The Administration

The manner in which those who would be president view the basic civil liberties and rights of all Americans regardless of race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation says all that we need to know about the moral character of those who would be president of the greatest nation on earth. In asserting his belief that same-sex couples should have the right to marry, President Obama demonstrated that he is a man on the side of all Americans, not just those who are “straight.”
 
One of the marks of true leadership is the ability and willingness to stand up for the rights of others in the face of opposition and regardless of the political consequences one may face.

I don’t buy the White House version about Obama’s stand on gay marriage according to which he was bounced into the announcement last night by something Vice President Biden said on Sunday.

You don’t bounce the president of the United States, particularly a lawyer like Barack Obama, into adopting a position only months from a presidential election.

On the contrary, it looks more like a carefully choreographed move. Biden laid the groundwork for the announcement by Obama on ABC News that his “evolving” position had now settled on a full-throated “personal” support for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community to wed.

In many ways, President Obama’s new position on the whole issue of gay marriage is completely irrelevant. This has largely been a state issue, and while the Justice Department decided not to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, the president’s signature or veto is not pending on any piece of legislation produced by the Congress.
 
But that is not how the media played it. For them, this issue is far bigger than Social Security reform, Medicare reform, the debt limit, the largest tax increase in history (which is just around the corner) and the shocking lack of leadership from this president on a host of other issues.

The same-sex marriage issue and Obama's inability to have a consistent viewpoint illustrates that he is nothing more than a politician whose views fluctuate with the wind. It is obvious that this is all about politics, Vice President Biden included.

There was a vote in North Carolina that the president was hoping to affect, and failed miserably. His left-wing base are clamoring for his approval on gay marriage before they will fully commit to him. Therefore, principles have gone out of the window and politics has taken the driver’s seat.

If I recall correctly, last year when New York Gov. Mario Cuomo celebrated the legalization of gay marriage in New York, the same week, President Obama’s support in North Carolina dropped 14 percent. Two things: As Rick Perry said about Mitt Romney, how can you change your mind as a grown-up man about things so essential to life? It is not a change of mind; it is a change of feelings. Which may be worse. By what mechanism? Do we just change who we are, simple to conform to the floating standards? It is the curse of a very large country run purely on bright lights and sensory apparatus — TV, movies, movie stars and pounding music at every turn — constantly bombarding, and leaving in the end, so little to remain between the generations; so little to remain at all. Last year Obama opposed gay marriage. Last week he was “evolving.” (Wow.) Now he has evolved. There was, at the beginning, little to this man. Now there is less.

The president did the right thing on announcing his support for gay marriage.
 
This issue is still viewed by some as a wedge issue — maybe, maybe not. It remains to be seen whether it will cost the president in the upcoming election. But, as usual, he made his decision on what he believes is right.
 
The critics are screaming about flip-flopping (hard to believe, coming from the Mitt Romney supporters).

What has President Obama achieved once he was elected to any political office?

He was elected president of the Harvard Law Review, but never authored a law review article. He was elected to the Illinois state Senate and voted not present more than he voted. His name was not associated with any legislation during his short tenure.

He was elected to the United States Senate and served two years. During that tenure he spent more time running for the presidency than serving the people of Illinois.

I was in bed last night well before the Jimmy Fallon show came on, so I had to wait until this morning before watching the president slow-jam the news.
 
I laughed out loud.
 
You got to give President Obama credit. As president, he is pretty damn funny.
 
Still, and I hate to be a spoilsport, but I have to ask the question: Do you really want your commander in chief to be the joker in chief?

Since waste is the word of the week in Washington — along with "prostitute" and even "cookie" — let's put some taxpayer expenditures in context.

A junket in Vegas we all paid for, courtesy of the General Services Administration, is making headlines this week as Congress tried grilling GSA regional commissioner Jeffrey Neely about the lavish, $823,000 conference he arranged for GSA employees in 2010 that also included his wife and friends and turned out to be one of several trips he and his wife arranged on Uncle Sam's dime. Neely, whose emails told more than we need to know, pleaded the Fifth.

The Hill's A.B. Stoddard previews the upcoming Republican presidential primary contests and takes your questions on the fallout from the Supreme Court hearings on the Affordable Care Act.