Senate Republicans Don't Heart Ted Cruz

According to Bob Woodward, fellow Republicans in the Senate can't stand him.

Fellow Senate Republicans avoid Cruz at a policy lunch every week, Woodward said. "Witnesses have told me he goes in there and he sits alone," Woodward added. "People will only sit next to him when there are no other available seats. ... He's isolated."

Woodward says that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell doesn't think highly of Cruz.

"McConnell ... thinks that Cruz is literally the most selfish senator he's ever seen in his years there," Woodward told CBS' Bob Schieffer.

Cruz is the man the tea party is talking about being President. Exactly how would Cruz get legislation passed?

Nowhere Man

Doesn't have a point of view, Knows not where he's going to, Isn't he a bit like you and me? Nowhere Man, please listen, You don't know what you're missing, Nowhere Man, the world is at your command. He's as blind as he can be, Just sees what he wants to see, Nowhere Man can you see me at all?

Nowhere Man by the Beattles.

During a recent interview with Noticias Univision 23, President Barack Obama admits that he is philosophically a moderate Republican.

"The truth of the matter is that my policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican."

Obama would not have had the courage to make that statement during the election. Bruce Bartlett takes the Univision interview as proof of Obama's conservative leanings. I think that is giving Obama too much credit. Obama told Bob Woodward that he is a Blue Dog Democrat. Obama doesn't seem to understand that Blue Dogs came from the racist Dixiecrats. Obama doesn't think deeply about what he stands for. In researching this post, I found this CNBC interview with Woodward. It seems Woodward came to the same conclusion.

‘A Divided Man’TFT : How does Obama compare in broad terms to other presidents you’ve covered? BW: Well, he’s very, very smart. But there’s a “divided man” quality to him. He tells people, “I’m a blue dog. I want fiscal restraint and order.” At the same time, as he told me, “I don’t want to cut entitlements in any way that would hurt vulnerable populations.” So, there isn’t the quality of, “This is how we’re going to do it.” When I was in the Navy in the ‘60s an executive officer had a plaque in his office that said, “He who does not know to which port he is sailing has no favorable wind.” Sometimes it is not clear whether Obama is sailing to the fiscal restraint port –or to the “protect-the-entitlements-at-all-costs” port.

If Obama doesn't know what he stands for, it makes me wonder why he wants to serve in government.

Update: National security blogger Steve Hynd has a theory about why Obama wanted to serve in government.

As to the Q at the end of yr post. When he entered office he was worth just over $3m. now over $6m.

Bob Woodward on Morning Joe

Bob Woodward talks to Joe Scarborough about the problems President Barack Obama faces with Afghanistan, the CIA and his own military generals. Woodward wrote that Gen. David Petraeus refused to give President Obama an exit strategy for Afghanistan.

Frustrated with his military commanders for consistently offering only options that required significantly more troops, Obama finally crafted his own strategy, dictating a classified six-page “terms sheet” that sought to limit U.S. involvement, Woodward reports in “Obama’s Wars,” to be released on Monday.

According to Woodward’s meeting-by-meeting, memo-by-memo account of the 2009 Afghan strategy review, the president avoided talk of victory as he described his objectives.

“This needs to be a plan about how we’re going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan,” Obama is quoted as telling White House aides as he laid out his reasons for adding 30,000 troops in a short-term escalation. “Everything we’re doing has to be focused on how we’re going to get to the point where we can reduce our footprint. It’s in our national security interest. There cannot be any wiggle room.”

Petraeus's reaction was, "They fucked with the wrong guy." Petraeus's only strategy was to stay in Afghanistan indefinitely.