Germany’s Angela Merkel and President Obama on friendly terms during state visit
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on June 8th, 2011 4:35 am by HL
Germany’s Angela Merkel and President Obama on friendly terms during state visit
Sooooo, it’s Angela and Barack now.
This Angela and this Barack — better known as German Chancellor Merkel and President Obama — haven’t always appeared to be the best of buds. She wouldn’t let him speak at the Brandenburg Gate during his campaign; he passed on her invitation to a ceremony celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
But, on Tuesday, amid all the pomp leading up to Obama’s fourth state dinner, the president and the chancellor seemed intent — very, very, very intent — on displaying a kind of chumminess and familiarity out of keeping with their customarily cool and detached demeanors. In the course of a 39-minute news conference, Barack — er, Mr. President — referred to Merkel by her first name no less than 11 times. (He even pronounced it correctly: ON-guh-luh, not AEN-juh-luh.) She called him “Barack” at least four times. Once it was even “dear Barack.”
How will history judge Obama’s economic policy?
When historians look back at how Barack Obama lost the 2012 election — or won it only because the Republicans nominated a certifiable space case — they will doubtless focus on his first few months in office and ponder why he didn’t do more to stanch the recession and arrest the downward mobility of the American people.
Of course, by the standards of a conventional recession and conventional American politics, Obama did a lot. He sent an $800 billion stimulus package to the Hill, where it encountered rocky going from Republicans and center-right Democrats who thought it too large. It did look large at the time, even though critics pointed out that its chief features — an incremental payroll tax cut, aid to state governments, and funds for infrastructure projects that trickled painfully slowly through the normal state and local bidding and approval processes — might halt the economy’s slide but were hardly sufficient to turn it around. And by opting for barely perceptible tax cuts, preserving public services and a glacial rollout of public works, the Obama administration had devised a stimulus whose price tag was apparent to all but whose achievements were all but invisible.
Palin comments spark Paul Revere history debate
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin sparked debate over the historic ride by Paul Revere after she told her version of the story during her “One Nation” bus tour.
