Politics and Press

The interaction of the press and politics; public diplomacy, and daily absurdities.

Obama

Privacy vs Security: The People’s Choice???

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“The N.S.A. began, in some cases, to eavesdrop on callers (often using computers to listen for key words) or to investigate them using traditional police methods. A government consultant told me that tens of thousands of Americans had had their calls monitored in one way or the other. “In the old days, you needed probable cause to listen in,” the consultant explained. “But you could not listen in to generate probable cause. What they’re doing is a violation of the spirit of the law.”…. “Nobody disputes the value of the tool,” the former senior intelligence official told me. “It’s the unresolved tension between the operators saying, ‘Here’s what we can build,’ and the legal people saying, ‘Just because you can build it doesn’t mean you can use it.’ ” It’s a tension that the President and his advisers have not even begun to come to terms with…”  Excerpt from “Listening In” by Seymour Hersh in the May 29, 2006 issue of The New Yorker

And so it seems that both president George W. Bush and his Democratic successor, President Obama, did come to terms with the tension between having the tools to gather information on American citizens’ private phone calls and email exchanges and any legal impediments. President Obama has been quoted using the same kind of arguments that we have heard over and over since September 11, 2001. They track our phone calls and email messages “for our own good”, to protect us from “the enemy”, and it is a difficult choice between privacy rights and security. Well, maybe so, but it would have been nice if they had asked us to participate in the choice. And in doing so had offered concrete evidence that the loss of individual privacy actually increased our security.
Various leaders of the intelligence apparatus have said that the grand sweep of information had led to the interruption of several terrorist attacks on the U.S. but believing that involves trusting the sources and since they have in the past lied to Congressional oversight committees, trust is – or at least should be, elusive.

At a congressional hearing last March, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore) asked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper if the National Security Agency (NSA) , “collect(s) any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” Clapper replied, “No sir … not wittingly.” Thanks to Edward Snowden, we now know he was lying, but anyone who has followed Seymour Hersh’s reporting should not have been surprised. Nor can we believe that Clapper’s lie was “unwitting”. Asked last week by Andrea Mitchell why he had replied to Senator Wyden in that way, his answer was:

“I thought, though in retrospect, I was asked [a] ‘when are you going to … stop beating your wife’ kind of question, which is … not answerable necessarily by a simple yes or no. So I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful, manner by saying, ‘No.’ ”

In some ways the Congress and the press find themselves in a difficult position. Congress is supposed to provide oversight of our intelligence operations and have either failed to do so or are complicit in supporting unconstitutional activities by what are virtually, national police forces. And if they now know they were lied to, their credibility as an oversight body requires them minimally to have Clapper removed from office.

The press shares the role of protecting the people from an overreaching government and has largely failed in that role. Seven years ago Sy Hersh sent up a warning flare in his New Yorker piece and that flare went largely unnoticed by the rest of the press, leaving them to share in Congress’s complicity. It is now predictable that they will argue both sides of the privacy vs. security argument without really arguing about their own role in what is an international embarrassment.

Politics And Press: The Presidential Sweepstakes

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  • To vote for a Democrat means, now, to vote for the party’s influential members—for unions (including public unions of teachers, firemen, and policemen), for black and Latino minorities, for independent women….To vote for a Republican means, now, to vote for a plutocracy that depends for its support on anti-government forces like the tea party, Southern racists, religious fanatics, and war investors in the military-industrial complex. The independents, too ignorant or inexperienced …are the people most susceptible to lying flattery. They are called the good folk too inner-directed to follow a party line or run with the herd. They are like the idealistic imperialists “with clean hands” in Graham Greene’s The Quiet American—they should wear leper bells to warn people of their vicinity—Gary Wills, New York Review of Books

We have been subjected to a political campaign for the presidency that began nearly four years ago, moved into high gear over a year ago, presented a cast of shockingly bizarre Republican characters, and finally settled into a two man race that the American press has managed to define as a horse race to be covered as a sporting event of style over substance.

No day goes by without one or more new polls that tell us who is viewed most favorably among any number of subgroups: women voters, unmarried men, gays and lesbians, hispanics, white males, retirees, firemen, catholics, protestants, etc. etc. Candidates then try to tailor their heartfelt views to the identified interests of enough of the various subgroups to build a winning majority.. And by tailor, I mean, cut to size, redesign, change the entire look and feel – as various focus groups indicate. Mitt Romney’s constant and dramatic changes of expressed beliefs and values are an extreme example but Obama’s caution is also illustrative.

The press serves as the testing ground for policy changes by simply reporting them and then collecting data on whether the changes are liked or disliked by a largely unaware public. The press does this partially by collecting opinions from man-and/or-woman in the street interviews – a technique whose cost is only dwarfed by its innate absurdity. Of particular interest are those who after years of political jockeying have not quite been able to make up their mind. I mean, what does it take to get someone to decide? the world is not changing that fast, the candidates are only pretending to change, and yet these proud independents – unable to commit to any political belief or philosophy – wait for the magic moment – the epiphany – when they can decide between candidates representing radically different value systems and turn the election in whatever direction enters their sweet little heads.

Finally, to help them decide, the press provides analysts – almost always one from each side to discuss the issues in serious and quasi intellectual terms, but each reading from his or her internal Power Point presentation provided by their candidates. PBS’s Newshour has become especially proficient at this, cowering in its insecurities while it gives favor to each side hoping against hope that it will not be caught actually taking the side of rational thought, thereby perhaps risking its federal funding. The fact that they have become irrelevant, boring, tedious even – no longer matters. There is really no competition out there unless one turns to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, who in their own wacky way, move toward the truth. Colbert would say to independents, “flip a damned coin and get over it.”

Romney: Outsourcing American Foreign Affairs?

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Candidate Romney has not exactly distinguished himself in foreign affairs of late, the one area in which U.S. presidents actually exercise power. His foray into foreign travel as a candidate was a disaster with insults to Great Britain and Poland and audacious ass kissing in Israel. His latest bumbling attempt to abuse the truth regarding the American government role in the tragedy in Libya and the disturbances in Egypt have offended even most Republicans. But perhaps overriding all of this is his dicey relationship with Israel.

Romney’s trip to Israel was highlighted by a fund raiser with wealthy Jews organized by Casino owner and former Newt Gingrich supporter Sheldon Adelson, who brings the wisdom of the craps table to addressing the Iran nuclear issue. During the same trip much was made of the 35 year friendship of Romney and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu – a relationship that goes back to when they were both consultants for the Boston Group, but one that according to press reports is not as close as Romney likes to pretend. It was also during this trip that Romney managed to insult Palestinians while ginning up hints of military action against Iran.

So now this week we have Netanyahu making a public statement that not so obliquely attacks U. S. policy, and therefore President Obama.

” The world tells Israel: ‘Wait. There’s still time.’ And I say, ‘Wait for what? Wait until when?’ Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel,” Netanyahu told reporters in Jerusalem.”

Parsing this statement tells us that 1, Netanyahu apparently believes it is up to him to define American policy and 2, that while he meddles in our presidential campaign we are not to attempt to dissuade Israel from doing something likely to damage American AND Israeli interests. And since the U.S. does not have the power to put a red light before Israel if they want a war it is tempting to tell them to start it without us. But of course were they to do that we would inevitably be dragged into a war that even Israeli military leaders say makes no military or political sense.

David Frum, a former George Bush speechwriter and one-time (and sometimes still) neocon, writes that Netanyahu was really not aiming his comments at Obama but rather at Ehud Barak, his erstwhile Israeli political ally who has walked away from supporting the concept of an attack on Iran. But given Netanyahu’s sophistication it is hard to believe he did not know the potential impact on the American election and, in any case, Romney jumped to the bait, perhaps in desperation.

What we have now is a candidate for President of the United States ready – even eager – to turn over major parts of our foreign policy to a foreign Prime Minister, apparently including the decision to go to war. And for those who doubt the possibilities here, think about the last president who wanted to start a war of choice – and think about the costs and the results.

Innocence Abroad: The Romney Road Trip

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Mitt Romney – with the unquestioning help of most of the American press – has made the presidential race almost entirely about the American economy.  Yet,  in reality the president’s power is limited in addressing domestic issues – especially when faced with a belligerent Congress unwilling to deal with any issue that might make the President look good. And for current Republican senators and representatives, that trumps national interest.

The President does, however, have considerable power in foreign affairs and traditionally has the support of the Congress on major elements of foreign policy, making a candidate’s stances on international issues more important than is generally recognized by the press and voters. Romney’s current trip abroad, which he is attempting to use to build his foreign policy credentials, takes on considerable importance in helping determine his ability to keep America’s best interests in mind.

His first stop in London was not reassuring. He insulted the Brits by questioning their ability to host the Olympics, did not appear to know the name of the leader of the Labor party, Ed  Miliband, when he met with him, broke an unwritten rule  by bragging to the world that he had met with the head of the secretive MI6, and spent a good part of his time there walking back his public remarks. The British press headlined him various ways, but “Mitt the Twit” was one not atypical reference.

He then headed for Israel where he will hold a major fund raiser with the help of Sheldon Adelson, famous for having donated tens of millions to the Gingrich campaign and now pouring similar millions into Romney’s campaign.  Adelson’s considerable wealth was gained mostly from gambling casinos and he has been accused of illegally influencing leading politicians in Macau to gain approval of a major gambling operation there. While Romney’s interest in Adelson is at least partly financial – Adelson provides access to large donors – it is also to find a wedge issue to attract American Jewish voters who have traditionally voted for Democrats.

The question for now is what Romney will promise Israel beyond what American presidents – including Obama – have always promised, which does not include unlimited support for an Israeli attack on Iran, a step seen by U.S. defense and foreign policy professionals as premature and, for many, counter productive.  American presidents have always supported  Israel’s right to defend itself and that has not changed under Obama. So it is hard to see what Romney can add to the debate, but given his history of unpredictable and irresponsible remarks, it is worrisome to consider the possibilities. American politicians are frequently tempted to define our national interest in terms of Israel’s national interest and they are simply not always the same. So, for instance, while it might be in Israel’s national interest for the U.S. to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities it is most certainly not in the national interest of the U.S. Let’s hope Romney remembers that crucial difference.

The Media’s Election Narrative

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There is one year to go before the 2012 presidential election and the American press continues to focus on the political process over the substance of issues. Early on the press determined that while Mitt Romney held a slight – and decidedly soft – lead in most national polls, a changing series of candidates must be anointed by the press to the role of “anyone but Romney” challenger for the Republican nomination. This has happened with little or no substantive exploration of issues, but has maintained a horserace kind of press coverage..

Initially former Governor Tim Pawlenty was promoted by much of the press for his “seriousness” which the voters then determined was a kind of insipid, tediousness. The press then jumped to Michelle Bachmann who presented a feminine face backed by a religious nuttiness that always seems to show up in Republican primary races in Iowa. She tanked early after voters began to actually listen to the strange things coming out of her mouth.

The press then decided that Governor Rick Perry was the one to take on Flipper Romney, not out of any particular policy differences but rather because he was from Texas, had a lot of campaign funds and talked a big – or at least loud – game. Perry lasted about two weeks as he fumbled in debates for words that might be translated into actual thoughts. The press then ignited his downfall because of a slip in a debate when he lost track of his thoughts – some would argue, not all that unusual an occurrence. Then the press moved to pizza company CEO Herman Cain as a new frontrunner with the innovative campaign strategy of joking about how little he knows about the world while defending himself against numerous (5 and counting) accusations of sexual harassment.

Now the press has identified Newt Gingrich as the next likely antidote to Romney. This, some months after the press dumped him as a tired old hack who couldn’t manage his campaign staff or his wife’s Tiffany account. Meanwhile Ron Paul maintains credible numbers, has an identifiable set of policies and is mostly ignored by the press. Jon Huntsman makes the most sense – especially on foreign affairs – and is mostly ignored by the press as irrelevant. Romney continues to waffle his way toward some weird kind of consistency – that is, the consistency of having no apparent core beliefs that he would not jettison for a few more votes, and the search for an alternative continues, but not based on any particular policy issues.

We have another year of this and perhaps as the process moves along the press will begin to focus on actual issues but for now, the focus remains on the way the game is played rather than on the probable consequences of candidates’ actual policy differences.

American House: How Low Can It Go?

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When Americans went to the polls last November did the majority really vote for a decline in their quality of life? It would seem so as we see what their elected representatives in the House are choosing to eliminate or reduce. The initial attack in the House of Representatives targets virtually every nominally progressive program subject to discretionary funding. It attacks support for health programs, environmental programs (many also related to the health of Americans), arts and humanities programs, nutrition programs for pregnant women and infants, food supply regulation, student loan programs, clean water programs, public radio and tv and etc. etc. etc. The list goes on and will most likely enter many peoples’ consciousness only when they get a dose of salmonella, or have to drop out of college, or develop asthma, or have to rely on Fox and CNN for their TV news and analysis.

This opening shot is a sample of what seems likely to come. The scorched earth Republicans and Tea Partiers are intent on finishing the job – started during the Reagan years – of increasing income inequality in America, and reducing opportunities for those at the low end of the income ladder to climb out of lives characterized by inadequate educational opportunities for their children, over-priced and inadequate healthcare, and a public life devoid of art and culture.

The driving abstraction for these efforts is the “deficit”, and the Democrats (including President Obama) have joined with much of the national media and press in allowing the Republicans to determine that as the field of battle.  While many Republicans are not actually serious about reducing the deficit (witness their unwillingness to eliminate the Bush tax reduction for the richest 5% of Americans) they are dead serious about eliminating or seriously damaging virtually any program intended to improve the quality of life for all Americans.  The current budget reductions are a spit in the ocean of the deficit but even so those reductions will retard the economic recovery thus reducing tax revenue further and thus adding to the deficit. So be it for rational thought from this crew.

Lost in all the Republicans’ blather is the reality that the deficit grew enormously under Bush due to the bizarre choice of war in Iraq, the Bush tax reductions, and the costly Bush prescription drug program, which turned out to be a gift to the drug companies. So we face a future of declining quality of life while the people who created much of the deficit AND the people who destroyed a healthy economy through near criminal mortgage and hedge fund frauds continue to work their black magic.

America VS. The World

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All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian.
Pat Paulsen

As a nation of immigrants and descendants of immigrants the United States is having a hard time figuring out how to deal with immigrants. The state of Arizona has enacted a law that requires police to demand identity papers from anyone resembling their idea of whatever it is that an illegal immigrant looks like. That would tend towards demanding papers of anyone who might look Hispanic, African, or Asian but probably would not lead to police hassling Scandinavian looking blondes or worse yet, French speaking Canadians.

But lest our pals the Mackenzie brothers expect a warm welcome, the nuttiness is not restricted to Arizona. Minnesota House Republicans rolled out their own brand of Arizona-inspired immigration legislation last week, which they said was necessary in order to deal with the estimated 100,000 illegal immigrants in Minnesota. The bill, introduced by State Rep. Steve Drazkowski (a rather foreign-sounding name) (R-Mazeppa), is called the “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhood Act” and like its Arizona cousin it would impose many of the most controversial measures put in place by that legislation. A quick look at a map indicates a rather lengthy, relatively unprotected border with Canada so clearly Rep. Drazkowski has Canucks in his gun sight.

The difficulties presented by foreigners became clearer when a Greyhound bus was pulled over in Portsmouth, NH because a passenger thought he heard the word bomb over a neighboring cell phone conversation. Passengers were told to leave the bus one by one, hands up, were handcuffed and led away, but one man remained on board for hours, refusing to leave. According to police reports later the bus was surrounded and held for hours because the remaining passenger was a “strange looking man who spoke a foreign language”. The man was African, was in the U.S. legally, but did not speak English and was terrified at the huge police presence surrounding the bus.  Now, there are not a lot of Africans or African-Americans in New Hampshire (ca. 1.2%) so we can suppose he looked “strange” and lord knows he spoke a foreign language. But what is going on when a bus is isolated and surrounded by police for several hours out of fear of such a person because of an inability to deal with a foreign language? You cannot make this stuff up.

Somewhat related is the belief – held by over 20% of Americans – that President Obama was born in Africa and is therefore not eligible to be president. Arizona added to its campaign for laughing stock of the Western World when its House of Representatives passed a bill requiring any candidate for President of the U.S. to show an original birth certificate in order to be allowed on its presidential ballots. We can assume that this was not aimed at anyone with the last name “Bush” – or “McCain”, just as we can assume that it is unconstitutional and would have been deemed so had it become Arizona law.

The state of Hawaii, having produced President Obama’s birth certificate for some 40 to 50 birthers each month for over two years, finally passed a law that allows the state to ignore most of such requests, all of which come from the mainland – particularly Arizona, South Carolina and Florida, according to state spokeswoman Janice Okubo.  (Aha! Another foreign-sounding name.)

The press tends to report on these kinds of events in a straightforward kind of way that would make sense if the events made sense. They do not; all they do is embarrass us.

Fox Presents: Fear and Loathing in America

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  • The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason. – Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

A visit to the barber today – with its typical random comments on the state of the world –provided a vivid reminder of the bizarre power of Fox News as a purveyor of misinformation and fear. That Fox is in the business of misrepresenting reality is not an original discovery since any reasonably intelligent adult who lives in the real world and reads about the real world knows that Fox’s O’Riley, Beck, and Palin etc. are clowns and buffoons – our own strange brand of Iran’s Ahmadinejad.

We have an intelligence deficit in America and it is growing. There have always been fringe movements in America – on both ends of the spectrum. But the current right wing fringe seems to be – or pretends to be – so scared of so many things that one has to wonder how they can come out from under their rocks.

Their major fear is terrorism. No one wants a screw-up the size of Bush and Cheney’s failure to act on warnings that led to 9/11. But just where does Rudy Giuliani get off working up a frenzy over Captain Underpants’ failed airline bombing when his boys Bush and Cheney totally screwed up by ignoring warnings that led to an actual, successful terrorist attack? It is not enough that he is a scumbag – what is infuriating is that the press actually gives that pathetic hack a microphone. The Rudys of the world have conspired to create a country consumed with fear of some possible event but unable to understand that 1) such an event may be inevitable, 2) that the country is doing all possible to prevent such an event – even under Obama(!) – and that 3) we are in this together and to use security threats as political currency is to be one with the enemy. Cowardice is the name to be given to those who would scare the people into giving up their liberties and their constitutional rights – tactics that give the victory to Al Quada. Shame on all of those who have set out to frighten us and shame on those who buy into it without serious thought of the loss of liberties they have accepted.

The PON (Party of No) and Fox and the ranting Tea Partiers have gained a certain power with their use of fear. We are scared to use our tried and true judicial system to bring terrorist criminals to justice – omigod – do not try them here, do not try them there – let’s eliminate the constitution and just throw them into a cell somewhere – but not here – lest we all might have to take a risk that is not even a real risk. Cowardice? No need to sell it here buddies – we got enough. We will take our shoes off in the airport; we will allow you to body search our toddlers and our grandmothers –because it makes us believe we are safe. We believe in Santa and the tooth fairy.

We are afraid to allow natural gas into our ports if it comes from Yemen – let’s live on firewood and refuse to trust the Coast Guard with our safety – they cannot be trusted.

We cannot allow gays in the military unless they lie about being gay; Congressman Hunter from California is scared that we might end up with hermaphrodites and transgenders in the military – now that is truly scary. Senator McCain is also concerned – after agreeing to support the military leadership – he has now jumped ship, illustrating the fragility of courage. The fact that Britain’s, Canada’s, Australia’s and Israel’s militaries have no problem with gays makes no impact – this is America – no gays – unless they lie about being gay. Jesus – you cannot make this stuff up.

Eight years of Bush and Cheney and Republican leadership left us with a useless unwinnable war in Iraq with hundreds of thousands dead, an untenable situation in Afghanistan, a horror show in Pakistan, a deficit of $1.2 trillion, an economy dominated by greed at the top and subservience below, a broken healthcare system, a tax system designed to protect the rich and screw everyone else, and a government committed to eliminating civil liberties. And what do we fear? –decent, affordable healthcare that mythically includes death panels; regulating banks that have royally screwed us; a centrist President Obama who some believe to be a socialist – a Muslim, a terrorist, a Kenyon, or God help us – a black. We are not supposed to consider such possibilities but it is time to grow up and smell the garbage. There is a real stink in the country.

A friend suggests that the anti fluoride folks must have been right and that it is why people are losing their sanity. They fear foreigners, immigrants – legal and illegal; any suggested change of the status quo; terrorists both real and imagined; mythical socialists, black political leaders. Fortunately for them, there is a standing army of banal and venal politicians and newscasters ready to march to the Fox Drummers. We are truly screwed.

Massachusetts: The Victory of Anger Over Intelligence

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“The Mass. election was a bummer …The greatest concern I have is for the economy and social stability. Deep down my attitude          towards health reform, the environment, energy is ‘not my problem’.  I have health insurance, live in the country and won’t live long enough to run out of home heating oil or gasoline. I support those issues more out of social responsibility; if society doesn’t care, why should I? “– Anonymous

In the wake of Scott Brown’s Senate win n Massachusetts, there are many scapegoats: the Democratic candidate, Martha Coakley, was a weak campaigner who thought it was a lock and behaved accordingly; the national Democratic party which totally missed the influx of outside money from insurance companies and Dick Armey’s tea party idiots; and the press that rarely looked at the substance of the issues, choosing instead to focus on the process of the campaign. But in many ways President Obama has the largest responsibility for the loss and the most to learn from it.

It begins with recognition that the people are pissed off – and with reason. That they are apparently incapable of or too lazy to truly understand the issues and to recognize what the Republicans have done to destroy America’s future in order to destroy Obama is irrelevant.  Obama is the President and he can choose to fight it out or to continue to pretend that bipartisanship is desirable and possible.

Obama’s cool, rational, smart approach is ill suited for the times – his idealistic search for bipartisanship looks in hindsight like innocence – even naiveté. There is substantial evidence that people do not think, do not read, do not discuss. They listen to Rush Limbaugh, watch Glenn Beck, take orders from their preachers or priests, and refuse to take responsibility for the nature of their lives. Scott Brown won because he is a handsome hunk who drives a truck and throws raw meat off the back end at all the poor souls looking for success in all the wrong places.

The low level of discourse in this country on issues like healthcare reform is appalling; always discussed without the long view. Between 17 and 22% of all healthcare expenses go to insurance companies who provide no healthcare -  they only serve as gatekeepers to deny insurance to those who most need it. The U.S. pays double for prescription drugs what other countries pay for the same drugs. The per capita cost for healthcare in the U.S. is double that of every other Western democracy. While one might believe that therefore we have the best medical care in the world, virtually all measures indicate that is simply not so. There is a reason the stocks of health insurance companies went up substantially yesterday; their investment in the Brown campaign was paying off and investors knew it. There is a huge reckoning coming on healthcare and the American people are in for bad surprises unless costs are contained and there is no evidence that the issue will be addressed in my lifetime. As for the current bill – Obama tried too hard and too long to get Republican support for a plan and gave up too much to get a semblance of bipartisanship.

There is a strange sense among Americans that if the people vote for something or someone they must be right. This has been wrong as often as right – people sometimes make good judgments and sometimes bad. Since we are all grownups and different people we are allowed to disagree. What is neither useful nor smart is the kind of grandstanding done by people celebrating the victory of an empty suit by dumping on those who disagree with them. Tea Party mythology has it that liberals are smug elitists; they are proving that smugness is a more common  ailment.

Is Massachusetts Turning Red?

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The special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat has apparently become surprisingly close. At least that is what the pundits are saying. Massachusetts has a health care program similar to the national program being hammered out in the Congress, allows same-sex marriage, voted overwhelmingly for Obama, and has not sent a Republican to the U.S. Senate since Ed Brooke was defeated for re-election in 1979.

Scott Brown, the Republican candidate is a state senator with a not especially compelling record but has run an aggressive campaign with considerable outside support from conservatives. He has vowed to be the 41st vote against national healthcare reform, does not support abortion rights, runs Cheney-style terrorist threat ads in his National Guard uniform, opposes same sex marriage, and once sponsored an amendment in the state senate to allow hospital staff to refuse contraception to rape victims.

Martha Coakley, the Democratic candidate, has run a bland campaign until recently and has belatedly stepped up her rhetoric. If Massachusetts goes against its historic liberal roots, it will be a nasty wake-up call to Democrats nationwide and could signal the beginning of the end of the Obama presidency. While this seems unlikely it is now a possibility.  No one would have predicted this scenario when Senator Kennedy died.