By BOB HERBERT

“This bill stinks,” said Lindsey Graham of South Carolina during the Senate debate on the package.

I’m not joking. “Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban,” said Representative Pete Sessions of Texas, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The president was even accused – oh, my goodness – of working in the Oval Office without his suit jacket on.

On CNN (see below), Republicans Rollins and Castellanos compare recovery plan to Soviet and Cuban communism, socialism

The simple truth is that most Republican politicians would like Mr. Obama to fail because that is their ticket to a quick return to power. I think the president is a more formidable opponent than they realize.

Mr. Obama is like a championship chess player, always several moves ahead of friend and foe alike. He’s smart, deft, elegant and subtle. While Lindsey Graham was behaving like a 6-year-old on the Senate floor and Pete Sessions was studying passages in his Taliban handbook, Mr. Obama and his aides were assessing what’s achievable in terms of stimulus legislation and how best to get there. — [ MORE ]

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A Serious and Expansive Debut: At his first press-conference as president (02/09/2009), Obama controlled the tone, spoke crisply and displayed great command of the facts. (see video below)

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