Opinions

Carter’s defense of Vice President Biden is both appropriate and typical. Typical, in the sense that every vice president suffers from these same types of rumors and occasional sniping. You could replace Joe Biden with almost any modern vice president’s name in the first paragraph of Carter’s post, and it would apply. 

Carter’s defense is appropriate because by any standard Biden has been a good vice president. I’ve always respected Biden, and I consider him to be a thoughtful advocate of his position. I think the vice president is particularly creative for a Democrat.   

Well, well, Ed, I don't see the week so far through such a dark glass for President Obama. First, to repeat: We are either going to have a very close election where one side wins by such a small margin that Justice Scalia may have to see if he can find a precedent somewhere in that Bush v. Gore decision, or Mitt Romney will win comfortably. The latter scenario results from the inherent fragility of our economy and our world: One more big shock could sink Obama.

But let's assume, for now, what has been predicted all along: a close election. Ed cites a bad Florida poll for Obama; here is a better one that shows Obama leading. My prediction? Obama decides he can win without Florida. That makes things much harder, but the Obama campaign has several electoral-map scenarios where it adds up.

It’s only Thursday, but it is not too early to declare that the president has had a lousy week. 

First, 43 different Catholic institutions have sued the Obama administration over the president’s demand that all religious organizations, under penalty of law, provide, pay for and/or facilitate access to services (including contraceptives and sterilization) that are contrary to their deeply held and constitutionally-protected religious beliefs.  

This is a major blow to whatever popular appeal was left in Obamacare and is another reason to vote against the president.  President Obama has fractured his relationship with Catholics.  If he started today to repair the damage, he still couldn’t undo all the harm done between now and Election Day.  This is serious, and it will spread beyond Catholics to other churches and fair-minded people.  Religious institutions in America are used to the government telling them what they can’t do.  Obama has broken new ground by telling Catholics what they must do, regardless of their religious tenets, or suffer fines and other sanctions imposed by the government.  This is a war of choice by Obama; it is the wrong fight at the wrong time with the wrong foe.

Much has been written about this, and there is much more to come.  Everyone following politics in 2012 should read Cardinal Wuerl’s op-ed, and Michael Gerson’s latest column. 

Next, a Quinnipiac poll out of Florida suggests that Obama is in real trouble in that state.  It’s not just that he trails Mitt Romney by six percentage points, 47 to 41, but to be an incumbent president and poll as low as 41 percent of the vote and have 50 percent negatives in a state that you carried in 2008 by more than 235,000 votes is more than a red light flashing in the cockpit.  There is smoke coming out of both engines, and if it stays this way much longer, Obama will have to bail out of Florida and concede its 29 electoral votes.  Florida is too big for a tentative campaign. You are either all in with many millions of dollars or you skip it.  It doesn’t appear that Obama will have enough money to campaign heavily in all of the states he won in 2008.  Florida is now in the “lean-Romney” category.

And last, there is the downer of the Facebook IPO.  Rather than a sign of American financial resurgence, it looks like an exploding cigar.  Obama is not to blame for what happened with the botched offering.  However, it affects the economic atmosphere in a way that reinforces how bad things are and how pessimistic voters are about the prospects of an economic revival.  Successful IPOs are great wealth-creators, but they have been particularly scarce during the Obama years. Maybe Obama thinks this is good. I've never heard him say otherwise. Has anyone else?  Nothing about the Facebook IPO boosts confidence in the environment in which Obama needs to try to build political momentum. And since bad gets worse, there are now reports that on top of the financial debacle, criminal, congressional and civil inquiries have begun that will linger in the headlines through the election.

  Obama appears to have a cloud over him right now. Romney has done a good job of mostly keeping quiet and sticking to the blocking and tackling of building a war chest and an organization, while Obama is bruised and battered by his own mistakes and blindsided by unexpected events. 

There are anonymous and unreliable reports that "some people" in the White House are upset with Joe Biden. The president himself was quoted as saying the VPOTUS, got “out a little over his skis”on the gay marriage issue.

As faithful readers know, I am a Biden fan, so I take umbrage at these comments. In fact, they remind me of a scene from the movie “Airplane,” in which the old pro basketball player, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is challenged by a young punk who says, if memory serves, "My father says you've lost a step." Abdul-Jabbar responds, "Tell your old man to drag Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes."

  Joe Biden is an old pro. He goes into the paint every night for Team Obama and does the dirty work of the offensive and defensive boards. He throws the picks that lets other people score. Sure, he fouls every now and then, but who else on the team will carry his load? A recent poll says he is taking some hits in his popularity.

Loyalty and putting team before self are rare qualities in politics. Maybe an "Atta, boy" or even a request for an autograph is a more appropriate response from the youngsters.

I agree with a lot of what Carter said this afternoon. Joe Scarborough is particularly thoughtful, and his show provides a useful forum for reasonable discourse and rational ideas. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that Joe is an alumni of the University of Alabama and a distinguished fan of the Crimson Tide. 

Anyway, for Obama to pick up the Simpson-Bowles plan now would be awkward, and he would be a little late to the game, but it would be better than the vacuum that currently exists among the Democrats.  I don’t agree with much of what the Simpson-Bowles commission recommended, but at least it starts from an honest place.

Obama urgently needs to recapture some credibility on the budget and the deficit. He and the Democrats don’t have a plan or a budget at all.  They ridicule the Ryan budget, but at least that’s a sincere effort by the Republicans to solve our nation’s problems and to move the debate forward.