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- John Heilemann's long New York magazine cover story on the retooling of the Obama presidency is a good read, but it's still just a well-honed version of the old "Obama needs to reconnect with the country" narrative we've been seeing for the past year. I'm perfectly willing to concede that Obama's personal popularity has had some effect on his approval rating, but he can't rely on "sounding presidential" to guarantee re-election.
- Interestingly, "reconnecting with America" isn't even the conventional wisdom anymore. Now it's "Obama has a lock on the Electoral College" (which is sloppy analysis). Or it's "Fickle independents return to Barack Obama" (more like, the same people who voted for him in 2008 approve of him now). Or that Republicans, like Democrats in 1991, are reluctant to enter a race that they most likely will lose (perhaps). Amazing how these narratives change so quickly.
- One side effect of the unending chorus of how our FREEDOM! is being destroyed by Barack Obama's totalitarian regime is that when there are actual abuses of government power, few seem to notice. Kevin Drum reposts a remarkable series of tweets from Jane Hamsher chronicling a couple of hours of harassment at the Quantico Marine Corps Base, including being held against their will and being threatened with arrest. This sort of abuse is particularly difficult to address since it involves questioning what the military does, America's most beloved public institution.
- Remainders: I was mildly curious as to whether Rahm Emanuel could run a write-in campaign and the answer appears to be no; Texas is not a miracle of conservative governance; and seeking alternatives to increasingly risky extraction of increasingly limited oil resources does not appear to be in the cards.
--Mori Dinauer
