Obama Spars With GOP

(NEWSER) - Charles Boustany, who was upstaged last night by the impromptu opposition from his colleague, Joe Wilson, delivered the official response to Obama's speech, opening with his "disappointment" that Obama hadn't announced a do-over in the effort to reform health insurance. “Most Americans, the Louisiana congressman said, wanted to hear the president say "it’s time to start over on a common-sense, bipartisan plan focused on lowering the cost of health care while improving quality.” More»

Mike Coffman already backpedaling after bringing up birther issue

(NEWSER) - Rep. Mike Coffman of Colorado is already backpedaling furiously after being caught on tape bringing up President Obama's citizenship and questioning his patriotism. "I don't know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don't know that," Coffman said at a fundraiser last week, according to NBC 9 News . "But I do know this, that in his heart, he's not an American. He's just not an American." More»

Attack focuses on Bill Maher comments, White House 'boys' club'

(NEWSER) - Democrats often slam the GOP's "war on women," but now it's the Republicans who are hitting back at "Obama's war on women" in a new attack ad, Mediaite reports. The Republican National Committee ad focuses on controversial remarks Bill Maher—who is also a bigtime Obama donor—has made about women, and prominently features CNN's Erin Burnett interrogating an uncomfortable-looking David Axelrod over the remarks. It then moves on to Ron Suskind's Confidence Men, the book that painted a picture of the White House as a "hostile workplace" for women. More»

May force partisan standoff

(NEWSER) - The GOP may not have the votes to repeal health care reform, but they're still setting their sights on it. Incoming Republicans say they plan to curtail the controversial law by finding creative ways to hobble it, finds the New York Times . They may, for instance, cut funding and personnel at the IRS to slow the implementation of new health insurance requirements, or use spending bills to block federal insurance regulations they oppose. More»

He wouldn't have focused on stimulus, health care

(NEWSER) - Democrats appear headed for a big November defeat, but it didn’t have to be this way. In today’s New York Times , David Brooks imagines an alternate history, in which Obama took a wiser path. In December 2008, as his staff was clamoring to recreate the New Deal, “Obama, in this fanciful version, held up his hand. He told his aides to put away the history books.” This was not 1932. Today’s America didn’t trust the government. More»