So do you think Lou Dobbs will get the Hispanic vote in 2012?

President Lou Dobbs.

Has a nice ring to it, right?

Well, he's starting to think so. Word out of New York this afternoon that LD is pondering a run for the White House.

The 64-year-old award-winning former radio/TV host, the son of a Texas propane dealer (no gasbag jokes,  please), was asked on a radio interview today about this "crazy idea" floating around of him seeking the presidency of these United States.

His response: "What's so crazy about that? Golly!" (Except he really said golly.)

He elaborated slightly:

"Well, I’ll tell you this much -- it’s one of the discussions that we’re having. For the first time, I’m actually listening to some people about politics. I don’t think I’ve got the nature for it. [But] we’ve got to do something in this country, and I think that being in the public arena means you’ve got to be part of the solution.

The controversial Harvard-educated CNN commentator, who was particularly outspoken on this cockamamie idea that the United States has some kind of illegal alien problem, abruptly resigned on-air Nov. 11. Protest groups claimed they had him pushed out.

But Lou cited his growing concern over the nation's expanding problems and the need to address them beyond his cable commentator's role. (See video below for his complete resignation remarks.)

Now, it's taken the self-described "independent populist" 12 whole days to....

broach the idea of running for the White House, good news for any incumbent since Dobbs and you-name-all-the-others can divvy up the voters unhappy with him.

It is, of course, a preposterous idea that someone never elected to anything except high school student body president in rural Texas could win the nation's top elected job on the backs of angry voters who believe the incumbent is incompetent.

Next thing you know, people will be suggesting that some old movie actor from California, who switched parties and peddled refrigerators on black-and-white TV, could run against a Democratic president elected after eight years of Republican controversy and scandal. And then the Republican actor could be elected president -- twice.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Sarah Palin vs. Levi Johnston, the sequel: Can too much exposure ruin a potential presidential candidate?

 
The timing had to be awkward.

Just as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was wowing crowds in a book tour for "Going Rogue," her one-time almost son-in-law Levi Johnston -- the father of her grandson, Tripp -- celebrated a publication of his own -- full-length photos in the nude for Playgirl Magazine.

Palin, who does not mention Johnston in her book, told Oprah that she considers his poses porn.

"By the way, I don't know if we call him Levi -- I hear he goes by the name Ricky Hollywood now, so, if that's the case, we don't want to mess up this gig he's got going," she said. "Kind of this aspiring, aspiring porn -- the things that he's doing. It's kind of heartbreaking."

As for Johnston's relationship with his son, Palin said: "He hasn't seen the baby for a while, but we will let that be the discussion between Bristol and Levi, as they work out their relationship. Because Levi will forever be the father of this beautiful little baby, and I continue to hope for the best, and pray for Levi."

Asked if he would be invited to Thanksgiving, Palin said, "He is part of the family...This can all work out for good."

Johnston has already generated some political heat by saying, in an interview with Vanity Fair, that Palin found her job as governor "too hard" and that she offered to adopt Tripp to hide the teen pregnancy.

The Playgirl shoots provide further evidence that even as Palin's national profile rises, Johnston's not going away anytime soon. As The Times' Meghan Daum put it the other day, "He's hot, he's cute, he's playing hardball."

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Levi Johnston, photo credit: Getty Images

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Top Democrat warns Afghanistan will bankrupt domestic programs, threatens war surtax if Obama sends more troops

David Obey came to Congress in 1969, a young Democratic congressman from Wisconsin, opposed to the Vietnam War and mindful of the funding it was draining from Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs.

Thirty years later, he is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and adamant that Afghanistan is a similar quagmire that could bankrupt President Obama's domestic agenda.

"There ain't going to be no money for nothing if we pour it all into Afghanistan," House Appropriations Chairman David Obey told ABC News. "If they ask for an increased troop commitment in Afghanistan, I am going to ask them to pay for it."

Comparing Afghanistan to Vietnam, Obey said that both were long-standing civil wars and that, in each case, the United States found itself with an unreliable partner on the ground.

"On the merits, I think it is a mistake to deepen our involvement," Obey said. "But if we are going to do that, then at least we ought to pay for it. Because if we don't, if we don't pay for it, the cost of the Afghan war will wipe out every initiative we have to rebuild our own economy."

"If we have to pay for the healthcare bill, we should pay for the war as well," Obey said, "by having a war surtax."

Obey's comments come just as Washington is starting to acknowledge the huge debt laid at its doorstep by recent programs -- including the massive drug-prescription bill and Iraq war costs enacted under the Bush administration as well as the healthcare overhaul and stimulus plans ginned up under Obama.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The current national debt is $12 trillion, and the White House estimates that, by 2019, interest from the debt will top $700 billion a year. As one analyst, Pimco's William Gross, told the New York Times, “What a good country or a good squirrel should be doing is stashing away nuts for the winter. The United States is not only not saving nuts, it’s eating the ones left over from the last winter.”

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: David Obey. Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

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Sarah Palin vs. Barack Obama: The approval gap silently shrinks to a few points

Not that it matters politically because obviously she's a female Republican dunce and he's obviously a male Democratic genius.

But Sarah Palin's poll numbers are strengthening.

And President Obama's are sliding.

Guess what? They're about to meet in the 40s.

Depending, of course, on which recent set of numbers you peruse and how the questions are phrased on approval or favorable, 307 days into his allotted 1,461 the 44th president's approval rating among Americans has slid to 49% or 48%, showing no popularity bounce from his many happy trips, foreign and domestic.

Riding the wave of immense publicity and symbiotic media interest over her new book, "Going Rogue," and the accompanying promotional tour, Palin's favorable ratings are now at 43%, according to ABC. That's up from 40% in July.

One poll even gives her a 47% favorable.

Most recent media attention has focused on the 60% who say she's unqualified to become president. Her unfavorable rating is 52%, down from 53%, which still doesn't ignite a lot of optimism for Palin-lovers.

On the other hand, 35 months before the 2008 election, that Illinois senator was such a nobody that no one even thought to ask such a question about him. Things seem to change much more quickly these days.

Saturday night Palin's book bus swung by a mall in Roanoke, Va., a state Obama won a year ago but just recently elected a Republican governor to replace departing Tim Kaine, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. The former Alaska governor wanted to greet the hundreds of fans already lining up in 39-degree weather for her Sunday morning signing.

"She brings out a different crowd, " Salem Republican Party Chairman Greg Habeeb told the Roanoke Times. Habeeb was struck by the numerous non-Republicans he spotted in the line snaking all over the mall. "She taps into something that the Republican Party really needs to tap into."

Sunday, Palin flew ahead of her bus to visit the Rev. Billy Graham and his son Franklin at the father's North Carolina home before her appearance today at Fort Bragg.

Overall, Palin's, well, campaign will visit 25 states, most of them politically crucial. Florida gets the most stops, three.

Everybody thinks 2012 when they think of Palin, who last week pushed Oprah's show to....

Sunday shows: Singh, Fiorina, Coburn, Nelson, Kyl

ABC This Week with George Stephanopoulos: Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Reps. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), and a round table with ABC's George Will, Liz Cheney, Aspen Institute's Walter Isaacson and Robert Reich.

Bloomberg Political Capital with Al Hunt: Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.).

CBS Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and CBS medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton.

CNN GPS with Fareed Zakaria: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Newsweek's Maziar Bahari.

CNN State of the Union with John King: Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), CNN's Mary Matalin and James Carville, California Republican Senate candidate and former Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Carly Fiorina.

Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace: Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Kit Bond (R-Mo.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) with Club for Growth's Chris Chocola and Dr. Bernadine Healy, ex-director of National Institutes of Health; roundtable of Fox News' Brit Hume, Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard and NPR's Mara Liasson.

NBC Meet the Press with David Gregory: Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), Joe Lieberman (I-Ct.),  Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Race for the Cure's Nancy Brinker and NBC's Chief Medical Editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Associated Press

Fort Hood shootings were terrorism, says Senate Armed Services Committee chair Carl Levin

Sen. Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who heads the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, which will investigate the deadly Ft. Hood shootings, calls them an act of terrorism.

Although some officials, including fellow Democrat President Obama in the early post-shooting hours, have urged caution in characterizing the shocking shootings that caused the deaths of 13 and wounding of 29 on the Texas Army base, Levin tells C-SPAN's "Newsmakers" program in a taped interview, "It sure looks like that."

Levin has already been briefed by investigators.

The Ticket has obtained video excerpts (see below) of the cable program to be broadcast Sunday at 7 a.m. Pacific time (10 a.m. Eastern).

Today the man accused of the Nov. 5 killings, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, will undergo a pretrial confinement hearing in Killeen, Texas, at his bedside in a heavily guarded hospital room.

The precise schedule for the unusual hearing is unannounced for security reasons, but prosecutors seek a judicial ruling that their existing pretrial confinement is appropriate. They have announced they will seek the death penalty in this case.

Hasan's civilian attorney, John Galligan, says he will argue that proceedings are moving too hastily.

On the C-SPAN video, Levin says the Armed Services Committee is undergoing briefings by military investigators and has two more scheduled. When they are completed, he says, he will schedule full Senate committee hearings on the military aspect of the deadly fusillade that broke out on the military base and shocked the nation with soldiers being killed allegedly by another soldier, a Muslim officer.

Americans themselves apparently have mixed feelings over characterizing the rampage as terrorism. A Fox News poll released Friday found that 49% of those interviewed preferred to describe the incident as "a killing spree" and that 44% thought "act of terrorism" was more accurate.

The older the respondent, the more likely he or she was to call it terrorism.

Forty-five percent believe the outburst involved the shooter mentally snapping, and 38% consider him a Muslim extremist protesting American foreign policies.

Levin said his committee would be careful in its hearing to avoid complicating either the military investigation or the upcoming prosecution. But he said he intends to pursue all leads, including such questions as why e-mails between Hasan and a radical Muslim cleric in Yemen were not taken more seriously by federal anti-terrorism investigators who knew of them before Nov. 5.

But even before those hearings, Levin added, "I'm not uncomfortable with thinking that's [terrorism] the likely outcome here and a likely accurate description."

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credit: U.S. Army

Obama now pleading for money to fight Sarah Palin

Never shy about $eeking money, Democratic President Obama's Organizing for America is now using the threat of Republican Sarah Palin as an opportunity to acquire more.

It has just sent an e-mail out to its millions of supporters today pleading for urgent donations to fight the mother of five, now on her heavily-publicized, cross-country book promotion bus tour. She holds no political office currently; in fact, she's among America's unemployed, though doing quite well financially.

Perhaps you've heard a little something about Palin in recent days.

The former governor of Alaska has written a book called "Going Rogue" that details her experiences in last year's presidential campaign, her values and thoughts on various issues.

Some San Francisco bookstores are declining to sell the book. And no one really cares about her or the book, obviously (see photo above), because she only sold 300,000 copies the first day.

Some people (bipartisan) think (fear) she may become a candidate for the 2012 presidential election.

Since the Republican Party that chose her as its first female presidential ticket member last year has such a glaring national leadership vacuum these days, she's getting tons of publicity in her symbiotic hate-hate relationship with the media, which doesn't mind attracting crowds with her name either (see headline above).

Although the Democratic National Committee dismisses Palin as an ignorant non-factor, it's invested way more time and effort this week attacking Palin than selling Obama, who was on another overseas publicity trip of his own.

Attempting to use Palin as a lucrative opportunity, too, today's e-mail plaintively asks: "Please chip in $5 to help."

The committee says its goal is a half-mill in one week, chump change for the one-time senator's $750-million presidential campaign.

Today's electronic missive calls Palin "dangerous," blames (credits) her for the term "death panels," and says it needs the money to combat her lies (claims), which will be magnified in coming weeks by well-known complicit conservatives in the media.

The donation plea also warns ominously that "the rest of our opponents will likely parrot those attacks."

It says the money will be used for event organizing, advertising and funding calls to Congress in support of Obama's beleaguered healthcare legislation to counter "right-wing attack groups."

Naturally, Palin is also playing off of Palin's publicity. If you give $100 to her SARAHPac here by midday next Wednesday, she'll give you a free signed copy of "Going Rogue."

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Indianapolis Star via Associated Press (Long lines of Palin book-buyers stretch around the entire mall parking lot in Noblesville, Ind.); Getty Images.

Huckabee: Republican attacks on Obama 'deplorable'

He could go down as the first Republican to spar with conservative icon Rush Limbaugh and live to talk about it.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee told the Hudson Union Society some weeks ago that Republican attacks on President Obama for everything from visiting Dover Air Force Base to opening the White House to local trick-or-treaters on Halloween are hurting the country.

Now, his comments are circulating on the net, posing a direct counter to Limbaugh, who has criticized Obama's Dover visit as a photo op.

Said Huckabee:

When he was at Dover the other day, and went there to pay respect for soldiers, I heard a lot of people on the right say, "Aw, that's just a cheap photo-op." No, I think it was the commander-in-chief of our military paying respect to a dead soldier, and I'm grateful that he did that, and I was proud of him for doing that. And I think we all -- as Americans -- should give him credit for doing that.

Perhaps cognizant of public opinion polls that show Obama personally popular with most Americans, even those who disagree with his policies, Huckabee added: "When he and Michele hosted the trick-or-treaters on Halloween, quit finding something wrong with that. Say. 'Good, I'm glad that he and the first lady are treating children to an experience at the White House.' And I just find it deplorable that some people on my end of the aisle want to find everything wrong and nothing right about the man as a man."

Finally, recalling that liberals regularly reviled George W. Bush no matter what he did, Huckabee, a former pastor, pleaded for comity.

I hated it when people did that to George Bush. They couldn't even laugh at the man's jokes. They found something wrong with everything and if we do that to Barack Obama, then shame on us, shame on us. No wonder our country is so divided when that happens.

Huckabee made the comments while on book tour for "A Simple Christmas." Republican insiders, mindful of all the attention focused on former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue," are calling Huckabee's "the other book tour."

-- Johanna Neuman

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Should Treasury Secretary Geithner be fired?

President Obama is just back from an eight-day trip to Asia. Perhaps he hoped to sleep in a bit today.

But amid growing discontent over the administration's handling of the economy -- and new revelations about misspent or at least misreported stimulus funds -- anger on Capitol Hill is sending a dramatic wake-up to the White House.

The target of much of the anger is Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, a former New York Federal Reserve banker who bailed out AIG and let Lehmann Bros. fall and who has watched the dollar sink to all-time lows.

At a session of the Joint Economic Committee on Thursday, Republicans let him have it.

 "Conservatives agree that as point person, you failed. Liberals are growing in that consensus as well," said Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas). "For the sake of our jobs, will you step down from your post?"

Geithner shot back at Republicans with this line: "You gave this president an economy falling off the cliff."

But Democrats are growing critical too, with progressives arguing that the administration is tilting toward Wall Street and away from Main Street. Here's Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.) calling for Geithner's resignation.

Even members of the Congressional Black Caucus apparently think the first black president in history has been slow on the uptake. They are threatening to hold up a financial regulatory reform package unless the White House takes action on jobs. "The recession has created a unique systemic risk that threatens all parts of the African American community, including the poor and the middle class," explained Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles).

Not everyone agrees. Columnist David Brooks hailed Geithner's policies the other day, saying that he was mostly right and his critics were mostly wrong. The financial sector is in much better shape than it was then. TARP money is being repaid, and the debate now is what to do with the billions that were never needed. It now seems clear that nationalization would have been an unnecessary mistake — potentially expensive and dangerously disruptive."

So far the administration is defending Geithner, with a spokeswoman saying that he has helped "steer the American economy back from the brink and is now leading the effort on financial reform."

What do you think?

-- Johanna Neuman

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'Obama teleprompter glitch stunts dinner table talk'

Regular Ticket readers know how much we enjoy the Onion.

This video was too good to resist. (It might take a moment to load.)

So in honor of casual Friday, here's that important institution's faux report on an important disaster that reportedly threw the president and his entire family into turmoil.

As it no doubt would any loving and similarly equipped home.

This "report" also brings news about how Vice President Joe Biden manages to remember all those words that he keeps saying.

Back in July, you might remember, there was a real teleprompter glitch for Obama his remarks, as The Ticket described right here.

Obama's Home Teleprompter Malfunctions During Family Dinner

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Gerald Herbert / Associated Press (Obama's large White House teleprompter prepares to prompt)