Month: August 2011

Adam Serwer and Seth Masket believe so. Matt Steinglass complicates this view:

[T]he reason why the economy is the overwhelming determinant of presidential elections is that America is a mature two-party democracy where skilled political operatives on both sides are constantly locked in a bitter struggle for advantage over the terrain of public relations. I don't think you can claim that it would have no effect on the 2012 election if Barack Obama just decided to forget about public relations and perceptions and cede the field, hoping the economy would rescue him. So I don't think political operatives are delusional to believe that the public-relations battles they fight are important to electoral outcomes.

And depressions do not always lead to incumbents' losing. Sometimes bleak economic times make people more likely to vote for what they think is the safer, less risky option. Obama certainly has used these recent kerfuffles to buttress that image as the sanest man in the room.

Exhibit A: The Eels.

Weigel compares campaign ads by Romney and Bachmann.

I guess we'll see whether this prediction pans out:

Supporters say the real savings will come when the joint committee the deal empowers makes recommendations to reduce the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion (as we increase the debt limit by the same amount). But the enforcement mechanism designed to force these hard decisions — across-the-board cuts to defense and nondefense programs — will never work. Congress will easily evade these caps. In the Senate, all it will take is 60 votes — the threshold for passing anything. Some have complained about defense cuts, but everyone in Washington knows those cuts can be avoided through supplemental or “emergency” spending bills.

Blake Hounshell and Josh Rogin examine the options for the international community "if the bloodshed continues to escalate throughout the holy month of Ramadan, as many expect it will":

[Salman Shaikh, head of the Brookings Doha Center] argues for a hard push at the Security Council to hold an escalating swath of Syrian officials accountable for the slaughter. "I don't see how else we're going to get these people to take notice," he says. Shaikh also advocates putting together an informal "contact group" of concerned countries — as with Libya — with a core group perhaps consisting of the United States, France, Qatar, and Turkey. But the all-important Turks, who share a border with Syria and have hosted thousands of refugees and several opposition meetings, are still hedging their bets. …

The European Union did announce fresh sanctions on Monday, with asset freezes and travel bans on five additional Syrian officials, but harsher measures that [the Washington Institute's Andrew Tabler] argues could really damage the regime — targeting the oil and gas revenues that help keep the Syrian government afloat — are so far off the table. The United States already maintains unilateral sanctions against the Syrian regime and top figures within it, but more could be done to choke off its sources of income, says Tabler.

Syrians aren't holding their collective breath. "We can't really expect much from the international community," says Jabri, and most Syrians are wary of external involvement in their struggle.

Fadwa al-Hatem worries that Syria is slowly becoming Libya, while Jacob Heilbrunn somewhat absurdly suggests the similarities might extend down to another US intervention.

As we mentioned last week, the Dish is getting Twittery (a special thanks to Brian Ries and Chelsie Gosk for their help). A few years ago, the Twitter account @dailydish was launched by an unknown fan of the blog, and its automated feed has churned out thousands of posts since. Last week we asked Twitter to close that account because of copyright and branding concerns (i.e. we are no longer at the Atlantic and have since dropped “Daily” from our name), but we have now replaced @dailydish with a sleeker auto-feed: @dishfeed. So click on this link if you’d like to keep up with every Dish post via Twitter. We have also created a curated feed called @sullydish, which contains only the Dish posts that have extended arguments from yours truly. Think of it as a more expansive version of the Recent Keepers feature. You can follow that feed here. We’ve also created an official Dish page on Facebook.

Go to this link and “Like” the page if you’re interested in keeping up with content we post there. (Here is the RSS feed if you prefer that method.) We plan to use our Facebook page primarily as a way to stoke discussion of Dish posts and give readers a way to talk to each other directly. Think of it as an off-blog comments section. (For readers unfamiliar with our case against comments, read here.)

Like everything at the Dish, we are starting simple and adjusting as we go along. Feedback from readers is always welcome.

I checked this morning on Obama's favorable rating in the poll of polls – not the approval rating. It's one way to see whether a president has become personally tainted by a series of events. And it's worth recalling that presidential elections are not just about policy; they are also about character and termperament in a president. Over the past year, Obama has remained almost completely the same, with a favorable rating exactly where it was a year ago, around 49 percent. His unfavorables? Just as stable, at around 46 percent.The American public seems to have made up its mind about Obama the person.

Romney, interestingly, has remained just as stable, and as balanced, but at much lower levels of recognition (roughly 36 percent unfavorable, 35 percent favorable), meaning he has yet to be fully defined in the public's mind. He could do a lot worse, or better as he comes into view more clearly in the next few months. Palin? In the last year, her favorables have sunk from 37 to 30 percent, and her unfavorables have risen from 51 to 59. She commands a minus 29 percent rating. It keeps growing.

"Take a look at how we were able to kill al-Qaida's leader this year. How did we get the intelligence for finding Bin Laden's couriers and ultimately Bin Laden? It was a combination of interrogation methods, sometimes tough or harsh, you can call it torture. I don't call it torture. You can repeat the word torture all the time, I can repeat coercive interrogation all the time. Take a look at the actual methods, and people can decide for themselves whether they constitute torture or not," – John Yoo.

Let's say Iran captured some US soldiers. Let's say the soldiers were stripped naked and kept in a near-freezing cell until hypothermia set in, and then allowed out for a while; let's say they were then collared and physically slammed repeatedly against plywood walls; let's say they were then forced to stand for hours and hours on end in positions that caused them excruciating pain; and then let's say they were strapped to a waterboard and near-drowned 183 times.

Do you think a president – any president – of the United States would insist they had not been tortured? The question answers itself. And the war crimes committed by John Yoo and his colleagues are not debatable in the actual world or in the context of American history. He's a war criminal and deserves nothing but a fair war crimes trial and a  jury verdict to determine if his war crimes were somehow justified.

A reader writes:

Your reader Congressional lunacy. Having negotiated this deal, complete with trigger, I'm not sure why Obama couldn't just say, "You may recall that House Republicans brought us to the brink of default last year, and the agreement we negotiated then was careful, thoughtful, and frankly gave them far more than they deserved. I put these triggers in to ensure that there was a way forward even if they chose to play games again. So the Congress can reach a deal or not; I built responsible budget cuts into the agreement that kick in whether or not Congress does its job."

And what then? In the heat of a national campaign, do Republicans demand that Obama lead them? Do Democrats (or even Independents, really) believe that the GOP negotiates in good faith anymore? I think this agreement may have bought Obama a way out of a lot of election year game playing.