First, I could hardly stop myself from grinning at this scorching opinion piece from Dan Gainor about the President's A-lister birthday bash in Chicago (the top A-lister being, of course, the President himself):
It’s the perfect romance: a man who loves to be loved and, well, his biggest fan – himself. It’s hard to tell if we should mark August 4 as Barack Obama’s 50th birthday or his 50th anniversary with himself.
But hey, whatever, we've finally passed a budget deal and it's the perfect time to kick up our heels and celebrate, right? Forget about those pesky details surrounding our convoluted tax system and our three current wars - they're just not that important, according to the All-Knowing (from The Hill):
President Obama counseled supporters Wednesday evening "not to get too bogged down" in details when explaining his record to voters during the campaign.
The president, in a video conference with supporters Wednesday night from Chicago, encouraged his backers to focus on broad themes when it comes to his policies on taxes and war, instead of the specifics of individual policies."I think the key is not to get too bogged down in detail," the president said last night.
"If somebody asks about taxes, nobody is really interested in hearing what precise marginal tax rate change would you like to see in the tax code," Obama said. "What they want to know is that our campaign stands for a fair, just approach to the tax code that says everybody has to chip in, and that it’s not right if a hedge fund manager is being taxed at a lower rate than his or her secretary." ...
You know, I'm pretty sure most voters would like to hear about specific changes we can make to the tax code. And for somebody who's spent the past few weeks lecturing Congress to toss aside silly campaign pledges and electoral ambitions, he's got a lot of nerve already marshaling his minions for re-election instructions when unemployment, unsustainable spending, and the persisting recession still loom just as largely as they did before the debt deal passed. Details, details! He's certainly identified his pet campaign tactic - I predict more vague promises of hope'n'change in our future.