1,000 Words

A few days old, but hey, I’ve been on vacation. Here’s an image from the White House Situation Room, via our White House Photo Blog:

wh_blog_0819

Related Topics: 1,000 Words
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  • yutsano

    Ahh Karen you spoil us so. :) I’m at work and the possibilites in this photo are endless so I’ll get back to it. Or better yet get out of Sacred and Deconstructiva’s way and let them have at it!

  • jcapan

    Henry Farrell reviews two new books about the netroots:

    http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=do_the_netroots_matter

    Well worth a read. Passages I found intriguing:

    “The real worry for the netroots is that Obama is undermining their particular blend of online politics. He has taken the parts of netroots politics that he likes (online organizing and fundraising), while dumping the parts that he doesn’t (a strongly confrontational politics and emphasis on bottom-up decision making). There isn’t much room for the netroots and vigorous online partisanship in Obama’s plans for the future of the Democratic Party.”

    “The fights over Hillary Clinton’s candidacy were so bitter because members of the netroots used debating tactics against each other that they had previously reserved for external enemies. But they also potentially provide a model for a politics that can actually engage citizens. As political scientists such as Theda Skocpol and Nancy Rosenblum have argued, vigorous political contention mobilizes people and gets them involved in civil society.”

  • trifecta55

    As I cupped her rear….

  • jcapan

    On war profiteering, a bipartisan feature of perpetual warfare:

    “A recent contract is worth up to $15 billion to two firms, DynCorp International Inc. and Fluor Corp., to build and support U.S. military bases throughout Afghanistan.”

    Number of soldiers in Afghanistan (set to increase): 58,000

    Number of military contractors in Afghanistan: 74,000 (also set to increase)

    Number of soldiers in Iraq: 132,000

    Number of military contractors: 119,000

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125089638739950599.html

  • cfukara

    Most of those maimed and killed are innocent barbarian babies, mothers, grandmas ,,,

    For that we have funds.
    Almost unlimited.

    Did we say that we don’t have the funds to secure the health and life of American babies, mothers, grandmas?

    Maybe we need a change in message: We may declare those opposed to HC reform as terrorists and sympathizers bent on spreading terror and an slow death to over 40 million poor and vulnerable Americans. {And now we can talk about GOP’s embrace of eugenics ..}

  • deconstructiva

    …win!

  • deconstructiva

    Karen, thanks for the photo. I’m pondering stuff and will post. First, a technical High Sheriff question. Are replies held up when two links are included (happened earlier today)? Second, sorry for being really late to the prom on this – no doubt long-time readers will remember – but while digging for Bill C. stuff I found Jon Stewart’s 1/08 interview with you: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-january-30-2008/karen-tumulty
    Nice! Did this make you an international starlet?

  • sacredh

    I swear to God Barack, Ann Coulter’s got one this long!

  • pirate wench (demwoman)

    Th’ way HILLARY would handle th’ b*stards is …

  • sacredh

    President Obama listens incredulously as Bill Clinton demonstates the width of Monica Lewinski’s landing stripe.

  • deconstructiva

    Clinton: “Take my wife…please!”
    .
    Clinton begs Obama for the chance to be Carla Bruni’s personal escort during Sarkozy’s next visit to the US.
    .
    Clinton finally confesses that Ross Perot was the one who fixed him up with Monica.
    .
    The real don’t ask don’t tell policy was supposed to be about how to hide that blue dress….
    .
    (welcome back, pirate)

  • sacredh

    Barack, I’m serious. If Cheney can claim he thought an old lawyer was a pheasant, you can shoot Biden and say he was a duck.

  • sacredh

    Barack, the biggest mistake I ever made was telling Ted Kennedy he couldn’t drive Hillary home.

  • deconstructiva

    Clinton knows Obama can only win a bipartisan HC solution by winning over a top Republican. Therefore, he proposes a private weekend retreat with Sarah Palin and asks Obama to make sure her husband is distracted….

  • deconstructiva

    …I’m howling with laughter at this….

  • sacredh

    You’re not listening to me Barack. We’ve been working for over a year and we’ve convinced the public that Limbaugh is the voice of the republican party, Sarah is the face and now we’re painting Michelle Bachman as the brains. What part of “they’re dead” don’t you understand? I’ll sleep with Pelosi if I have to just to get you off this bipartisan bullsh!t.

  • sacredh

    No sacred cows allowed. ; )

  • sacredh

    Here’s the plan we’re working on now- we convince Palin she can save money if she gets Rudy to be her running mate. They can share the same wardrobe.

  • deconstructiva

    …NOW Obama understands, nodding in agreement. When Clinton speaks of “going down on those Republicans hard”, he’s talking about Palin and Bachmann.

  • deconstructiva

    Good idea Bill, but my only concern is that we might lose the crossdressing vote. I do think you can create an opening with Sarah, though….

  • sacredh

    Clinton outlines his plan on bringing down the House republican leadership to President Obama “We hire a bunch of fresh-faced pages right out of the Boy Scouts. They can’t resist. They eat em’ like they’re M & Ms”.

  • sacredh

    Barack, don’t say opening and Sarah in the same sentence. I can’t concentrate.

  • Dee in Columbia MD

    Now here is an area in which I wholly disagree with President Obama and resent the way he has taken over every facet of Democratic organization. He has essentially dictated by fiat that there will only way to be Democratic. We are to turn the other cheek until we get whiplash and I resent it. Of course, my resentment is mostly because it in essence removes the safety valve to relieve inevitable pressure. We all know the the GOP can try the patience of a statue.
    .
    While President Obama may be comfortable taking the high road and there’s a lot we can learn from his ability to not take the antics of our opponents personally. He should have also understood that frustration does not dissipate on command. He fails to acknowledge that his own ability to divorce himself from his emotions is not a skill set everyone shares and therefore must be allowed to have some place to gather and release.
    .
    By taking over the DNC, purging the ranks of all those independent minds that made up the diversity that was once the Democratic political intelligentsia, he has shut does one more way to sooth the beast. We can’t go after the previous administration, We can’t prosecute their crimes, we can’t investigate their immorality and inhumanity. We can’t find out the truth and demand an apology for egregious actions taken in our name.. But the very least we should have some place to go, even if it is just the party apparatus, where we can be Democrats and free to intellectually hang our opponents in effigy.

  • Dee in Columbia MD

    You are bad, it might work, but are bad!

  • sacredh

    President Obama sits there thinking he had better pick Clinton’s brain before Sasha and Mahlia get any older and Michelle’s ban goes into effect.

  • Dee in Columbia MD

    Mr. President, anyone interested in solving the country’s problems are already with you. So can we just say that bipartisanship was achieved on Nov. 4th. I’ve been outside the bubble man and I can tell you it’s not about left or right anymore — it’s about sane and not!

  • deconstructiva

    …ah, No Intern Left Behind?

  • Dee in Columbia MD

    Hey O/T:

    Did anyone see Chuck Todd get his butt handed to him by Jeremy Cahill on Bill Maher’s show lastnight?

  • sacredh

    Thanks Dee. For every one that I post I reject two or three as inappropriate. Some good ones get held back, but I’d rather die than have anyone think I’m crude.

  • deconstructiva

    …pondering whether Sarah and other Republican leaders prefer front door or back door diplomacy….

  • sacredh

    Sure did. I dvr’d it last night and watched it this morning when I got home from work. Some times you just have to laugh out loud.

  • sacredh

    They’re politicians. Any port in a storm.

  • Exiled_At_Home (formerly Neo)

    Pirate, my dear! You’ve returned to us!
    .
    Arrgh!

  • sacredh

    Clintons lays out his theory that Rush Limbaugh is a lifeforce draining vampire by presenting before and after pictures of Limbaugh’s last two girlfriends…Amy Winehouse and Courtnry Love.

  • yutsano

    AARGH! THERE BE PIRATES ABOUT!!!
    .
    Welcome back me heartie! You were sorely and dearly missed! This of course precludes any raids on your home island (dammit) but thank you for sailing into our waters once again. :)

  • sacredh

    Heigh ho, heigh ho, it’s off to work I go.

  • deconstructiva

    As Clinton discusses his experiences of getting wee wee’d up, Obama learns that the term has another meaning….

  • yutsano

    The beauty of HBO (and the severe cable bill I pay to have it) is they’ll re-run Bill several more times this week, so I’ll get to catch it. I have heard however it was quite a masterful piece of pwnage.

  • yutsano

    As his aides take copious notes, Bill Clinton instructs Barack Obama on the finer points of White House cigar smoking.
    .
    (okay yeah I winced too)

  • deconstructiva

    …sacred, thanks for the great posts tonight!

  • Dee in Columbia MD

    That’s what he is a Raith, i knew he reminded me of something but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, he’s a freaking Raith — they drain the life force too

  • deconstructiva

    …and Obama painfully realizes that as Clinton speaks of the finest Cuban, Turkish, Kentuckian, and North Carolinian types, he’s no longer talking about tobacco.

  • yutsano

    Tag team comedy, YES!

  • bokeh9

    Uplifting is good, Barack. But sometimes too much separation… know what I mean?

  • stuartzechman

    So Barack, Rahm tells me that you’ve got this health care thing sown up. The big health insurance people should be on board with the individual mandate…boy, you sure gave me and Hillary hell about those, haw – haw!…but there’s no way that’s enough of a subsidy to keep their campaign dollars coming.
    .
    Are the funds Republicans pull in from the insurers really going to be made up for by Big Pharma’s dollars…you know, ’cause of that great deal he made not to negotiate lower drug prices than they agree with?

    .
    Well, Bill, Rahm’s a great guy, and you know how smart and thorough he is at this business. But I’m afraid that the pharmaceutical lobby smells blood in the water, and they’re pushing us to give them an even better deal, otherwise they’ll keep their hands in their pockets in 2010.
    .
    …And it seems that the insurers aren’t giving us any assurances of anything, either. I guess Hillary and I really shot our mouths off during the primaries!
    [raucous laughter] They’re demanding something really big from us –something like a cut of Medicare action. Rahm expected hardball, but not like this. They’re almost as bad as the guys from Goldman were this year.
    .
    For God’s sake, Barack! When are you going to put this public option nonsense behind us? I can’t for the life of me understand why you’d be foolin’ around with that…you got a deathwish? How bad do you want to lose the House next fall? 20 seats? 40? We’re not going to pass a bill with no Republicans taking the hit with us, are we? Of all people, I never thought you were the one to repeat 1994 all over again.
    .
    Honestly, Harry Reid said over and over that he’d be able to keep the 60 vote thing going by the time this was done. Nobody expected Franken to make it here before Christmas. How could we have known that we’d have a filibuster-proof majority at exactly the wrong time, Bill?
    .
    I know! I know! Can you believe it, Barack? Of all the damnedest things…And after Baucus came up with that brilliant three-of-us, three-of-them little ol’ Finance Committee trick, too!
    .
    I tell you, Bill…Rahm swears up and down that he can come up with some kind of legal reason why we don’t really have a majority, but I just don’t see how. The fact of the matter is that the Republicans can all get away with voting against this thing now, and I don’t think that even dropping the public option is going to turn this around.
    .
    I mean, we’re getting word that Conrad’s coop thing isn’t even going to be enough for the insurance industry, to be frank. It sounded like a good way to get subsidies to them, but they ultimately get to make that call, don’t they?
    [Clinton nods emphatically, bites lower lip sympathetically]
    .
    “So what are we going to do, Barack? Are you really going to sign legislation with zero Republicans on board? You want them to get every dollar we lose? These health insurance guys are vindictive sons-of-b*tches, Barack.
    .
    They poured sh*t all over my wife –and she was the First Lady! The First Lady! Can you imagine what kind of ruthless b*stards put the GOP up to holding hearings about the First Lady’s old law job? They put so much money into the talk radio people’s ad buys, those radio guys starting telling people Hillary murdered Vince Foster! Like she was Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct!

    .
    I know, Bill…I know. Rahm’s just going to have to accept the idea that we’re going to forgo a lot of campaign money between now and 2010, unless he can get this thing worked out with Larry and Tim’s friends soon enough.
    .
    Anyway, I’d like to discuss the reason why I asked you to drop by, Bill. Remember when I said I’d have a favor to ask of you at a later time that day Hillary was confirmed for State?

    .
    Of course…
    .
    Well, I’m going get together with Jim Clyburn to try to work out how we can get those idiots in the House to back down…something about how the struggle for civil rights legislation took many years and more than one bill, something that’ll shame them for demanding reform right away, that’ll get those liberals looking over their shoulders before they say something that might be taken to be insensitive…you know what I’m getting at.
    .
    Anyway, while I work on that, I’d like you to do something for Rahm…

    .
    Sure thing, Barack, what’s on your mind?
    .
    Can you look up your wife’s old friend Anthony Weiner, and make it clear to him that we’re going to cut his f*cking balls off if he keeps that motherf*cking sh*t up?
    .
    Jesus, Barack, calm down! I’ll do it! I said I’ll do it!! Stop looking at me like that, will ya? I’ll do the best I can…I’ll make it clear, I swear, OK? …OK?

  • dunedweller

    Former President Clinton began the meeting by applauding himself for freeing the 2 journalists from North Korea.

  • dunedweller

    Clinton: I kid you not, the heels on Kim Jong Il’s boots are this high!

  • dunedweller

    Obama: You know Bill, if you’re ever negotiating to get a journalist freed we could offer Michael Scherer in exchange.

  • dunedweller

    Biden (thinking): Geez, Bill was accused of perjury yet I’m the one who’s not allowed to speak in meetings anymore.

  • dunedweller

    Clinton: I tried offering Rush Limbaugh to North Korea but they told me they didn’t have enough food or drugs to keep him a week.

  • sacredh

    He also asked Obama to send a Specials Ops team to recover the clothes they wore on the plane and take them to the cleaners or else prepare a pardon in case they’ve already been tested.

  • sevenoaks07

    Bill: what do you think of my meeting with Tom Daschle? Did I give conflict of interest a bad name?

  • sacredh

    My vote goes to 27.1 for the win.

  • sacredh

    Here’s the plan: We’ve already got video of Todd and Tina Fey. Tina told Todd she wanted to give him a hummer and he said he wanted a Jeep instead. Our plant in the republican party, Michael Steele, got a semen sample from Limbaugh. All he had to do was insult him to get an audience. Once he was in the office with the bottle of oxys it was a done deal. Next we plant the DNA sample on Charlie Crist’s chin. Huckabee says he’ll not run if we can get him some hottie that works for TIME. We’re going to need blueprints of the Vatican dungeons. As for Jindal, we’re working on getting him to give another rebuttal for your next State of the Union speech.

  • sacredh

    Thanks, but with a photo like that, they almost write themselves.

  • square1

    BC: “Don’t worry about health care, Barack. Ask Bob Dole how much Hillarycare hurt me.

    You know…the guy who taught me how to triangulate the base was Dick Morris. I should get you his phone number. Wait…I’m sure Rahm has it.

    Smart guy, Morris. Just don’t put him on the White House payroll. And make sure he’s not on speaker phone when you talk to him.”

  • dunedweller

    Thanks sacredh! I’ll attribute it to lack of sleep.
    .
    I enjoyed your comments very much too…

  • sacredh

    OT, but my MIL is going in for routine tests tomorrow and thinks her days are numbered. Would it be rude if I packed all her sh!t up and hauled it down to Goodwill before she gets home? I’d prefer to burn her stuff and sprinkle the ashes with Holy Water but I’m afraid my wife might be offended. Any thoughts?

  • http://ikejakson.wordpress.com/2009/08/30/some-world-news-headlines-and-a-footnote/ Some World News Headlines, and a footnote « Ike Jakson’s Blog
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