Robert Gates warns: 'We are now in uncharted waters' with our dysfunctional politics

Yes, we are a few days late getting through an accumulated pile of reading. But better late than never in this case.

These are the worthy remarks of Robert Gates, the newly-former secretary of Defense and former numerous other things in government and the intelligence community.

They are not very long, as Washington remarks go. But then Gates didn't give them in Washington. He spoke in Philadelphia on Sept. 22 at the National Constitution Center upon receiving its Liberty Medal.

You should read them because of the man's intelligence, thoughtfulness and long experience in our troubled national capitol. Freed from the team loyalty obligations of serving one administration or another, he speaks more candidly than we've seen him on the Sunday talk shows.

Gates, an Eagle Scout from Kansas who just turned 68, has some pointed observations to make about why Washington has become so dysfunctional. (You can skip over the divisive media part; he obviously doesn't know what he's talking about.)

-- Andrew Malcolm

Liberty Medal Acceptance Speech by Robert Gates, as provided by the National Constitution Center

First of all, I am deeply honored. Thank you, Captain Odierno and Sergeant Graham.

Captain, I’ve had some interaction with your father over time; you follow in a great tradition. And I thank you for both of your service to your country and for the outstanding work of the organizations you represent.

First of all, I would say that this evening is a reminder that astrology exists to give....

New gaffe: Obama confuses Jews with janitors

President Obama spoke to the Congressional Black Caucus awards banquet over the weekend.

Those folks will stick with him in 2012, of course.

But they've been somewhat miffed in recent months that the first post-partisan president is doing too many deals with those Republicans and seeming to give in.

So, Obama needed to give the crowd some presidential love. He even brought his wife along. As with virtually all of Obama's speeches recently, the Democrat's remarks dealt with selling his jobs legislation, as if it wasn't DOA on Capitol Hill.

The first black president got to reminiscing about some other struggles in the past familiar to African Americans.

His 28 minutes of remarks had a strange tone to them, as if somehow Obama was equating support for his jobs program legislation with the far more important and historic civil rights movement.

He got into the usual yada-yada about rich people paying their fair share of taxes.

And then, deep into the speech, according to the White House transcript, the president said:

When you start saying, at a time when the top one-tenth of 1 percent has seen their incomes go up four or five times over the last 20 years, and folks at the bottom have seen their incomes decline -- and your response is that you want poor folks to pay more? 

Give me a break. 

If asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a janitor makes me a warrior for the working class, I wear that with a badge of honor. I have no problem with that.

That's what the transcript says he said.

Now, watch the C-SPAN video below, and listen especially to the phrase "the same tax rate as a janitor..."

Here is what the president actually said, catching himself almost in time but not quite:

If asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a Jew, uh, as a janitor makes me a warrior for the working class, I wear that with a badge of honor. I have no problem with that.

The president has been muffing lines all over the place recently. Last week, also peddling his jobs plan at a bridge that won't qualify, he hailed America's building of "the Intercontinental Railroad." You don't seem to hear much about these gaffes in the media for some reason.

Maybe in Saturday night's speech Obama was thinking about all those talks on Israel in New York.

Video of the president's full CBC speech, via C-SPAN, of course, is available right here.

Obama is on the West Coast now, harvesting money again and closing roads in Los Angeles after doing the same in Seattle and San Jose Sunday.

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-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press (Obama addresses the Congressional Black Caucus awards banquet, Sept. 24).              Video: Courtesy of C-SPAN.

A plaintive Obama on his job: 'I can’t do it alone'

An enormous gap has opened in the economic reality that most Americans inhabit and the one that their perpetually campaigning president perceives.

According to the RealClearPolitics average, nearly three-out-of-four Americans believe Barack Obama has lead the nation down the wrong track; barely one-in-five disagree.

Their gloomy perception has something to do with at least 9% unemployment for 26 of the last 28 months, with the 14 million unemployed and the 18.5 million underemployed and with the White House's own economic growth predictions revised downward.

According to the Gallup Poll, Democrat Obama's job approval is at its lowest 40% now, with a majority (52%) disapproving.

But the president sees himself as having made "a bunch of tough choices" since taking office. And as a result of his leadership, he says, "We were able to pull this economy out of a Great Depression."

Obama spoke to about five dozen supporters Monday evening. Each had paid more than $35,000 to gather with him in an eighth floor apartment on New York's Park Avenue.

The week after his party endured an embarrassing special House election loss just across the East River, Obama is in Manhattan again ostensibly to attend the United Nations General Assembly session.

But he and wife Michelle will each also squeeze Democratic fundraising into their otherwise impossible schedules.

"I could not be prouder of the choices we made," the president proclaimed about his tenure so far.

However, perhaps inadvertently, Obama also uttered a backhanded admission of failure. "Although we stabilized the economy," he said, "we’ve stabilized it at a level that’s just too high, in terms of unemployment and in terms of hardship all across America."

Shunning the role of assertive chief executive, the former state senator sounded a complaint about politics in Washington: "What has been clear over the last two and a half years is that we have not had a willing partner."

Obama said he and Republicans have "a fundamentally different vision about where America needs to go," vowing to put teachers and construction crews back to work on rebuilding America.

Predictably, Obama said, "You’re already hearing the moans and groans from the other side about how we are engaging in class warfare and we’re being too populist and this and that and the other -- all the usual scripts. I mean, it’s predictable, the news releases that come out from the other side."

But then in a plaintive closing moment, the 44th president told the group, "I can’t do it alone."

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-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photos: David Karp / Associated Press (the Obamas arrive in New York City for fundraisers and the UN session and a happy Obama).

Who is Thaddeus McCotter and why care?

  

If there are themes to the Republican presidential candidacy of Michigan Rep. Thaddeus McCotter -- other than hardly anybody knows he's running, or if they do know, they're not really sure who he is -- they're the role of the government (or lack thereof) in revitalizing the economy, the revolution in communications technology, dealing with China and the rights of sovereign citizens.

Oh, and he's introduced legislation to fix Social Security. More on that in a bit.

McCotter, who announced over the July 4th weekend, is a cerebral Roman Catholic father of three who plays rock guitar in a bipartisan band called the Second Amendments.

He's been a regular guest on Fox News' latenight pop-culture/politics roundtable show "RedEye W/GregGutfeld" (fans of which probably constitute his largest group of constituents outside of his actual group of constituents).

He opposes bank bailouts and excessive government spending but has a soft spot for organized labor and the auto bailout (McCotter's 11th District does lie hard by the Motor City, and the Livonia, Mich., native attended the University of Detroit).

The Ticket attended his speeches at both the Lincoln Club's breakfast during the....

Obama jobs speech tops the NFL (but, then, it was only the Packers)

   

President Obama's speech Thursday on jobs to a joint session of Congress failed to outscore the TV ratings for his announcement of the killing of Osama bin Laden in May but did improve on his recent speeches on Libya and Iraq.

And his 4,102 words also outpaced the NFL kickoff that came right after them.

The speech -- which included 17 variations on a demand that Congress pass a jobs bill that hasn't been rendered into legislative text yet -- was carried live from 5-6 p.m. Pacific time on 11 channels: ABC, AZA, CBS, NBC, Telemundo, Univision, CNBC, CNN, FBN, FNC and MSNBC.

Among the cable newsers, Fox News did the best.

Here are the box scores from Nielsen Co. ...

        

Broken down by cable networks, Fox News came first with close to 3.4 million (826,000 in the target Adults 25-54 demographic); CNN second, with just north of 1.8 million (645,000 in A25-54); and MSNBC third, with just over 1.6 million (430,000 in the demo).

By way of contrast, the president's first address to a joint session of Congress on....

961 days in, Obama becomes sick and tired of someone dawdling about jobs

Speaking on behalf of millions of Americans who've grown angry and frustrated over the president's 32-month ineffective inactivity on the job creation front, President Obama on Thursday told members of Congress they really have to do something about the crummy employment situation -- and do it quickly.

Citing the plight of millions of struggling Americans whose wishes for jobs Obama ignored for most of the 961 days he's been in office while chasing shinier healthcare and financial reforms, Obama said it was time that Congress stop blaming others. He said it was time members take responsibility for their inaction and halt their phony partisan games and political circus acts that pervade Washington culture.

Because the Americans Obama hasn't been listening to are really hurting now. And -- who's....

Obama's penchant for speeches now sounding hollower by the word

This is the 931st day of the Barack Obama presidency.

Yesterday Obama gave a strange statement to the media. He'd been away on another mini-vacation at Camp David. So, it was left to aides and Treasury Secy. Geithner to attempt to discredit the first-ever credit downgrading of the federal government.

Every politician has at least one major weakness. Bill Clinton's is, well, well-known. George W. Bush's political weakness was thinking his intuition and instincts could carry him through any challenge. Barack Obama's weakness is thinking he can talk his way in or out of virtually any opportunity or difficulty.

Being a Real Good Talker helped him get the job heading the law review. And entering politics. And succeeding early there, albeit within Chicago's rigged system. And being an RGT thrust him....

Fox News viewers win cable-ratings argument, as Obama and Boehner talk debt ceiling

  

In a news conference on July 11 -- which in debt-ceiling-debate time seems to be a hundred years ago --  President Obama answered a reporter's question on public skepticism about the value of raising the national debt c eiling by saying, "The public is not paying close attention to the ins and outs of how a Treasury option goes."

Whether or not Americans were paying attention then, they sure are now, especially if they watch Fox News Channel.

Among those tuning into cable news to see the president's latest speech on the debt ceiling at 6 p.m. PT on Monday, FNC viewers outnumbered those watching competitors CNN and MSNBC by a comfortable margin.

Over 3.5 million watched the president's address on FNC, with a slight uptick to 4 million for....

Speaker John Boehner on debt talks: Obama 'wants a blank check today'

Remarks on the debt talks by Speaker John Boehner, as provided by his office

Good evening. I’m John Boehner. I serve as Speaker of the whole House -- of the members of both parties that you elect. These are difficult times in the life of our nation. Millions are looking for work, have been for some time, and the spending binge going on in Washington is a big part of the reason why.

Before I served in Congress, I ran a small business in Ohio. I was amazed at how different Washington DC operated than every business in America. Where most American businesses make the hard choices to pay their bills and live within their means, in Washington more spending and more debt is business as usual.

I’ve got news for Washington – those days are over.

President Obama came to Congress in January and requested business as usual -- yet another....

The other reason driving Allen West's outrage

Have you ever noticed you don't see much news each morning about the estimated 80,000 airplane flights that landed safely the previous day?

Or, conversely, that before any prominent politician completes a major speech, someone is already denouncing its assertions and falsehoods?

That's one of the most important rules of politics in modern America: If you want to get noticed, don't get along. Pick a fight.

Conflict sells. The D.C. media pack feeds off it. Did Donald Trump get more attention last spring from his outspoken doubts about the president's birth certificate?

If faux outrage in American politics had any value, it could pay down a handsome chunk of the $14.2 trillion national debt. These revealing conflicts are Exhibit A why no one will ever change the harsh partisan tone of Washington.

Now, getting noticed is crucial to politicians running for office. No one runs for office more often than the 435 members of the House of Representatives. And no one needs to run harder for office every two years than new members of that chamber.

Republican Rep. Allen West is one of those. He's from Florida. He gave a speech in the House this week in support of the GOP's so-called "Cut, Cap and Balance" plan to cut spending and the national debt. It's not going anywhere. But fine.

After West left the floor, another representative from Florida, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, gave a speech criticizing West's speech. She also happens to be the new chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, is still trying to show her scrappy bona fides and does not allow any criticism of the country's top Democrat to go unchallenged. Same old, same old.

A little-known backbencher taking on the alleged head of the other party is a publicity opportunity not to be missed. And their interests collided during last fall's campaign too.

According to West, who apparently does not have access to C-SPAN, her predictably Democratic remarks outside his presence constituted a protocol breach and criticism behind his back.

So West fired off an e-mail to Wasserman Schultz with copies to congressional leaders to ensure it would receive wider distribution, maybe -- who knows? -- even reach the media. And dribble down to Florida.

In his angry missive, West said: "Let me make myself perfectly clear, you want a personal fight, I am happy to oblige." He called his fellow representative "vile, despicable and cowardly." Also, "not a lady."

Not as good as arguing over what Rush Limbaugh said. But it did allow the media to run around covering the latest meaningless little conflict and seek outraged reactions from all sides, allowing them to pick a fight with the fight-picker.

Not to let a golden opportunity pass unutilized, on Wednesday West emailed, you guessed it, a fundraising appeal repeating his charges and adding: "Her agenda isn’t to improve the lives of Floridians or to stand on principle. She’s an attack dog for the liberal, progressive wing of the Democratic Party — plain and simple. And it’s times like this that I need friends with me."

Then came the appeal for, say, $25 or more.

Next comes the squabble back home about whether Allen should or did apologize.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Molly Riley / Reuters (West); Alex Wong / Getty Images (Wasserman Schultz).