Asleep at the wheel

It was 10 years ago today that President George W. Bush was handed a morning security briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US." Bill Clinton's transition team later reported that the Bush Administration never seemed too concerned about terrorism, and 36 days after that aptly titled briefing, four planes were hijacked and, well, we all know the rest.

Bush managed to deflect most of the criticism on this issue, but can you imagine if Al Gore was in the White House when 9/11 happened? I am positive that he would have been impeached by Republicans in Congress.

The awful debt-ceiling deal

The tunnel named after the late Tip O'Neill is apparently leaking quite a bit these days, but the legacy of the former Massachusetts Congressman is more impressive to me than ever in the current political landscape. O'Neill served 10 years as Speaker of the House, much of it when Ronald Reagan ("the most ignorant man who had ever occupied the White House," according to O'Neill, who died before George W. Bush came on the national scene) was president. Reagan, and other Republicans elected in 1980, went to Washington to "make government smaller" -- GOP-speak for lowering taxes on the wealthy and dismantling the New Deal safety net. O'Neill, ridiculed publicly by arrogant conservatives as being old and overweight, used strength and charm to stand up against Reagan and his cohorts, virtually single-handedly absorbing the blows and holding the line.

Alas, O'Neill is gone and the Democrats seem to have no one like him in a leadership role. (Nancy Pelosi, House majority leader, is probably closest, but she doesn't run the House any more.) President Obama appears to get his clock cleaned by Republicans on every contentious issue. His natural inclination to compromise has been repeatedly taken advantage of by an opposition that is virtually unwilling to give any ground -- and therefore all "agreements" give the far right almost everything they want. It's discouraging.

The debt-ceiling agreement that leaders on both sides are touting today -- and which passed the House last night and will likely get Senate approval today -- is a complete capitulation to a group of elected officials who were willing to sacrifice the stability of the nation and the global economy to make sure that the rich in American don't have to pay a single penny more in taxes. Joe Nocera in The New York Times calls them "terrorists" who are "waging jihad on the American people." This group of Tea Partiers and their enablers in Congress -- only several dozen members -- give the impression that they will go to any length, including national crisis, to get what they want. It's like playing chicken against a crazy person: you have to get out of the way because he will take you both down.

This all reminds me of the story in the Old Testament where two women come to King Solomon, both claiming that they are the mother of a particular child, and the wise king declares that the child will be split in two. Of course, the strategy was that the child's actual mother wouldn't want to see any harm come to the boy, and so when one of the women cries out, "No! Let her have him!" the king knows she is the true mother. The Democrats keep flinching and crying out. They are not willing to let the country default in its fiscal obligations as of midnight tonight, and so they gave in. The Republicans, whose reasonable elements are shouted down by the far right, are willing to burn the entire Republic to the ground. As a result, the deal voted on today requires sacrifices from the poor, the elderly, the young, the sick and the hard working, while those at the top of the economic pyramid have to give up nothing.

Despite the political rhetoric, the deal will hurt the economy. In the meantime, our biggest national crisis -- millions of unemployed -- goes unaddressed. In times like this government needs to spend more, not less. The stimulus back in Obama's first year needed to be two or three times bigger, but he gave in to the right. Now the economy will suffer more, and the GOP will pin it on Democrats in 2012. It's hard to see an upside here.

DC snub could be Bay State gain

President Obama today announced his nomination to head-up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau -- and it isn't, unfortunately, the woman who had the original idea for the agency and has been overseeing its set-up. Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor, is smart and tough, with unquestionable integrity, and you would think that these qualities would make her a no-brainer for the top spot in the CFPB, which is supposed to provide information to consumers and to keep an eye on banks, credit-card companies and other financial institutions -- all with the goal of protecting all of us from lies, schemes and predatory practices.

The Republican Party, of course, has a problem with any tactic that prevents their friends, and themselves, from getting richer. GOP senators made clear that Warren would not pass confirmation, so the president nominated an underling, Richard Cordray (whose nomination, it appears, will also be held up). While, again, I wish that Obama would fight back against the morons in Congress, there may be a bright side to this for those of us who live in Massachusetts. Warren's name has been tossed around as a possible Democratic challenger to Senator Scott Brown in the 2012 election. Warren said today that, with her work in DC done, she is returning to Massachusetts "to do more thinking" about a possible Senate run.

Warren would be an excellent candidate, and she would immediately have my support. I'm hoping she throws her hat in the ring.

Turning up the heat

Three sitting Congressman and one former House member will hold a news conference tomorrow in East Boston to coincide with President Obama's visit to a local school, but the event is being held to protest the Administration's proposed cut to a program that helps people pay their heating bills.

Obama will visit TechBoston Academy in Dorchester tomorrow afternoon before a Democratic fundraiser at the Museum of Fine Arts. The news conference is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. at the home of Joe and Katherine Oliveri, whose heating benefit was cut this year.

The president's budget proposes cutting the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program by about 50%.

Assessing Obama

On his widely read blog, The Daily Dish, Andrew Sullivan argues that Barack Obama is not a weak liberal, but rather a tactical and cautious president who reads the country's mood and compromises to get what he can. Then he lists what Obama has accomplished in his first two years:

...universal health insurance, the rescue of Detroit, the avoidance of a Second Great Depression, big gains in private sector growth and productivity, three stimulus packages (if you count QE2), big public investments in transport and green infrastructure, the near-complete isolation of Iran, the very public exposure of Israeli intransigence and extremism, a reset with Russia (plus a new START), big drops in illegal immigration and major gains in enforcement, a South Korea free trade pact, the end of torture, and a debt commission that has put fiscal reform squarely back on the national agenda. Oh, and of yesterday, the signature civil rights achievement of ending the military's ban on openly gay service members.

It certainly is an impressive list, and though I was hoping for more bold legislation with a Democrat in the White House and large majorities in both houses of Congress, I do understand that political logistics must be taken into account when hashing out domestic policy.

As I've said before, it is in other areas that I have significant problems with Obama's leadership: the wars, the secrecy, the assault on privacy and civil rights, and Guantanamo Bay. In these areas the change in White House residents has given us little if any modification in policy. That is disturbing.

Reality in Afghanistan

Five Afghan soldiers were killed Wednesday when a NATO air strike mistook them for the enemy, and so America's war in Afghanistan under a newly appointed general continues as it had under the previous few -- not a complete disaster, but certainly a distressing failure. GOP chairman Michael Steele's latest firestorm-inducing comments that the Afghan War is "not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in" was ludicrous, but the other part of his statement on the subject -- that it is "a war of Obama's choosing"-- is only partly off base. The president may not have chosen to invade Afghanistan, a decision made by George W. Bush in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, but after a methodical review last year Obama ordered an increase in troops, shaking off the advice of Vice President Joe Biden -- a man he'd in theory added to the ticket for his extensive foreign policy experience.

Obama should have known better. While it's true that politically he would have been excoriated if he'd rejected General McChrystal's request last year for more troops and instead initiated a withdrawal, it was the right thing to do and that should always take precedence over the politics. US forces have been in Afghanistan for nine years and now there is no easy way out. The Taliban are going to come back -- they are there now and they will be everywhere in Afghanistan as soon as the American troops leave. I certainly don't want them in power; I don't want them shutting all the girls' schools and enforcing their theocracy. However, the US cannot stay there forever.

What we needed to do back in 2001 was to set a clear goal, accomplish it and pull out. Our military, along with the Afghan enemies of the Taliban known as the Northern Alliance, took the capital of Kabul in just five weeks. We pushed the Taliban out of power and we retaliated for 9/11. At that point the US should have left victorious, but instead our government leaders decided that we could build a democratic nation from scratch. The vision of the world guiding our political leadership of the time was "American exceptionalism," which holds that we are somehow better than everyone else. Such thinking led us into two wars at the same time, one of which we initiated completely. As a result we have thousands of dead American soldiers, tens of thousands of dead Iraqis and Afghans, and a government even more in debt at the worst possible moment.

I recently saw a documentary of the Afghan War called "Restrepo," which follows a platoon of US soldiers who spend a year at a small forward base in the Korangal Valley in eastern Afghanistan. The guys spent most days getting shot at and then taking their anger out on the nearby villagers. In the end our soldiers pulled back from the valley without building the road they'd promised the locals. Sebastian Junger, who co-directed and shot the movie and wrote a book, "War," based on his time with the troops, writes in Vanity Fair magazine, "By many measures, Afghanistan is falling apart." Historian and writer William Dalrymple, just back from Afghanistan, says, "The war has lost all semblance of shape or form." One Afghan elder told Dalrymple, "The Americans know that this war is lost. It is only their politicians who pretend they can win it."

It's time to stop pretending.

The evil hand

Last night, in his address to the nation from the Oval Office, President Obama said, in his closing paragraph, that "we pray that a hand may guide us through the storm towards a brighter day." The irony here is clear and poignant: there is a hand at work in the Gulf oil spill and it is the "invisible hand" of free-market economics. Along with BP's sloppiness and the lack of government oversight, capitalism-as-usual is responsible for the current environmental catastrophe.

Rep. Henry Waxman, the California Democrat who heads the House Energy and Commerce Committee, lists a number of points where BP could have prevented the oil rig explosion and the spill that followed but instead, each time, the multinational oil conglomerate decided on a course that was cheaper and/or faster. Guess what? That is what companies do. Similar decisions are being made all around the world right now and some of those are hurting people directly, others are hurting the planet. The only thing relevant is the bottom line.

Financial institutions almost destroyed the world economy; health-care providers are bankrupting the nation; oil companies and others have poisoned our air, water, land and food. And our response to all this? We sit here and do nothing about it. Americans seem to be numb to all that is going on around us. Capitalism chugs along, with the same results: the rich get richer, etc.

Tonight on The Daily Show, host Jon Stewart showed video of the last eight presidents, including Obama, saying that the US needs to free itself from dependence on oil, but our appetite has only increased. There is only one way to force people to use less energy: tax it more. Every elected official knows this is the only answer, but no one has the courage to do it. Oil and other fossil fuels have many "hidden costs" and one of those that is now less hidden is the environmental damage and the cost of cleaning that up. The gas tax should be raised significantly to pay for these costs.

It won't be, however, because we have become a nation of spoiled materialists. So the spill keeps spilling, people keep whining but take no action, and the invisible hand keeps sacrificing everything in the name of profit.

The big leak

There are, I think, significant differences between Hurricane Katrina's devastation and British Petroleum's catastrophic oil leak into the Gulf of Mexico, but right now those differences are less important than the similarities -- and the key similarity is that many Americans perceive the federal government's reaction to the more recent disaster to be slow and incompetent.

Who can blame them? This is a nightmare and it'll have terrible long-term consequences for the Gulf, the coastal states in that region and the countless animals that will suffer and die because of the spill. BP is attempting to use another maneuver today, but it'll be a while before we know if it works. In the meantime, estimates on the amount of oil released into the Gulf are in the tens of millions of gallons.

Democratic strategist and Louisiana native James Carville slammed the Obama Administration today for its lack of fervor and imagination in response to the spill, and he is right to be angry. The government's reaction has been hesitant and uninspiring. Having said all that, I think it's clear that no one really knows what to do. BP comes up with a different idea every couple of days, but nothing has worked. They were obviously unprepared for something like this.

And there is the crux of this cataclysm. What happened after Katrina was the result of the incompetence and lack of leadership in the Bush Administration. What's happened today in the Gulf is, really, the consequences of 30 years of deregulation, begun under Ronald Reagan and pushed forward by the Republicans when they controlled Congress. Corporations act with only the bottom line in mind and it is the job of government to keep them honest.

The regulatory system has clearly failed here -- as it did in the recent coal-mining disaster and as it did in the run-up to the financial crisis. Some of those failures occurred on Obama's watch, and therefore he and his adminsitrati0n are responsible. The time to overhaul the Mine Safety and Health Administration and the Minerals Management Service was before the coal-mine explosion and the oil-rig explosion. Yes, there would likely have been a GOP push-back against such reforms without these disasters on the front page, but we elect people to make those hard choices and to do what is best. At this juncture, we've clearly been let down.

Class struggle

Recent research in the field of education has coalesced around the idea that the value of a good teacher trumps most everything else -- class size, the socioeconomic status of a particular child, the location of a given school, etc. It's also now accepted that the college degrees and educator certificates that a teacher has are virtually no factor in determining his or her success in the classroom. In fact, Malcolm Gladwell -- writing in The New Yorker in December of 2008 -- concluded that it is almost impossible to predict beforehand who will find that success.

We can, however, look at data in retrospect to determine how far teachers are moving their students forward over the course of a year. The best teachers can advance their charges 1.5 or more grade levels in one school year, while the worse sometimes clock in at 0.5. After several years of mediocre teachers, a child is left with quite a disadvantage.

Now, the holy grail has become the search for specific factors that make a teacher "good." If those qualities and techniques can be identified, the thinking goes, then they can be taught to others so that they, too, can become effective educators. The New York Times had a long story on the topic in yesterday's magazine section. In addition, there are a few video clips that show what researchers feel are some excellent teachers at work.

Some feel that President Obama's Race to the Top, an education initiative with a component designed to improve teachers, will end up being the most important legacy of his administration.

Obama needs to rise to challenge

I know that Barack Obama is working on numerous fronts to bring forth policies that I believe in, but the ride is slow, bumpy and not at all guaranteed to succeed -- and it seems that the president hasn't been fighting enough to make these important changes come to fruition. I cannot help but pine for a leader like Franklin Roosevelt.

Now, Obama does not have FDR's disposition and the economic mess he inherited, while serious, is not the Great Depression (and therefore, drastic action is harder to implement). More than that, however, times have changed since the 1930s and 1940s, and maybe there's no bigger example than the breadth and scrutiny of the media, evidenced by disproved lies, like Obama not being a citizen, getting significant play while an actual fact, that FDR was confined to a wheelchair, was hushed by the press of his day.

Those who have grumbled about Obama being socialist and the most radical occupant ever of the White House are ignoring that the current president is nowhere near as far to the left as Roosevelt, who quickly and forcefully empowered the government to help the "third of the nation" that was "ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished," actions which had him labeled "a traitor to his class."

Today I watched a PBS documentary on the federal government program that sent photographers out to chronicle rural poor during the Depression, an undertaking that resulted in 160,000 images (the most famous of which, Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother" is to the right) that are housed in the Library of Congress and considered a national treasure. The project was conceived by a member of FDR's inner circle, and the president not only gave the go-ahead, but fought battles with Congress, which sought to defund the program because members felt the realistic and sad images reflected badly on the US.

Today, most historians consider FDR in the company of Lincoln and Washington as America's greatest presidents, and back in 2000 Time magazine chose Roosevelt as runner-up (to Albert Einstein) as the most important person of the 20th century. Despite the consequences of his paralytic illness, FDR stood up against fascism abroad and economic injustice at home. He fought the good fight like few presidents before or since. Now, in the midst again of war and economic uncertainty, I'd like to see President Obama stand tall and forcefully against the short-sighted, narrow-minded and self-serving opponents to his agenda of change.

Rogue watching

Atlantic Monthly blogger Andrew Sullivan is following closely the moves and machinations of Sarah Palin, who is now on tour pushing her book. Like many on either side of the political divide, Sullivan was outraged that John McCain created this monster.

McCain, writes Sullivan, "perpetrated this nonsense and even now refuses to take an ounce of responsibility" for "the fact that a person of no credentials and no transparency and no knowledge came that close to being president of this country ...I want the truth about this farce fully exposed so it never, ever happens again."

Between the publication of her book, Going Rogue (cover, above, from Wikipedia) and appearances (Oprah and elsewhere) to support the book, Palin has worked herself again into the center of a media storm. Meanwhile, former future son-in-law Levi Johnston -- the father of Bristol Palin's child -- is posing for Playgirl magazine.

John McCain unleashed this plague upon us, and Andrew Sullivan is right to insist that he be held accountable.

Decision time for Afghanistan

Twin bombshells regarding Afghanistan in the past couple of days: Foreign Service Officer Matthew Hoh's resignation; and The New York Times story that Afghan president's brother, who was widely reported to be in control of that country's drug trade, has been on the CIA payroll for years. Throw in the obvious widespread fraud during Afghanistan's presidential election, and we have a toxic mix just as President Obama is in the final stages of making a decision on future US policy in that South Asian nation.

I think that American forces need to be pulled out of Afghanistan. I understand the post-9/11 invasion, but I don't see what we are accomplishing now -- eight years later. For those on the fence, I suggest that you read Hoh's resignation letter, which makes clear the complexities of the situation and, further, says that America's presence is only making things worse. In fact, I think everyone should read the letter.

Finding an exit strategy

I think Frank Rich nails it when he says in his latest New York Times column that the US needs to extract itself from Afghanistan. Rich points out that those who are most loudly advocating sending more troops to that country (namely, John McCain and his allies) were also the people who pushed the invasion of Iraq -- a diversion that forced Afghanistan onto the back-burner, which is why we are still there today.

"Afghanistan is not Iraq," Rich writes. "It is poorer, even larger and more populous, more fragmented and less historically susceptible to foreign intervention." And the oft-skipped over reality in Iraq is the much-touted "surge" only found some success because a) the sectarian killing had pretty much succeeded by then in purging the Sunni from Shia areas and vice-versa and b) the Sunni rose up in Anbar province because they'd had enough of the insurgents killing of Muslims.

President Obama needs to begin the withdrawal of American military personnel from Afghanistan. The US has been there long enough, the Afghan government is corrupt, our military needs a rest and our treasury cannot afford the price. The fallout will be severe from the the Right, but we are not going to win this conflict in the conventional sense. That already happened just weeks into the start of hostilities. I can see no goal that we can possibly achieve by staying. Let's declare victory and bring the troops home. The president needs to start securing the peace that his Nobel promises.

Things that make you go, 'Hmmmm?'

***In a revelation that appears shocking, Margaret Thatcher, the commie fightin' British Tory PM of the 1980s often referred to as the "Iron Lady," apparently counseled Mikhail Gorbachev against breaking up the Soviet Union -- and Ronald Reagan agreed with her. This, recently released from Soviet files, is Thatcher speaking to Gorbachev in the fall of 1989:

The reunification of Germany is not in the interests of Britain and Western Europe. It might look different from public pronouncements, in official communiqué at Nato meetings, but it is not worth paying ones attention to it. We do not want a united Germany. This would have led to a change to post-war borders and we can not allow that because such development would undermine the stability of the whole international situation and could endanger our security.

In the same way, a destabilisation of Eastern Europe and breakdown of the Warsaw Pact are also not in our interests. Of course, internal changes are happening in all Eastern European countries, somewhere they are deeper than in others. However, we would prefer if those processes were entirely internal, we would not interfere in them or push the de-communisation of Eastern Europe. I can say that the President of the United States is of the same position. He sent me a telegram to Tokyo in which he asked me directly to tell you that the United States would not do anything that might put at risk the security of the Soviet Union or perceived by the Soviet society as danger. I am fulfilling his request.

***Former Bush Administration speechwriter Matt Latimer is publishing a book about his time in the White House. I suggest reading the excerpt published on the GQ web site. Here are a few lines that sum up Latimer's observations:

In 2007 I finally made it to the Bush White House as a presidential speechwriter. But it was not at all what I envisioned. It was less like Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing and more like The Office.

Eeeek. Can you imagine Michael Scott as president?

***Michelle Malkin is one of the most infuriating knuckleheads on the right and recently she engaged in the type of misrepresentation that she and her wacko cohorts typically use to debate real issues. When a crowd estimated at about 70,000 gathered to bash Obama last weekend -- as is their right -- Malkin estimated the crowd at 2 million, and other media outlets passed on the uber-inflated number.

And here is a round-up of the thought processes of the individuals who were part of the protest: the ten best signs. All I can say in response is, "Lincoln! thou should'st be living at this hour: America hath need of thee."

Allowing the idiots to win

What can we hope to accomplish in this country if intentional, unsubstantiated fabrications take up a significant amount of the public discourse -- and even, in some cases, drive policy?

Forgive me if I appear partisan, but the political right has more crazies per square foot than any other sector of American politics. They are so unprincipled, so irrational and so loud -- yet the media hands them a megaphone and takes them seriously.

We came off two weeks of listening to insane blathering about Barack Obama not being an American citizen -- even as his Hawaiian birth certificate was staring the instigators in the face -- and we segued into two weeks of shouting and carrying on about "death panels." Those responsible for creating and propagating such rubbish would be ashamed of themselves if they had any decency whatsoever.

The provision that initiated this firestorm, according to Boston.com, "would allow Medicare to pay doctors for voluntary counseling sessions on end-of-life issues, including living wills and hospice as an option for the terminally ill." Sounds like a good idea, doesn't it? The AMA thinks so. So does the AARP.

But now, because of statements that have no basis in reality, it looks like that part of the health care bill is going to be removed. It's a ridiculous way to to run a lemonade stand, never mind a country.

Statements should be discontinued

Barack Obama's memo that government officials should confer with the Department of Justice before abiding by any of George W. Bush's signing statements is an adequate first step, but the president should really announce that his administration will not adhere to any of the statements and that the he will not be issuing any such statements.

Instead, Obama said he'd use them sparingly and wisely, but the Constitution allows only one course of action for a chief executive who disagrees with a law passed by Congress -- the veto. While there is limited precedent for signing statements to clarify the application of a newly passed law, there is none at all for reinterpreting or ignoring statutes passed by the legislative branch. The president cannot decide when a law is unconstitutional; that is the work of the courts.

Update: Upon reading Obama's memo I am more satisfied with his policy toward signing statements. The president also made another good move today by overturning the Bush policy on embryonic stem cell research, one of several steps he's taking to end the previous administration's war on science.

'It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls'

Just 40 days into Barack Obama's presidency and I've already had it with ignorant, loudmouth conservatives and their nonstop blather, obnoxious whining and shameless outrage. Are they going to keep this up for four (eight?) years?

In 2000, conservatives elected George W. Bush to the first of two terms, during which he and his ilk deeply damaged the nation and the planet. Have they no shame? Their guy -- and their policies -- screwed up or made worse everything from the economy to the environment to America's standing in the world. They tilted the tax code to favor the wealthy, allowed corporations to pollute without consequences, stuffed government jobs with unqualified loyalists, hurt people all worldwide by imposing their reactionary morality on social policies, unilaterally seized unprecedented levels of executive power, and even committed war crimes.

As a result of all of this incompetence and criminality, the American people turn away from the Republican Party and elect Democrats in large numbers, including a young, relatively unknown candidate with historic racial make-up and a funny name as president. Barack Obama and his administration are tasked with the unenviable job of fixing the damage wrought over the course of eight years (or, in essence, the 28 years since Reagan took office).

The reaction of conservatives is stunning. I want to bang their heads together to make them stop spouting the endless streams of piffle that assault my ears, as well as the rules of logic. There are some on the right who I read and listen to and admire for their intelligence and honesty -- for example, David Brooks and George F. Will (and even, sometimes, Pat Buchanan). These, however, are few and far between.

To hear House minority leader John Boehner say that Obama's budget raises taxes on every American when, in fact, it raises taxes on those making more than $250,000 -- and the stimulus just cut taxes on 95% of working people -- is completely dishonest. Whether taxes should be raised on the wealthiest Americans is certainly worth discussing and I concede that logical arguments can be made on both sides, but Republicans rarely traffic in logic. Witness Karl Rove this morning on ABC's This Week, or Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's ridiculous comment on volcano monitoring during his televised response to Obama's speech last week. (I went back and reread his remarks. Jindal said, "...$140 million for something called 'volcano monitoring.'" One wonders which of the two words escapes his understanding.)

If Obama's actions with regard to the economy, taxes, health care, education and the environment are "radical," as some in the GOP have been saying, it is only because their party has screwed up everything so badly -- or, to be fair, in some instances, we as a nation have allowed those areas to drift for far too long. The citizenry elected as president a man whose clearest slogan throughout the campaign was one word: "Change." Get ready, America. The times, as Bob Dylan sang, are a-changin'.

Implementing change

Two of the main reasons that I voted for Barack Obama were to bring an end to the war in Iraq and to shrink the disparity of wealth in America. In the past 36 hours the president has made major steps in both of those directions.

Today, before an audience of Marines, Obama announced that combat troops would be out of Iraq by next summer, with all troops out by the end of 2011. Admittedly, those of us on the left would like to see American troops back home even sooner -- and we're also leery of the announced buildup in Afghanistan -- but I believe this president to be a man who listens to others and thinks before making decisions, so I am confident that Obama believes that this is the best course of action.

Yesterday, the White House released its proposed budget for fiscal 2010, and -- from what I've read and heard -- Obama hopes to cut wasteful programs, close unnecessary loopholes, raise taxes on the very wealthy and increase spending on his priorities, like health care, green energy and education. I agree with all of those steps. Some are calling the budget a redistribution of wealth, and I say, "Hurrah!" to that.

This is what I sent Obama to Washington to do. The work has just begun, but I am glad to see him doing it.

Almost as good as President Bartlett

Barack Obama has started off his new job doing a number of good things, and it is exciting to see a president make smart and important decisions each day. He is sending envoys, holding meetings, signing executive orders, making phone calls and working with Congress. I feel like I'm watching The West Wing, which was the only other time in my life that I was able to witness a Democratic president in whom I had complete faith.

Obama signed his first bill into law today, and it was a no-brainer. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is named for a woman who worked for two decades for Goodyear Tire & Rubber, but was paid less than the men in equivalent positions the entire time. Up until today, a ridiculous law -- supported by Republicans -- said that an employee could only go to court in such an instance within 180 days of the first unequal pay check. Since Ledbetter didn't know she was being slighted until she neared retirement, her case was tossed out by the Supreme Court, 5-4. The new law says that each paycheck is a violation of the law.

The tech house

Barack Obama's presidency has -- at least for now -- excited large numbers of people and rekindled their interest in government.

The Obama Administration promises to be more open and more technologically savvy than any previous government. For example, at the revamped WhiteHouse.gov citizens can look at proclamations, statements and executive orders from the new president, and over on YouTube the White House has its own page, where today's weekly radio/video address can be viewed.