look at this map, it is — it appears to be carefully crafted and tailored. You have some drilling on the north short of Alaska; you have more restrictions on the south. You also have the drilling off the coast of Virginia. To what extent did you discuss the creation of this map with Senator Warner in Virginia, Senator Landrieu in Louisiana? Was there a back-and-forth prior to this?

MR. BURTON: On the actual process for figuring out the places where it made most sense to explore new places to drill I would direct you to the Department of Interior.

Peter.

Q Can I ask about — yesterday in the President’s statement on Iran with President Sarkozy, he says weeks, not months, on a sanction resolution. Can you give us any more understanding of why he’s saying that, or what makes him think he can get it on that time frame? What’s happening in terms of the discussions about — with the Chinese at this point or –

MR. BURTON: Well, for starters, as the President expressed yesterday, there’s a real sense of urgency as it relates to working to apply pressure to Iran. And there are some very intense conversations happening at the United Nations right now that we’re able to make some real progress on. And the President feels like we have more support in the international community for sanctions than we’ve ever had before and he feels very confident that this spring we will be able to move forward with an agreement of those nations.

Q How important is it to get a sanctions resolution, even if it doesn’t include everything that he originally might have wanted it to have?

MR. BURTON: Well, the President obviously — the United States is not the only country who is dealing with this issue. And so we have to work with some of our foreign partners to apply as much pressure as we can.

You brought up the Chinese. The Chinese know that it’s not in their interest to have a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, and we’re confident that we’re going to be able to work with them to move forward on meaningful pressure on Iran.

So I would say that the President takes the long view. He wants to apply as much pressure as we can, and he’s confident we’re going to be able to do that.

Q Thanks, Bill. As you know, gas prices have been on the rise over the past few months. I’ve seen $4 a gallon here in Washington, D.C. To what extent does the White House believe that the proposal the President announced today will bring down the cost of gasoline for motorists across the country?

MR. BURTON: I don’t know about the immediate impact because of course all these different things that we’re doing have to go through different phases, right? You’ve got some places where you can start drilling a lot more soon than in other places. And so the length of time that it takes for the oil to get out of the ground and into the supply is going to take a little while.

So I don’t know that — I’m not a speculator, so I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen on the price of a barrel of oil today. But I can tell you that over the long term this is going to save the American people money, it’s going to decrease our dependence on foreign oil, and it’s going to allow them to know that our energy future is secure.

Q So long term then — you say you don’t know about the immediate impact it may have — long term, you think that the price of gasoline for motorists across the country will come down as a result of the proposal the President announced today?

MR. BURTON: I think that as a result of the proposal the President announced today, our country will have a lot more energy security and a lot less dependence on foreign oil. But in terms of the ups and downs of the market, I’m not going to get into that.

Q Did that enter into the calculus of the White House in making this decision, that perhaps this would bring down the cost of gasoline for motorists?

MR. BURTON: Well, obviously as we get into the summer, gas prices go up. And at a time when the economy is not doing very well, that can have a real pinch on families who are unemployed, or families who are underemployed, or families who are feeling the pinch from all sorts of different aspects of the economy — rising tuition costs, rising utility costs, and things like that.
And so the President does want to do things that make energy more affordable for the American people. But I would say that this comprehensive approach is the best way to do that for the long term for — as it relates to energy and as it relates to our economy.

Thank you.

END
1:08 P.M. EDT

The Tea Partiers will fail because for them to succeed we would need to shred the US Constitution and start over. That would require a revolution, and that’s not going to happen.

You just have to examine what they stand for. They claim to be strict constitutionalists, but they can’t stop screaming that what Democrats are doing is unconstitutional – against the will of the people.

The Tea Partiers must have forgotten that Democrats won two elections – one in 2006 and another one in 2008.

Obama and Congressional Democrats campaigned on health care reform. So it’s disingenuous for the Tea Partiers to now claim that Democrats are defying the will of the people by pursuing the agenda that they campaigned on.

In a representative republic, the people’s will is determined by elections and not protests – just ask liberals who rallied by the tens of thousands to stop the Iraq war in 2003.

But if the Tea Partiers have their way, no matter who gets elected, a radical right-wing agenda must be adhered to. If not, bricks will be thrown, guns will be drawn, politicians spat on and death threats – thinly-veiled  and otherwise – will be hurled.

The problem with the Tea Party is that they have no faith or respect for our democracy. They seem to not realize that when liberals win elections, they have not only a right, but an obligation, to implement the agenda that they campaigned on.

What’s so gut-busting laugh-out-loud funny is that conservatives keep trying to portray President Obama as a left-wing weirdo sitting around smoking hash and lathering himself up with patchouli oil. If you look at his policies — yes, even health care reform — it’s pretty clear that Obama is marginally left-of-center.

Take for instance his plan to open up offshore drilling on both coasts and Alaska. Environmentalist heads are exploding. His liberal base is freaking losing it. Well, maybe they aren’t, because they’ve known for a long time that Obama is no beacon of liberal policy.

In the 2008, the real liberal running was Hillary Clinton. Obama was the moderate. He campaigned on offshore drilling and other not-so-liberal policies.

But that hasn’t stopped the GOP and Fox and friends from branding the president with the liberal tag. Watch Fox News for one day and count the number of times someone refers to Obama as the most liberal president, or person, to ever walk the face of the Earth.

There’s a reason that so many uneducated and un-curious Americans think Obama is the anti-christ – they watch Fox News. But the reality of Obama’s policies do not reflect this out-of-whack caricature of him.

If Obama was a true liberal, he wouldn’t be proposing domestic offshore oil drilling. According to the New York Times story today, his plan would yield about 3 years worth of oil and 2 years worth of natural gas. That hardly seems worth further alienating your base Mr. President.

No, if Obama were a liberal he’d be pushing full steam ahead with that green economy he campaigned on. He’d be cracking down on US auto manufacturers to get their gas mileage down to something better than what they were doing in 1983, and rolling out electric cars too. He’d be building wind farms, giving tax breaks for solar panel installations and raising taxes on gas guzzlers and polluters.

If he were a liberal, Obama would be implementing an aggressive plan of conservation while moving forward to replace our fossil fuel energy infrastructure with a renewable one. A true liberal would not be proposing offshore drilling.

What’s most shocking about this offshore drilling plan is that the president thinks, according to the New York Times story, that this anti-environment proposal is going to win GOP support. Obama is certainly much smarter than I, but there’s only so many times you can throw your base under the bus for a misguided attempt to gain Republican votes. It isn’t going to happen – move on.

Despite what right-wing fringers like Bill Kristol and Glenn Beck say, the White House hasn’t raised taxes and they even show you have to take advantage of new tax cuts.

From the White House: “Did you know that there are more than a dozen Recovery Act tax cuts working families can take advantage of this tax season? Check out this online tool and find out how much you can save.”

Coming off the heels of major domestic legislative victories, President Obama dropped into Afghanistan to meet with leaders to press them to do more to clamp down on corruption.

The Associated Press’ Jennifer Loven has the story.

KABUL – In a surprise visit, President Barack Obama pressed Afghan leaders on Sunday to do more to rein in rampant corruption and improve their government as he got a firsthand look at the 8-year-old war he inherited and dramatically escalated.

During meetings with President Hamid Karzai and his Cabinet, Obama told them he was pleased with progress made since his last discussion with Karzai, by secure videoconference on March 15. Obama also invited Karzai to visit Washington on May 12.

Read Loven’s story.

Huffington Post’s Paul Abrams is a “professional iconoclast” and co-founder breakupthebigbanks.com and had this to say about this historic week of Democracy in America.

While President Obama and Congress wrestled health care reform to a successful conclusion and tacked on Student Loan Reform, Secretary of State Clinton concluded a deal with Russia to reduce nuclear arsenals, and Russia and China signaled frustration with Iran that may result in their joining sanctions. The President, the Vice-President and the Secretary of State practiced ‘tough love’ to Israel, and stood firm when vehemently attacked, a requirement if the US is going to bring this 60-year conflict to the resolution about which everyone knows not only the general contours, but most of the details.

Read Abrams’ complete column on Huffington Post.

The consensus among the talking heads, political wonks, hacks and bloviators is that Democrats will lose big in November’s elections.

The logic is that the party in the White House always gets their ass handed to them in the first election after the president takes office. That’s what happened in 1994 after Clinton beat Bush in 1992. It didn’t happen in 2002 following George W. Bush’s controversial election in 2000.

The mainstream media and pundits are also convinced that voters are going bludgeon Democrats over their passage of health care reform. Following passage of Medicare in 1965, Republicans picked up 47 House seats in the 1966 election. Democrats still held a 247 to 187 majority in the House, but it was a good year for Republicans. Besides Medicare and Civil Rights legislation passage, there was also an unpopular Vietnam war raging and race riots sweeping the nation.

However, just like the prospectus for a mutual fund, past performance is not proof of future performance. And if you think that people paid to blather on MSNBC, Fox News and CNN are speaking the truth, or know what they’re talking about, means you haven’t been paying attention – these fools are wrong more than the weather man. Just remember what Bob Dylan said about the weather man.

As far as health care reform is concerned, it’s hard to see how getting beat by the GOP and failing to pass health care reform legislation would have proved a winner for Democrats in November. One things that is a constant in US history is that Americans like it when things get done and they like to vote for winners and not losers.

But if Democrats want to pull out big wins in November there’s a hanging fastball that they just need to swing at – take on the bankers. It’s a guaranteed home run. Everyone from all walks of life, whether Tea Partiers or left-wing anti-war activists, everyone hates bankers. Many Americans reflexively loath bankers and Wall Street big shots.

Senate Democrats and House members need to go back to the drawing board and produce some tough new regulations on bankers and Wall Street fatcats. There needs to be a campaign to rid the nation of banks “too big too fail” and to set up a strong consumer protection agency that’s not part of the Federal Reserve. Democrats need to beef up the Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulatory agencies either with new legislation or with the power of the Executive.

Let the GOP campaign supporting of Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan and Wall Street hucksters.

This the issue an overwhelming majority of Americans care about, and if the Democrats hit it hard – they not only won’t lose in November, they could even have greater majorities in both houses.

I know many Americans hate progress, change, liberals, equality and workers, but it still surprises me when I see so many regular folks fight so hard to protect wealthy executives and corporations.

I wonder if CEOs for big pharma and health insurance companies sit around drinking scotch and laughing their asses off watching YouTube videos of all the boobs rallying to protect their positions of power.

I mean think about it, the Tea Partiers fought tooth and nail to protect health insurance companies so they can deny them – the protesters – health care, to take away their health care when they need it and to bankrupt them when they get sick.

It makes no sense.

And who do we have to thank for this mind-boggling insanity? President Ronald Reagan. It wasn’t so much the man as it was the time. Reagan, like all presidents, don’t create movements but they ride them.

The 1980s was the “Me Decade.” It was a time when the Baby Boomers were coming of age and they wanted, not just their slice, but the entire American pie. It was a decade plagued with un-checked greed and individualism. Either you were a Gordon Gekko, you wanted to be him or at the very least respected his tenacity and ruthlessness.

The last thing we needed was government intervention and taxes to slow down our quest for all of the money in the world.

There’s no doubt that this anti-government sentiment was rooted in the 1960s and 1970s when the government was doing some pretty horrible things. We had the Vietnam war and we lost. We had Watergate and we lost again. We did get civil rights legislation and Medicare, but the GOP successfully leveraged that as part of its “southern strategy.”

Animosity towards the government was strong on both sides of our political spectrum, and so when Reagan came in saying that it’s “morning in America,” people liked it.

Taxes for the wealthy were slashed and slashed and slashed again. Banking regulation was relegated to the garbage heap. We didn’t want to pay taxes, we wanted voodoo economics.

The idea behind voodoo economics was that by reducing government spending (that didn’t happen), reducing taxes (that did happen), reducing regulation (that happened) and controlling inflation (see Federal Reserve) the wealthy would get so rich some of that money would trickle down to the workers.

That’s called a top-down approach to economics – make the rich really rich and we all benefit. The problem is that it didn’t work.

What happened is that income inequality skyrocketed. While the rich were paying less in taxes, government spending wasn’t reduced and therefore deficits went up and the burden was placed squarely on the shoulders of the middle class. The money did trickle down. It trickled a little here and a little there, but unfortunately, trickle-down economics is just that – a trickle.

And so for the last 30 years, the rich got really rich and the rest of Americans were left with bailing out the Saving and Loans institutions that failed in the ’80s, the hedge fund debacle in the ’90s and the most recent Wall Street bankers who ushered in the Great Recession.

History should be our guide to economic and tax policy. When the rich don’t pay their fair share, like they didn’t in the “Roaring Twenties” which lead to the Great Depression. While we were under the spell of voodoo economics, we all suffered the consequences with the Great Recession. We can’t have an economic system that encourages economic inequality.

You see, one of the fundamental components of a tax system is to distribute the wealth. Either wealth goes up to the rich or down to the masses. Under Reaganomics it went up. Wealth redistribution is not socialism. It’s not communism. It’s how taxation works. And as a society we have to decide who should get the money – the wealthy or the rest of us.

A progressive taxation system is a bottom-up approach. It’s a belief that the real economic engine of this country isn’t the 1 percent of us who are wealthy, but the 99 percent who aren’t. If we have money, we buy a new car every couple of years. We buy new clothes. We go out to dinner. We go on a vacation with our family. The richest among us already do those things regardless of their tax burden, but the rest of us don’t.

It’s the workers of this nation that make this economy strong. When we have money, we spend it.

But the tide is changing. Americans have realized that slashing taxes on the wealthy doesn’t lead to economic prosperity but just the opposite. And when President Obama signed health care reform into law yesterday, he was saying that he supports the workers – the middle class. He said it’s time for the wealthy to start paying their fair share.

Now Obama needs to repeal the Bush tax cuts and then some. What America needs is a return to a progressive tax system and an end to laissez-faire government regulation of our financial system. Obama has a lot of work to do, because Americans don’t want voodoo economics anymore, but those who control the wealth and the GOP surely do, and they’ll stop at nothing to keep things as unfair as possible.

–
In Health Care Bill, Obama Attacks Wealth Inequality

On his radio show today, Glenn Beck disagreed with a nun who said that Jesus would support the recently passed health care reform bill.

As is often the case with Beck’s radio show – it got racial and ignorant.

Read the entire story on Examiner

Barack Obama has been talking about health care reform since 2007. Back then he talked about single-payer and universal health care – and you elected Obama with a landslide victory. While you didn’t get universal health care or single-payer – you did get health care reform.

Last night’s vote in the House of Representatives to pass health care reform was historic. But what makes it so amazing is that the Democrats didn’t cave – they actually passed a huge piece of important legislation despite the lies and fear mongering spewing from the mouths of Republicans and so-called “conservatives.”

The campaign to misinform you about health care was quite effective. Support for health care reform did fall substantially as more and more Americans started to believe Republican liars. Sarah Palin kicked off the “death panel” lie. And who knows where all the crazy numbers about the cost of the bill came from – yesterday someone said the bill could cost $10 trillion. Abortion, the GOP’s old fallback position, became a central theme for the opposition. Some Republicans even said that this bill will not only fund abortions but it will “promote” them – as if you’re going to see ads on TV for abortions next to ads for Viagra.

The list of outright lies are too many to list but they’re irrelevant now.

What is relevant is that Democrats did what they needed to do and they didn’t cower in the face of the vicious hate-filled opposition to health care reform. They didn’t quit when they were called socialists, communists, niggers, faggots, baby killers and when they were spit on. So if you have a moment, send your member of Congress an e-mail or call them on the phone and say thank you.

And remember that while it’s easy to say that there’s no difference between Democrats and Republicans – there is. Paul Krugman made a great point in his column today by highlighting a fundamental distinction between what Democrats and Republicans believe.

The day before Sunday’s health care vote, President Obama gave an unscripted talk to House Democrats. Near the end, he spoke about why his party should pass reform: “Every once in a while a moment comes where you have a chance to vindicate all those best hopes that you had about yourself, about this country, where you have a chance to make good on those promises that you made … And this is the time to make true on that promise. We are not bound to win, but we are bound to be true. We are not bound to succeed, but we are bound to let whatever light we have shine.”

And on the other side, here’s what Newt Gingrich, the Republican former speaker of the House — a man celebrated by many in his party as an intellectual leader — had to say: If Democrats pass health reform, “They will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years” by passing civil rights legislation.

The GOP sees the world in purely cynical political terms. They don’t see you. They don’t see your family. They only see the next election and the next tax cut or war profit. And maybe Gingrich is right, maybe passing civil rights legislation was wrong politically, but who, besides racists, can argue that it wasn’t the right thing to do.

Looking back at our nation’s history, how many politically challenging decisions were still clearly the right choice? Civil rights, Medicare, Social Security, and let’s not forget that great Republican President Abraham Lincoln who ended slavery despite a nation that had yet to cleanse itself of overt racism. President Lincoln was murdered for that decision.

No, despite the cynicism of people like Gingrich and Karl Rove, politicians sometimes need to make unpopular decisions, even if that means they will lose their seat in Congress. That’s what a republic is. To paraphrase James Madison, a republic is virtuous men making virtuous decisions in spite of what an excited faction may want.

So please, call your members of Congress and tell them you’ve got their back. Tell them you will vote for them in November. While you’re at it, why not sign up to volunteer for them too?

Too many Americans either don’t know or don’t like to think critically. It’s much more comfortable to just know what you know and that’s that. But critical thinking isn’t an optional component of living in a civilized society – it’s vital.

That’s why you need to read Frances Moore Lappé’s story “Let’s Drop the Good Guys vs. Bad Guys Talk, We Need to Grow Up as a Species.”

Bad people are not to blame for our problems and better people can’t make everything right. We need to create the social conditions that bring out the best in everyone.

Let’s Drop the Good Guys vs. Bad Guys Talk, We Need to Grow Up as a Species

Here’s a video round-up of Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) from The Rachel Maddow Show explaining Stupak’s Stupak Amendment.