Thinking Up New Shit to Criticize Barack Obama For

I had a “Nat X” moment at yesterday’s White House press briefing.  Here’s the question someone asked Gibbs:

Robert, following up on an earlier question, there are some veterans of past Democratic administrations who believe that the President is simply overloading the political circuitry in pursuing an agenda as multi-pronged as he is. Is there not an argument for just pushing on one issue, given the White House’s limited time and resources — say, economic recovery — letting other — leaving other issues for later in the term?

So, now, they’re getting on his case for doing too much?  I don’t remember them doing that to the white presidents.  Here’s Obama’s take on it:

If Obama did concentrate on just one thing, would they say he was “loafing?”

Seriously, though, I liked Gibbs’ answer, as it recalls the key reason I endorsed Obama.  Here’s what he said:

Stephen Baldwin Knows How to Market Himself

At AOL, I just did a post called Ron Paul vs Stephen Baldwin on Marijuana Laws? Are You High?

While I questioned the fairness of the matchup, I think Baldwin is a genius for doing spots like this.  That clip has “viral video” written all over it, and there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

I have to admit, while I like Baldwin’s persona, and he seems like a very genuine guy, I’m starting to wish he would stop hurting America.  The “reformed sinner” narrative is a powerful one, and I’m sure he does a lot that’s good with it, leading people to Christ and all, but running around telling cancer patients to suck it up, and supporting the lifelong imprisonment of potheads is harmful to actual people.  Let people be free to feel better, just as you are free to lead them to Christ, I say.

This is something that the Christian right doesn’t get: you can’t lead people to Jesus at the barrel of a gun.  Barack Obama is a Christian, and annoyingly opposes gay marriage, but he also supports a woman’s right to choose.  He focuses, instead, on making his personal choice easier for women to make by supporting access to contraception, responsible sex education, and support for working mothers.

And on gay marriage, he doesn’t favor a federal ban, he believes in equality for gay people (albeit the separate equality of civil unions), and lets his personal beliefs remain largely between himself, his God, and his fellow believers.  That’s the American way.

Goddam Kids With Their Twitter! That Ain’t Music!

There’s always a lot of chatter about Twitter during the down-time at the White House briefing room.  Everyone has pretty much the reaction I had when Joe Trippi first tried to explain it to me:  “Huh?  Uh, oh, I get…mmm, no, I don’t get it.”

Lately, I hear a lot of complaining that it’s “just about self-promotion.”  And…?

There were 2 exchanges that I thought were pretty funny, and emblematic.

First, there was this tweet from last month:

Overly-Specific Store, Meet Obtusely-Named Store

On my way to DC yesterday, I noted a cluster of odd landmarks along Route 168 (do you say r-OW-t, or root?), and so I took pictures of a couple of them on the way back.  I’ll try and snap the others next week.  My favorite is this narrowly-targeted business:

Then, there’s the other side of the coin, this oddly-monikered convenience store: