Not a Big Truck

Since Obama was sworn in by Roberts for the second time, some have been questioning whether his executive orders that were signed before the most recent swearing in are constitutionally legitimate.

First, even if this was fun from an intellectual/academic perspective, this is stupid if anyone thinks it should matter from a practical level.

Second, is there a law that mandates that the Chief Justice swear in the President? Article II doesn’t seem to say who has to swear in the President. Obama could very well say that one of his daughters swore him in and that would seemingly be constitutionally legitimate. 

Any of my fellow bloggers or our one reader know of any congressional law that would create more stringent guidelines regarding the oath?

I was supporting Obama before this speech.  But, after this speech, I was totally in the tank…as the pros seem to say.  Coming off a completely devastating and disappointing loss, to deliver this speech required a confidence and political skill that I was definitely not accustomed to.

Expectations for him are so high. This speech on Tuesday will need to be amazing simply to meet those expectations. Even if the speech is mediocre, let’s hope he succeeds in governing competently.

Some liberals have been grumbling in recent days that Barack Obama seems to be throwing his “change” mantra out the window.  He has named several disciples of centrist Robert Rubin, Bill Clinton’s Secretary of the Treasury, to his financial team.  Hawkish, pro-Iraq War Hillary Clinton appears likely to be his pick for State.  And — horror of horrors! — GWB’s Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, will be invited to stay on for at least another year.

Keith Olbermann undoubtedly spoke on behalf many of his viewers tonight when he asked one of his guests something along the lines of, “What’s going on here?  Didn’t we win?  Isn’t it time to wipe the slate clean?”  A lot of people seem to be of the opinion that Obama’s call for “change” meant that he would bring in entirely new people no one had ever heard of, all of whom would be very liberal and diametrically opposite to the members of the Bush administration.

As someone who held this view earlier in the campaign, I feel some obligation to stand up and clarify things.  Anyone who believed that “change” necessarily means starting from scratch and tacking as hard to the left as possible misunderstood Obama from the start.  (Glossing over what he knew to be this sort of misunderstanding was part of Obama’s skill as a campaigner, I think.)  Obama’s call for change was not simply about throwing the bums out — although that is a sentiment that he pushed more softly and that won him a lot of votes.  Change, to Obama, was about ending the Bush governing style of demonizing those with different political views, and of ideology over pragmatism.

Obama’s picks thus far are consistent, I believe, with this brand of change.  Of course, he hasn’t even been inaugurated yet and much could (and surely will) change.  People were still thinking that Bush would govern from the center at this point in 2000…

As Obama continues to hold onto his leads in national and swing state polling and expands the playing field into what were expected to be solid GOP states, the emails from the Obama campaign pleading for money are starting to make me chuckle. See this bottom-of-the-barrel-scraping email from yesterday evening:

Our spending plans have been stretched by John McCain’s negative attacks and the overwhelming resources of the Republican National Committee. … [J]ust this week, we’re facing new and unexpected spending against us in Montana and West Virginia.

Oh no!  The Republicans are having to defend Montana and West Virginia, states that the Democrats never expected to have much of a chance of winning!  I’m surprised they didn’t mention that McCain is having to spend money on robocalls in Arizona now.

Saw this at the Dish.

Obama was strong here, starting at the 4:50 mark.  “You were wrong.”

James Fallows makes a subtle but insightful point about the debate: Obama looked at McCain numerous times and addressed comments directly to him.  McCain did not look at Obama once.

I think this will prove advantageous to Obama in the coming days as clips of the debate are replayed, as is happening already.  It’s much more compelling to see a clip of Obama addressing criticism directly towards McCain, in a “2-shot” with both candidates in the picture, than to see McCain talking only to the camera.  It makes Obama look tough and confident.

Matt Drudge is continuing his pattern of ignoring negative stories about McCain and highlighting even the silliest of stories that make Obama look bad.  Here’s a current example: Drudge links to this article, entitled “Joe Biden loses Barack Obama the Catholic vote.”  This article, from The Telegraph, is utter garbage.  The author argues that Biden is costing Obama the Catholic vote, because Catholics were split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans before Biden joined the ticket, but now that he is on the ticket, Catholic leaders are heavily criticizing him and other pro-choice Catholic politicians.  The author claims that this increased attention means Catholics are going to turn away from the Obama-Biden ticket, even though he cites no statistics to support this conclusion, and even though one would assume that the 50% of Catholics who were supporting Obama were already aware of the fact that he and most other prominent Democrats are pro-choice.

Yet as Drudge links to tripe like this, he ignores McCain’s incompetent, bumbling response to the ongoing crisis on Wall Street, in which the Arizona senator has said he would fire the SEC chairman (the president can’t do that) and has confused the SEC with the FEC.

I’m pretty close to the point where I will start boycotting Drudge.

This movie was on TV tonight.  One of the great sports movie speeches.  And, hey, if there are any down Obama supporters out there, maybe it will get them fired up again.

Over the years, and particularly during the 2000 and 2004 election seasons that featured Karl Rove at the helm of the GOP nuclear campaign submarine, I have had many discussions with friends about the nastiness of political campaigning.  Often, these conversations have concluded with some variation on the theme, “Sure, the Republicans are experts at mudslinging and dirty tricks, but the Democrats do their share of that stuff too.”

I guess that is probably true, especially if you take a step back and look at the broader sweep of history, not just a few elections.  But in recent years, and in this election, I think the Republicans really are worse.  Dishonest.  Shameless.  Relentless.

The McCain camp has made a big deal of Michelle Obama’s “For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country” comment, and in recent weeks of Barack Obama’s remark that for the McCain-Palin ticket to claim the mantle of change is like putting “lipstick on a pig.”  Any reasonable observer will acknowledge that Obama was not calling Sarah Palin a pig, but rather saying that the policies of McCain (and by extension Palin) are the pig that cannot be dressed up to masquerade as change.  But the Republicans will not shut up about it.

On the other hand, Meghan McCain went on the Today Show and said, “No one knows what war is like other than my family, period!”

I don’t need to harp about how awful that is.  But what has the Obama campaign’s response been, as far as I know?  To their immense credit: nothing.  They are not trying to make an issue out of what a member of McCain’s family said.  Meghan McCain isn’t on the ticket.  The Obama campaign wants to have a discussion about the issues and not about the silly, thoughtless, ultimately insignificant remarks that are inevitably made by people on both sides.  Maybe that’s “soft,” but it makes me proud to be affiliated with the Democrats and not with the GOP of Rove, Atwater, and their disciples.