Drill, baby, drill? Yes we can!

Today, President Obama will announce that he will allow energy companies to drill for oil off the east coast of the US, in what looks like another attempt at moderation, and perhaps some outreach to Republicans.

The move is a bit of a surprise, given the assumption that in 2008, then-candidate Obama rejected allowing oil companies to start putting holes in the ocean floor near the US coastline, arguing that would not immediately solve American dependency on foreign oil.  In fact, his stance was a lot more nuanced, but the subtleties were lost in the din of the Republicans' energy rallying cry during the 2008 presidential campaign: "Drill, baby, drill!"

Obama's move no doubt will anger progressives and many in the Democratic base, many of whom are already seething at having to settle for half-loafs from a man who ran on an agenda of hope and sweeping change, according to a Yahoo! News report:

Obama's proposal -- geared towards reducing foreign oil dependence and profit from selling offshore leases -- could bring the White House much needed Republican support for landmark energy and climate change legislation it has in the works.

 Upon closer inspection, however, the president's gesture to big oil comes with some strings attached -- you have to go pretty deep into the LAT's report to see them --  and won't start for several more years after a whole lot of study.  Hopefully, in the meantime, the White House's initiative to jump-start the nation's green energy revolution will have started by then, so offshore drilling presumably wouldn't be a very huge deal.

Nonetheless, today's announcement provides a meta-moment: the "drill, baby, drill" chant was proffered a the 2008 RNC convention in St. Paul by one Michael Steele, the bling-slingin', 'hood-talkin' African American RNC chairman, who is now embroiled in a scandal that will damage his party and has the potential to wreck his chairmanship.

Then again, maybe not.

Return of Sarah Barracuda (as though she'd ever left)

This weekend was a banner one for the Tea Party Patriots.

After some really ugly PR during the climax of the health care debate, they have pivoted to turn their seemingly depthless anger at vulnerable Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. But the weekend also included a rally for one vulnerable Republican: Senator John McCain, the Republicans' 2008 presidential nominee.  McCain, the former GOP moderate straight-talker and one-time darling of the political media, currently faces a reelection challenge from a far-right, de facto Tea Party candidate.

That led to the latest re-emergence of Sarah Palin, the movement's superstar, a source of endless fascination for political reporters and pundits on the left and right.  This fascination persists, despite Palin's long record of self-contradictory, at times hypocritical statements during her short time on the national stage.  Some of those statements  -- think the infamous Katie Couric interview in 2008 -- would have cleanly stripped the veneer of credibility from a lesser (or perhaps less photogenic) politician.

Consider: Dan Quayle was a sitting US senator in 1988, when President George HW Bush tapped him to be his veep.  Quayle looked good on TV but was a disaster when he opened his mouth, and was widely derided as as an empty suit with a head to match.  He quickly became the butt of jokes on late-night TV shows and, after his boss lost to President Clinton in 1992, Quayle faded into obscurity -- despite nearly a decade in elected office and strong conservative bona fides.

These days, Quayle probably couldn't get arrested in this town, let alone do as well as Palin, who was the butt of a long-running Saturday Night Live skit; quit before completing a full term as Alaska governor; got into a public feud with her erstwhile son-in-law; yet still scored well-paying gigs on Fox News and a reality TV show.

Palin has somehow defied the laws of political gravity, despite a Quayle-like profile including a featherweight political resume, lack of intellectual heft and an inability to rescue McCain's floundering presidential campaign on charisma alone.  Her success is probably due to her sheer determination and force of personality as much as the political industrial complex's collective decision to take her seriously, despite dismal poll numbers that place her somewhere between Richard Nixon and George Bush.

It's been interesting to witness Palin's ascendancy from the mayor of a tiny Alaska town to the vice presidential nominee of a major political party, a lightly-educated yet unbelievably savvy politician who nearly was a heartbeat away from the presidency.

In her latest incarnation, she has become the personification of a political movement that, for some reason, continues to receive attention, despite its relatively small size, its lack of mainstream popularity and its lack of a coherent, resonant message beyond white, middle-aged rage. 

The Barracuda's weekend stumping led to kind of a meta-moment for the self-described Hockey Mom.  At the rally against Reid, she openly returned the enthusiastic embrace of the TP faithful even though mainstream conservatives see it as a political fringe movement.  But she then lent her considerable star power to boost McCain's standing among TP'ers -- even though McCain is the type of establishment Republican the TP seems to loathe.

While Palin seems to be doing quite well for herself after her failed run for the vice presidency, this article does a nice job explaining where the Tea Party might go from here -- and why it is probably destined to fail as a long-term political movement.

Roe vs. Wade vs. Stupak

The hard feelings left over from the health care debate are still simmering, but NPR has an interesting take on one potential lingering effect of the conflict: a political split among abortion opponents.

The focal point of the split: Representative Bart Stupak, the conservative, pro-life Democrat who threatened to trip up the health care reform bill during last weekend's wild sprint to the finish. He'd been a pariah within his party for doing so -- until he traded his yes vote for a promise from President Obama that no federal dollars would go to fund abortion. 

But his reversal of fortune among Dems, who gave him a hero's greeting on the House floor, coincides with anger among Republicans who'd seen him as a staunch ally willing to cross party lines to protect the unborn.  They now call Stupak a a turncoat , revealing a sharp and widening fissure along party lines. 

The long-term ramifications of the split are unclear, since opponents of a woman's right to choose seem bent on undoing Roe vs. Wade -- something that's unlikely to happen in the near future.  And legal scholars disagree on what exactly Obama's deal with Stupak means in the real world.  But at the very least the strong emotions on both sides will further harden the red-blue split in Congress, and could come up as an issue in this fall's mid-term elections.  

The more you know

If you want to look a little more closely at what the health care overhaul bill will do for you -- and, let's be honest, who doesn't? -- you could do worse than checking out Ezra Klein's series of explainer posts doing just that.  It's an easy-to-digest collection that will give you plenty of fodder for the next water-cooler conversation with your colleagues, or Facebook update battle with your friends.

Sore losers...?

After the Tea Party shenanigans this weekend, one might think the time has come for cooler heads to prevail, particularly since it's highly unlikely that Republicans in Congress -- or state attorneys general -- can effectively overturn, negate or repeal the bill President Obama signed into law before cheering Democrats Tuesday morning.

But the hotheads are still out there, willing and apparently eager to kick things up a notch. And they're using strong-arm tactics more commonly seen in third-world dictatorships or failed states than in the seat of the world's most developed, most stable democracies.

It's the latest disturbing sign of the red-blue polarization that has gripped the body politic and threatens to further undermine the already weakened American political discourse.

Consider: In just 15 months since the nation inaugurated its first African American president, we've had a House back-bencher from South Carolina loudly heckle the president during a live, televised joint speech to Congress; thousands of Tea Party protesters openly comparing his agenda to Soviet-style communism while carrying placards depicting him as a bone-through-the-nose witch doctor, in whiteface as The Joker and sporting an Adolph Hitler mustache; and baseless, surprisingly stubborn conspiracy theorists who continue to challenge his citizenship -- despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

To say nothing of the record number of threats of violence against a president swept into office with 52 percent of the popular vote, well above what former President Bush received when he claimed a "mandate" from the voters after his 2004 re-election.

In the last 72 hours alone -- after the House ratified the health care bill -- we've had a Republican deliver a verbal sucker-punch on a Democratic colleague, then shamelessly use it as a fundraising ploy (and gets results); we've had several Tea Partiers channel their inner Klansman and drop n-bombs on Representative John Lewis, a bona fide civil rights hero, as well as spit upon another black lawmaker and scream homophobic slurs at Representative Barney Frank, the first openly gay US congressman.

When Obama picked up his pen on Tuesday, reasonable people would have expected it formally signaled "game over" to the collective opposition, a cue to move on with the rest of their lives.  Not quite.

Salon connects the link between the right-wing anger and frustration to the current GOP manipulations of the health care debate, and explains why rigid opposition may not go away any time soon.

To paraphrase Dick Motta and Bluto Blutarski: nothing is over 'till the fat lady decides it is.

Fasten your seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy landing.

Worth a thousand words, ... maybe two

I'm a "word guy," a writer by training and preference, but I do know a good visual when I see one -- and it's an added bonus when some words come along with it in the bargain.  So my daily offering includes a couple of things that caught my eye on the morning rounds.

 This story caught my eye, so to speak, and reminded me of what I used to do for the Globe's living section.  I like the fact that the LAT's take came from their features/culture section.  Shows they're paying attention, moreso than most of us.

Meanwhile, The Rachel Maddow Show puts the health care fight -- and the racially tinged, homophobic outbursts from last weekend's Tea Party protestors towards members of Congress -- into perspective. Bold and subtle, at the same time.

There's got to be a morning after

In the aftermath of yesterday's maelstrom on health care reform, there is the usual Washington punditry in the mainstream newspapers, breathlessly focusing on winners and losers, who's up and who's down, why this would have made or broken Obama, and the political ramifications and adjustments of power that will come in the wake of such a momentous decision.

And then there are day-after pieces and analysts who are actually worth reading.

As usual, the New York Times breaks it down neatly through easily digestible graphics and relevant comparisons, and their Prescriptions blog is an up-to-date, go-to source to stay on top of the debate.  MSNBC's Rachel Maddow had a great segment putting the weekend's verbal assaults against Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank, an openly gay congressman, and Georgia Representative John Lewis, a civil rights hero, into context, and the role of government in solving big problems (the segments are on the right side of the TRMS blog page) and Salon's Joe Canoson delves into where the united GOP opposition goes from here.