Kathy's US Politics Blog

The press is still buzzing about Sen. Barack Obama's globetrotting -- Spiegel Online had a "live ticker" for Thursday's events. And mid-day, the ticker announced "that Obama has cancelled a planned short visit to the Rammstein and Landstuhl US military bases in the southwest German state of Rhineland-Palatinate." How come?

The official reason (tip):

The senator decided out of respect for these servicemen and women that it would be inappropriate to make a stop to visit troops at a U.S. military facility as part of a trip funded by the campaign.

Paid for by the campaign? But I thought this trip wasn't a campaign (erh, political) event?

Read more...

Early this month, Iraq insisted on a withdrawal timeline as a condition of negotiating on permanent bases or the continued role of US forces. Iraq is a core issue among party actives, but is a distinctly second place issue among most voters, according to a recent Quinnipiac - washingtonpost.com - Wall Street Journal poll. It was named a priority "by less than one in five respondent" in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin:

Asked whether they would prefer a "fixed date" for withdrawal or to "keep troops in Iraq until the situation is more stable," majorities in all four states preferred the latter option despite the fact that similar majorities in each state say that America was wrong to go to war in Iraq.

Read more about election coverage disparity from Justin Quinn @ Conservative Politics.

In the battle over "conscience rights" of pharmacists, a Washington State Board of Pharmacy rule that requires pharmacists to fill contraceptive prescriptions is making its way through federal courts.

In the battle over abortion, the Bush Administration's Health and Human Services Department has drafted a new rule, ostensibly to ensure that "doctors, hospitals and health plans would not be forced to perform abortions."

These two fronts are related. Trust me and read on!

Read more...

Posted 02.19 Pacific; updated 19.57 Pacific
According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, the attention that the TV networks are giving Sen. Barack Obama this week is par for the course. Amazingly, CBS chief anchor Katie Couric, ABC's Charles Gibson and NBC's Brian Williams have each flown oversees to interview Obama this week. For once, the networks decided not to compete with one another: their interviews are on successive days.

Moreover, as Andrea Mitchell reports, we're seeing PR footage from Iraq and Afghanistan being presented on TV as though it were press pool footage. "We've not seen a presidential candidate do this in my recollection ever before."

Add this to the recent dust-up over the New York Times refusing to run a McCain op-ed after giving Obama a slot, and one could be forgiven for mumbling about the "liberal media."

Read more...

Conventional wisdom suggests that Republican presidents are good for the economy, compared to Democratic ones. However, a comparison of data from 1980-2007 shows that the economy was more robust during the Clinton Administration -- primarily with an opposition Congress, I might add -- than during Reagan, Bush41 or Bush 43.

Paul Krugman compares the 2001-2007 "expansion" to other post-World War II "expansions." Its conclusion? Only corporate profits grew more than average: not employment, wages, net work, investment dollars, consumption, or GDP.

In a companion column, Krugman writes:

Over all, Mr. Bush will be lucky to leave office with a net gain of five million jobs, far short of the number needed to keep up with population growth. For comparison, Bill Clinton presided over an economy that added 22 million jobs.

Remember that Bill Clinton defeated Bush41 with a campaign focused on "it's the economy, stupid."

In an act that is as symbolic as much of the rigmarole that passes for security in airport check-in lines, President Bush has rescinded a 1990 executive order (signed by the prior Bush) that bans some offshore oil drilling. A 1981 law (signed by Reagan) also bans some offshore oil drilling and trumps the executive order.

Most of the arguments against expanded offshore drilling focus on the time lag: even if Congress were to overturn the law tomorrow, it would be years -- perhaps decades -- before any oil is being pumped, assuming that the estimates of where and how much oil might be found are accurate. And Bush's own Department of Energy says it would be 2030 before "access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would ... have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices."

But there's another, real argument as to why this drilling will not help prices. And that's because there is no guarantee that the firms would sell the oil domestically. As Forbes pointed out earlier this month, oil exports are up 33% this year." (tip)

In the first four months of this year, our oil exports were equivalent to 9 percent of total refining capacity. Because facilities were running at only 85 percent of capacity during that period, the actual percentage of refined fuel is greater. Moreover, April's gasoline exports were the most for any April since 1945, "when America was sending fuel overseas to ease supply shortages in other countries during World War II.

Read more...

Seattle's David Horsey responds to the brouhaha engendered by the New Yorker cover. He envisions a comparable fate for Sen. John McCain (without the accompanying expose, however).

:: Wordless Wednesdays @ About.com News
:: Other Wordless Wednesdays @ About.com
:: More Wordless Wednesdays On The Net
:: Seattle PI

Horsey's cartoon also featured in The Huffington Post and by Andrew Sullivan.

Three tidbits might add up to fireworks in Denver.

First, the latest NYT-CBS poll (pdf) suggests voters are waking up to the fact that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is first and foremost a politician. Most (51%) now believe he "says what people want to hear" which is up from 32% this time last year. The cynicism is much more rampant among whites (57%) than blacks (16%). (tip)

There are similar results from a recent Newsweek poll (pdf, tip).

Read more...