Obama on his first 100 days

From the AP's Jennifer Loven in the C-J...

President Barack Obama said Wednesday night that waterboarding authorized by former President George W. Bush was torture and that the information it gained from terror suspects could have been obtained by other means. "In some cases, it may be harder," he conceded at a White House news conference...

I'm comfortable with his position on waterboarding, but despise his Panglossian effort to sell the policy as without any costs. It seems obvious that getting info is more difficult without as many sticks (or carrots) in one's arsenal. Of course, the broader and longer-term issues of waterboarding are troubling, but he was addressing, specifically, the short-term acquisition of info.

...at a White House news conference capping a whirlwind first 100 days in office...

Whirlwind is a good adjective-- as in what happens when you throw manure into a fan. He's certainly been busy. Whether his activity has been for good or for ill is, of course, another matter.

At a town-hall style meeting in Missouri earlier in the day, as well as in the White House East Room, Obama said progress has been made in rebuilding the economy, yet more remains to be done.

"Rebuild" implies his (and Congress') direct efforts. Not accurate...

"You can expect an unrelenting, unyielding effort from this administration..." he said in opening his news conference.

Again, if he means this-- and from the first 100 days, you'd have to take him at his word-- this is a frightening prospect.

He called on Congress to enact his ambitious all-at-once agenda, including education spending to produce a better-trained work force, greater support for renewable energy development, a high-priced system for companies to buy and sell rights to emit dangerous pollutants, a vast expansion of health insurance and new rules to rein in the riskiest Wall Street behavior.

No mention of the costs of any of these policies? Surprise!

Though Obama's most notable legislative triumphs to date have been enacted on party-line votes, he said he remains eager for bipartisan cooperation with Republicans. But, he said, "I can't sort of define bipartisanship as simply being willing to accept certain theories of theirs that we tried for eight years and didn't work and the American people voted to change."

Campaign on bipartisanship and then run roughshod over your opponents. Classic!