Open Thread

YAY! The weekend! Anyone got any special Superbowl party plans in the works? And those of you avoiding the Superbowl like the plague, sound off......

"Yesterday we had to get rid of our guns. Today we gotta grant amnesty... They're running the no-huddle offense on us. We don't even have time to catch our breath. They're running play after play after play."

That is Rush Limbaugh, on his radio show yesterday. Good. That is how I like my football teams, and my political parties and Presidents, to play.

Yesterday, the wingnutoverse was on fire about Sunday's interview by 60 Minutes with President Obama and Hilary Clinton. They thought it was awful, too soft, too cute and in the main tried to use it to frame Hillary as the Worst Secretary of State ever. (Your agenda is showing, Roger Ailes. Besides, I think that history has already written in Condi Rice as the worst Secretary of State in contemporary memory.) In a few liberal circles, this interview is being seen as Obama's endorsement of Hillary in 2016. What did you think of this interview? (I confess I haven't seen it yet.) You can watch it here:

In her final days as Commander of the International Space Station, Sunita Williams of NASA recorded an extensive tour of the orbital laboratory. It is pretty interesting.

In case you missed Frontline's special on President Obama's First Term, here it is. The video is split up into five chapters...

Watch Inside Obama's Presidency on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Nate Silver: "Mr. Obama ran for and won a second term, something only about half of the men to serve as president have done (the tally is 20 or 21…

What is with Republican leaders speaking the truth these days? Yesterday it was Boehner and today it is McConnell: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) responded to President Obama's [..]…

For once, the weeping willow gets one right:

Speaker John Boehner said he believes the primary goal of President Obama’s second term is to “annihilate the Republican Party.” “Given what we heard yesterday about the president’s vision for his second term, it’s pretty clear to me that he knows he can’t do any of that as long as the House is controlled by Republicans,” Boehner said in a speech Tuesday to The Ripon Society. “So we’re expecting over the next 22 months to be the focus of this administration as they attempt to annihilate the Republican Party. “And let me just tell you, I do believe that is their goal — to just shove us into the dustbin of history.”

My only quibble is that it is really the Republicans' own actions and policy preferences that are leaving them in the dustbin of history. But the President will do all he can to pursue just, popular and right policies this year and during the entirety of the second term, and the GOP's radical, feverish and irrational opposition to those policies, as well as their delusional conspiracy theories and hateful and bigoted social policy proposals will most assuredly leaving the Republican Party annihilated. It is long past time that the the Republican Party in its current form be destroyed, and in its place a rational center right party dedicated to a social libertarian principles and fiscal responsibility. That is a opposition party that even I could vote for if the circumstances were right. So yes, Boehner, we want your party destroyed. The secret is out.

Our most recent DL inaugural front page poll has the President's approval rating at 57%, while 36% of you are either conservative haters or progressive purists, and 7% don't know or don't care. We now have our poll up for Governor Markell, and it will be up for a couple of days. Like we have done before, we are going to run through our entire statewide leadership, including Lt. Governor Denn, Auditor Wagner, Treasurer Flowers, Insurance Commissioner Stewart, Congressman Carney, Senators Carper and Coons, Attorney General Biden and Vice President Biden.

The New York Times has a good graphic identifying the notable public officials sitting on the Inaugural Platform with President Obama yesterday. You know you are a political freak when you don't need the NY Times' help to identify anyone.

Today, at this very moment actually, 12 pm on January 20, 2013, the first term of President Obama and Vice President Biden expires. Now, the public Inauguration ceremonies will take place tomorrow as is tradition when January 20 falls on a Sunday. The last time it happened was in 1985 for President Reagan's second inaugural. The political geek in my almost wishes that both the President and the Vice President did not take their private oaths of office today (as Biden and Obama have already done), and instead we get a day of weeping with a President Boehner (who as Speaker is next in line after Biden to the Presidency). A President Boehner for one day would have been a very real possibility if, heavens forbid, Mitt Romney had been elected. Given his devout Mormonism, it is an open question whether Romney would have taken even a private oath of office today. But my love of country outweighs the political geekdom in not wanting to see Romney elected just so we get a President Boehner for a day. Here is Vice President Biden's private swearing in earlier this morning, and I will have the President's private swearing in video once it is posted:

Here are the weekly addresses from our President and Governor, plus the West Wing Week.

A new New York Times/CBS News poll finds 51% of Americans approve of the way President Obama is doing is job with 41% disapproving.

"Mr. Obama's job approval rating is similar to that of George W. Bush at the start of his second term, but much lower than the ratings of the previous two presidents who served eight years. (President Bill Clinton's approval rate was 60 percent in January 1997 and Ronald Reagan's was 62 percent in January 1985.) More than 8 in 10 Democrats approve of his job performance, 8 in 10 Republicans disapprove and independents are evenly divided."

Meanwhile, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that 49% of Americans hold a negative view of the Republican Party while 26% have a positive view.