Obama

Rand Paul, who has surprised a lot of people by becoming a real contender for a U.S. Senate seat in Kentucky, bows to political reality — he’s blasting the Obama administration’s policy on terror trials and proposing to “try, convict, and lock up terrorists in Guantanamo.”
Paul’s father, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), is one of the [...]

Eric Kleefeld points to the internals of a Fox News poll — one that shows President Obama’s overall approval rating dipping into the mid-40s — that has a mere 26 percent of Americans saying it’s “never appropriate” for the president to bow to foreign leaders. Sixty-seven percent say it’s fine.
I think Greg Sargent gets at [...]

That would be former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.).
Via Ben Smith, Thompson says the problem with the Afghanistan war isn’t the seven years that the Bush administration presided over its deep and thorough decline, but the seven weeks that the Obama administration has taken to review how to reverse the Bush administration’s errors. It’s a mystery [...]

I wish that the results of this new survey from Public Policy Polling, via Eric Kleefeld, were more surprising.
Among Republicans… only 27% say Obama actually won the race, with 52% — an outright majority — saying that ACORN stole it, and 21% are undecided. Among McCain voters, the breakdown is 31%-49%-20%. By comparison, independents weigh [...]

TWI national security reporter Spencer Ackerman appeared on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” last night to talk about his “game-changing” story on the limited number of troops available for an Afghanistan escalation. Video after the jump.

This new Rasmussen Reports poll is going to encourage Republicans who are already running on a 2010 promise to cancel whatever stimulus spending they can.
The survey found 62 percent of voters say tax cuts will create jobs and fight unemployment. Only 21 percent say spending can do that. This cuts against the long-standing economic theories [...]

It was once the case that the American and Afghan Presidents shared a certain bond. It was a cordial relationship, even warm, begun by contingency and entrenched by videoconference. But the two men’s ties did not translate into similarly deep U.S.-Afghanistan relationship, and so governance, prosperity and security all deteriorated, and Afghans and Americans died [...]

Well-known Israel expert Sarah Palin criticizes President Obama’s criticism of Israeli settlement expansion (most recently over Gilo):
“I disagree with the Obama administration on that,” Palin told Walters. “I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is, is going to grow. More and more Jewish people [...]

The Washington Post reports that President Obama said yesterday that the U.S. detention facility will remain open past the January 2010 deadline for closure he set during his first days in office.

From Beijing, President Obama says that his imminent announcement of refined Afghanistan strategy will contain some very important details:
“I am very confident that when I announce the decision, the American people will have a lot of clarity about what we’re doing, how we’re going to succeed, how much this thing is going to cost,” Mr. [...]