To be clear, I agree entirely with Ben Smith and others who say that today’s quote was probably a political misstep. The media is mostly framing this story as: Did Obama “endorse” the project or didn’t he? That’s an overly simplistic framing, but you work with the media you have, not the one you want. Today’s quote was bound to be interpreted as a walkback in the face of intense pressure. What Obama should have said was this: “I’m not commenting on the wisdom of the project. Nor is it my place to do that. But now that they have decided to proceed, we must respect their right to build the center and welcome them in accordance with American ideals.”

That would have been more desirable, and in some ways more directly consistent with his brave stance yesterday. But even so, based on what he did say, I’m just not seeing a serious walkback or contradiction here.

via The Plum Line – Did Obama walk back his support of Cordoba House?.

Here is video of Obama’s original statement in the White House:

…and on the Tarmac in Florida on Saturday, August 14…

“In this country, we treat everybody equally in accordance with the law regardless of race, regardless of religion. I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there. I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding. That’s what our country’s about and I think it’s very important that as difficult as some of these issues are we stay focused on who we are as a people and what our values are all about.”

To Imam Feisal: We write with an unshakable commitment to religious freedom, and to your right to exercise it in meaningful and concrete ways. We have great appreciation for the progressive and inclusive interpretation of Islam to which you speak. We have read with care your own words about the purpose of the Cordoba House. We take those words as our starting point for the issues we raise in this letter, as we appeal to your senses of decency, empathy and prudence—and to those of all Muslims of goodwill.

Your stated goal of interfaith and cross-cultural understanding is a good one—one that we all share and have devoted considerable energy to furthering. It may well be that this goal would be furthered still by the building and operation of Cordoba House. However, while we will continue to stand with you and your right to proceed with this project, we see no reason why it must necessarily be located so close to the site of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

[...]

Our deeper concern is what effect Cordoba House would have on the families of 9/11 victims, survivors of and first responders to the attacks, New Yorkers in general, and all Americans. As you have seen in the public reaction to the Cordoba House, 9/11 remains a deep wound for Americans—especially those who experienced it directly in some way. They understandably see the area as sacred ground. Nearly all of them also reject the equation of Islam with terrorism and do not blame the attacks on Muslims generally or on the Muslim faith. But many believe that Ground Zero should be reserved for memorials to the event itself and to its victims. They do not understand why of all possible locations in the city, Cordoba House must be sited so near to there.

Many New Yorkers and Americans will conclude that the radical interpretation of Cordoba House’s purpose is correct. That belief will harm what you have articulated to be Cordoba House’s core mission. Rather than furthering cross-cultural and interfaith understanding, a Cordoba House located near Ground Zero would undermine them. Rather that serving as a bridge between Muslim and non-Muslim peoples, it would function as a divide. Your expressed hopes for the center not only would never be realized, they would be contradicted from the start. Insisting on this particular site on Park Place can only reinforce this counterproductive dynamic.

Another site—not just away from Ground Zero but also closer to residential neighborhoods—would serve your institution and the city better. Worshipers would be closer and the communities that need help would also benefit from proximity. We stand ready to help you select and secure another site, to overcome regulatory hurdles, and to make up for any lost time.

via Dan Senor: An Open Letter on the Ground Zero Mosque – WSJ.com.

Senor and King may have general public opinion on their side and they may indeed be proven correct by erection of Cordoba House near Ground Zero. People may be offended when the center is built. A Cordoba House near ground zero may fail to foster more tolerance between Muslims and the general public. All that may occur in spite of the fact that Muslims died on 9/11 and in spite of the fact that there are two Mosques, (one pre-dating the construction of the World Trade Center and both pre-dating either WTC attack), mere blocks away from ground zero, and in spite of the fact that Muslim soldiers are fighting under our flag in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.

Obama’s argument is that it is the right of any American to express their self religiously in accordance with the law.On both Friday and Saturday, Obama said he believed in the right of Imam Feisal’s group to build the Cordoba House. It is the right of any American to seek any of the positives Imam Feisal sees as resulting from construction of Cordoba  House. It is the right of any American to risk all of the negatives that Senor and King see as the likely response to a Cordoba House cultural center near Ground Zero.

The neo-cons want to argue that there is a lack of wisdom, sensitivity and  common sense behind the Cordoba house initiative because with leading poll questions and cable news appearances they can sway public opinion. Obama is asserting that the matter is settled by First Amendment rights and first amendment rights only. He can’t win an argument against people’s personal feelings about Islam and he is right to explicitly stress that this a matter of constitutional rights. I feel he’s choosing not to argue with fools.

Quayle also let’s us know he was “raised right”. Unless you are Mr. T or The Juggernaut, claiming you will “knock the hell” out of an entire city falls into category of “Don’t write checks your ass can’t cash”.

Funny thing about claiming you were “raised right” while running for office in the self proclaimed party of “family values” one of your hobbies probably shouldn’t have been blogging under the pseudonym “Brock Landers” for “frat-tire”/NSFW site Dirty Scottsdale. Apparently The Dirty founder Hooman Karamian aka Nik Richie is pissed off that Quayle tried to deny any connection to him or The Dirty.

Atrios at Eschaton has been all over this for months.

During the election of 2008 much of the commentariat was convinced candidate Obama just couldn’t relate to  the average American. Obama was too aloof and arrogant. He needed to get his bowling score above 200. He needed to chug more beer or at least make people want to do a keg stand while he held their feet. Whites didn’t love him. He was too mysteriously foreign and ethnic aka Hawaiian. Rendell himself was nervous that whites in PA would never love him.

Everything’s changed now that Obama is President of the United States. Governor Rendell thinks Obama should be above  certain things. Especially a daytime show, like The View. Barbara Walter’s daytime show reaches an audience that is 79% women and has a median age of 59 which is in the 45-64 age group. Obama tied John McCain in this  demographic overall (49%/49%) and lost to McCain among white voters in this demographic (42%/56%). Since 2008, The View has been steadily gaining market share among women aged 18 to 49. With this appearance, Obama will be reaching more women than he would appearing on cable news at a Rose Garden press availability (in 2009 The View‘s average audience was 4.2 million up from 3.5 million in 2008). The President and his political team probably want to address national issues, especially economic issues (unemployment, housing crisis, stimulus, jobs) with women voters that could vote Democratic or GOP in the 2010 midterm elections.

Originally a trailer in the film “Grindhouse” and re-Released to flip the bird on Cinco de Mayo to Arizona’s legislature and governor for their new anti-immigration law, the full length feature film Machete will be released September 3, 2010.

I am an angry man, which is one of the reasons I have resumed therapy and take four different pharmaceuticals. I wake up angry, stay angry during the day except to my dog and children, and go to bed angry at night. Most of my anger amounted to a running dialogue of abuse and self-abuse while working alone at home. But with Twitter, I now had an outlet. I used profanity, because that’s the way I talk, the perfect sentence being one in which the f-bomb appears as adverb, verb, adjective, and noun, as in, “You kind sir, go fuckly fuck yourself, you fuck of a fuckhead.” I also began to routinely apply the term “douche juice” to those I felt were sub-troglodytes. It has become my tweeting imprimatur and many Twitterites congratulated me on coining the phrase. I did not. But fuck it. The person I appropriated it from had even fewer followers than I did, implying of course a very empty and unsuccessful life.

via Twidiot | The New Republic.

Personally I am glad Bissinger has evolved a good deal from seeing blogging/new media like this…

@TheYankeeU Stop being weener dickiedo. Say something or Twitter off. How I tweet has nothing to do with the way I write. I am 24/7 angry.

via Twitter / buzzbissinger: @TheYankeeU Stop being wee ….

Follow Bissinger. He skewers his latest co-author Lebron James and Peggy Noonan alike. His twitter rants > tv panel rants.

‘Questionable Decisions’

BP, the biggest oil producer in the Gulf of Mexico, made five “questionable decisions” aimed at cutting costs and speeding completion of an overdue project in the days and weeks preceding the disaster, U.S. Representatives Henry Waxman of California and Bart Stupak of Michigan wrote in a letter to BP CEO Tony Hayward that was released yesterday.

via Exxon Distances Itself From BP’s `Dramatic Departure’ in Gulf – Bloomberg.

And it looks like BP’s management was directing all the corner cutting.

BP also apparently rejected advice of a subcontractor, Halliburton Inc., in preparing for a cementing job to close up the well. BP rejected Halliburton’s recommendation to use 21 “centralizers” to make sure the casing ran down the center of the well bore. Instead, BP used six centralizers.

In an e-mail on April 16, a BP official involved in the decision explained: “It will take 10 hours to install them. I do not like this.” Later that day, another official recognized the risks of proceeding with insufficient centralizers but commented: “Who cares, it’s done, end of story, will probably be fine.”

via Documents reveal BP’s missteps before blowout – Disaster in the Gulf- msnbc.com.

This is directly contrary to the claims of BP’s CEO on the Today Show (video below)  in early May where he blames TransOcean (who owned the rig, not the well which is what failed) and left the window open to further spread blame to well construction subcontractor Halliburton.

Areas the government could be probing include whether the companies violated any regulations, whether they subverted the regulatory process by seeking favors with Minerals Management Service or other Interior employees, or whether BP acted criminally by keeping away cameras that could have revealed earlier the extent of the spill, Green said.

“They’re going to be looking for evidence of criminal malfeasance,” Green said.

via BP, Halliburton, Transocean Build Legal Teams – NYTimes.com.

At the bottom of all this, I agreee with Joan Walsh when she says that the Obama Administration substantially associated themselves with offshore drilling by lifting the ban on new offshore drilling without truly reforming MMS.

– from delays in cleaning up the Minerals Management Service, distrusting scientists who correctly reported the spill was much bigger than BP said, and waiting more than a week to declare the crisis “an Oil Spill of National Significance,” which corralled new services. Maybe the most damning section of Dickinson’s piece comes when he quotes the president proudly announcing he’d reversed his stand against offshore oil drilling. “It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills,” the president said. “They are technologically very advanced.”

via Protecting the Obama brand – Joan Walsh – Salon.com

We know now, that explode, spill, gush, leak is exactly what oil wells can do when run by irresponsible leadership cultivated by CEO Hayward’s BP and deregulated by an understaffed and business friendly MMS. The lesson here is pro-economy is not exactly pro-business. Pro-business is allowing companies to do what they want to make the most money as they exist. Pro-economy is promoting a business environment that is safe and fair to workers and able to grow and fail without destroying other sectors of our economy. The Obama Administration trusted BP’s guidance during the early weeks of the spill and that was more pro BP than pro US economy.

A former league executive, a former coach and a current general manager all told me LeBron is one of the most spoiled and coddled players of this generation and as a result isn’t particularly accountable, as evidenced by his refusal to shake hands with the Orlando players after they whipped him in last year’s Eastern Conference finals. It’s a particularly disappointing thing to hear repeatedly because, if true, it suggests LeBron has this AAU mentality that values individual accomplishment over winning. I could live with hearing this about, say, O.J. Mayo, but LeBron James?

via Michael Wilbon – Will LeBron James make a basketball decision or a personal one?.

I would have disagreed with this until the time between the Cavs dominating win over the Bulls and humiliating defeat at the hands of the Celtics. Larry Bird was a contemptuous guy, he was not friendly with competitors nor a big post game hand shaker, but he was also a team player, clutch and a winner. He played to win championships. Same with the magnanimous Magic Johnson. He played to win the biggest glory.

I thought Lebron was at this level until he held the pep rally to celebrate his MVP award in his hometown of Akron between the Bulls and Celtics series.

As everyone at this pep rally now knows, Rajon Rondo’s Celtics pounded the Cavs out of the playoffs, Cavs Coach Mike Brown into the unemployment line and James into free agency. This rally may just be a going away party which makes a fool out of everyone involved.

I have to wonder why James didn’t accept it in Cleveland pre-game or at half time like many other league MVP, defensive MVP, scoring title and 6th man of the year winners.  There would have been ample time to visit Akron with an NBA trophy. I remember Kobe saying LA was now his home when he beat his closest thing to a hometown team, the Philadelphia 76ers in 2000 for his championship. I don’t remember Dwayne Wade jumping to Chicago to have a pep rally when the Heat won in 2006. It’s unfathomable to think that such pageantry would ever be something conceived by or associated with Tim Duncan.

The Celtics and Lakers are in the throes of their umpteenth battle for the NBA championship while the off season has begun with the citizens of Cleveland and Akron wondering if their home grown royalty will remain their native son. I think they know deep down that Joakim Noah was right and have nightmares of Lebron wearing Yankees hats or dapping up Jay-Z.

Regardless, Duke of Akron isn’t a title those of us outside of Northeast Ohio care about.

at least he drives American.