WashTimes:
Darrell M. West, director of governance studies at the Brookings Institute, said he viewed [legislative wins, overseas successes and good economic news] as especially beneficial, given the timing.
"This is a huge boon to the president's legislative agenda because it gives members good news they can take back home at a crucial time in the health care debate," Mr. West said.
More Darrell West:
What people are ignoring about health care reform is that four of the five relevant committees have passed legislation. At any other time, analysts would be describing this as a great political success and progress that Bill Clinton was not able to make in 1994. It mystifies me why DC observers give Obama so little credit for political effectiveness.
Frank Rich:
So do have a blast in Martha’s Vineyard, President Obama.
Even as we wait for some unexpected disaster to strike, Beltway omens for the current White House are grim. Obama’s poll numbers are approaching free fall, we are told. If he fails on health care, he’s toast. Indeed, many of the bloviators who spot a fatal swoon in the Obama presidency are the same doomsayers who in August 2008 were predicting his Election Day defeat because he couldn’t "close the deal" and clear the 50 percent mark in matchups with John McCain.
Here are two not very daring predictions: Obama will get some kind of health care reform done come fall. His poll numbers will not crater any time soon.
John H. Richardson:
This is the most frightening thing I have heard in a very long time: According to a poll conducted by the Daily Kos, which I fervently hope is wrong, 28 percent of Republicans believe that President Obama is not an American citizen. Another 30 percent are undecided. A wider survey to be released tomorrow takes that 58 percent of potential "birthers" nationwide up to nearly 70 in Virginia alone. And this is not in dispute: Ten Republican congressmen have now signed on to a bill demanding that Obama prove his citizenship.
If a majority of our conservative population and that much of its elected leadership think that even some of this "birther" stuff is remotely possible, some very dark times may be heading to this country. Early this spring, I spent two very long days traveling around Kentucky with Orly Taitz, one of the leading "birthers" in a nation full of them. So I can tell you with confidence — and show you later in this week's column and next — that this is much, much crazier than most people imagine — and alarmingly in sync with the "tea parties" and wild accusations of socialism that seem to define the current "conservative" opposition.
Ezra Klein:
Is There a Deal to be Made on Health Care? An Interview WIth Sen. Lindsey Graham.
Graham thinks there is over Wyden-Bennett, but not a public option.
David Frum:
Modern communication technology has empowered cranks, enabling them to build entire virtual crank communities. It has multiplied the number of media outlets — and thus the number of hours to fill — creating new crank opportunities on radio and television.
Among the greatest beneficiaries of these new opportunities: the cranks known as "birthers." The birthers claim that U.S. President Barack Obama is not legally entitled to occupy his office because he is not in fact a "natural-born citizen" of the United States, as the federal Constitution requires.
This claim rests on two assertions, one wrong, one crazy.
Irwin M. Stelzer:
Still, Obama has a good story to tell about the economy, a lot better than the story he can tell about his now largely discredited health care plan. So look for him to scale back his ambition to set up a government-run health system, and instead prepare for next year's congressional elections by claiming credit for the emerging economic turnaround. And if he can do that, he will add, you certainly can trust him to be right on a host of other plans to "transform" the U.S. economy.
Maureen Dowd: Something about Clinton and Palin and how erratic they are. And how clever I am.
Tom Friedman: Hey, it's lookin' good over here in Palestine. And I'm never wrong.
Kathleen Parker:
It's easy to disregard such people, especially as reports surface that some of the protests have been coordinated by FreedomWorks, the Washington lobbying group of Dick Armey, the conservative former House majority leader. Also, a Connecticut fellow named Bob MacGuffie and four friends who formed a political action committee last year have been distributing a memo instructing people how to infiltrate town hall gatherings and harass Democratic members of Congress.
Even so, I'm not so sure these protests are insignificant. Are my three friends really so far removed from such expressions of acute frustration? Lately, they have a new understanding of how uncertainty, complicated by unemployment and growing debt morphs into anger.
And then, perchance, to rage?
Still a pretty big chasm to cross from teabaggers to raging against Obama when, as a point of fact, Bush is still blamed. More people blame Bush (30%) or Wall Street (29) for the economy than Obama (4). But jobs matter, and they always have.