Politics

Chuck Hagel has long been an outspoken critic of U.S. policy toward Cuba. Since President Obama nominated him to serve as Pentagon chief, hardline defenders of the status-quo have been quick to accuse the former Senator from Nebraska of supporting legislation that would allegedly provide a lifeline to the Castro leadership. One of them, pro-embargo lobbyist Mauricio Claver-Carone, even serves on the board of an outside group named Americans for Strong Defense, whose aim is to thwart Hagel’s nomination through paid TV attack ads.
 
However, as the Senate prepares to question Hagel on his position on Cuba, it should be aware of an incredible irony: Hagel has been accused of being
“soft on Castro” for espousing views that are almost entirely in sync with those of the Island’s leading pro-democracy advocates.

With the Super Bowl this Sunday in New Orleans, the pro football faithful across the country (and around the world) are readying themselves for the big game. While much of the pre-game chatter centers on the narrative of the dueling Harbaugh brothers and Ray Lewis’ impending retirement, Congress is preparing for future hearings to question National Football League (NFL) players on human growth hormone (HGH) use. With questions about and increased congressional interest in player safety, drug testing, and labor issues, the NFL knows lobbying and campaign donations certainly can’t hurt.

If there’s one thing to take away from Governor Bobby Jindal’s addresses to both the Republican National Committee’s winter meeting and National Review Institute Summit, it’s simply one phrase: “We are a populist party.”

For far too long, the most left-of-center Democrats have occupied that hub; it’s been defined by the mainstream media as the ‘Average Joe’ politicians standing up for the little guy in Washington and state capitols.

The conventionally wise have weighed in and declared — with equal parts delight and dismay — that the president’s second inaugural address was a robust defense of contemporary liberalism that heartened the left and caused the right to issue a resigned “We told you so”: Barack Obama the progressive finally emerged on Inauguration Day.
 
With the Washington Post’s Michael Gerson — once a George W. Bush speechwriter — calling Obama’s speech a “a raging bonfire of straw men” and the Post’s Dana Milbank describing the president as preaching to the choir with “a leftover campaign speech combined with an early draft of the State of the Union address,” you’d think that Obama had served up a point-by-point defense of his discretionary spending prerogatives while challenging Republican House Speaker John Boehner to a winner-take-all hand of head’s-up Texas hold ‘em to settle the federal budget.
 
But they’re both wrong.

The date: April 29, 2009. The time: 05:31 p.m. On that day, at that hour, the United States Congress did something it has failed to do ever since – pass a budget.
 
That’s why I’m pleased the House will vote on legislation this week to withhold congressional pay until a federal budget is passed.

The narrative of President Obama’s second inaugural address is clear and directed, when in the first moments of his speech he declared: “We affirm the promise of democracy.”

What does that mean to a man whose chosen adult identity is as a community organizer? It means democracy is a process -- a movement -- to harmoniously reconcile what ought to be, what is, and what can be. President Obama announced the movement by saying, “We continue a never-ending journey to bridge the meaning of those words with the reality of our times.”

Second inaugural addresses like second honeymoons typically lack the pizazz of the first go-round. There hasn’t been a memorable second address since Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s second inauguration in 1937. Even the great communicator Ronald Reagan delivered a pedestrian second inaugural address.
Expectations for President Barack Obama’s second inauguration were not as sky-high as they were four years ago. This time, however, President Obama far exceeded expectations. He may not have delivered a speech for the ages. But he gave a powerful address that laid a foundation for his second term in office.

The goal of equal opportunity was a predominant theme of President Obama's second inaugural address at the Capitol yesterday. As in his first inaugural four years ago, the president harkened back to "the ideals of our forbearers," with particular reference to the unalienable rights cited in the Declaration of Independence. The allegiance to such ideals, he said, is what "makes us exceptional."

Noting that the patriots of 1776 "did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few," he asserted that "the most evident of truths -- that all of us are created equal--is the star guides us still." 

As President Obama shoulders second term responsibilities with popular vote and Electoral College majorities, growing support to abolish the Electoral College may seem out of place.
 
Nonetheless, following two years of executive-congressional gridlock, current frustrations with and long standing reservations about the Electoral College seem to be gaining momentum. The latest Gallup Poll reports nearly 2 of every 3 Americans now favor abolishing the Electoral College and basing presidential election on total, national vote.

Thousands of Americans will attend President Obama’s inauguration, parade, and the whirlwind of balls and social events that follow. Millions more will hear about the ceremony and festivities through snippets of media play and hours of ensuing commentary.

But all this attention prompts a blunt question: What’s the point of the inauguration?

The query is a little more pointed this year since the president will have already have taken his oath of office. The Constitution specifies that a president’s term begins on January 20th, but since that’s a Sunday (and, for many, a proverbial day of rest), Mr. Obama will recite his oath for a symbolic second time on Monday, when the nation’s capitol has set aside a full day for pageantry and celebration.