TheNextReport

A Statesman Stands Up Just when I was about to lose all confidence in President Obama for his tame demeanor before the GOP, just when we thought his base was about to abandon him for not fighting more aggressively on health care, he goes off and proves again that he is one of the most skilled politicians to ever hold the office. The encounter with Republican leaders at their retreat in Baltimore was an uncanny bit of impromptu political theater where the President boldly confronted political opponents who have demonstrated their ideological mindlessness and disdain for the current occupant of the White House. Clearly expecting to use the opportunity to sand-bag Obama with ideologically charged set-up questions, GOP leaders found the tables adroitly turned by the president who swiftly and easily showed himself to be not only a master of the issues, but surprisingly skilled in the art of political gamesmanship as well. Mr. Obama had been broadly criticized by progressives for his continu

Saddle-up Your Pickups, Boys or You're in Good Hands with Joe the Plumber It's amazing that the Democratic Party and the White House haven't yet been able to figure it out. The GOP has once again managed to out-smart it's Democratic rivals by relying on the dim-witted, Pavlovian responses of the electorate in a key state. Scott Brown, the newly elected Senator from the blue state of Massachusetts, has apparently raised the location of the Mason-Dixon line up to the suburbs of Boston. Is it that hard to figure out that, given the opportunity, American voters, no matter where they reside, will fall for any semi-charismatic figure who rides into town in a pickup truck, sings praises of the local sports franchise and carries a firearm? Such is the sophistication of American politics, the land of the free and the homer of Joe the Plumber. The mandarins of the Democratic Party in Mass have been left scratching their heads. How could it have happened? The voters just one year