Visual source: Newseum
Spike Dolomite Ward:
I found out three weeks ago I have cancer. I'm 49 years old, have been married for almost 20 years and have two kids. [...] We're good people, and we work hard. But we haven't been able to afford health insurance for more than two years. And now I have third-stage breast cancer and am facing months of expensive treatment. [...] Fortunately for me, I've been saved by the federal government's Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan, something I had never heard of before needing it. [...] It's not perfect, of course, and it still leaves many people in need out in the cold. But it's a start, and for me it's been a lifesaver — perhaps literally.
Which brings me to my apology. I was pretty mad at Obama before I learned about this new insurance plan. I had changed my registration from Democrat to Independent, and I had blacked out the top of the "h" on my Obama bumper sticker, so that it read, "Got nope" instead of "got hope." I felt like he had let down the struggling middle class. My son and I had campaigned for him, but since he took office, we felt he had let us down.
So this is my public apology. I'm sorry I didn't do enough of my own research to find out what promises the president has made good on. I'm sorry I didn't realize that he really has stood up for me and my family, and for so many others like us. I'm getting a new bumper sticker to cover the one that says "Got nope." It will say "ObamaCares."
David Brooks:
Republicans have many strong arguments to make against the Obama administration, but one major criticism doesn’t square with the evidence. This is the charge that President Obama is running a virulently antibusiness administration that spews out a steady flow of job- and economy-crushing regulations. [...]
If you step back and try to get some nonhysterical perspective, you come to the following conclusion: This is a Democratic administration. Many of the major agency jobs are held by people who come out of the activist community who are not sensitive to the costs they are imposing on the economy. President Obama has a political and philosophical incentive to restrain their enthusiasm. He has, therefore, supported a strong review agency in the White House that does rigorous cost-benefit analyses to review proposed regulations and minimize their economic harm.
Michael Gerson:
In a season of curious political phenomena — Michele Bachmann’s unnerving stare, Herman Cain’s last-minute launch of “Women for Cain,” a planned debate hosted by a reality TV star who makes the Kardashians look cerebral — one development is curiouser than most: the buoyancy of Barack Obama.
The number of Americans who believe their country is on the wrong track exceeds those who think it on the right track by a whopping 54 percentage points. Just 34 percent approve of Obama’s handling of the economy. Yet his polling against a generic Republican opponent is dead even, and he leads head-to-head matchups with Mitt Romney (marginally) and Newt Gingrich (significantly). [...] While voters may be disappointed with Obama’s job performance, they have not turned on Obama himself. His personal approval is strong. Here there is a significant gap between the American public and, well, me. I have often found Obama’s public manner to be professorial and off-putting. Americans seem to think it calm, self-possessed and reassuring. Even in his failures, Obama does not seem hapless. He fully inhabits the public role of commander in chief. And Obama’s commitment to his family — his protection of their privacy and normality — is widely admired.
The power of such favorable impressions should not be underestimated. Americans do not believe that Obama has succeeded, but they still want him to succeed.
Charles M. Blow:
Newt Gingrich’s new Iowa ad has everything. And nothing.
There are picket fences, purple mountains, amber waves of grain and a (fruited?) plain. Office workers, blue-collar workers and cowboys. Small businesses, the state capitol and the Statue of Liberty. Beaming little boys, a young woman with flowers and soldiers in full dress.
It’s as light as a confection — six inches of meringue and half an inch of filling. That’s the new Newt, banking on amnesia and nostalgia. He wants the world to forget who he was (and is) and pine for what America was (and can be).
Gingrich milked his insider status like a two-uddered cow, but now he acts as if he was never in the barn. He profited in cash from Congressional connections, but now he positions himself as the prophet of wisdom from beyond the beltway.
Frank Bruni:
In sharp contrast to the candidates who sped up (and then slowed down) before him, [Newt] isn’t a relatively unknown quantity, some sudden crush whose real personality has yet to be revealed and whose demons lie in wait.
Quite the opposite. His demons have been dancing across the national stage for nearly two decades, since he emerged on Capitol Hill as the tantrum-prone enfant terrible of the mid-1990s Republican revolution. They’ve done the jitterbug, tango and gavotte, and at this late date can’t have too many new moves left or much more leg to show.
The New York Times:
The biggest whopper in Mitt Romney’s fiscal plan comes right at the beginning of the description on his Web site: “We will level with the American people about what it will take to truly cut spending and balance our budget.” Actually, Mr. Romney never tells voters the full cost of his plan to balance the budget while cutting taxes: popular programs would be slashed or eliminated, vital state and local services would disappear, misery would be inflicted on the poor and the working class.
