Tag Archives: President Obama’s Leadership Style

The Left Flank

Posted on December 13, 2009 at 3:32 pm by Bob Cesca

Benen on the political impact of writers like Taibbi: Over the last several months, the right has come to believe that the president is a fascist/communist, intent on destroying the country, while at the same time, many on the left … Continue reading →

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Quote of the Week

Posted on December 11, 2009 at 10:04 am by Bob Cesca

“You could imagine a lot of presidents more dogmatically liberal than Obama, but I wonder whether there are a lot of plausible hypotheticals in which they amass more liberal achievements than Obama. At the executive level, it might be the … Continue reading →

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The Presidential President

Posted on November 12, 2009 at 2:37 pm by Bob Cesca

Sullivan: Instead of engaging in adolescent tests of whether a president is “tough” or “weak”, we actually have an adult prepared to allow the various choices in front of us be fully explored. A lot of people have accused me … Continue reading →

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Defending Fox News and Punching Hippies

Posted on October 25, 2009 at 7:09 pm by Bob Cesca

I’ve been trying to figure out why the establishment press is so anxious to defend Fox News Channel, considering how Fox News Channel is dedicated to bludgeoning them as being “liberal” and “in the tank” for the president. After all, … Continue reading →

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Know Hope

Posted on October 10, 2009 at 9:37 am by Bob Cesca

Sullivan on the Nobel: We do know that we were facing a spiral of conflict that, unchecked, could have taken the world to the abyss. I see this prize as an endorsement of his extraordinary reorientation of world politics, and … Continue reading →

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The Downside of Presidential Competence

Posted on August 25, 2009 at 8:07 am by Bob Cesca

September 11 was a catastrophic failure of the Bush administration in part because they failed to put the evidence together in order to prevent the attacks. But, and this is very understated, they really savored their soaring approval numbers after … Continue reading →

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The Multiple Dimensions of Obama Politics

Posted on August 18, 2009 at 7:25 pm by Bob Cesca

Noam Scheiber: Around the conference table at TNR, we’ve been saying for weeks that what Obama really needed was a group of equally vocal, equally zealous critics on the left, pulling the debate’s center of gravity in the other direction. … Continue reading →

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Obama Politics vs. Bush Politics

Posted on August 18, 2009 at 10:51 am by Bob Cesca

This quote from Matt Taibbi seems to be making its rounds. And as I wrote in the comments yesterday, I couldn’t disagree more. John Cole makes a further distinction: Wars are easy to sell. As Goering put it “just tell … Continue reading →

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Flashback

Posted on August 17, 2009 at 10:24 pm by Bob Cesca

The last time there was an outcry about how the president sold us out and broke campaign promises was a few months ago regarding the Defense of Marriage Act.

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The Healthcare Message vs. Wingnut Crazy

Posted on August 13, 2009 at 8:30 am by Bob Cesca

Benen on the far-right healthcare attacks: …it pays to lie, blatantly and repeatedly, when launching a campaign against a policy initiative. If proponents ignore your bogus claims, they go uncontested, making it easier to persuade uninformed voters. If proponents challenge … Continue reading →

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