S H A M b l o g

UPDATE, Saturday, December 12 . I invite all those who peevishly blame the president for what's been happening (or not happening) in Washington to take a look at this poll , just out on PollingReport.com. You will recall that Obama, throughout his campaign, advocated a so-called "public option" as part of healthcare reform, and he has continued to fight for it during the tumult of the past several months. The poll linked above shows that just under 60 percent of Americans, overall, favor a public option. Among Democrats — whose elected officials theoretically control the White House as well as both houses of Congress — the figure is 80 percent. Even a full one-third of Republicans favor the plan. And yet we can't seem to get it done in the obstructivist, gamesmanship-dominated, lobbyist-inflected climate within today's Beltway. ================================= While we're on the subject of politics, major governmental initiatives, political biases and all t...

OK, so my guy won and I'm thrilled. Let there be no mistake. The observations contained herein have nothing to do with the "buyer's remorse" that several of the pundits on Brit Hume's FOX show kept wishing on entrenched Obama supporters in the final days, when a McCain defeat began to look inevitable. But now that the election is a done deal, I want to say a few things about what we seek in a candidate and leader. I'm mindful of this primarily because of all the chatter about Sarah Palin's natural ascension to the leadership of the GOP for 2012 (and I can't even believe people are already talking about that at a time when that silly jingle from McCain's TV ads still rings in our ea rs). Thing is, I have to say it applies, at least somewhat, to Barack, too. We've talked around the edges of this before. I think we need to address it head-on. What makes someone a good candidate? That he or she "connects with voters"? Has "charisma...

I like Obama's new deficit-reduction plan, as well as his in-your-face way of debuting it. Good for him. The way he was going for a while there, he had everybody mad at him, including his base. If his presidency is destined to go down in flames, he might as well do it being the guy whom some of us elected.... ************************ Had a brief but interesting Twitter-spar with Deepak Chopra over the weekend. Was a little bit surprised that he would "engage," given his sometimes-imperial demeanor and his very vocal unhappiness with me over this piece for The Wall Street Journal ; y ou can read his response here . However, I think I might have caught him with his logic down. Here are the tweets in chronological order: DEEPAK : "Only life creates life." ME : "But if only life creates life, then I'm assuming you dispute the validity of evolution/Big Bang etc." DEEPAK : "I do not dispute big bang , evolution, cosmogenesis — they are all express...