Don't mess with Obama

Onion fun (link):

WASHINGTON—After serving 12 years in the position, Motley, the official White House Jester, was beheaded Tuesday after delivering a poorly received jape about the spiraling national debt before President and Mrs. Obama.

...

At this, Obama reportedly dropped the large turkey leg in his hand and signaled to nearby Secret Service agents, who seized Motley and dragged him, pleading, to the Executive Dungeon. The President exited the Hall in a fury, and within minutes had drafted an order of execution by beheading.

I'm in the "Don't Gut Regulation" camp...

Ezra captures the key point on the oil spill (link).

It strains credulity to suggest that presidents will enter office and zero in on failures at tiny regulatory agencies. But their underlings should. And they appoint their underlings. So insofar as Ken Salazar fell down on the job, it's Obama's fault in a "buck stops here" sort of way.

But this is also evidence of what a bad idea it is to routinely elect people who make it a point to degrade the capacity of regulatory agencies. If your regulators are going to be effective, the commitment to their effectiveness has to be continuous, not episodic. If every other administration has to come into office and nurse a sabotaged bureaucracy back to health, they're going to miss some of the problems, and much of the damage will already have been done.

(Emphasis mine).

Maybe Obama Isn't Like Carter Afterall

You should click on this link, just to see the other covers of Obama on The Weekly Standard.  Here's the key quote from Jonathan Chait:

Now that Obama has won his biggest legislative priority and is closing in on at least one other important win, the tone is change. The hapless patsy has become the snarling bully. The lack of Republican support for Obama's agenda, once a credit to Republican tough-mindedness, is now blamed upon Obama's stubbornness. Here is a recent cover of Obama--the nefarious, but powerful, overseer:




The Standard is a reliable reflection of Republican propaganda tropes. The shift in tone from gloating at Obama's weakness to complaining at the unfairness of his strength is the clearest signal Obama seems to be escaping the worst fate -- to be a Jimmy Carter or a Bill Clinton circa 1994 or 1995.

"It's Your Piece of S--- Now"

Stewart goes where the press dare not go...

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