Barack Obama

Next month the American Presidency comes to Australia.

For all that is written about the American Presidency one of the aspects which is most intriguing is that its history can be condensed into the lives of four people: three who are known, one to be identified. Each person knew the next in line and together they may have known all 44 Presidents from Washington to Obama.

John Quincy Adams, the eldest son of America’s second President – John Adams, led a truly remarkable life.

Continue reading "The American Presidency: four degrees of separation" »

No doubt there will be swooning all round when President Barack Obama descends upon Australia next month for his first official visit “Down Under” since coming to office just over a year ago.

While the precise details of his itinerary are understandably a closely guarded secret there can be no such mystery as to what the reaction of much of the local media will be.

Breathless comparisons with the charismatic US leader and his young family to the photogenic heyday of Camelot are sure to be exceeded only by gushing commentary of his wife, Michelle Obama. And given our sunny climes are more accommodating of sleeveless gowns than chilly Washington DC, fashion observers might just be rewarded with a glimpse of the First Lady baring those famed biceps.

Continue reading "Hillary and Barack: a love story" »

You may not have time to watch this whole interview between Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly but it’s worth a look if you get the chance.

Whether you’re actually interested in US politics or media or not, it’s a fascinating and civil exchange between two men who are arguably the two most influential commentators in America (assuming you take Oprah out of the equation).

One is a political satirist turned sometime serious political commentator and the other is political commentator who sometimes sounds pretty funny.

Continue reading "O’Reilly and Stewart: two sides of the same dime" »

Lefties and other decent folk are wetting their pants at the prospect of that beacon of excellence Barack Obama and his telegenic family visiting our shores next month.

Since coming onto the public radar, Obama has achieved pop-star status as the great hope for our shared dreams of equality.

But is this really what he represents?

Continue reading "If minorities want equality, don’t look at the Obamas" »

US President Barack Obama will visit Australia in March.

The White House has just confirmed a rumour that has been circulating in Queensland since last November.

President Obama’ visit will commemorate the 70th anniversary of formal diplomatic relations between the US and Australia and there is mounting evidence that the visit will feature Queensland prominently being the home state of Prime Minister Rudd. 

Continue reading "Queensland to get large share of Obama sunshine" »

The US Democratic Party is bewildered and spooked. One year after Barack Obama’s inauguration, a political asteroid struck yesterday, imperilling the road ahead for the President’s agenda, including his cherished healthcare reforms.

That Obama’s party could lose a Senate race in the liberal-left bastion of Massachusetts is proof that political hell has officially frozen over.

Republicans last held the seat in 1972. But to lose in a special election triggered by the death of Ted Kennedy?

Continue reading "Senate upset will teach us a lot about Barack Obama" »

UPDATE 2pm: It’s an epic upset and a disaster for Barack Obama and the Democrats: Republican candidate Scott Brown has won the Massachusetts Senate seat previously held by Ted Kennedy.

Jon Stewart on The Daily Show provides his customarily hilarious but incisive overview on an astonishing upset looming in the US: that the Democrats are in danger of losing the Massachusetts Senate seat held by Ted Kennedy. This would change the arithmetic in the Senate and possibly derail Barack Obama’s healthcare reform. Some links to more reading below; enjoy the clip.

There’s a wrap from Fox News here. George Stephanopoulos of America’s ABC News has called it the potential “upset of the century”. And there’s local coverage from the Boston Globe here.

In January 2005 the public was still reeling from the devastation of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami when the beginning of the end for Mark Latham took place.

The then-Opposition Leader refused to break his summer holiday to put out a statement about the horrific event - he wouldn’t even return the calls of the then acting leader Senator Chris Evans (deputy Labor leader Jenny Macklin was also on leave). It turned out Latham was sick, of the pancreas and of politics, and he disappeared off into the Western Sydney sunset.

At the time it seemed inexplicable that someone wouldn’t halt their vacation for an hour or two to deal with a crisis of such enormity. But perhaps Mark Latham was a work life balance visionary.

Continue reading "We all need holidays, even Presidents" »

Barack Obama craves a historic presidency. Witness his pledge to single-handedly rescue the US health system in which millions lack insurance coverage. “I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last,” he announced in September.

Now, following a crucial Christmas Eve vote in the US Senate, the Democratic-controlled Congress is about to approve a major healthcare package.

Hurdles remain: the two houses must still confer to iron out differences. Public financing of abortion remains a flashpoint. But the near-certain outcome, sometime in January, is a bill on the president’s desk.

Continue reading "Is Obama digging his own grave on healthcare?" »

He is the Elvis memorabilia collecting international law expert who is now Obama’s man in Australia. New US Ambassador to Australia Jeffrey Bleich spoke to The Punch’s Leo Shanahan at his residence in Canberra last week about his relationship with Barack Obama, climate change, Afghanistan and his most prized possessions.

As a talented lawyer, Clinton administration advisor and long-time friend of Barack Obama Jeffrey Bleich knew he wanted an opportunity to serve in the Obama’s White House, but initially neither Bleich nor the President could decide on a job title or what it was he would be doing.

“So I asked the President what I would be doing and he said ‘well let’s just call it Special Counsel to the President.’ So I became special counsel to the President.” 

Continue reading "A Punch chat with Obama’s man in Oz Jeffrey Bleich" »

While Kevin Rudd desperately reschedules his attendance at the Copenhagen Summit in a craven attempt to ensure he’s in the presence of US President Barack Obama, there are very interesting parallels in the political scenarios on either side of the Pacific.

These are two political leaders elected in almost Messiah-style euphoria.

Their elevation was supposed to ring in “change” after long periods of conservative Government that the elites and media had openly grown to loathe.  There was little public scrutiny of the substantive skills each man would bring to the job – their popularity was a triumph of style over substance.

Continue reading "The mirror ‘Messiahs’ dogged by bad policy" »

Jeff Greenfield, CBS News Senior Political Correspondent once quipped that more things in politics happen by accident or exhaustion than happen by conspiracy.

Inarguably his four decades of experience - which includes time as a speechwriter for Robert F. Kennedy - enable him to make such informed statements, but as the son of a politician I will venture that if it wasn’t for John Della Bosca’s sex antics and the occasional fantastically implausible conspiracy theory, politics would be as boring as bat guano.

Conspiracy theories have been a popular part of Western politics since 10.15pm on April 14, 1865 when John Wilkes Booth walked into Ford’s Theatre and assassinated Abraham Lincoln. Immediately after Lincoln’s assassination questions arose. Was Booth solely responsible or was he someone’s hired gun, and if so, whose?

Continue reading "The alien war, Moon-bombing peace prize ‘cover-up’" »

“It’s not April 1st, is it?” asked a White House aide when told that his boss, Barack Obama, had won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Well it’s not a joke but the award to the US President is easily the most controversial laureate in living memory. Remember some of the others who have won this: Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Clerk for ending apartheid; Mikhail Gorbachev for bringing an end to the Cold War; John Hume and David Trimble for helping bring peace to Northern Ireland.

Oh, and there’s also Mother Theresa and the Dalai Lama.

Continue reading "They give out prizes for a politician’s promise now?" »

In news just in: Kevin Rudd’s been in an incident in New York involving a shower and a delegation from New Zealand. Apparently it also had something to do with a horse.

Things are definitely hotting up for the PM in the United States. As I write this Mr Rudd is addressing the United Nations General Assembly about his plan for world domination. There’s a lot of talk of a “grand bargain.”

In a brief moment of lucidity during his address Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi appeared to endorse KRudd’s ambitions for the UN Security Council to be expanded.

Continue reading "Who needs Scores when you’ve got the UN" »

You’ve got to hand it to those Americans. For them, there is much more to democracy than theory. It’s there to be practised and even better if it can be done in the streets.

A now-ageing generation took democracy to the streets and forced the politicians to bring an unpopular war in Vietnam to an end. And against the odds they changed America and world history campaigning for civil rights laws that paved the way for a black American president.

And though small in number by comparison, those freedom-of-speech loving Americans were back in Washington streets at the weekend to protest against the policies of that same black president.

Continue reading "America’s mastery of free speech, even for maniacs" »

In an effort to regain the momentum on health care reform, President Barack Obama gave a very good speech to the Congress yesterday.

I liked three aspects of it in particular. First, it had passion. Obama made the moral case for universal health care that liberals have been waiting for. He quoted a letter from the late Senator Ted Kennedy that asserted that health care goes to ‘the character of our country’.  The president’s remarks contained good lines and moving stories, including that of the Illinois man who lost his health insurance coverage during chemotherapy because he hadn’t reported gallstones that he hadn’t known about. It is remarkable that the most powerful country in the world is also the only advanced democracy to leave so many citizens uninsured.

Second, the speech showed strength. My principal criticism of Obama’s presidency so far has been his unwillingness to wade into debates, whether domestic or international, and use leverage and pressure to enforce his will.

Continue reading "Yes he can: Obama claims middle ground on health" »

The alliance between Australia and the United States is currently being managed by a Labor prime minister and a Democratic president – a situation that has not existed since the period 1993-1996, under Paul Keating and Bill Clinton.

The relationship between John Howard and George Bush was famously close, however the replacement of these two leaders by Kevin Rudd and Barack Obama has turned out to good news for the alliance. Howard was wildly out of synch with the new Democratic rulers in Washington and his regrettable comment in February 2007 that Al-Qaeda in Iraq should pray for a victory by Obama and the Democrats might have presented us with real diplomatic difficulties had he been re-elected.

Bush’s retirement has also benefitted the alliance. It is good news for Australia when our strategic ally is well-liked around the world rather than disliked.

Continue reading "Kev and Obama’s friendship bolsters the Alliance" »

This poster depicting Barack Obama as the Dark Knight Joker is currently causing a stir in America and the rest of the world.

Debate on the subject has been raging online and in papers on what the poster means, from those claiming it shows a backlash against Barack Obama to arguments that it is a popularised racist attack on the President.

But perhaps what is most interesting about the poster is that we’re even surprised that people are now openly mocking the American President. The debate itself is probably an indication of how incredibly popular Obama still is.

Continue reading "Why are people so fascinated by the Obama Joker poster?" »

Imagine for a second that you had mastered the impersonation of some forgotten 1960s cartoon character - let’s say, for argument’s sake, it’s Elmer Fudd.

You try it out on your girlfriend, and she cracks up. She begs you to talk to her with your new voice all the time, even during the most intimate moments. For some reason, this seems to make her love you more.

After a few days of this, she cajoles you into ordering a meal at a restaurant using your cartoon voice, so you order the “woast wamb” for yourself and the “wemon chicken wiv wentiws” for her.

The waiter thinks it’s hilarious. You spend the rest of the evening receiving special treatment and leave without having to pay the bill.

At work, your colleagues stop by your desk just to hear you say, “my secwetawy is witing a wetter”.

Even a cop lets you off a speeding fine when you tell him, “But officer, I was wacing to catch a wascawy wabbit!”

Eventually you talk like Fudd all day.

Continue reading "Obama is no King, just a Fudd of a President" »

“Real transformative change never begins in Washington.” (Pause for quacks.)

You’ll need to turn up the volume but the quacking is audible early in the video.

Got a story about a mortifying mobile moment? Share it in the comments.

During my childhood, 1957 and 1958 were “the two good years,” the were the only years my working class redneck family ever caught a real break. And that break came because of organized labor. After working as a farm hand, driving a hicktown taxi part time, and a dozen catch as catch can jobs, my father found himself owning a used semi-truck and hauling produce for a Teamster unionized trucking company called Blue Goose.

Daddy was making more money than he’d ever made in his life, about $4,000 a year. The median national household income at the time was $5,000, mostly thanks to America’s unions. After years of moving from one rented dump to another, we bought a modest home, ($8,000) and felt like we might at last be getting some traction in achieving the so-called “American Dream.”

Continue reading "Workers must seize back the golden age for themselves" »

A review of the United States’ Waxman-Markey climate change bill by Australia’s Parliamentary Library has exposed some interesting facts on safeguarding industry.

Handed down on Monday, the parliamentary report on the US Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) says: “Industries with proportionally high import or export values are potentially fully shielded from the scheme until the majority (greater than 70 per cent) of global production in that sector is subject to emissions pricing.

“The (Waxman-Markey) bill allows for up to 100 per cent compensation for all direct and indirect costs to industries that are assessed as emissions intensive and trade exposed.”

Continue reading "ETS will cost jobs - just ask Barack Obama" »

Barack Obama is so Gen Y, even though he’s 47.

Just this week he was copping a grilling on American station CNBC about government economic intervention when he stopped for a second, eyed off an annoying fly, and obliterated it ninja-style. “Now, where were we?” he asks the interviewer. What a chiller.

Pan left for a second to Kevin Rudd, 51, who when put in a similar situation, pulls out the painful to watch sauce-bottle-shake chat in a desperate attempt to appear “with-it”. With added cringe-benefits.

Continue reading "Tips for pollies wishing to connect with Gen Y" »

Whatever. I want to see him do it with chopsticks like the Karate Kid.

Continue reading "Video: Obama swats, kills fly" »