Frank Rich on the SOTU and where Obama goes from here

Frank Rich in the NYT:

[Obama] must be less foggy on the specifics of what that agenda is. Though on Wednesday night he asked Congress to “take another look” at the health care bill, even now it’s unclear what he believes that bill’s bedrock provisions should be. He also said he wouldn’t sign any financial regulatory bill that “does not meet the test of real reform,” yet tentatively praised a House bill compromised by a banking lobby that is in bed with Democrats and Republicans alike. The Senate, of course, has yet to produce any financial reform bill.

Americans like Obama far more than they like any Congressional leader. They might even like more of his policies if he spelled them out. But none of that matters if no Democrat fears him enough to do any of his bidding and no Republican believes there’s any price to be paid for always saying no.

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Feed Me Bubbe

I'm a complete sucker for family cooking and stories about sweet old grannies. The Boston Globe has a nice article about the the 83 year old granny (Bubbe, in Yiddish) who has a fun cooking website. I jumped over to the site that she has with her grandson and loved the cholent recipe. (I'm also a complete sucker for stews.) A few years ago Joelle and I kept returning to a tasty Kosher restaurant in Jerusalem that had family cooking from Morocco and North Africa. If only I could remember the name or get their recipes. Family style restaurants can often be so good, with great atmosphere.

As for Bubbe, have fun going through the recipes. It's just like cooking with family. Read More......

Old England ate pretty well at the theater

The food options at the old theaters in London sound pretty high end compared to what we often see today at many theaters, cinemas or stadiums. I might opt out of oysters following my recent battles with them but the rest sounds tasty. Archeologists will probably discover completely intact hot dogs when they dig in 400 hears.

The preferred snacks for Tudor theatre-goers appear to have been oysters, crabs, cockles, mussels, periwinkles and whelks, as well as walnuts, hazelnuts, raisins, plums, cherries, dried figs and peaches.

Some clues even suggest that 16th-century fans of William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe also ploughed through vast quantities of elderberry and blackberry pie – and some may even have snacked on sturgeon steaks.

The evidence has emerged from the most detailed study ever carried out on a Tudor or early Stuart playhouse. Archaeologists have been analysing the thousands of seeds, pips, stones, nutshell fragments, shellfish remains and fish and animal bones found on the site of the Rose Playhouse on London's South Bank.

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Not Politics: Should you or shouldn't you turn the heat down at night?

I've been researching this lately, and boy am I getting divergent answers. The repair guy told me the other day, for example, that if you have a heat pump that also has emergency heat (i.e., an expensive-to-use heating coil), it will turn on the heating coil to help the heat pump warm up the house IF the temperature you set the thermostat at is more than 2 degrees over current room temp. So, for that kind of a system, he said not to turn it down at all at night. But I've heard others say that no matter what kind of heat you have, you use just as much energy to heat the place back up as you save letting it cool down at night, but you save energy during the time the home sits at the cooler temp overnight.

So at this point, I have no idea. Do you guys turn the temp down at night over the winter? Does anyone have evidence that this actually saves energy? Does it really depend on what kind of heating system you have? Just curious if we can group-think an answer here in the comments. Thanks. Read More......

Krugman and Ezra have apparently had it with Obama on health care reform

Krugman was over Obama for most of the first year of the Obama presidency, then something happened and he suddenly became a cheerleader for the administration on health care reform. Seems he's now put down the pompons.

As for Ezra Klein, he's always been a bit of an administration cheerleader throughout, so to see him becoming depressed about the president, and the prognosis for health care reform, is very interesting, and likely indicative of a whole new level of disillusionment with the administration - even the true believers, the remaining true believers, are starting to have serious doubts.

This is not good for Democrats at all. The President did a great job with the State of the Union the other night, and he did an absolutely amazing job taking on the Republicans yesterday at the Q&A; he had with them in Baltimore. But the occasional talk tough isn't enough, and it's not going to turn the President's or the party's prospect around when immediately after the tough talk administration officials start backpeddling.

To answer the age-old question of where the liberal base can possibly go in November if Obama abandons them, yet again: They can simply go home and stay there. Just like they did in Massachusetts. Read More......

Pentagon slow-walking DADT repeal. Will be 'several year process'

Over the past couple days, we've seen conflicting signals about whether Don't Ask, Don't Tell will be repealed "this year" as Obama led us to believe in the State of the Union.

The day after Obama's speech, Eugene Robinson stated on MSNBC that a White House official told him the repeal probably would not happen this year.

Via a report from the Associated Press, we learned today that the Pentagon thinks the repeal will be a "several-year process." Even worse, the Pentagon is going to do another study (a "special investigation") on this issue.

Obama promised to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. He's the Commander-in-Chief. He tells the Pentagon to do it faster and stop delaying the process. And, it's a very bad idea to leave the details to Congress.

Yesterday, Obama showed real leadership when he faced down the House GOP caucus. He needs to be that leader across the board. And, the repeal of DADT is one issue that is demanding it. Remember, "It's the right thing to do":

Don't forget, until it's done: Don't Ask, Don't Give. Read More......

Saturday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

We're under a "Weather Winter Advisory" Winter Storm Warning as of 10:07 a.m. in D.C. No snow as of 8:30 a.m. The salt trucks are out, which is helpful to drivers, but not so great for the paws of our dogs. We're only getting 2 - 4 inches 4 - 6 inches of snow here. Pam Spaulding reports there's already 7 inches of snow in Durham, NC and now they're getting sleet.

KarenMrsLloydRichards again delivered excellent and biting commentary on the week via her haikus. Here's one for James O'Keefe, who has been ordered by a judge to live with his parents:

Me, take out the trash?!
I'm a shit hot player, mom:
I brought down ACORN!

And, one for the Joint Chiefs:

The Joint Chiefs of Staff:
Fig leaves made of white knuckles
Against gay attacks!

The pundits and talking heads are still agog over Obama's performance at the GOP House Issues Conference yesterday. We'll be hearing about it for awhile. And, as hard as those GOPers try to spin it, Obama won the day. Big. And, we need to see more of THAT Obama.

What's going on this weekend? Read More......

How to report the news

So true. If it was Fox, they'd probably try to somehow add in a slam against the Democrats. It wouldn't even have to fit in any way because the viewers wouldn't notice or care.

Beautiful day over here with sunshine and temperatures in the mid 30's. Hopefully this means biking in an hour or two. Read More......

Blair has 'no regrets'

What else is he really going to say, but it's still disgusting to hear. During his testimony he stuck to his same old points, though did update the argument to blame Iran for many problems. As if Iran should somehow not been part of the equation in the first place. Maybe his deep discussions with Bush failed to ever kick around the idea of a power vacuum. Obviously because the world has never, ever experienced such a situation before.

A few protesters called him a "liar and a murderer" at the end and thankfully, Blair was no longer able to have the British police arrest them and charge them with a violation of the anti-terror laws as we witnessed a few years ago.

Tony Blair ended an epic six-hour inquisition by the Chilcot inquiry last night by insisting he had "no regrets" over toppling Saddam Hussein, arguing that the world was more secure and that Iraq has replaced "the certainty of suppression" with "the uncertainty of democratic politics".

The former prime minister blamed "the very near failure of the Iraqi occupation" on Iranian interference, misplaced assumptions and a lack of US troops.

During the long-awaited cross-examination, he gave no substantial ground over why he sent 40,000 UK troops to war to disarm Saddam of weapons he did not possess, arguing that if the west had backed off Saddam would have reassembled them, as he had the intent and ability to do so. "I had to take this decision as prime minister. It was a huge responsibility then and there is not a single day that passes by that I do not think about that responsibility, and so I should," Blair said.

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