An Almanack

That sound you are not hearing is the roar of conservative activist groups enraged at the progressive in the White House. Other than a few buffoons like Limbaugh, right wing activists are demoralized, without a target to hit at.
The Globe

The arrival of a big-city liberal president backed by Democratic majorities in Congress should have given single-issue conservative interest groups concerned with guns, abortion, and religion a lot of new material. Yet only four months after taking office, Obama appears to have already fulfilled one of the murkiest pledges of his candidacy: to declare a cease-fire in the culture wars.

Rich Lowry is despondent that the new President is not waving the red flag at the conservative bulls:

Rhetorically, he is in the middle of any debate, perpetually surrounded by finger-pointing extremists who can’t get over their reflexive combativeness and ideological fixations to acknowledge his surpassing thoughtfulness and grace.

This is how Obama, whose position on abortion is indistinguishable from NARAL’s, can speechify on abortion at Notre Dame and come away sounding like a pitch-perfect centrist. It’s natural, then, that his speech at the National Archives on national security should superficially sound soothing, reasonable, and even a little put-upon (oh, what President Obama has to endure from all those finger-pointing extremists).

Many liberals also seem angry that Obama is not being more provocative. But that was Obama’s style all along.
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When I came to the US thirty years ago, coffee was this brown muck that cost about a dollar per gallon. In the generation that has passed since then, coffee has become a spiritual experience, a political statement and a way to save the planet. Sleek new devices that hiss and purr when stroked have replaced the old coffee machines. The people who make the coffee have never looked better. Many of them have college degrees, even if they are unaware that Venti is simply the Italian word for twenty .

Starbucks just took out a full page ad in the NYTimes touting its exceptionalism.

They Want You To Think Coffee is Coffee. Well, It’s Not Just Coffee. It’s Starbucks.

It’s lotsa bucks actually. Until a year ago, $4.50 was considered a reasonable price for a cup of coffee. Starbucks is, like the Hummer, Enron and the AIG, an emblem of turn of the century excess. Now McDonalds is eating their lunch. The baristas at Starbucks still look upon with you with condescension if you ask for a “small cup of coffee” instead of a “Tall Americano”. But you can see the fear in their eyes. The Ad says that these are highly trained individuals, who can make 87000 different kinds of coffee. If so, aren’t they a bit over-trained? Punching a few buttons on a coffee machine is not exactly rocket science.
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The Cheney-Churchill comparison has not yet been made. But it is coming. Sooner or later every conservative thinks he is the next Churchill.

Dick Cheney is on TV every day. Even calls in to a radio talk show in North Dakota. Not only is it out of character for him, it is against the conventions of American politics for a former VP to criticize a new President so soon after the election. Perhaps Cheney is scared that he will be indicted for war crimes and is offering a pre-emptive defense.Torture is not just any war crime: it carries the death penalty. Maybe it is not his own indictment that he fears but that of his former aides like Addington. Or he is drumming up publicity for his book. He could just be bored after his retirement. Is Lynne Cheney making him mow the lawn, if he stays home?

But I think it is something else. (more…)