NCAA HOOPS DIARY:
Notre Dame 65, South Florida 62: a tight one. But South Florida had won 4 consecutive league games, and upset Georgetown on the road in their previous game. So this was a big win for ND to get at home; they've won 2 straight league contests now; and went 8 for 10 at the free throw line at the end of this game, able to hit shots under pressure. Defensively, they held USF's star Dominique Jones, who'd averaged 35 points a game in his last 4 games, to 3 of 17 shooting.
OBAMA WATCH:
So NOW he wants health care reform discussions televised:
"In the first major step to revive his health care agenda after his party's loss of a filibuster-proof Senate majority, President Barack Obama on Sunday invited Republican and Democratic leaders to discuss possible compromises in a televised gathering later this month."
But note--the Obama folks remain on the defensive. President Obama talked during the 2008 campaign about televising health care reform negotiations on C-Span. Well, came the actual negotiations...and no television cameras were to be found. The administration received criticism. So now they react to it.
But being reactive isn't something that usually leads to winning politics, or even policy.
It's certainly not helping Obama among independents--a recent poll shows that 57% of independents oppose him now.
If that doesn't change, Republicans will have a big 2010.
OBAMA ADMINISTRATION FOREIGN POLICY UPDATE:
How's that "hope" and "change" and reaching out to our adversaries working out again???:
"Officials from the United States, France and Russia called Monday for stronger measures against Tehran after Iran told the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency that it would begin enriching its stockpile of uranium for a medical reactor in Tehran as early as Tuesday. In Paris, the visiting United States defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, said the Obama administration and the other nations had reached out sincerely to reassure Iran and entice it to negotiate an end to its nuclear program.
“All of these initiatives have been rejected,” Mr. Gates said. While “we must still try and find a peaceful way to resolve this issue,” he said, “the only path that is left to us at this point, it seems to me, is that pressure track. But it will require all of the international community to work together.”
Well, yes, Secretary Gates--all of the administration's attempts to use "soft" power, a softer tone of voice, an emphasis on diplomacy, repudiating the past administration, apologizing for supposed past American misdeeds--it's failed, and we warned you it would likely fail. The fact is that our adversaries don't respect that type of approach. Has that become clear? Is it not yet clear that stalemates with such nations as Iran are not and were not due primarily to the Bush administration???
