Interesting Article

A reader referred this Washington Post article to me:

This week, the War Powers Act confronts its moment of truth. Friday will mark the 60th day since President Obama told Congress of his Libyan campaign. According to the act, that declaration started a 60-day clock: If Obama fails to obtain congressional support for his decision within this time limit, he has only one option — end American involvement within the following 30 days.

Obama has not only failed but he hasn’t even tried — leaving it to Sen. Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, to call for a “specific resolution that would give [the president] authority.” Neither the president nor the Democratic congressional leadership has shown any interest. They have been sleep-walking their way to Day 60. * * *

Why Is Ronald Reagan Such A God To The Radical Right?

Whenever I get into a discussion with a conservative about tax policy, I mention two things: (1) Bill Clinton's 1993 budget -- which featured the biggest tax increase in modern U.S. history -- ushered in our country's greatest period of sustained economic expansion, and (2) Ronald Reagan signed into law the second biggest tax increase in modern U.S. History.

Let me repeat that last point: Ronald Freaking Reagan signed into law the second biggest tax increase in modern U.S. history:

It's conservative lore that Reagan the Icon cut taxes, while George H.W. Bush the Renegade raised them. As [former Reagan Budget Director David] Stockman recalls, "No one was authorized to talk about tax increases on Ronald Reagan's watch, no matter what kind of tax, no matter how justified it was." Yet raising taxes is exactly what Reagan did. He did not always instigate those hikes or agree to them willingly--but he signed off on them. One year after his massive tax cut, Reagan agreed to a tax increase to reduce the deficit that restored fully one-third of the previous year's reduction. (In a bizarre bit of self-deception, Reagan, who never came to terms with this episode of ideological apostasy, persuaded himself that the three-year, $100 billion tax hike--the largest since World War II--was actually "tax reform" that closed loopholes in his earlier cut and therefore didn't count as raising taxes.)

Faced with looming deficits, Reagan raised taxes again in 1983 with a gasoline tax and once more in 1984, this time by $50 billion over three years, mainly through closing tax loopholes for business. Despite the fact that such increases were anathema to conservatives--and probably cost Reagan's successor, George H.W. Bush, reelection--Reagan raised taxes a grand total of four times just between 1982-84.

What I find hilarious is that 99.99% of Republicans have no idea that Reagan raised taxes. The GOP clearly wants to keep this a secret, because if Republicans suddenly found out that Reagan was a chronic tax raiser, there would be mass suicides within the party, or, at the very least, an epidemic of spontaneous human combustion which would obliterate the GOP base.

Whatever You Say, Newt

Unbelievable:

Newt Gingrich's walk back tour reached its zenith Tuesday night, as Gingrich personally apologized to Paul Ryan for dismissing his Medicare plan as "right wing social engineering." In an added twist, Gingrich claims that the merest mention of his extensive condemnation of Ryan's budget from Sunday's Meet The Press by Democrats is now out of bounds as a result.

"Any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood, because I have said publicly those words were inaccurate and unfortunate," he told FOX's Greta Van Susteren. ""When I make a mistake, and I'm going to on occasion, I'm going to share with the American people that was a mistake because that way we can have an honest conversation."

Democrats have been giddy -- and Republicans terrified -- at the prospect of new ads and messaging featuring Gingrich's attacks on the Ryan budget as "radical change from the right" and "too big a jump" for America. Newt's comments to FOX suggest that he's well aware of what's coming.

The "Ryan Plan" is causing big problems for the GOP. Just last week, 42 House Republicans signed a letter to Obama asking him to tell the Democrats to stop their attacks on GOP members who voted for the Ryan budget, which included a plan to privatize Medicare and cap spending on it. Newt probably thought he had political cover to say what he said on Meet The Press last Sunday given how fast House Republicans were running away from the Ryan Plan. He must not have gotten the memo stating that the GOP now intends to fully support Ryan and his goal to eliminate Medicare. I guess that letter to Obama didn't work.

What I find most amazing is that it was Newt Gingrich himself -- over two decades ago -- who told his fellow Republicans that they must be more nasty when it comes to dealing with Democrats. This is from a 1990 New York Times opinion piece:

"Sick." "Traitors." "Bizarre." "Self-serving." "Shallow." "Corrupt." "Pathetic." "Shame." The group that urged political candidates to use these epithets has since regretted suggesting the word ''traitors,'' in response to inquiries from the press. But the others were allowed to stand; they appear in a glossary that a conservative Republican group recently mailed to Republican state legislative candidates.

The group is Gopac, the G.O.P. Political Action Committee. Its general chairman is Representative Newt Gingrich. With the pamphlet, ''Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,'' comes a letter from Mr. Gingrich himself. Its message to candidates: Step up invective. Use words like these to describe opponents. These words work.

Mr. Gingrich's injunction represents the worst of American political discourse, which reached a low during the dispiriting Presidential campaign of 1988. Then, more than ever before, negative argument displaced reasoned discussion about how a nation might best be governed. ***

In other words, the guy who pretty much invented the modern-day negative campaign is now asking his political opponents to tone things down and to not attack him for statements that he himself made on National TV.

Good luck with that, Newt.

Well, So Much For Doing The Honorable Thing

What an asshole:

Newt Gingrich is condemning individual health insurance mandates today, finally ditching the policy after more than a decade of vocal support that he reiterated as recently as Sunday morning.

"I am for the repeal of Obamacare and I am against any effort to impose a federal mandate on anyone because it is fundamentally wrong and I believe unconstitutional," he said in a video posted on his website on Monday and apparently shot this morning outside a Washington, D.C., hotel where Gingrich was addressing an Alzheimer's convention.

In the early 1990s, Gingrich joined many Republican in backing a health care law featuring an individual mandate as an alternative to President Clinton's proposal. He supported a similar policy throughout the 2000s in several of his books, echoing President Obama and Mitt Romney in backing an individual mandate buttressed by financial support for those who can't afford health insurance.

He repeated his support for such a plan yet again on Meet The Press this Sunday after David Gregory played a clip of Newt calling for an individual mandate in 1993.

Fastest flip-flop in history? Perhaps. Newt's flip-flop on Libya was fast, but not this fast.

My Apologies To The Corporate Media

The other day I was critical of the Mainstream Press for not pointing out that conservatives who were once for the individual mandate are now opposed to ObamaCare, even though its central feature is an individual mandate. Well, David Gregory, on this morning's Meet The Press, pointed out to guest Newt Gingrich that Gingrich himself has a history of supporting the individual mandate. This exchange followed:

GINGRICH: Well, I agree that all of us have a responsibility to help pay for health care. And I think there are ways to do it that make most libertarians relatively happy. I have said consistently we ought to have some requirement that you either have health insurance or you post a bond, or in some way, you indicate you’re going to be held accountable.

GREGORY: But that is the individual mandate, is it not?

GINGRICH: It’s a variation on it.

GREGORY: So you won’t use that issue against Mitt Romney?

GINGRICH: No.

I've had my problems with Gingrich over the years, but I'll give him credit for not trying to run away from his record like so many other Republicans are doing with regard to Health Care Reform. You did the honorable thing this morning, Newt, and I applaud you for it.

Needless to say, members of the radical right aren't all that happy with Gingrich right now. This is from RedState.com:

Newt Gingrich appeared on Meet the Press this morning and said two things that won’t exactly endear him to the Tea Party crowd or the reform minded movement sweeping the GOP.

First, he endorsed the individual mandate and said he would not bash Mitt Romney over the individual mandate.

Second, he went after Paul Ryan’s proposal to reform Medicare. Your mileage may vary on Ryan’s plan, but he is both offering up one and using the free market, individual choice approach favored by conservatives.

Newt was not happy with the approach.

Gingrich is already going to have to overcome the apprehensiveness of evangelicals and women in the primary. To also have to overcome the free marketers’ concerns may prove problematic.

Gingrich's opposition to Ryan's proposal to gut Medicare should not be a problem for him, given the number of Republicans who are running away from Ryan like they'd run away from the plague.

But Newt's support for the individual mandate is another story because it now appears that there will be a debate amongst the 2012 GOP presidential candidates as to whether the individual mandate is the right approach. Doesn't the mere existence of such a debate seriously undercut the GOP argument that Obama is a socialist for signing a HCR bill which featured the individual mandate? The folks at Roaring Republican seem to think so:

Republican’s have major problems in 2012, not the least of which are our candidates. With Huckabee out, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich seem that much closer to headlining and that isn’t good for conservatives of any variety, especially on health care.

Romney made a name for himself with a signature Massachusetts health care reform that forced taxpayers to purchase care, known as an individual mandate. The measure is a centerpiece of the Obama federal plan and may prove to be the downfall of the entire legislation if the Supreme Court finds it unconstitutional. Not great for Romney, even worse for Newt Gingrich. Why?

In the past Gingrich has repeatedly supported an individual mandate, a point he reconfirmed this morning on Meet The Press. *** Essentially then, Gingrich and Romney have removed the lynchpin of the conservative argument. It is OK for the federal government to force individuals to purchase a private product. So then what is next? Carbon offsets? Forced higher education spending? Electric cars? Housing? Insulation? Where do we go from here?

Good question. One of the GOP strengths in the last two years has been its universal opposition to health care reform generally and its universal rejection of the the individual mandate specifically. It got so bad for Romney, in fact, that he actually had to argue the other day that the RomneyCare mandate was somehow different from the ObamaCare mandate. But Gingrich's re-embrace of the individual mandate this morning makes Romney look a lot less like a radical leftist than he did yesterday.

My conclusion? Today was a very good day for both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.

Romney Crashes And Burns On HCR Speech

I hope Mitt has good health care coverage because he's getting the shit kicked out of him today, from both the right and the left. And I'm enjoying every minute of it.

I'm not enjoying it because I dislike Romney. I actually think he wouldn't make a bad president. Sure, he's turned flip-flopping into an art form, but the bottom line for me is that he's not fucking insane like most of the rest of the GOP presidential field is. He's a moderate voice within the party.

Romney's problem, however, is that the GOP -- in response to the Obama presidency -- decided to go even further to the right than it was before the 2008 election, meaning that moderates like Romney are now viewed as the enemy. And that is what I find hysterically funny.

When Mitt passed RomneyCare in Massachusetts a few years back, he thought he had all sorts of GOP political cover. After all, the whole thing was originally a Republican idea:

*** [T]he last time Congress debated a health overhaul, when Bill Clinton was president, [Orrin] Hatch and several other senators who now oppose the so-called individual mandate actually supported a bill that would have required it.

In fact, says Len Nichols of the New America Foundation, the individual mandate was originally a Republican idea. "It was invented by Mark Pauly to give to George Bush Sr. back in the day, as a competition to the employer mandate focus of the Democrats at the time." ***

But we're not just talking ancient history here. As earlier reported on this blog, Jim Freaking DeMint supported individual mandates as recently as 2007, and so did Newt Gingrich. And, as noted here, a lot of other Republicans supported mandates at one time or another, including Robert Bennett, Christopher Bond, Robert Dole, Charles Grassley, Orrin Hatch, Richard Lugar, Alan Simpson, Arlen Specter, Daniel Coats, Judd Gregg, and Kay Hutchison.

Why have all these people suddenly flip-flopped on the individual mandate? Simple -- because Obama supported it, and the GOP made a group decision to aggressively oppose everything that Obama supported, even if it meant turning their backs on their own ideas.

I used to be critical of Obama for pushing a health care reform bill that was made up almost entirely of Republican ideas, but now I see the genius of it. I can't wait until the so-called liberal media finally gets off its ass and reports that folks like Jim DeMint and Newt Gingrich supported the individual mandate before they were against it.

By the way, this is pretty funny:

The Obama administration, on Friday, continued to apply a veritable death hug to likely Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, praising the health care law he passed as Massachusetts’ governor despite Romney’s insistence that there were major distinctions between his and the president’s approach.

“We have said before that health care reform that then Governor Romney signed into law in Massachusetts is in many ways similar to the legislation that resulted in the Affordable Care Act,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said in an off-camera briefing at the White House. “And as to the issue of flexibility, as you know, earlier this year we made quite a big deal out of the fact that the president wanted to move up to 2014 … the starting point at which states can ask for waivers to opt out of the Affordable Care Act as long as they, of course, demonstrate their capacity with their own ideas to achieve the same objectives.”

“We wholly endorse flexibility and we obviously feel that Massachusetts took a smart approach towards health care reform,” the press secretary added. “Its provenance was so mainstream, there are great similarities between Massachusetts' law, the Affordable Care Act and legislation proposed by then Rhode Island Republican [Senator] John Chaffee in 1993.”

Wonderful.

It Just Doesn't Get Any Better Than This

It turns out that even Newt Gingrich was for the individual health insurance mandate before he was against it:

In his post-congressional life, Gingrich has been a vocal champion for mandated insurance coverage -- the very provision of President Obama's health care legislation that the Republican Party now decries as fundamentally unconstitutional. ***

In a June 2007 op-ed in the Des Moines Register, Gingrich wrote, "Personal responsibility extends to the purchase of health insurance. Citizens should not be able to cheat their neighbors by not buying insurance, particularly when they can afford it, and expect others to pay for their care when they need it." An "individual mandate," he added, should be applied "when the larger health-care system has been fundamentally changed."

And in several of his many policy and politics-focused books, Gingrich offered much the same.

In 2008's "Real Change," he wrote, "Finally, we should insist that everyone above a certain level buy coverage (or, if they are opposed to insurance, post a bond). Meanwhile, we should provide tax credits or subsidize private insurance for the poor."

In 2005's "Winning the Future," he expanded on the idea in more detail: "You have the right to be part of the lowest-cost insurance pool and you have a responsibility to buy insurance. ... We need some significant changes to ensure that every American is insured, but we should make it clear that a 21st Century Intelligent System requires everyone to participate in the insurance system." ***

I think it speaks volumes that two of the most radical right-wingers in our country -- Newt Gingrich and Jim DeMint -- actually supported mandated insurance coverage for the United States. As noted last Sunday, DeMint even went so far as to state that RomneyCare is "something that I think we should do for the whole country."

If I was Obama, I wouldn't hesitate to mention this fact every time he discusses health care reform. After all, these guys are trying to paint ObamaCare as the most radical law ever passed in this country, which I find hilarious given that DeMint and Gringrich both supported mandated insurance coverage as recently as 2007!

I wonder what happened in 2008 to make these two extremists so radically flip-flop on this issue?

You've Got To Be Kidding

From TMP:

House Republican freshmen admit that their so-called "MediScare" attacks on Democrats helped them win a big majority in 2010. Democrats had voted for the health care law, which included $500 billion in "cuts" to Medicare -- primarily slashing overpayments to private insurers -- and Republican challengers never let them forget it.

Now, they say, it's time to let bygones be bygones.

Nearly a dozen House Republican freshmen held a press conference outside the Capitol Tuesday morning to "wipe the slate clean," and "hit the reset button."

"Yeah, I mean there's been -- again, this is a both-sides issue," said Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) when asked if GOP candidates and the NRCC had engaged in 'MediScare' tactics last year. "To say that one side is blameless in trying to use issues to win votes is just dishonest."

On Tuesday, Kinzinger and 41 of his colleagues sent a letter to President Obama, asking him to rein in Democratic attacks on GOP members who voted for the House budget, which includes a plan to privatize Medicare and cap spending on the program.

"We ask that you stand above partisanship, condemn the disingenuous attacks and work with this Congress to reform spending on entitlement programs," the letter reads.

To preempt the press conference, the DCCC responded to the letter with a long list of NRCC and candidate attack ads and statements from the 2010 election -- all of them targeting Democrats for cutting Medicare, all on behalf of GOP candidates who are now hoping for a truce on Medicare attacks.

Wow -- talk about political cowardice.

Look folks: you all made a political decision to vote for the extreme right-wing policies set out in the Ryan budget, which called for -- among other things -- the end of Medicare, and you want Obama to bail you out just because the chickens have come home to roost? Let me get this straight: You want the very same president you have labeled a socialist and a fascist to come to your rescue? Good luck with that.

Change We Can Believe In

It was revealed today that it was President Obama who insisted that the assault force going into Pakistan last week to capture or kill bin Laden be large enough to fight its way out if confronted by hostile Pakistani police officers or troops (via the New York Times):

*** Mr. Obama’s decision to increase the size of the force sent into Pakistan shows that he was willing to risk a military confrontation with a close ally in order to capture or kill the leader of Al Qaeda.

Such a fight would have set off an even larger breach with the Pakistanis than has taken place since officials in Islamabad learned that helicopters filled with members of a Navy Seals team had flown undetected into one of their cities, and burst into a compound where Bin Laden was hiding.

One senior Obama administration official, pressed on the rules of engagement for one of the riskiest clandestine operations attempted by the C.I.A. and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command in many years, said: “Their instructions were to avoid any confrontation if at all possible. But if they had to return fire to get out, they were authorized to do it.”

The planning also illustrates how little the administration trusted the Pakistanis as they set up their operation. They also rejected a proposal to bring the Pakistanis in on the mission.

Under the original plan, two assault helicopters were going to stay on the Afghanistan side of the border waiting for a call if they were needed. But the aircraft would have been about 90 minutes away from the Bin Laden compound.

About 10 days before the raid, Mr. Obama reviewed the plans and pressed his commanders as to whether they were taking along enough forces to fight their way out if the Pakistanis arrived on the scene and tried to interfere with the operation.

That resulted in the decision to send two more helicopters carrying additional troops. These followed the two lead Black Hawk helicopters that carried the actual assault team. While there was no confrontation with the Pakistanis, one of those backup helicopters was ultimately brought in to the scene of the raid when a Black Hawk was damaged while making a hard landing.

Well, so much for Cheney and others being able to continue criticism of Obama for being too weak when it comes to security issues. In fact, I have no doubt that Cheney, his bat-shit crazy daughter Liz, and the rest of the right-wing establishment will soon be criticizing Obama for being too heavy-handed when it comes to national security generally and Pakistan in particular.

So be it. All I can say is that Obama's stance with regard to Pakistan is a refreshing change from what Bush and Cheney did when they ran the show.

This Should Be Fun (Plus "Hunt for Bin Laden" Time-Line)

Good luck on this, Mitt -- you're gonna need it:

Call it the first must watch moment of the 2012 presidential cycle. On Thursday, Mitt Romney, Republican frontrunner and one-time health care mandate advocate, will take on the issue dogging his campaign in a speech in Michigan.

According to his campaign, Romney will lay out "his plan to repeal and replace Obamacare with reforms that lower costs and empower states to craft their own health care solutions" at the the Thursday speech, which he'll give at the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center in Ann Arbor.

The speech will give Romney a chance to change the narrative on a central storyline of his candidacy -- namely that the health care law he signed while governor of Massachusetts in 2006 is a potentially insurmountable political liability. For the man who's been running for the 2012 Republican nomination virtually since he dropped out of the 2008 nomination fight, the stakes really could not be much higher.

On a related note, it looks like Romney isn't going to skip Iowa after all.

And by the way, here is an excellent piece from the Cato Institute explaining why the Bush Administration was unable to capture or kill bin Laden. A lot of the points made in the Cato article are also set out in this hunt for bin Laden timeline. Some highlights:

JANUARY 20, 2001: George W. Bush inaugurated.

JANUARY 29, 2001: Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neil reports that 9 days after Bush was inaugurated “going after Saddam Huissein” was “Topic A.”

JANUARY 2001: Condoleezza Rice demotes terrorism czar Richard Clarke out of Cabinet access. [The 9/11 Commission Report. 7/22/04]

JANUARY 2001: During Bush’s first week in office, Richard Clarke requests cabinet level meeting on al Qaeda and Bin Laden. His request was denied.

JUNE 2001: Bush give speech to NATO allies on top five defense issues, and the “only reference to extremists was in Macedonia.” [Washington Post, 4/1/04]

AUGUST 6, 2001: Bush receives Presidential Daiy Brief entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike U.S.”

SEPTEMBER 11 2001: Rice has speech scheduled on “the threats and problems of today and the day after.”

On Sept. 11, 2001, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to outline a Bush administration policy that would address “the threats and problems of today and the day after, not the world of yesterday” — but the focus was largely on missile defense, not terrorism from Islamic radicals.

The speech provides telling insight into the administration’s thinking on the very day that the United States suffered the most devastating attack since the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor. The address was designed to promote missile defense as the cornerstone of a new national security strategy, and contained no mention of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or Islamic extremist groups, according to former U.S. officials who have seen the text.

SEPTEMBER 11 2001: Five hours after attacks, Rumsfeld asks aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq.

SEPTEMBER 12, 2001: Bush to Richard Clarke “Go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam did this.”

OCTOBER 7 2001: U.S. and Great Britian start Operation Enduring Freedom, invading Afghanistan after Taliban refuses to give up Bin Laden.

NOVEMBER 21 2001: 72 days after 9/11, Bush directed Rumsfeld to begin planning for war with Iraq.

DECEMBER 16, 2001: Bin Laden’s voice heard on radio in Tora Bora.

EARLY DECEMBER 2001: Bin Laden escapes at Tora Bora.

The Bush administration has concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the battle for Tora Bora late last year and that failure to commit U.S. ground troops to hunt him was its gravest error in the war against al Qaeda.

JANUARY 27 2002: Cheney: Bin Laden “isn’t that big a threat.”

FEBRUARY 2002: Military and intelligence resources diverted to Iraq.

MARCH 13 2002: Bush on Bin Laden “I really don’t spent that much time on him.”

LATE MARCH 2002: Covert commando team assigned to Bin Laden loses 2/3 of its strength as resources are diverted to Iraq. [Washington Post, 10/22/04]

APRIL 6 2002: General Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, says “the goal has never been to get bin Laden.” [CNN, 4/6/02]

MARCH 19 2003: Invasion of Iraq begins.

LATE 2005: CIA closes unit focused on capture of bin Laden [un-fucking-believable].

2006: CIA officers with experience in Islamic world drained from al Qaeda hunt to Iraq.

SEPTEMBER 2006: Fred Barnes told by President Bush that the hunt for Bin Laden was “not a top priority use of American resources.”

JANUARY 24 2008: Bush says Bin Laden will be “gotten by a president,” but probably not him. [Fox, 1/24/08]

MARCH 19, 2008: Then-candidate Obama pledges aggressive effort to find Bin Laden in Pakistan.

OCTOBER 7, 2008: Obama: “We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority.”

NOVEMBER 2, 2008: Obama: “I think capturing or killing bin Laden is a critical aspect of stamping out al Qaeda.”

January 23, 2009: Days after inauguration, Obama fires at al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan.

2009: Obama authorizes more drone strikes against terrorist targets than during previous 5 years combined.

MARCH 28 2009: Obama says Bin Laden is in Pakistan, presses for action.

DECEMBER 7, 2009: Obama National Security Advisor James Jones stresses the urgency of finding Bin Laden and speaks “of a renewed campaign to capture or kill him.” [AP, 12/7/09]

AUGUST 1 2010: American intelligence locates unusual compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

MARCH 14-28, 2011: Obama hold series of National Security Council meetings to develop options for capturing or killing Bin Laden. [New York Times, 5/3/11]

APRIL 29 2011 Mr. Obama authorizes the operation against Bin Laden. [New York Times, 5/3/11]

MAY 1, 2011, 4-4:30PM ET: United States forces raid Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad around 1 a.m. Pakistan time. Bin Laden is killed. [New York Times, 5/3/11]

MAY 1, 2011, 11:35PM ET: Obama announces Bin Laden’s death.

Definitely read the entire timeline.

An Oldie But A Goodie

Here's a re-post of a blog post I did back on August 11, 2007:

Everyone who has talked politics with me over the last couple of weeks knows how pissed off I've been over the fact that Hillary, Dodd, Biden, Romney, and others have been attacking Obama for saying this:

As President, I would make the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid to Pakistan conditional, and I would make our conditions clear: Pakistan must make substantial progress in closing down the training camps, evicting foreign fighters, and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a staging area for attacks in Afghanistan.

I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges. But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will.

Obama's statement made a lot of sense to me, particularly given that BushCo has, over the last several years, attempted to minimize Pakistan's involvement in 9/11 while at the same time falsely claiming that Saddam was somehow involved in those attacks. But Obama was instantly attacked by Hillary and others as "naive" for saying those things about Pakistan. Mitt Romney even compared Obama to "Dr. Strangelove."

So let me see if I've got this straight: Someone finally attempts to introduce some common sense into America's counter-terrorism policy, and he gets attacked for it by both Democrats and Republicans. Why?

Well, Josh Marshall figured it out:

All Obama said was that if we have actionable intelligence about the whereabouts of high-value al Qaeda targets in Pakistan, and Pakistan won't act, we will act.

Clearly, no Republican can quibble with this. They're on the record for invading countries because they might become dangers to us at some point in the future. They're hardly in a position to disagree with Obama if he says we'll hunt down people who committed mass casualty terror attacks within our borders. And I'm not sure Democrats are in much of a position to do so either.

The unspoken truth here, I suspect, is that Obama has struck on the central folly of our post-9/11 counter-terrorism defense policy -- strike hard where they aren't and go easy where they are. I think everyone can see this. But Obama got there first. So they need to attack him for saying it.

I am certainly glad to see that Obama isn't backing down from his statements. I liked what he said at the debate the other night about how Hillary and some of the other candidates who are attacking him on this had actually voted to give Bush the authority to launch "the biggest foreign policy disaster in our generation."

That was a good start, but he needs to stay on the offensive on this. Hillary's vote to authorize the Iraq War was, in my opinion, one of the greatest acts of political cowardice in recent memory, and voters need to be constantly reminded of this.

Jim "Waterloo" DeMint Has A RomneyCare Problem

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) famously said in 2009 that "[i]f we're able to stop Obama on [health care reform], it will be his Waterloo. It will break him. . . ."

I have long been intrigued by the GOP opposition to Health Care Reform, particularly given that the bill finally enacted into law was full of Republican ideas and was essentially patterned after RomneyCare. But it never occurred to me that Senator Jim Freaking DeMint -- an Obama-hating radical right-winger who openly called for the "breaking" of the President over health care reform -- would have ever expressed support for anything like RomneyCare.

Well -- incredibly --he did (via TPM):

Flashback to January 2007. RomneyCare is such a well known achievement that Romney wins DeMint's endorsement because of the law's success.

"[Romney] has demonstrated, when he stepped into government in a very difficult state, that he could work in a difficult partisan environment, take some good conservative ideas, like private health insurance, and apply them to the need to have everyone insured," DeMint said. "Those kind of ideas show an ability to bring people together that we haven't seen in national politics for a while. We don't need the nation to be more polarized."

Then in February of that year DeMint explained on Fox News that Romney should do for America what he had done for Massachusetts with health care: "Well, that's something that I think we should do for the whole country."

Hilarious.

Wrong -- But Thanks For Playing Anyway

"Obama taking (or being given) any credit for the death of Bin Laden is akin to giving credit to Nixon for putting men on the moon. True, it happened while Nixon was President, but as everyone knows..."

-- A comment fom a reader.

Really?

“The administration clearly deserves credit for the success of the operation.”

-- Dick Cheney.

"There are going to be political benefits to the president from this. He deserves it. If this had gone wrong, he would have been hurt very bad politically. It goes right, he should get the benefit of it. We can debate other issues, but no one in our country, in our party should debate or question what the president did here. He did the right thing. He did it brilliantly and he deserves all the credit for it."

-- Rep. Peter King (R-New York)

“I admire the courage of the president.”

-- Rudolph Giuliani

"President Obama's decision to order the strike on bin Laden also required courage; not the bravery of the battlefield but the courage to live with the consequences of a risky decision. Since the mission went well, he is being justly praised, and his political standing has risen. But there can never be a guarantee that a mission of this kind will not go tragically wrong. We are all the beneficiaries of Obama's decision, but in the end the buck stops at one man's desk."

-- Paul Wolfowitz, Bush/Cheney's deputy secretary of defense

"Ladies and gentleman, we need to open the program today by congratulating President Obama. President Obama has done something extremely effective, and when he does, this needs to be pointed out."

-- Rush Fucking Limbaugh (who still couldn't resist putting in a note of sarcasm because . . . well, he's an asshole).

"[The operation was] a gutsy call because so much could have gone wrong. The fact that Obama approved this mission instead of the safer option of bombing the compound was the right call militarily, but also a real roll of the dice politically because of how quickly it could have unraveled.”

-- John Ullyot, a former Marine intelligence officer who served as a Republican spokesman on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Failed Senator Rick Santorum: Asshole of the Week

"9/11 families and everybody else in America should be furious at this president that he’s walking around taking credit for, you know, getting Osama bin Laden. He didn’t get Osama bin Laden!"

-- Santorum, on Hate Radio today.

When I first heard the early reports that bin Laden had been killed, I thought it would end up being from something akin to a drone attack and that Obama had little-or-no involvement in the operation. Don't get me wrong -- this still would have been a huge victory for the President even if his actual involvement was minimal.

But that wasn't the case. This victory stemmed directly from a policy he put into place, namely, a reversal of George Bush's "We Don't Think About bin Laden Much" Policy to a policy that made the capture/killing of Osama our top priority. Bush's policy was based at least in part on the notion that bin Laden had been maginalized in a cave somewhere and wasn't involved much in al Qaeda's operations. But the intelligence obtained from the raid is showing that he was still very involved in al Qaeda's operations. It is merely icing on the cake for me that Obama kept close tabs on this operation from the beginning and gave the final order to proceed.

This was a huge political risk for the President on several levels. Had this mission failed, folks like the Asshole Santorum would have been calling not only for Obama's impeachment, but also for his execution and deportation. Had this mission failed, there would have been a huge backlash from the Pakistanis instead of the huge embarrassment now being experienced by these so-called "allies." The President's advisors were telling him that the operation only had about a 68% chance of success, but Obama decided to pull the trigger anyway.

I don't think our Commander-in-Chief is taking enough personal credit for the killing of bin Laden, given that a failed operation would have turned Obama into the new millenium's version of President Jimmy Carter. Obama did in less than two-and-a-half years what Bush and Cheney couldn't do in eight. And don't forget: the 9/11 attacks happened on Bush and Cheney's watch -- even though the outgoing Clinton people told the incoming Bush people eight months prior to September 11, 2001 that Al Qaeda would be their top national security priority -- and that Bush himself was warned a month before 9/11 that bin Laden was "determined to strike within the U.S."

The GOP is clearly weak when it comes to national defense. To hell with the notion that the killing of Osama transcends party politics. I openly question the Republican Party's ability to keep this country safe.