Obama Plays Cool Hand, Wins in Pirate Crisis

(NEWSER) - Navy Seals opened fire on three Somali pirates today when a naval commander made a split-second decision that Capt. Richard Phillips' life was in imminent danger, the New York Times reports. Authorized by President Obama to use force, snipers shot two pirates who had stuck their heads out of the lifeboat's rear hatch, and killed a third through a window in the bow. The destroyer Bainbridge was towing the lifeboat when snipers opened fire. More»

General will make final decision on Sgt. Gary Stein

(NEWSER) - A military board has determined that a Marine sergeant committed misconduct and should be dismissed because he posted derogatory comments and Facebook photos of President Obama. Marine Sgt. Gary Stein launched a Facebook page called the Armed Forces Tea Party , in which he slammed Obama, violating Pentagon rules banning criticism of superiors, including the commander in chief, the board decided. Among the attacks on the president, Stein superimposed Obama's face on a poster for the movie Jackass, and on a poster for The Incredibles, changing the name to "The Horribles," prosecutor Captain John Torresala revealed to the panel in a presentation yesterday. More»

Can't let hostage-holding House run the country: Paul Krugman

(NEWSER) - Look out, President Obama: House Republicans have created another “hostage situation.” This time, they’re holding the debt ceiling for a ransom of big spending cuts, writes Paul Krugman in the New York Times . The Republican Party doesn't control the White House or the Senate, so you wouldn’t think the party could “impose its agenda on the nation. But the modern GOP doesn’t believe in following normal rules.” And don't be swayed by what those on the right are saying, Krugman contends: If we don't raise the debt ceiling, bad, bad things will happen. More»

Administration bemoans death of bully pulpit

(NEWSER) - Even if it seems like the president is constantly on TV and in the press, the White House says it’s struggling to get its message out: the “bully pulpit” is no more, writes Howard Kurtz for the Daily Beast . “There’s an alternative story here that we’re trying to tell,” says the president’s communications director. "But there’s an element of spitting in the ocean.” More»

President's miscalculations include scale, momentum

(NEWSER) - Scott Brown’s Senate victory in Massachusetts is the final nail in the coffin of the Obama administration’s first-year political strategy, John F. Harris and Carol E. Lee write for Politico . The miscalculations cover “three major counts":

• Believing 2008 was a game-changer: The Obama team thought the "election represented something seismic." But "the assumption that Obama would be swimming mostly with the current rather than often against it on issues such as health care, financial regulation and global warming was naive in retrospect."