The Washington Post
As the uprising in Egypt enters its third week, two questions persist in Washington: Is the Obama administration in direct contact with the Muslim Brotherhood? And, would it accept the group as part of a new Egyptian government?
So far, the White House has walked an exceedingly fine line.
Multiple reports suggest that the United States has been in quiet contact with the banned group for years and that the Obama White House is growing more open to the Muslim Brotherhood having a role in a new government, once Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak steps aside.
Banned in Egypt since 1954, the group has a split image here: as a hostile Islamic organization whose fundamentalist wing could be dangerous for the United States if it took control; and as a band of aging revolutionaries who would play a vital but minority role in any coalition government, enjoying support from no more than 30 percent of the Egyptian public.
Obama, in an interview Sunday night with Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, said the group was not nearly as influential as many of its critics fear.
"I think they're one faction in Egypt," he told O'Reilly. "They don't have majority support in Egypt. But they're well organized. There are strains of their ideology that are anti-U.S. There's no doubt about it."
For U.S. officials trying to gently guide Egypt's future from afar without provoking a backlash, the Muslim Brotherhood's involvement might be necessary, even inevitable.
That possibility clashes with domestic politics, however - from worries among pro-Israel groups about the rise of another Islamic regime in the region, to potential criticism from conservatives that Obama failed to stop the spread of Islamic fundamentalism. So there has been a steady stream of vague messages out of the White House, both to reporters and private groups.
After White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters that any transition to democracy "has to include a whole host of important non-secular actors" and must "include opposition voices and parties being involved in this process as we move toward free and fair elections," several pro-Israel groups sought assurances that did not mean the Muslim Brotherhood.
Late last week, a National Security Council official, Daniel B. Shapiro, said on a conference call with Jewish organization leaders that it was U.S. policy not to deal with the Muslim Brotherhood, according to a report by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Whether the group is involved in building a new government, the JTA quoted Shapiro saying, is "something that will be determined by the Egyptian people. ... The United States will not be an arbiter."
But White House officials - including, now, Obama himself - have been intentionally vague in the days since, suggesting they are open to Muslim Brotherhood participation without saying so outright.
In his Fox interview, Obama walked carefully around questions about the group.
"Here's the thing that we have to understand: There are a whole bunch of secular folks in Egypt, there are a whole bunch of educators and civil society in Egypt that wants to come to the fore as well," Obama said. "And it's important for us not to say that our only two options are either the Muslim Brotherhood or a suppressed Egyptian people."
Asked by O'Reilly whether he wants to see the Muslim Brotherhood in the Egyptian government, Obama said: "What I want is a representative government in Egypt. And I have confidence that if Egypt moves in an orderly transition process, that we will have a government in Egypt that we can work with together as a partner."
Protesters in Egypt have urged Obama to call for Mubarak to step down immediately. But administration officials have cautioned that an immediate Mubarak exit would trigger elections in just 60 days. As State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley put it Monday on NPR News, that gives the Muslim Brotherhood a distinct advantage.
"There're only one or two elements within Egyptian society today that have the organizational, you know, skill to run an effective campaign," he said.
"The Muslim Brotherhood being one of them," added NPR's Steve Inskeep.
"Being one of them," Crowley added.
Palin criticizes White House on Egypt - maybe
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, for her part, had another kind of vague message in her first remarks on Egypt.
In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Palin said Obama had gotten the so-called "3 a.m. phone call" from the 2008 presidential campaign - and let it go to voice mail.
"And nobody yet has explained to the American public what they know, and surely they know more than the rest of us know - who it is who will be taking the place of Mubarak and no, not, not real enthused about what it is that's being done on a national level and from D.C. in regards to understanding all the situation there in Egypt," Palin said.
She went on to add, "And, in these areas that are so volatile right now, because obviously it's not just Egypt but the other countries too where we are seeing uprisings, we know that now more than ever, we need strength and sound mind there in the White House. We need to know what it is that America stands for, so we know who it is that America will stand with. And we do not have all that information yet."
Asked about Palin's critique Monday, Gibbs demurred.
"I've got to tell you, I read that answer several times," Gibbs said. "And I still don't really know what she said."
Mostrando postagens com marcador Estados Unidos. Mostrar todas as postagens
Mostrando postagens com marcador Estados Unidos. Mostrar todas as postagens
terça-feira, 8 de fevereiro de 2011
In Egypt, U.S. Weighs Push for Change With Stability
The New York Times
WASHINGTON — Vice President Omar Suleiman of Egypt says he does not think it is time to lift the 30-year-old emergency law that has been used to suppress and imprison opposition leaders. He does not think President Hosni Mubarak needs to resign before his term ends in September. And he does not think his country is yet ready for democracy.
But, considering it lacks better options, the United States has strongly backed him to play the pivotal role in a still uncertain transition process in Egypt. In doing so, it is relying on the existing government to make changes that it has steadfastly resisted for years, and even now does not seem impatient to carry out.
After two weeks of recalibrated messages and efforts to keep up with a rapidly evolving situation, the Obama administration is still trying to balance support for some of the basic aspirations for change in Egypt with its concern that the pro-democracy movement could be “hijacked,” as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton put it, if change were to come too quickly.
The result has been to feed a perception, on the streets of Cairo and elsewhere, that the United States, for now at least, is putting stability ahead of democratic ideals, and leaving hopes of nurturing peaceful, gradual change in large part in the hands of Egyptian officials — starting with Mr. Suleiman — who have every reason to slow the process.
Faced with questions about Mr. Suleiman’s views, expressed in a series of interviews in recent days, the White House on Monday called them unacceptable.
“The notion that Egypt isn’t ready for democracy I think runs quite counter to what we see happening in Tahrir Square and on the streets in cities throughout the country,” Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said.
“It’s clear that statements like that are not going to be met with any agreement by the people of Egypt because they don’t address the very legitimate grievances that we’ve seen expressed as a result of these protests,” Mr. Gibbs said.
But it remains unclear how much leverage President Obama has to keep Mr. Suleiman, a Mubarak loyalist, moving toward fundamental change, especially as the authorities begin to reassert control in Egypt.
The United States has certainly had long ties with Mr. Suleiman, 74, who headed Egyptian intelligence from 1993 until he was named vice president last month. For years he has been an important contact for the Central Intelligence Agency and a regular briefer for visiting American officials, who appear to have valued his analysis of Egypt’s relations with neighbors and domestic challenges, as diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks make clear.
The cables describe Mr. Suleiman as Mr. Mubarak’s “consigliere” and having “an extremely sharp analytical mind” and serving as “the de facto national security adviser with direct responsibility for the Israeli-Palestinian account.” One 2009 cable mentions him as a possible successor to Mr. Mubarak, to whom he has long been extremely close.
Mr. Suleiman also frequently assured American officials that the Mubarak government was working to keep terrorism at bay. “Egypt is circled by radicalism,” he told Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a 2009 visit to Cairo.
In 2006, he told the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, that inside Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood posed a serious threat, saying “the principal danger” was “the group’s exploitation of religion to influence and mobilize the public.”
Administration officials say that in recent days, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. — who has a long relationship with Mr. Suleiman from his days on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — has been pressing Mr. Suleiman for a clear road map of democratic reforms, linked to a timetable.
But among the protesters and opposition groups in Egypt, there is deep skepticism that Washington is demanding enough of Mr. Suleiman.
The administration sought amendments to the Egyptian Constitution to legalize political parties, termination of one-party rule, and the end of extralegal efforts to lock up government opponents and regulate the media. But much of the opposition considers the Constitution fatally flawed, and is calling for an entirely new document on which to base a more democratic Egypt.
Similarly, a meeting with opposition groups on Sunday led by Mr. Suleiman was seen by many Egyptian activists as nothing more than political theater that yielded no concrete steps toward reform. In a statement afterward — characterized by opposition figures as propaganda — Mr. Suleiman offered some of what the administration sought, but left himself a lot of wiggle room.
In the statement, he said a committee “will be formed from members of the judicial authority and a number of political figures to study and recommend constitutional amendments” and related laws. The work is supposed to be completed by the first week of March.
But the recommendations do not appear to be binding on the government; in the end, they would have to be approved by a Parliament that took office after an election last year that American officials say was clearly fixed to benefit Mr. Mubarak’s party.
The document promised that “the state of emergency will be lifted based on the security situation and an end to the threats to the security of society.” This is similar to what Mr. Mubarak has said for decades. The state of emergency has never been lifted.
The statement also says that “media and communications will be liberalized and no extralegal constraints will be imposed on them.” But “liberalized” is never defined, nor is it clear that Egypt is willing to allow the free flow of information over the Internet.
The White House took no issue with Mr. Suleiman’s statement; administration officials said it looked like the setting of some clear goals. On Monday, Mr. Obama said Mr. Suleiman’s talks with opposition leaders the day before were making progress.
Andrew McGregor, author of a 2006 military history of Egypt, said mixed messages coming from the Obama administration are not a surprise. “It was predictable that the U.S. response would be confusing at first,” said Mr. McGregor, of the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington research center. “The Obama administration obviously wants to support democracy. But the U.S. has been backing the military regime in Egypt for 30 years.”
Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the National Security Council, said that the administration was responding to a rapidly changing situation in Egypt.
“The facts on the ground are changing every day,” Mr. Vietor said. “When you have a situation like this, all you can do is articulate your core principles, like universal rights for all people, and free and fair elections.”
WASHINGTON — Vice President Omar Suleiman of Egypt says he does not think it is time to lift the 30-year-old emergency law that has been used to suppress and imprison opposition leaders. He does not think President Hosni Mubarak needs to resign before his term ends in September. And he does not think his country is yet ready for democracy.
But, considering it lacks better options, the United States has strongly backed him to play the pivotal role in a still uncertain transition process in Egypt. In doing so, it is relying on the existing government to make changes that it has steadfastly resisted for years, and even now does not seem impatient to carry out.
After two weeks of recalibrated messages and efforts to keep up with a rapidly evolving situation, the Obama administration is still trying to balance support for some of the basic aspirations for change in Egypt with its concern that the pro-democracy movement could be “hijacked,” as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton put it, if change were to come too quickly.
The result has been to feed a perception, on the streets of Cairo and elsewhere, that the United States, for now at least, is putting stability ahead of democratic ideals, and leaving hopes of nurturing peaceful, gradual change in large part in the hands of Egyptian officials — starting with Mr. Suleiman — who have every reason to slow the process.
Faced with questions about Mr. Suleiman’s views, expressed in a series of interviews in recent days, the White House on Monday called them unacceptable.
“The notion that Egypt isn’t ready for democracy I think runs quite counter to what we see happening in Tahrir Square and on the streets in cities throughout the country,” Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said.
“It’s clear that statements like that are not going to be met with any agreement by the people of Egypt because they don’t address the very legitimate grievances that we’ve seen expressed as a result of these protests,” Mr. Gibbs said.
But it remains unclear how much leverage President Obama has to keep Mr. Suleiman, a Mubarak loyalist, moving toward fundamental change, especially as the authorities begin to reassert control in Egypt.
The United States has certainly had long ties with Mr. Suleiman, 74, who headed Egyptian intelligence from 1993 until he was named vice president last month. For years he has been an important contact for the Central Intelligence Agency and a regular briefer for visiting American officials, who appear to have valued his analysis of Egypt’s relations with neighbors and domestic challenges, as diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks make clear.
The cables describe Mr. Suleiman as Mr. Mubarak’s “consigliere” and having “an extremely sharp analytical mind” and serving as “the de facto national security adviser with direct responsibility for the Israeli-Palestinian account.” One 2009 cable mentions him as a possible successor to Mr. Mubarak, to whom he has long been extremely close.
Mr. Suleiman also frequently assured American officials that the Mubarak government was working to keep terrorism at bay. “Egypt is circled by radicalism,” he told Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a 2009 visit to Cairo.
In 2006, he told the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, that inside Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood posed a serious threat, saying “the principal danger” was “the group’s exploitation of religion to influence and mobilize the public.”
Administration officials say that in recent days, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. — who has a long relationship with Mr. Suleiman from his days on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — has been pressing Mr. Suleiman for a clear road map of democratic reforms, linked to a timetable.
But among the protesters and opposition groups in Egypt, there is deep skepticism that Washington is demanding enough of Mr. Suleiman.
The administration sought amendments to the Egyptian Constitution to legalize political parties, termination of one-party rule, and the end of extralegal efforts to lock up government opponents and regulate the media. But much of the opposition considers the Constitution fatally flawed, and is calling for an entirely new document on which to base a more democratic Egypt.
Similarly, a meeting with opposition groups on Sunday led by Mr. Suleiman was seen by many Egyptian activists as nothing more than political theater that yielded no concrete steps toward reform. In a statement afterward — characterized by opposition figures as propaganda — Mr. Suleiman offered some of what the administration sought, but left himself a lot of wiggle room.
In the statement, he said a committee “will be formed from members of the judicial authority and a number of political figures to study and recommend constitutional amendments” and related laws. The work is supposed to be completed by the first week of March.
But the recommendations do not appear to be binding on the government; in the end, they would have to be approved by a Parliament that took office after an election last year that American officials say was clearly fixed to benefit Mr. Mubarak’s party.
The document promised that “the state of emergency will be lifted based on the security situation and an end to the threats to the security of society.” This is similar to what Mr. Mubarak has said for decades. The state of emergency has never been lifted.
The statement also says that “media and communications will be liberalized and no extralegal constraints will be imposed on them.” But “liberalized” is never defined, nor is it clear that Egypt is willing to allow the free flow of information over the Internet.
The White House took no issue with Mr. Suleiman’s statement; administration officials said it looked like the setting of some clear goals. On Monday, Mr. Obama said Mr. Suleiman’s talks with opposition leaders the day before were making progress.
Andrew McGregor, author of a 2006 military history of Egypt, said mixed messages coming from the Obama administration are not a surprise. “It was predictable that the U.S. response would be confusing at first,” said Mr. McGregor, of the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington research center. “The Obama administration obviously wants to support democracy. But the U.S. has been backing the military regime in Egypt for 30 years.”
Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the National Security Council, said that the administration was responding to a rapidly changing situation in Egypt.
“The facts on the ground are changing every day,” Mr. Vietor said. “When you have a situation like this, all you can do is articulate your core principles, like universal rights for all people, and free and fair elections.”
terça-feira, 11 de janeiro de 2011
China confirms stealth fighter jet tests
The Guardian
Hu Jintao confirmed today that China had carried out its first test flight of a stealth fighter jet, the US defence secretary said.
Robert Gates, who is in Beijing for talks to improve military ties, said the Chinese president had told him the jet's trial was not arranged to coincide with his visit.
"I asked President Hu about it directly, and he said that the test had absolutely nothing to do with my visit and had been a pre-planned test," Gates told reporters.
Asked whether he believed that, Gates said: "I take President Hu at his word that the test had nothing to do with my visit."
A Pentagon official told Reuters that Hu and other civilian leaders at the meeting with Gates did not appear to be aware the J-20 flight had happened before the US pressed them about it.
"When Secretary Gates raised the question of the J-20 test in the meeting with President Hu, it was clear that none of the civilians in the room had been informed," the official said.
Hu's confirmation came after accounts and pictures of the J-20 prototype's short flight appeared on Chinese websites. The fighter is believed to have flown for about 15 minutes over an airfield in the south-western city of Chengdu.
There had previously been photographs said to show the aeroplane going through runway tests. Hu's comments were the first official acknowledgement of the project.
Some interpreted the timing as a sign that Beijing had heeded calls for greater transparency about its military programme, while others thought it more likely to be a show of strength.
Reports suggest that China's progress in developing a rival to the US stealth fighter, the F-22, has been faster than expected – although it is thought it will take years before the plane is in service.
The F-22 is the only operational stealth fighter, although the US is developing the F-35 joint strike fighter, and Russia's Sukhoi T-50 is expected to enter service in about 2015.
The Associated Press reported that people who answered phones at government and Communist party offices in Chengdu and at the J-20's developer, the Chengdu Aircraft Industrial Group, refused to comment.
China's military modernisation programme and heavy investment in new technology – such as the Dongfeng anti-ship missile – is reducing the military gap with the US and tilting the power balance in the region.
Gates acknowledged on Sunday that China's development of military equipment had outpaced US intelligence estimates and said it "clearly [has] potential to put some of our capabilities at risk".
He is meeting civilian leaders, having agreed minor improvements in military-to-military links during meetings yesterday with the Chinese defence minister, General Liang Guanglie.
Both sides said stronger ties were needed, and Liang made a point of warning the US against selling further arms to Taiwan. Beijing suspended military exchanges last year in protest at such a deal.
The Chinese military's budget has soared to 532bn yuan (£52bn) – although last year's increase of 7.5% was the smallest for more than two decades. Outside experts believe the real level of funding is far higher, although it is still thought to lag well behind that of the US.
"Some countries which have a far better international security situation than China have world-leading levels of military research," the army's official newspaper, the Liberation Army Daily, wrote in an article on Gates's visit today. "In such circumstances, China should not be unjustly excoriated for developing a few modern weapons."
An aircraft that is reported to be the Chinese stealth fighter, in Chengdu, Sichuan province. Photograph: Kyodo/Reuters
Hu Jintao confirmed today that China had carried out its first test flight of a stealth fighter jet, the US defence secretary said.
Robert Gates, who is in Beijing for talks to improve military ties, said the Chinese president had told him the jet's trial was not arranged to coincide with his visit.
"I asked President Hu about it directly, and he said that the test had absolutely nothing to do with my visit and had been a pre-planned test," Gates told reporters.
Asked whether he believed that, Gates said: "I take President Hu at his word that the test had nothing to do with my visit."
A Pentagon official told Reuters that Hu and other civilian leaders at the meeting with Gates did not appear to be aware the J-20 flight had happened before the US pressed them about it.
"When Secretary Gates raised the question of the J-20 test in the meeting with President Hu, it was clear that none of the civilians in the room had been informed," the official said.
Hu's confirmation came after accounts and pictures of the J-20 prototype's short flight appeared on Chinese websites. The fighter is believed to have flown for about 15 minutes over an airfield in the south-western city of Chengdu.
There had previously been photographs said to show the aeroplane going through runway tests. Hu's comments were the first official acknowledgement of the project.
Some interpreted the timing as a sign that Beijing had heeded calls for greater transparency about its military programme, while others thought it more likely to be a show of strength.
Reports suggest that China's progress in developing a rival to the US stealth fighter, the F-22, has been faster than expected – although it is thought it will take years before the plane is in service.
The F-22 is the only operational stealth fighter, although the US is developing the F-35 joint strike fighter, and Russia's Sukhoi T-50 is expected to enter service in about 2015.
The Associated Press reported that people who answered phones at government and Communist party offices in Chengdu and at the J-20's developer, the Chengdu Aircraft Industrial Group, refused to comment.
China's military modernisation programme and heavy investment in new technology – such as the Dongfeng anti-ship missile – is reducing the military gap with the US and tilting the power balance in the region.
Gates acknowledged on Sunday that China's development of military equipment had outpaced US intelligence estimates and said it "clearly [has] potential to put some of our capabilities at risk".
He is meeting civilian leaders, having agreed minor improvements in military-to-military links during meetings yesterday with the Chinese defence minister, General Liang Guanglie.
Both sides said stronger ties were needed, and Liang made a point of warning the US against selling further arms to Taiwan. Beijing suspended military exchanges last year in protest at such a deal.
The Chinese military's budget has soared to 532bn yuan (£52bn) – although last year's increase of 7.5% was the smallest for more than two decades. Outside experts believe the real level of funding is far higher, although it is still thought to lag well behind that of the US.
"Some countries which have a far better international security situation than China have world-leading levels of military research," the army's official newspaper, the Liberation Army Daily, wrote in an article on Gates's visit today. "In such circumstances, China should not be unjustly excoriated for developing a few modern weapons."
sexta-feira, 7 de janeiro de 2011
Obama assina lei que dificulta fechamento de Guantánamo e julgamento de seus presos
Folha de São Paulo
O presidente dos EUA, Barack Obama, assinou nesta sexta-feira um projeto de lei que inclui uma medida proibindo que suspeitos presos em Guantánamo sejam transferidos aos EUA para julgamento. A medida é um golpe nas promessas de campanha de Obama de fechar o complexo prisional e julgar os detidos em tribunais federais.
"Apesar de minha forte objeção a essas determinações, às quais meu governo tem se oposto de forma consistente, assinei essa medida por causa da importância de autorizar recursos para, entre outras coisas, nossas atividades militares em 2011", disse Obama em comunicado.
Segundo ele, a medida é um desafio "perigoso e sem precedentes" para o Executivo.
Os fundos para Guantánamo fora incluídos em um importante projeto de defesa que o Congresso americano aprovou nos últimos momentos de trabalho do ano passado. Obama evitou vetar o projeto, já que ele também autoriza bilhões de dólares em gastos para as guerras em curso no Afeganistão e no Iraque.
A lei inclui medidas que impedem que recursos sejam usados para transferir suspeitos da prisão de Guantánamo, em Cuba, para os EUA. Também restringe o uso de certos recursos para enviá-los a outros países, a menos que condições específicas sejam atendidas.
Isso deve tornar muito difícil para o governo Obama buscar julgamentos criminais para os suspeitos de terrorismo, incluindo o mentor dos ataques de 11 de Setembro, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, que deveria enfrentar julgamento em Nova York.
"Meu governo vai trabalhar com o Congresso para tentar derrubar essas restrições, vai tentar mitigar seus efeitos, e vai se opor a qualquer tentativa de estendê-las ou expandi-las no futuro", disse Obama.
Obama prometeu fechar Guantánamo em sua campanha eleitoral em 2008.
HISTÓRICO
A prisão de Guantánamo foi aberta em 11 de janeiro de 2002 pelo então presidente George W. Bush para os prisioneiros de sua 'guerra contra o terrorismo'.
Desde então, os Estados Unidos mantém centenas de pessoas presas sem julgamento, acusação ou acesso a advogados, em condições muitas vezes denunciadas por organizações de direitos humanos.
Atualmente Guantánamo tem 174 detidos, dos quais apenas três foram julgados.
Obama assinou um decreto em 22 de janeiro de 2009 para fechar a prisão em um ano, mas o Congresso o impediu de fazê-lo, permitindo apenas que os prisioneiros entrassem nos Estados Unidos para serem processados.
O presidente dos EUA, Barack Obama, assinou nesta sexta-feira um projeto de lei que inclui uma medida proibindo que suspeitos presos em Guantánamo sejam transferidos aos EUA para julgamento. A medida é um golpe nas promessas de campanha de Obama de fechar o complexo prisional e julgar os detidos em tribunais federais.
"Apesar de minha forte objeção a essas determinações, às quais meu governo tem se oposto de forma consistente, assinei essa medida por causa da importância de autorizar recursos para, entre outras coisas, nossas atividades militares em 2011", disse Obama em comunicado.
Segundo ele, a medida é um desafio "perigoso e sem precedentes" para o Executivo.
Os fundos para Guantánamo fora incluídos em um importante projeto de defesa que o Congresso americano aprovou nos últimos momentos de trabalho do ano passado. Obama evitou vetar o projeto, já que ele também autoriza bilhões de dólares em gastos para as guerras em curso no Afeganistão e no Iraque.
A lei inclui medidas que impedem que recursos sejam usados para transferir suspeitos da prisão de Guantánamo, em Cuba, para os EUA. Também restringe o uso de certos recursos para enviá-los a outros países, a menos que condições específicas sejam atendidas.
Isso deve tornar muito difícil para o governo Obama buscar julgamentos criminais para os suspeitos de terrorismo, incluindo o mentor dos ataques de 11 de Setembro, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, que deveria enfrentar julgamento em Nova York.
"Meu governo vai trabalhar com o Congresso para tentar derrubar essas restrições, vai tentar mitigar seus efeitos, e vai se opor a qualquer tentativa de estendê-las ou expandi-las no futuro", disse Obama.
Obama prometeu fechar Guantánamo em sua campanha eleitoral em 2008.
HISTÓRICO
A prisão de Guantánamo foi aberta em 11 de janeiro de 2002 pelo então presidente George W. Bush para os prisioneiros de sua 'guerra contra o terrorismo'.
Desde então, os Estados Unidos mantém centenas de pessoas presas sem julgamento, acusação ou acesso a advogados, em condições muitas vezes denunciadas por organizações de direitos humanos.
Atualmente Guantánamo tem 174 detidos, dos quais apenas três foram julgados.
Obama assinou um decreto em 22 de janeiro de 2009 para fechar a prisão em um ano, mas o Congresso o impediu de fazê-lo, permitindo apenas que os prisioneiros entrassem nos Estados Unidos para serem processados.
Unemployment in America: Still a U, not a V
The Economist
RETAIL sales, manufacturing activity and stock prices all show the American economy shook off its mid-2010 lethargy and picked up a head of steam as the year closed. But to anyone who thought a V-shaped recovery was taking hold, the December employment report is a sobering reality check. Non-farm payrolls rose by 103,000, or 0.1%. Private payrolls, a better gauge of the economy’s underlying momentum, rose 113,000; declining state and local government employment held back the total. That was rather deflating after a private tally on Wednesday predicted a gain of as much as 300,000.
The Labor Department revised up the totals for October and November by a combined 70,000, so the total report is mildly encouraging. Private employment has grown an average of 126,000 per month since July, comfortably above the roughly 75,000 to 100,000 needed to keep up with growth in the working-age population. (The government numbers have been heavily distorted by hiring and firing for the federal census.) But growth of more than twice that pace is typical of recoveries. This morning, Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, told Congress it could take four or five years "for the job market to normalize fully."
There was a bolt of unexpected good news in the unemployment rate, which plunged to 9.4% from 9.8%. It’s common for payrolls and the unemployment rate to behave differently because they’re drawn from different surveys (the first from a large sample of employers, the second from a much smaller sample of households). The unemployment rate dropped because household employment rose 297,000 while the number of unemployed dropped 556,000, meaning the overall labour force shrank. Such big changes to household employment and unemployment are routine and should be discounted. The unemployment rate, though, is quite stable, and a 0.4% drop is unusual, the sharpest since April, 1998.
It does not suggest the underlying economy has suddenly picked up momentum. If anything, other indicators from the household survey are frustratingly weak. An improving job market usually draws a flood of job hunters into the labour force, raising the participation rate—the share of the working-age population either working or looking for work. Instead, the participation rate fell to 64.3% in December, the lowest since 1984. True, the average work week ticked up to 33.6 hours, but evidence of latent demand for labour remains scant.
So why did the unemployment rate drop so much? Probably because it was inexplicably high to start with. A traditional macroeconomic rule of thumb known as Okun’s Law predicts that, given the performance of gross domestic product in the last few years, the unemployment rate should only be around 8.5%, reckons Alan Krueger of Princeton University. Why it reached 10% remains a mystery. In any case, December’s drop may be part of a long overdue return to a more normal level. Sometimes, the most powerful explanation for economic behaviour is reversion to the mean.
RETAIL sales, manufacturing activity and stock prices all show the American economy shook off its mid-2010 lethargy and picked up a head of steam as the year closed. But to anyone who thought a V-shaped recovery was taking hold, the December employment report is a sobering reality check. Non-farm payrolls rose by 103,000, or 0.1%. Private payrolls, a better gauge of the economy’s underlying momentum, rose 113,000; declining state and local government employment held back the total. That was rather deflating after a private tally on Wednesday predicted a gain of as much as 300,000.
The Labor Department revised up the totals for October and November by a combined 70,000, so the total report is mildly encouraging. Private employment has grown an average of 126,000 per month since July, comfortably above the roughly 75,000 to 100,000 needed to keep up with growth in the working-age population. (The government numbers have been heavily distorted by hiring and firing for the federal census.) But growth of more than twice that pace is typical of recoveries. This morning, Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, told Congress it could take four or five years "for the job market to normalize fully."
There was a bolt of unexpected good news in the unemployment rate, which plunged to 9.4% from 9.8%. It’s common for payrolls and the unemployment rate to behave differently because they’re drawn from different surveys (the first from a large sample of employers, the second from a much smaller sample of households). The unemployment rate dropped because household employment rose 297,000 while the number of unemployed dropped 556,000, meaning the overall labour force shrank. Such big changes to household employment and unemployment are routine and should be discounted. The unemployment rate, though, is quite stable, and a 0.4% drop is unusual, the sharpest since April, 1998.
It does not suggest the underlying economy has suddenly picked up momentum. If anything, other indicators from the household survey are frustratingly weak. An improving job market usually draws a flood of job hunters into the labour force, raising the participation rate—the share of the working-age population either working or looking for work. Instead, the participation rate fell to 64.3% in December, the lowest since 1984. True, the average work week ticked up to 33.6 hours, but evidence of latent demand for labour remains scant.
So why did the unemployment rate drop so much? Probably because it was inexplicably high to start with. A traditional macroeconomic rule of thumb known as Okun’s Law predicts that, given the performance of gross domestic product in the last few years, the unemployment rate should only be around 8.5%, reckons Alan Krueger of Princeton University. Why it reached 10% remains a mystery. In any case, December’s drop may be part of a long overdue return to a more normal level. Sometimes, the most powerful explanation for economic behaviour is reversion to the mean.
WikiLeaks cables prompt US to move diplomatic sources
The Guardian
The US state department has relocated a handful of foreign diplomatic sources identified in secret embassy cables released via WikiLeaks, and warned hundreds of others about their safety, American officials say.
It is not aware of anyone who has been detained or assaulted as a result of the 2,700 cables released so far through several newspapers, including the Guardian. But the state department has set up a 30-strong team to warn foreign officials, businesspeople and human right activists identified in the main cache of more than 250,000 cables.
According to the New York Times – also involved in the publication of cables along with Le Monde, El País and Der Spiegel – a few sources have been moved within their own country, and several others moved overseas. US officials declined to go into detail, the paper said.
Newspapers have been at pains to remove sections of the cables that could compromise or identify sources, but the state department was concerned about what might happen with the remaining bulk of the cables yet to be published, the Times said. US officials had been through most of these and sent many to relevant embassies for diplomats to check, it added.
Michael Posner, the assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labour, who is in charge of the process, told the paper: "We feel responsible for doing everything possible to protect these people. We're taking it extremely seriously."
The repercussions for US diplomats, some of whom have written colourful descriptions of their host countries and leaders, have so far been relatively minor.
The US ambassador to Libya, Gene Cretz, was recalled to Washington last month after the publication of cables in which he described the domestic life of the country's leader, Muammar Gaddafi. His future has yet to be decided but Cretz is unlikely to return to Libya, the Times said.
The ambassador to Russia, John Beyrle, who was heavily critical of the country's president turned prime minister, Vladimir Putin, looked likely to remain in place, the paper reported.
It said officials believed the disclosure of the cables had affected contacts in some countries between US diplomats and human rights activists, who were now wary lest their names and views emerge in the future.
The US state department has relocated a handful of foreign diplomatic sources identified in secret embassy cables released via WikiLeaks, and warned hundreds of others about their safety, American officials say.
It is not aware of anyone who has been detained or assaulted as a result of the 2,700 cables released so far through several newspapers, including the Guardian. But the state department has set up a 30-strong team to warn foreign officials, businesspeople and human right activists identified in the main cache of more than 250,000 cables.
According to the New York Times – also involved in the publication of cables along with Le Monde, El País and Der Spiegel – a few sources have been moved within their own country, and several others moved overseas. US officials declined to go into detail, the paper said.
Newspapers have been at pains to remove sections of the cables that could compromise or identify sources, but the state department was concerned about what might happen with the remaining bulk of the cables yet to be published, the Times said. US officials had been through most of these and sent many to relevant embassies for diplomats to check, it added.
Michael Posner, the assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labour, who is in charge of the process, told the paper: "We feel responsible for doing everything possible to protect these people. We're taking it extremely seriously."
The repercussions for US diplomats, some of whom have written colourful descriptions of their host countries and leaders, have so far been relatively minor.
The US ambassador to Libya, Gene Cretz, was recalled to Washington last month after the publication of cables in which he described the domestic life of the country's leader, Muammar Gaddafi. His future has yet to be decided but Cretz is unlikely to return to Libya, the Times said.
The ambassador to Russia, John Beyrle, who was heavily critical of the country's president turned prime minister, Vladimir Putin, looked likely to remain in place, the paper reported.
It said officials believed the disclosure of the cables had affected contacts in some countries between US diplomats and human rights activists, who were now wary lest their names and views emerge in the future.
segunda-feira, 3 de janeiro de 2011
Acercamiento de Dilma a los EE.UU.
La Nación
BRASILIA.- En su primer día como presidenta de Brasil, Dilma Rousseff hizo honor ayer a su fama de laboriosa y desplegó una intensa agenda de reuniones bilaterales con autoridades extranjeras que dejó entrever cuáles serán las líneas de su política exterior, con la prioridad puesta en fortalecer los vínculos con América latina y Estados Unidos.
Envuelta en una fina garúa, la flamante mandataria, que ya había advertido que le gusta trabajar los domingos, llegó al Palacio del Planalto poco después de las 9 de la mañana y comenzó la maratón de encuentros con jefes de Estado y de gobierno que habían asistido a su asunción.
De las entrevistas participaron también el nuevo canciller, Antonio Patriota, y el jefe de asesores internacionales de la presidenta, Marco Aurélio Garcia, quien ocupaba el mismo cargo durante la administración de Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, lo que es considerado cierta garantía de continuidad en la política exterior.
Y justamente uno de los pilares que se mantendrán será el esfuerzo por una mayor integración con los países de América del Sur. Patriota anunció ayer que la primera gira al exterior de Dilma, a fines de enero, será a la Argentina y Uruguay (ver aparte); luego tiene también pensado visitar Estados Unidos y China, probablemente en febrero.
La inclusión de Estados Unidos dentro de los primeros viajes de Dilma fue vista como un importante gesto de acercamiento al gobierno de Barack Obama, luego de las tensiones del año pasado a raíz del acercamiento de Lula al presidente de Irán, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. En medio del conflicto por el polémico plan nuclear iraní, Lula defendió el derecho de Teherán a desarrollar energía nuclear con fines pacíficos y viajó a Teherán, donde selló un acuerdo de garantías con Ahmadinejad, que luego fue rechazado por completo por Estados Unidos.
Aunque la relación se enfrió, Obama envió a la asunción de Dilma a la secretaria de Estado, Hillary Clinton, quien después de la ceremonia saludó muy calurosamente a la nueva presidenta. Clinton incluso cambió sus planes originales y se quedó un par de horas más en Brasilia para el cóctel que ofreció la cancillería brasileña en el Palacio de Itamaraty, con la esperanza de lograr un encuentro a solas. Por cuestiones de agenda, la reunión al final no ocurrió, pero de cualquier forma la visita fue tomada como una señal muy positiva para dar vuelta la hoja. "Fue una de las pocas veces que Estados Unidos envió a un secretario de Estado a la posesión; por lo general, enviaba apenas a un viceministro", resaltó ayer el ex canciller de Lula, Celso Amorim.
Por su parte, el embajador norteamericano en Brasil, Thomas Shannon, ratificó la voluntad de relanzar los vínculos, y dijo que las relaciones entre Estados Unidos y Brasil pueden mejorar durante el gobierno de Dilma.
"Los dos países necesitan fortalecer sus valores e intereses comunes, y trabajar para administrar sus divergencias, de forma tal que éstas no afecten los puntos de convergencia", dijo el diplomático al diario O Estado de S. Paulo .
Reunión suspendida
Mientras, por un lado, se respiraban nuevos aires en la relación con Estados Unidos, produjo mucha extrañeza en Itamaraty la cancelación, a última hora de anteanoche, de la reunión que tenía agendada Dilma con su par de Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, que debía ser la primera de la mañana. Sin dar explicaciones públicas, Chávez se marchó de Brasil incluso antes del cóctel para los dignatarios extranjeros.
Diplomáticos brasileños consultados por La Nacion afirmaron que el mandatario venezolano estaba preocupado por las fuertes inundaciones en su país y que, de todos modos, Chávez y Dilma ya se habían saludado después de que ella juró como presidenta en el Congreso.
Sin embargo, otros funcionarios dejaron entrever que al líder bolivariano no le había caído muy bien el discurso de Dilma, en el cual hizo una contundente defensa de la libertad de prensa, exhortó a la oposición a trabajar juntos y resaltó que, pese a su pasado guerrillero, no guarda rencores ni resentimientos. Para la concepción de Chávez, esas frases no habrían sonado muy "socialistas".
Con Chávez fuera de la lista, el primero en ser recibido por Dilma fue el príncipe Felipe de Borbón, en representación de España, al que la mandataria le prometió impulsar la enseñanza del español en las escuelas brasileñas. Luego, la flamante mandataria se reunió con el presidente de Uruguay, José Mujica; con el primer ministro de Corea del Sur, Hwang-Sik; con el vicepresidente de Cuba, José Ramón Machado; con el primer ministro de Portugal, José Sócrates; con el presidente de la Autoridad Nacional Palestina, Mahmoud Abbas, y con el ex premier de Japón Taro Aso.
Ataque hacker a la web del Planalto
BRASILIA (DPA).- El acceso a la página web de la presidencia de Brasil ( www.presidencia.gov.br ) estuvo bloqueado ayer durante por lo menos cinco horas, luego de ser blanco de un grupo pirata informático. El ataque fue asumido en la red Twitter por el grupo Fatal Error Crew. Fuentes oficiales informaron que el Servicio Federal de Procesamiento de Datos detectó el problema, pero que lo consideró un error técnico y no un ataque de hackers. Posteriormente, los hackers también anunciaron por Twitter haber hecho imposible el acceso a la principal página del gobierno brasileño, www.brasil.gov.br .
BRASILIA.- En su primer día como presidenta de Brasil, Dilma Rousseff hizo honor ayer a su fama de laboriosa y desplegó una intensa agenda de reuniones bilaterales con autoridades extranjeras que dejó entrever cuáles serán las líneas de su política exterior, con la prioridad puesta en fortalecer los vínculos con América latina y Estados Unidos.
Envuelta en una fina garúa, la flamante mandataria, que ya había advertido que le gusta trabajar los domingos, llegó al Palacio del Planalto poco después de las 9 de la mañana y comenzó la maratón de encuentros con jefes de Estado y de gobierno que habían asistido a su asunción.
De las entrevistas participaron también el nuevo canciller, Antonio Patriota, y el jefe de asesores internacionales de la presidenta, Marco Aurélio Garcia, quien ocupaba el mismo cargo durante la administración de Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, lo que es considerado cierta garantía de continuidad en la política exterior.
Y justamente uno de los pilares que se mantendrán será el esfuerzo por una mayor integración con los países de América del Sur. Patriota anunció ayer que la primera gira al exterior de Dilma, a fines de enero, será a la Argentina y Uruguay (ver aparte); luego tiene también pensado visitar Estados Unidos y China, probablemente en febrero.
La inclusión de Estados Unidos dentro de los primeros viajes de Dilma fue vista como un importante gesto de acercamiento al gobierno de Barack Obama, luego de las tensiones del año pasado a raíz del acercamiento de Lula al presidente de Irán, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. En medio del conflicto por el polémico plan nuclear iraní, Lula defendió el derecho de Teherán a desarrollar energía nuclear con fines pacíficos y viajó a Teherán, donde selló un acuerdo de garantías con Ahmadinejad, que luego fue rechazado por completo por Estados Unidos.
Aunque la relación se enfrió, Obama envió a la asunción de Dilma a la secretaria de Estado, Hillary Clinton, quien después de la ceremonia saludó muy calurosamente a la nueva presidenta. Clinton incluso cambió sus planes originales y se quedó un par de horas más en Brasilia para el cóctel que ofreció la cancillería brasileña en el Palacio de Itamaraty, con la esperanza de lograr un encuentro a solas. Por cuestiones de agenda, la reunión al final no ocurrió, pero de cualquier forma la visita fue tomada como una señal muy positiva para dar vuelta la hoja. "Fue una de las pocas veces que Estados Unidos envió a un secretario de Estado a la posesión; por lo general, enviaba apenas a un viceministro", resaltó ayer el ex canciller de Lula, Celso Amorim.
Por su parte, el embajador norteamericano en Brasil, Thomas Shannon, ratificó la voluntad de relanzar los vínculos, y dijo que las relaciones entre Estados Unidos y Brasil pueden mejorar durante el gobierno de Dilma.
"Los dos países necesitan fortalecer sus valores e intereses comunes, y trabajar para administrar sus divergencias, de forma tal que éstas no afecten los puntos de convergencia", dijo el diplomático al diario O Estado de S. Paulo .
Reunión suspendida
Mientras, por un lado, se respiraban nuevos aires en la relación con Estados Unidos, produjo mucha extrañeza en Itamaraty la cancelación, a última hora de anteanoche, de la reunión que tenía agendada Dilma con su par de Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, que debía ser la primera de la mañana. Sin dar explicaciones públicas, Chávez se marchó de Brasil incluso antes del cóctel para los dignatarios extranjeros.
Diplomáticos brasileños consultados por La Nacion afirmaron que el mandatario venezolano estaba preocupado por las fuertes inundaciones en su país y que, de todos modos, Chávez y Dilma ya se habían saludado después de que ella juró como presidenta en el Congreso.
Sin embargo, otros funcionarios dejaron entrever que al líder bolivariano no le había caído muy bien el discurso de Dilma, en el cual hizo una contundente defensa de la libertad de prensa, exhortó a la oposición a trabajar juntos y resaltó que, pese a su pasado guerrillero, no guarda rencores ni resentimientos. Para la concepción de Chávez, esas frases no habrían sonado muy "socialistas".
Con Chávez fuera de la lista, el primero en ser recibido por Dilma fue el príncipe Felipe de Borbón, en representación de España, al que la mandataria le prometió impulsar la enseñanza del español en las escuelas brasileñas. Luego, la flamante mandataria se reunió con el presidente de Uruguay, José Mujica; con el primer ministro de Corea del Sur, Hwang-Sik; con el vicepresidente de Cuba, José Ramón Machado; con el primer ministro de Portugal, José Sócrates; con el presidente de la Autoridad Nacional Palestina, Mahmoud Abbas, y con el ex premier de Japón Taro Aso.
Ataque hacker a la web del Planalto
BRASILIA (DPA).- El acceso a la página web de la presidencia de Brasil ( www.presidencia.gov.br ) estuvo bloqueado ayer durante por lo menos cinco horas, luego de ser blanco de un grupo pirata informático. El ataque fue asumido en la red Twitter por el grupo Fatal Error Crew. Fuentes oficiales informaron que el Servicio Federal de Procesamiento de Datos detectó el problema, pero que lo consideró un error técnico y no un ataque de hackers. Posteriormente, los hackers también anunciaron por Twitter haber hecho imposible el acceso a la principal página del gobierno brasileño, www.brasil.gov.br .
WikiLeaks: US targets EU over GM crops
The Guardian
The US embassy in Paris advised Washington to start a military-style trade war against any European Union country which opposed genetically modified (GM) crops, newly released WikiLeaks cables show.
In response to moves by France to ban a Monsanto GM corn variety in late 2007, the ambassador, Craig Stapleton, a friend and business partner of former US president George Bush, asked Washington to penalise the EU and particularly countries which did not support the use of GM crops.
"Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits.
"The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory. Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices," said Stapleton, who with Bush co-owned the St Louis-based Texas Rangers baseball team in the 1990s.
In other newly released cables, US diplomats around the world are found to have pushed GM crops as a strategic government and commercial imperative.
Because many Catholic bishops in developing countries have been vehemently opposed to the controversial crops, the US applied particular pressure to the pope's advisers.
Cables from the US embassy in the Vatican show that the US believes the pope is broadly supportive of the crops after sustained lobbying of senior Holy See advisers, but regrets that he has not yet stated his support. The US state department special adviser on biotechnology as well as government biotech advisers based in Kenya lobbied Vatican insiders to persuade the pope to declare his backing. "… met with [US monsignor] Fr Michael Osborn of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, offering a chance to push the Vatican on biotech issues, and an opportunity for post to analyse the current state of play on biotech in the Vatican generally," says one cable in 2008.
"Opportunities exist to press the issue with the Vatican, and in turn to influence a wide segment of the population in Europe and the developing world," says another.
But in a setback, the US embassy found that its closest ally on GM, Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the powerful Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the man who mostly represents the pope at the United Nations, had withdrawn his support for the US.
"A Martino deputy told us recently that the cardinal had co-operated with embassy Vatican on biotech over the past two years in part to compensate for his vocal disapproval of the Iraq war and its aftermath – to keep relations with the USG [US government] smooth. According to our source, Martino no longer feels the need to take this approach," says the cable.
In addition, the cables show US diplomats working directly for GM companies such as Monsanto. "In response to recent urgent requests by [Spanish rural affairs ministry] state secretary Josep Puxeu and Monsanto, post requests renewed US government support of Spain's science-based agricultural biotechnology position through high-level US government intervention."
It also emerges that Spain and the US have worked closely together to persuade the EU not to strengthen biotechnology laws. In one cable, the embassy in Madrid writes: "If Spain falls, the rest of Europe will follow."
The cables show that not only did the Spanish government ask the US to keep pressure on Brussels but that the US knew in advance how Spain would vote, even before the Spanish biotech commission had reported.
The US embassy in Paris advised Washington to start a military-style trade war against any European Union country which opposed genetically modified (GM) crops, newly released WikiLeaks cables show.
In response to moves by France to ban a Monsanto GM corn variety in late 2007, the ambassador, Craig Stapleton, a friend and business partner of former US president George Bush, asked Washington to penalise the EU and particularly countries which did not support the use of GM crops.
"Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits.
"The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory. Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices," said Stapleton, who with Bush co-owned the St Louis-based Texas Rangers baseball team in the 1990s.
In other newly released cables, US diplomats around the world are found to have pushed GM crops as a strategic government and commercial imperative.
Because many Catholic bishops in developing countries have been vehemently opposed to the controversial crops, the US applied particular pressure to the pope's advisers.
Cables from the US embassy in the Vatican show that the US believes the pope is broadly supportive of the crops after sustained lobbying of senior Holy See advisers, but regrets that he has not yet stated his support. The US state department special adviser on biotechnology as well as government biotech advisers based in Kenya lobbied Vatican insiders to persuade the pope to declare his backing. "… met with [US monsignor] Fr Michael Osborn of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, offering a chance to push the Vatican on biotech issues, and an opportunity for post to analyse the current state of play on biotech in the Vatican generally," says one cable in 2008.
"Opportunities exist to press the issue with the Vatican, and in turn to influence a wide segment of the population in Europe and the developing world," says another.
But in a setback, the US embassy found that its closest ally on GM, Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the powerful Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the man who mostly represents the pope at the United Nations, had withdrawn his support for the US.
"A Martino deputy told us recently that the cardinal had co-operated with embassy Vatican on biotech over the past two years in part to compensate for his vocal disapproval of the Iraq war and its aftermath – to keep relations with the USG [US government] smooth. According to our source, Martino no longer feels the need to take this approach," says the cable.
In addition, the cables show US diplomats working directly for GM companies such as Monsanto. "In response to recent urgent requests by [Spanish rural affairs ministry] state secretary Josep Puxeu and Monsanto, post requests renewed US government support of Spain's science-based agricultural biotechnology position through high-level US government intervention."
It also emerges that Spain and the US have worked closely together to persuade the EU not to strengthen biotechnology laws. In one cable, the embassy in Madrid writes: "If Spain falls, the rest of Europe will follow."
The cables show that not only did the Spanish government ask the US to keep pressure on Brussels but that the US knew in advance how Spain would vote, even before the Spanish biotech commission had reported.
Selon Nétanyahou, Israël était prêt à poursuivre le gel de la colonisation
Le Monde
Le premier ministre israélien, Benyamin Nétanyahou, a affirmé lundi 3 janvier que la renonciation par les Etats-Unis à leur exigence d'un gel de la colonisation des territoires palestiniens résultait de leur propre analyse et non d'un blocage israélien. "La vérité est que nous y étions prêts, mais contrairement à ce qui a été rapporté, Israël n'a pas refusé de prolonger le moratoire, a déclaré M. Nétanyahou, cité par les médias israéliens (voir les articles de Haaretz et Yediot Aharonot), devant une commission parlementaire. En fin de compte, les Etats-Unis ont décidé de ne pas emprunter cette voie, à juste titre à mon avis."
"J'ai dit à Obama que j'étais prêt à présenter cela au gouvernement et à le faire appliquer, mais j'ai reçu un appel téléphonique surprise des Américains me disant qu'ils ne réclamaient plus qu'Israël prolonge le gel", a-t-il assuré.
Les Etats-Unis ont reconnu le 7 décembre l'échec de leurs efforts pour convaincre Israël de décréter un nouveau moratoire sur la colonisation, exigé par les Palestiniens pour reprendre les négociations de paix. Le porte-parole du département d'Etat, Philip Crowley, avait expliqué que Washington était arrivé à la conclusion que le moratoire, demandé par le président Barack Obama jusque dans l'enceinte solennelle des Nations unies en septembre, "ne créait pas une base ferme pour travailler à notre but commun de parvenir à un accord-cadre" de paix israélo-palestinien.
NOUVELLE APPROCHE AMÉRICAINE
M. Nétanyahou avait accepté avec réticence un plan de la secrétaire d'Etat américaine Hillary Clinton prévoyant un moratoire de trois mois sur la colonisation. Mais il exigeait des garanties écrites sur les contreparties offertes par Washington et les deux parties ne sont pas parvenues à s'entendre sur la formulation.
Mme Clinton a ensuite annoncé une nouvelle approche consistant en un retour aux pourparlers indirects sous médiation américaine, sur les questions de fond d'un accord de paix. Mais cette proposition est restée lettre morte. Les Palestiniens, soutenus par la Ligue arabe, ont signifié le 15 décembre aux Etats-Unis qu'une reprise des négociations était exclue sans arrêt de la colonisation, et sommé Washington de présenter une "offre sérieuse".
Le premier ministre israélien, Benyamin Nétanyahou, a affirmé lundi 3 janvier que la renonciation par les Etats-Unis à leur exigence d'un gel de la colonisation des territoires palestiniens résultait de leur propre analyse et non d'un blocage israélien. "La vérité est que nous y étions prêts, mais contrairement à ce qui a été rapporté, Israël n'a pas refusé de prolonger le moratoire, a déclaré M. Nétanyahou, cité par les médias israéliens (voir les articles de Haaretz et Yediot Aharonot), devant une commission parlementaire. En fin de compte, les Etats-Unis ont décidé de ne pas emprunter cette voie, à juste titre à mon avis."
"J'ai dit à Obama que j'étais prêt à présenter cela au gouvernement et à le faire appliquer, mais j'ai reçu un appel téléphonique surprise des Américains me disant qu'ils ne réclamaient plus qu'Israël prolonge le gel", a-t-il assuré.
Les Etats-Unis ont reconnu le 7 décembre l'échec de leurs efforts pour convaincre Israël de décréter un nouveau moratoire sur la colonisation, exigé par les Palestiniens pour reprendre les négociations de paix. Le porte-parole du département d'Etat, Philip Crowley, avait expliqué que Washington était arrivé à la conclusion que le moratoire, demandé par le président Barack Obama jusque dans l'enceinte solennelle des Nations unies en septembre, "ne créait pas une base ferme pour travailler à notre but commun de parvenir à un accord-cadre" de paix israélo-palestinien.
NOUVELLE APPROCHE AMÉRICAINE
M. Nétanyahou avait accepté avec réticence un plan de la secrétaire d'Etat américaine Hillary Clinton prévoyant un moratoire de trois mois sur la colonisation. Mais il exigeait des garanties écrites sur les contreparties offertes par Washington et les deux parties ne sont pas parvenues à s'entendre sur la formulation.
Mme Clinton a ensuite annoncé une nouvelle approche consistant en un retour aux pourparlers indirects sous médiation américaine, sur les questions de fond d'un accord de paix. Mais cette proposition est restée lettre morte. Les Palestiniens, soutenus par la Ligue arabe, ont signifié le 15 décembre aux Etats-Unis qu'une reprise des négociations était exclue sans arrêt de la colonisation, et sommé Washington de présenter une "offre sérieuse".
Obama busca el fin de la guerra de Afganistán
El País
Si todo sale como el presidente Barack Obama pretende, 2011 será el año en que comience a cerrarse el único frente de guerra que Estados Unidos tiene abierto: la guerra de Afganistán, que acaba de cumplir nueve años y que en 2010 ha costado a los norteamericanos 105.000 millones de dólares (casi 80.000 millones euros).
Si todo sale como el presidente Barack Obama pretende, 2011 será el año en que comience a cerrarse el único frente de guerra que Estados Unidos tiene abierto: la guerra de Afganistán, que acaba de cumplir nueve años y que en 2010 ha costado a los norteamericanos 105.000 millones de dólares (casi 80.000 millones euros). En Afganistán hay destacados 97.000 militares estadounidenses, la cifra más elevada de la guerra más larga del Pentágono. Ese conflicto, además, registró en 2010 el mayor número de soldados aliados muertos: 709, de los que 498 fueron norteamericanos. Desde su inicio en diciembre de 2001, la guerra de Afganistán se ha cobrado ya las vidas de 1.445 militares estadounidenses. A pesar del elevado coste para Washington, en dinero y vidas, la compleja estrategia insurgente que siguen los talibanes y Al Qaeda y su fácil refugio en el país vecino de Pakistán convierten la victoria norteamericana en un objetivo cada vez más esquivo.
A mediados de diciembre, antes del receso navideño, Obama se rodeó de la plana mayor de su Gobierno para anunciar los resultados del informe elaborado por su Administración sobre el conflicto. Según el texto, el Ejército de EE UU ha logrado avances considerables, infligiendo grandes daños a los talibanes en sus bastiones de Helmand y Kandahar. A pesar de reconocer cierta fragilidad en la nueva supremacía norteamericana en el país asiático, Obama dijo: "Hemos acometido avances suficientes para lograr nuestros objetivos militares". Ese argumento le permitió reafirmarse en su compromiso electoral de iniciar el repliegue en julio de 2011, algo que desató el malestar entre los militares, incluido el general al mando de las tropas sobre el terreno, David Petraeus.
El principal problema de EE UU es que la guerra de Afganistán se libra, cada vez más, en Pakistán. En el noroeste de ese país se refugian numerosos rebeldes y miembros de Al Qaeda, aprovechando la falta absoluta de control en la frontera entre ambos países. Desde allí organizan los ataques que asolan Afganistán cada año después del invierno. Es una zona que vive tantos atentados como los bastiones de la insurgencia en Afganistán. El 26 de diciembre, por ejemplo, un atentado suicida mató a 46 personas en la localidad paquistaní de Bajaur, a 10 kilómetros de la frontera. La CIA, desde bases secretas, ayuda al Pentágono y somete la zona a numerosos bombardeos con aviones no tripulados, controlados de forma remota, una práctica autorizada con discreción por los gobernantes paquistaníes, pero profundamente impopular entre la ciudadanía.
Las operaciones de combate le cuestan a EE UU, según diversos análisis del Congreso, 100.000 millones de dólares por año, siete veces el producto interior bruto de Afganistán. El coste, hasta 2010, de esa guerra y la de Irak, combinadas, ha sido de 1,1 billones de dólares. Hasta el verano pasado, la guerra de Irak fue la más impopular de ambas. La misión de Afganistán, una respuesta directa a los atentados de 2001, se beneficiaba del dolor provocado por el ataque de Al Qaeda contra Washington y Nueva York, que causó 2.977 muertes. Sin embargo, una vez ordenado el repliegue de las tropas de combate en Irak, consumado el pasado agosto (en el país árabe permanecen 50.000 soldados con tareas, entre otras, de adiestramiento del Ejército iraquí), queda Afganistán como recordatorio de lo que el antecesor de Obama, George Bush, tildó de guerra contra el terrorismo. Según una encuesta de Opinion Research para CNN, publicada el miércoles pasado, seis de cada 10 norteamericanos se oponen a la guerra y un 53% de la población cree que las cosas le van mal al Ejército de EE UU en su guerra contra los talibanes.
Y eso, a pesar del refuerzo enviado por Obama a Afganistán. Al llegar al Despacho Oval, en 2009, el presidente decidió autorizar el envío de 30.000 soldados adicionales a aquel país, en un rearme similar al ordenado por Bush en el frente iraquí en 2007. De ese modo, Obama decidió sustituir el combate bélico tradicional por una amalgama coordinada de operaciones insurgentes para ganar una difícil guerra, donde el enemigo lo conforman células de Al Qaeda y guerrillas talibanes camufladas entre la población civil.
Si todo sale como el presidente Barack Obama pretende, 2011 será el año en que comience a cerrarse el único frente de guerra que Estados Unidos tiene abierto: la guerra de Afganistán, que acaba de cumplir nueve años y que en 2010 ha costado a los norteamericanos 105.000 millones de dólares (casi 80.000 millones euros).
Si todo sale como el presidente Barack Obama pretende, 2011 será el año en que comience a cerrarse el único frente de guerra que Estados Unidos tiene abierto: la guerra de Afganistán, que acaba de cumplir nueve años y que en 2010 ha costado a los norteamericanos 105.000 millones de dólares (casi 80.000 millones euros). En Afganistán hay destacados 97.000 militares estadounidenses, la cifra más elevada de la guerra más larga del Pentágono. Ese conflicto, además, registró en 2010 el mayor número de soldados aliados muertos: 709, de los que 498 fueron norteamericanos. Desde su inicio en diciembre de 2001, la guerra de Afganistán se ha cobrado ya las vidas de 1.445 militares estadounidenses. A pesar del elevado coste para Washington, en dinero y vidas, la compleja estrategia insurgente que siguen los talibanes y Al Qaeda y su fácil refugio en el país vecino de Pakistán convierten la victoria norteamericana en un objetivo cada vez más esquivo.
A mediados de diciembre, antes del receso navideño, Obama se rodeó de la plana mayor de su Gobierno para anunciar los resultados del informe elaborado por su Administración sobre el conflicto. Según el texto, el Ejército de EE UU ha logrado avances considerables, infligiendo grandes daños a los talibanes en sus bastiones de Helmand y Kandahar. A pesar de reconocer cierta fragilidad en la nueva supremacía norteamericana en el país asiático, Obama dijo: "Hemos acometido avances suficientes para lograr nuestros objetivos militares". Ese argumento le permitió reafirmarse en su compromiso electoral de iniciar el repliegue en julio de 2011, algo que desató el malestar entre los militares, incluido el general al mando de las tropas sobre el terreno, David Petraeus.
El principal problema de EE UU es que la guerra de Afganistán se libra, cada vez más, en Pakistán. En el noroeste de ese país se refugian numerosos rebeldes y miembros de Al Qaeda, aprovechando la falta absoluta de control en la frontera entre ambos países. Desde allí organizan los ataques que asolan Afganistán cada año después del invierno. Es una zona que vive tantos atentados como los bastiones de la insurgencia en Afganistán. El 26 de diciembre, por ejemplo, un atentado suicida mató a 46 personas en la localidad paquistaní de Bajaur, a 10 kilómetros de la frontera. La CIA, desde bases secretas, ayuda al Pentágono y somete la zona a numerosos bombardeos con aviones no tripulados, controlados de forma remota, una práctica autorizada con discreción por los gobernantes paquistaníes, pero profundamente impopular entre la ciudadanía.
Las operaciones de combate le cuestan a EE UU, según diversos análisis del Congreso, 100.000 millones de dólares por año, siete veces el producto interior bruto de Afganistán. El coste, hasta 2010, de esa guerra y la de Irak, combinadas, ha sido de 1,1 billones de dólares. Hasta el verano pasado, la guerra de Irak fue la más impopular de ambas. La misión de Afganistán, una respuesta directa a los atentados de 2001, se beneficiaba del dolor provocado por el ataque de Al Qaeda contra Washington y Nueva York, que causó 2.977 muertes. Sin embargo, una vez ordenado el repliegue de las tropas de combate en Irak, consumado el pasado agosto (en el país árabe permanecen 50.000 soldados con tareas, entre otras, de adiestramiento del Ejército iraquí), queda Afganistán como recordatorio de lo que el antecesor de Obama, George Bush, tildó de guerra contra el terrorismo. Según una encuesta de Opinion Research para CNN, publicada el miércoles pasado, seis de cada 10 norteamericanos se oponen a la guerra y un 53% de la población cree que las cosas le van mal al Ejército de EE UU en su guerra contra los talibanes.
Y eso, a pesar del refuerzo enviado por Obama a Afganistán. Al llegar al Despacho Oval, en 2009, el presidente decidió autorizar el envío de 30.000 soldados adicionales a aquel país, en un rearme similar al ordenado por Bush en el frente iraquí en 2007. De ese modo, Obama decidió sustituir el combate bélico tradicional por una amalgama coordinada de operaciones insurgentes para ganar una difícil guerra, donde el enemigo lo conforman células de Al Qaeda y guerrillas talibanes camufladas entre la población civil.
quinta-feira, 4 de novembro de 2010
'Trabalhamos sem parar pelo processo de paz no Oriente Médio', diz Hillary
O Estado de S. Paulo
AUCKLAND - A secretária de Estado dos EUA, Hillary Clinton, confirmou nesta quinta-feira, 4, seus planos de encontrar o primeiro-ministro de Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, quando o líder do Estado judeu visitar Washington na próxima semana, informou o jornal Haaretz.
"Eu pretendo encontrar o premiê Netanyahu quando ele estiver nos EUA na semana que vem", disse Hillary em uma conferência de imprensa com John Key, primeiro-ministro da Nova Zelândia. A secretária acrescentou que acredita que o processo de paz no Oriente Médio pode progredir apesar das dificuldades enfrentadas recentemente.
As conversas diretas entre israelenses e a Autoridade Nacional Palestina (ANP) foram retomadas no dia 2 de setembro, mas se estagnaram novamente pouco tempo depois, quando a moratória de 10 meses que Israel declarou sobre a construção de novos assentamentos na Cisjordânia expirou.
Netanyahu tem resistido às pressões dos EUA, dos países árabes e de organismos internacionais para que novas paralisações sejam decretadas. Os palestinos acusam o premiê de destruir as esperanças de paz ao permitir a construção de novas colônias no local reclamado pelos palestinos como o território do seu futuro Estado.
"Estamos trabalhando sem interrupções com nossos colegas israelenses e palestinos para avançar", disse a secretária, acrescentando que ela acredita que Netanyahu e o presidente da ANP, Mahmoud Abbas, estejam compromissados com a resolução do conflito. "Estou bastante envolvida para encontrar uma solução e acredito que estamos aptos a fazê-lo", concluiu.
AUCKLAND - A secretária de Estado dos EUA, Hillary Clinton, confirmou nesta quinta-feira, 4, seus planos de encontrar o primeiro-ministro de Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, quando o líder do Estado judeu visitar Washington na próxima semana, informou o jornal Haaretz.
"Eu pretendo encontrar o premiê Netanyahu quando ele estiver nos EUA na semana que vem", disse Hillary em uma conferência de imprensa com John Key, primeiro-ministro da Nova Zelândia. A secretária acrescentou que acredita que o processo de paz no Oriente Médio pode progredir apesar das dificuldades enfrentadas recentemente.
As conversas diretas entre israelenses e a Autoridade Nacional Palestina (ANP) foram retomadas no dia 2 de setembro, mas se estagnaram novamente pouco tempo depois, quando a moratória de 10 meses que Israel declarou sobre a construção de novos assentamentos na Cisjordânia expirou.
Netanyahu tem resistido às pressões dos EUA, dos países árabes e de organismos internacionais para que novas paralisações sejam decretadas. Os palestinos acusam o premiê de destruir as esperanças de paz ao permitir a construção de novas colônias no local reclamado pelos palestinos como o território do seu futuro Estado.
"Estamos trabalhando sem interrupções com nossos colegas israelenses e palestinos para avançar", disse a secretária, acrescentando que ela acredita que Netanyahu e o presidente da ANP, Mahmoud Abbas, estejam compromissados com a resolução do conflito. "Estou bastante envolvida para encontrar uma solução e acredito que estamos aptos a fazê-lo", concluiu.
Obama intenta frenar la ofensiva republicana contra sus reformas
Clarín
Todavía no había transcurrido una hora desde que el presidente Barack Obama invitó ayer a la Casa Blanca a los jerarcas del Partido Republicano en el Congreso y en el Senado para iniciar la búsqueda de un consenso que les permita gobernar juntos durante los próximos dos años cuando tuvo lugar la tajante respuesta: “Si Obama quiere negociar con nosotros tendrá que dejar de lado su agenda y moverse en nuestra dirección. Pero como no podemos contar con eso, nuestra prioridad número uno será trabajar para que no sea reelecto”, dijo palabras más palabras menos, el líder de los republicano en el Senado, Mitch McConnell, durante el discurso que pronunció en The Heritage Foundation, uno de los “think tanks” más conservadores de Washington. La reacción inmediata del presidente fue intentar frenar la ofensiva. Los invitó a trabajar juntos porque “no se puede pasar los próximos dos años peleando”.
La de los republicanos fue una declaración de guerra, pero eso no fue todo. Envalentonados por su triunfo y de cara a las elecciones de 2012, el establishment republicano calificó a la reforma de salud del presidente Obama como una “monstruosidad” y pidió achicar el Estado.
La respuesta de Obama fue invitar a los principales dirigentes del Partido Republicano a reunirse con él en la Casa Blanca a mediados de noviembre, afirmando que no quiere pasar “dos años únicamente peleando” con los vencedores de las legislativas del martes.
“Está claro que los votantes enviaron un mensaje: quieren que nos centremos en la economía y el empleo y en hacer avanzar este país”, declaró el presidente. “Ellos quieren cambiar el tono aquí en Washington, donde los dos partidos van a acercarse y centrarse en las cosas de la gente en vez de sumar puntos políticos”, agregó.
Pero desde la jerarquía republicana están pensando en llegar a la Casa Blanca en 2012. En esa dirección ayer comenzaron a despegarse del Tea Party a quien acusaron de haber impedido otra victoria republicana en el Senado.
Trent Lott –ex jefe de la bancada republicana en el Congreso– se quejó: “No hicimos competir a nuestros mejores candidatos. De haber presentado personas más ligadas al partido en al menos tres casos, Delaware, Nevada y Colorado, el resultado habría sido muy distinto.” En efecto, los republicanos daban por descontada una victoria en por lo menos dos de esos estados. En las internas partidarias ganaron, sin embargo, dos representantes del extremismo del Tea Party, la ex activista antimasturbación Christine O’Donnell en Delaware y Sharron Angle, quien enojó a los votantes latinos en Nevada a los que presentó en sus cortos publicitarios como pandilleros y traficantes de drogas. Ambas fueron derrotadas por sus rivales lo que impidió que el Partido Republicano obtenga la mayoría de las bancas en el Senado.
Es la primera vez en la historia electoral estadounidense que una victoria de la magnitud de la que tuvieron los republicanos en la Cámara de Representantes no es acompañada por un triunfo en el Senado.
De todas maneras, Obama sabía que después de las legislativas del martes la relación con la oposición republicana no iba a ser fácil, sin embargo las virulentas declaraciones de McConnell sin duda superaron todos sus cálculos. Si alguien creyó que el GOP, es decir el viejo Gran Partido Republicano, sería magnánimo en su victoria se equivocó rotundamente.
“Durante la última semana, algunos dijeron que fue poco delicado de mi parte sugerir que nuestra prioridad en los próximos dos años debería ser negarle a Obama un segundo mandato,” dijo el líder de la bancada republicana en el Senado. “Pero lo cierto es que si nuestros objetivos legislativos principales son revocar y reemplazar la reforma del sistema de Salud; terminar con los rescates; reducir el gasto público y el tamaño del gobierno, la única manera de hacer todas estas cosas es colocando a alguien en la Casa Blanca que no vete nada de esto. Podemos esperar que el presidente comenzará a escucharnos después de las elecciones del martes. Pero no podemos contar con eso”, dijo.
Los últimos sondeos de opinión muestran que si hoy tuvieran lugar las elecciones presidenciales de 2012 los dos candidatos republicanos favoritos le ganarían a Obama . El gobernador de Massachusetts y ex candidato a presidente en el 2008, Mitt Romney, se impondría con el 50% contra el 45% y el ex gobernador de Arkansas –y también ex candidato presidencial hace dos años– Mike Huckabee le ganaría por 52% contra 40%.
Obama sólo sale ganador si compitiera con la candidata a presidenta republicana, Sarah Palin. En ese caso el resultado sería 52% contra 44%. Pero debido a que las divisiones entre el Partido Republicano y el Tea Party han comenzado a profundizarse hay observadores que ya han comenzado a hablar sobre la posibilidad de que en 2012 haya tres candidatos lo que sin duda favorecerá a Obama.
Todavía no había transcurrido una hora desde que el presidente Barack Obama invitó ayer a la Casa Blanca a los jerarcas del Partido Republicano en el Congreso y en el Senado para iniciar la búsqueda de un consenso que les permita gobernar juntos durante los próximos dos años cuando tuvo lugar la tajante respuesta: “Si Obama quiere negociar con nosotros tendrá que dejar de lado su agenda y moverse en nuestra dirección. Pero como no podemos contar con eso, nuestra prioridad número uno será trabajar para que no sea reelecto”, dijo palabras más palabras menos, el líder de los republicano en el Senado, Mitch McConnell, durante el discurso que pronunció en The Heritage Foundation, uno de los “think tanks” más conservadores de Washington. La reacción inmediata del presidente fue intentar frenar la ofensiva. Los invitó a trabajar juntos porque “no se puede pasar los próximos dos años peleando”.
La de los republicanos fue una declaración de guerra, pero eso no fue todo. Envalentonados por su triunfo y de cara a las elecciones de 2012, el establishment republicano calificó a la reforma de salud del presidente Obama como una “monstruosidad” y pidió achicar el Estado.
La respuesta de Obama fue invitar a los principales dirigentes del Partido Republicano a reunirse con él en la Casa Blanca a mediados de noviembre, afirmando que no quiere pasar “dos años únicamente peleando” con los vencedores de las legislativas del martes.
“Está claro que los votantes enviaron un mensaje: quieren que nos centremos en la economía y el empleo y en hacer avanzar este país”, declaró el presidente. “Ellos quieren cambiar el tono aquí en Washington, donde los dos partidos van a acercarse y centrarse en las cosas de la gente en vez de sumar puntos políticos”, agregó.
Pero desde la jerarquía republicana están pensando en llegar a la Casa Blanca en 2012. En esa dirección ayer comenzaron a despegarse del Tea Party a quien acusaron de haber impedido otra victoria republicana en el Senado.
Trent Lott –ex jefe de la bancada republicana en el Congreso– se quejó: “No hicimos competir a nuestros mejores candidatos. De haber presentado personas más ligadas al partido en al menos tres casos, Delaware, Nevada y Colorado, el resultado habría sido muy distinto.” En efecto, los republicanos daban por descontada una victoria en por lo menos dos de esos estados. En las internas partidarias ganaron, sin embargo, dos representantes del extremismo del Tea Party, la ex activista antimasturbación Christine O’Donnell en Delaware y Sharron Angle, quien enojó a los votantes latinos en Nevada a los que presentó en sus cortos publicitarios como pandilleros y traficantes de drogas. Ambas fueron derrotadas por sus rivales lo que impidió que el Partido Republicano obtenga la mayoría de las bancas en el Senado.
Es la primera vez en la historia electoral estadounidense que una victoria de la magnitud de la que tuvieron los republicanos en la Cámara de Representantes no es acompañada por un triunfo en el Senado.
De todas maneras, Obama sabía que después de las legislativas del martes la relación con la oposición republicana no iba a ser fácil, sin embargo las virulentas declaraciones de McConnell sin duda superaron todos sus cálculos. Si alguien creyó que el GOP, es decir el viejo Gran Partido Republicano, sería magnánimo en su victoria se equivocó rotundamente.
“Durante la última semana, algunos dijeron que fue poco delicado de mi parte sugerir que nuestra prioridad en los próximos dos años debería ser negarle a Obama un segundo mandato,” dijo el líder de la bancada republicana en el Senado. “Pero lo cierto es que si nuestros objetivos legislativos principales son revocar y reemplazar la reforma del sistema de Salud; terminar con los rescates; reducir el gasto público y el tamaño del gobierno, la única manera de hacer todas estas cosas es colocando a alguien en la Casa Blanca que no vete nada de esto. Podemos esperar que el presidente comenzará a escucharnos después de las elecciones del martes. Pero no podemos contar con eso”, dijo.
Los últimos sondeos de opinión muestran que si hoy tuvieran lugar las elecciones presidenciales de 2012 los dos candidatos republicanos favoritos le ganarían a Obama . El gobernador de Massachusetts y ex candidato a presidente en el 2008, Mitt Romney, se impondría con el 50% contra el 45% y el ex gobernador de Arkansas –y también ex candidato presidencial hace dos años– Mike Huckabee le ganaría por 52% contra 40%.
Obama sólo sale ganador si compitiera con la candidata a presidenta republicana, Sarah Palin. En ese caso el resultado sería 52% contra 44%. Pero debido a que las divisiones entre el Partido Republicano y el Tea Party han comenzado a profundizarse hay observadores que ya han comenzado a hablar sobre la posibilidad de que en 2012 haya tres candidatos lo que sin duda favorecerá a Obama.
Post-midterms, Obama to focus on foreign policy in four-nation Asian trip
The Washington Post
President Obama embarks Friday on a foreign trip focused on Asian nations that he believes are essential to the recovery of a stumbling American economy, just days after voters anxious over the lack of jobs dealt Democrats a stinging defeat.
Presidents often emphasize foreign policy during difficult political times at home, and Obama's only extended foray outside the country this year will take him to a quartet of democracies where he is viewed more favorably than he is in the United States.
But among his challenges will be convincing his counterparts in Asia and at two economic summits that he has not been weakened politically by the midterm setback and that issues such as free trade, a divisive subject within the Democratic Party, remain central to his ambitions in the region.
"He'll look pretty beaten up," said Douglas H. Paal, a National Security Council official for Asia in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations who is now vice president of studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "But the practical reality is that the president of the United States is a big deal - defeated in an election or not."
The fact that Obama has chosen Asia represents a far-reaching policy decision that the administration does not want lost on the countries he will visit.
During the transition, the administration-in-waiting began an intensive assessment of the American position abroad to identify where it was committing too many resources and where it needed to devote more. Asia rose to the top of the second category.
Obama and his foreign policy team believed the Middle East, in particular, was occupying too much attention. They concluded that, over the long term, the economies and ambitions of China, Japan, India and other Asia nations could prove more important to U.S. interests.
Since then, Obama has worked to reorient America's foreign policy toward Asian nations, whose rising middle class could drive future U.S. economic growth with its hunger for exports even as American consumers retrench. He will underscore the point on his first day in India, at the G-20 summit in Seoul, and in Japan at the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference that concludes the trip.
Obama, who also traveled to Asia his first year in office, has increased the U.S. presence in several Asian economic forums and is joining another. And he has expanded defense cooperation with some Asian nations, including ones on his itinerary.
"The United States was not as present in the region as our interests dictated we should be," Thomas E. Donilon, Obama's national security adviser, said in a recent interview. "We had a vision, and now we're at the center of the emerging security and economic architecture in Asia. ... We are not going to be the administration that lets the rise of Asia pass us by."
A neglected power?
The message matters most in Obama's first stop, India, where many fear that the progress made in the U.S.-India relationship during the George W. Bush administration has stalled.
In contrast to China, the U.S. balance of trade with India's fast-growing economy is roughly equal. The value of U.S. goods exported to India has quadrupled to $17 billion annually over the past seven years.
Senior officials say that, as fellow democracies, the United States and India are more natural allies than others in the region, namely China, where Obama visited last year.
But Obama's large aid package to Pakistan, a critical player in the war in Afghanistan, and commitment to "getting China right," as one senior adviser put it, has left India's leaders worried that Obama considers their interests secondary to the country's regional rivals.
Administration officials credit Bush with transforming the U.S.-India relationship through a civilian nuclear deal that lifted a three-decade U.S. moratorium on nuclear trade with India and provides assistance to the country's nuclear power industry.
Indian officials want Obama, who will address India's parliament in New Delhi, to take the next step by expanding military-to-military relationships, removing business barriers such as the hike in U.S. visa fees, and provide a fuller explanation of U.S. intentions in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"We hope this trip will consolidate the strategic partnership and lay out a direction for the future in terms of bilateral, regional and global cooperation," Meera Shankar, India's ambassador to Washington, told reporters recently.
Obama will speak on his first day to the U.S.-India Business Council. The appearance is designed to present India, a country of 1.2 billion people that expects to be the world's third-largest economy within a decade, as a place that will create U.S. jobs, not just take them in the form of outsourcing.
Administration officials believe the message is an important one to deliver after a midterm election when jobs, and their disappearance overseas, were potent issues on the campaign trail. Obama himself has frequently criticized the outsourcing of U.S. jobs - statements that have rankled some in India.
"We hope that there is a better understanding that India and the work we do is actually a solution rather than the problem that it is made out to be," said Som Mittal, president of India's National Association of Software and Services Companies.
A challenge to China
Nearly as important as the countries Obama is visiting on this trip is the one he is not: China.
His tour of economically potent Asian democracies - India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan - is a tacit challenge to the Chinese economic model of a heavy state hand wielded by an unelected government.
"The grander strategy here is exactly what he is doing - that is, going to visit key allies and not talking much about China," said Dan Blumenthal, a resident fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
Senior administration officials say Asian nations have counted on U.S. security to build their economies, something China itself has benefited from because of the relative stability thousands of U.S. troops have brought to the Korean peninsula.
But China's neighbors also look at its rise uneasily and want the United States to work as an economic and security counterweight.
Administration officials say the United States is doing so by joining the East Asia Summit, a 16-nation forum that includes the region's most important economies, and participating regularly in regional summits, something rarely done in the waning years of the Bush administration.
"We want to shape the context in which China's emergence is occurring," said Jeff Bader, the National Security Council's senior director for Asian affairs. "We want to ensure that China's emergence, China's rise, contributes rather than detracts from Asian stability, and that's not going to happen if we allow our other relationships in the region to fray."
'He is a person of the Pacific'
Arriving days after a sharp political setback at home, Obama can expect a warmer welcome in each of the countries he will visit.
In India, he will visit a school, take questions from university students in a town hall-style forum and address parliament in a speech likely to receive extensive national coverage. He'll hold at least four news conferences during the trip.
But it will be in Indonesia, Obama's home during four years of childhood, where he will practice the most personal diplomacy.
In Jakarta, the capital, he will visit a mosque and deliver an address, possibly in an outdoor venue. Aides say they expect a big, enthusiastic audience to hear Obama, a year and a half after his speech to the Muslim world from Cairo, talk about how Indonesia stands as an example of Islam and democracy successfully coexisting.
"He is a person of the Pacific," Donilon said. "These countries, these cultures, are of deep interest to him. He understands these places in a way I don't know if any American president has."
President Obama embarks Friday on a foreign trip focused on Asian nations that he believes are essential to the recovery of a stumbling American economy, just days after voters anxious over the lack of jobs dealt Democrats a stinging defeat.
Presidents often emphasize foreign policy during difficult political times at home, and Obama's only extended foray outside the country this year will take him to a quartet of democracies where he is viewed more favorably than he is in the United States.
But among his challenges will be convincing his counterparts in Asia and at two economic summits that he has not been weakened politically by the midterm setback and that issues such as free trade, a divisive subject within the Democratic Party, remain central to his ambitions in the region.
"He'll look pretty beaten up," said Douglas H. Paal, a National Security Council official for Asia in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations who is now vice president of studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "But the practical reality is that the president of the United States is a big deal - defeated in an election or not."
The fact that Obama has chosen Asia represents a far-reaching policy decision that the administration does not want lost on the countries he will visit.
During the transition, the administration-in-waiting began an intensive assessment of the American position abroad to identify where it was committing too many resources and where it needed to devote more. Asia rose to the top of the second category.
Obama and his foreign policy team believed the Middle East, in particular, was occupying too much attention. They concluded that, over the long term, the economies and ambitions of China, Japan, India and other Asia nations could prove more important to U.S. interests.
Since then, Obama has worked to reorient America's foreign policy toward Asian nations, whose rising middle class could drive future U.S. economic growth with its hunger for exports even as American consumers retrench. He will underscore the point on his first day in India, at the G-20 summit in Seoul, and in Japan at the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference that concludes the trip.
Obama, who also traveled to Asia his first year in office, has increased the U.S. presence in several Asian economic forums and is joining another. And he has expanded defense cooperation with some Asian nations, including ones on his itinerary.
"The United States was not as present in the region as our interests dictated we should be," Thomas E. Donilon, Obama's national security adviser, said in a recent interview. "We had a vision, and now we're at the center of the emerging security and economic architecture in Asia. ... We are not going to be the administration that lets the rise of Asia pass us by."
A neglected power?
The message matters most in Obama's first stop, India, where many fear that the progress made in the U.S.-India relationship during the George W. Bush administration has stalled.
In contrast to China, the U.S. balance of trade with India's fast-growing economy is roughly equal. The value of U.S. goods exported to India has quadrupled to $17 billion annually over the past seven years.
Senior officials say that, as fellow democracies, the United States and India are more natural allies than others in the region, namely China, where Obama visited last year.
But Obama's large aid package to Pakistan, a critical player in the war in Afghanistan, and commitment to "getting China right," as one senior adviser put it, has left India's leaders worried that Obama considers their interests secondary to the country's regional rivals.
Administration officials credit Bush with transforming the U.S.-India relationship through a civilian nuclear deal that lifted a three-decade U.S. moratorium on nuclear trade with India and provides assistance to the country's nuclear power industry.
Indian officials want Obama, who will address India's parliament in New Delhi, to take the next step by expanding military-to-military relationships, removing business barriers such as the hike in U.S. visa fees, and provide a fuller explanation of U.S. intentions in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"We hope this trip will consolidate the strategic partnership and lay out a direction for the future in terms of bilateral, regional and global cooperation," Meera Shankar, India's ambassador to Washington, told reporters recently.
Obama will speak on his first day to the U.S.-India Business Council. The appearance is designed to present India, a country of 1.2 billion people that expects to be the world's third-largest economy within a decade, as a place that will create U.S. jobs, not just take them in the form of outsourcing.
Administration officials believe the message is an important one to deliver after a midterm election when jobs, and their disappearance overseas, were potent issues on the campaign trail. Obama himself has frequently criticized the outsourcing of U.S. jobs - statements that have rankled some in India.
"We hope that there is a better understanding that India and the work we do is actually a solution rather than the problem that it is made out to be," said Som Mittal, president of India's National Association of Software and Services Companies.
A challenge to China
Nearly as important as the countries Obama is visiting on this trip is the one he is not: China.
His tour of economically potent Asian democracies - India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan - is a tacit challenge to the Chinese economic model of a heavy state hand wielded by an unelected government.
"The grander strategy here is exactly what he is doing - that is, going to visit key allies and not talking much about China," said Dan Blumenthal, a resident fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
Senior administration officials say Asian nations have counted on U.S. security to build their economies, something China itself has benefited from because of the relative stability thousands of U.S. troops have brought to the Korean peninsula.
But China's neighbors also look at its rise uneasily and want the United States to work as an economic and security counterweight.
Administration officials say the United States is doing so by joining the East Asia Summit, a 16-nation forum that includes the region's most important economies, and participating regularly in regional summits, something rarely done in the waning years of the Bush administration.
"We want to shape the context in which China's emergence is occurring," said Jeff Bader, the National Security Council's senior director for Asian affairs. "We want to ensure that China's emergence, China's rise, contributes rather than detracts from Asian stability, and that's not going to happen if we allow our other relationships in the region to fray."
'He is a person of the Pacific'
Arriving days after a sharp political setback at home, Obama can expect a warmer welcome in each of the countries he will visit.
In India, he will visit a school, take questions from university students in a town hall-style forum and address parliament in a speech likely to receive extensive national coverage. He'll hold at least four news conferences during the trip.
But it will be in Indonesia, Obama's home during four years of childhood, where he will practice the most personal diplomacy.
In Jakarta, the capital, he will visit a mosque and deliver an address, possibly in an outdoor venue. Aides say they expect a big, enthusiastic audience to hear Obama, a year and a half after his speech to the Muslim world from Cairo, talk about how Indonesia stands as an example of Islam and democracy successfully coexisting.
"He is a person of the Pacific," Donilon said. "These countries, these cultures, are of deep interest to him. He understands these places in a way I don't know if any American president has."
Obama to Visit India, and Both Sides Hope to Expand Ties
The New York Times
MUMBAI, India — As President Obama pays his first visit to India this weekend, he may want to take his lead from Mary Kay. Or Harley-Davidson, Cinnabon or Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Since Mr. Obama took office two years ago, America’s top economic policy makers have visited India numerous times but left with little to show for their long flights. This time, too, officials on both sides have tried to temper expectations, given the geopolitical and trade tensions between the two nations.
But, even without a big policy push from Washington, companies from both countries have already been forging deals at a fast and furious pace.
American brands as diverse as Mary Kay cosmetics, Harley-Davidson motorcycles and Cinnabon sticky buns have recently set up shop or expanded in India, often with local partners helping them navigate this country’s notoriously convoluted bureaucracy. Meanwhile, American corporate giants like General Motors and the drug maker Bristol-Myers are expanding factories, sales outlets and research laboratories in India.
As a result of such moves, American exports to India in the first six months of 2010 hit $14.6 billion, up 14 percent from the period a year earlier and nearly five times what it was a decade earlier.
Corporate America mainly hopes the visit by the president, with more than 200 American executives in tow, can help better define the common economic interests of the United States and India and build on the trade and investment foundations the business community has already laid.
“Business had been leading the way from the very beginning,” said Ron Somers, the head of the United States India Business Council, a business advocacy group. Now, Mr. Somers said, “we want to crown that with a genuine strategic partnership.”
Harold McGraw 3rd, the chairman of McGraw Hill and one of the executives in the Obama entourage, said the visit was “all about economic and job growth for both the U.S. and India.” India is America’s 14th-largest trade partner, he noted, but “should be a lot higher.”
For many American executives, India seems to have become the “new China” — a place where they feel compelled to do business, lest they miss getting a foothold in a nation with low-cost labor and a potentially billion-person consumer market.
But American government officials still seem to be struggling to define India’s role, beyond saying that “it’s not China.”
India, with its lively democracy and messy infrastructure, is certainly no China, with its forced-march development model. In fact, encouraging India as a counterweight to China — both economically and militarily — is a motive for President Obama’s visit, with potential sales of military technology high on the American agenda.
Compared with China, trade between India and the United States is relatively balanced. In 2009, America bought only $7.2 billion more in goods and services from India than it sold. Total trade between the countries was $60.2 billion. But that is just a small fraction of the $434 billion annual trade between China and the United States, which is lopsided $262 billion in China’s favor.
On paper, at least, India and the United States already have many shared interests and common goals. But Mr. Obama and his New Delhi counterpart, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, have few significant bilateral achievements on economic issues. And one promising partnership, involving nuclear energy, may not even get off the ground.
In 2005, President George W. Bush and Mr. Singh announced what is considered the most ambitious agreement yet between their countries. The United States would remove restrictions on the export of civil nuclear technology to India and American companies would sell power equipment to India, which hopes to increase its nuclear power generation more than tenfold.
This past August, though, the Indian Parliament set that deal back by voting to make contractors and suppliers partly liable for any damages from nuclear accidents that might occur at the new plants. American companies say the new law deviates from international nuclear norms and would keep them from selling power equipment. Many economists and corporate executives say the power plant impasse and other tensions between the countries — most notably Washington’s continued, if wary, military embrace of Pakistan — suggest that Mr. Obama and Mr. Singh may be unable to reach any meaningful economic concord on this trip.
Both leaders face difficult economic and political realities at home. High unemployment, concern over the outsourcing of American jobs and the threat of a more confrontational Congress will limit Mr. Obama’s ability to strike deals with India.
Mr. Singh, meanwhile, is hemmed in by a coalition government that is conflicted about its relationship with the United States and is uncertain about the pace at which India should open its economy to the world.
“There is a limited amount that the visit can achieve,” said Arvind Panagariya, an economist at Columbia University and an India expert. “As long as they give a good communiqué and send some positive signals, that’s the best we can expect.”
Analysts say the more concrete results may come from corporate, not government, meetings. The chief executives accompanying Mr. Obama will include Jeffrey R. Immelt of General Electric and Indra K. Nooyi, the Indian-born head of PepsiCo. They will meet with the likes of Ratan Tata, chairman of the multinational conglomerate Tata Group, and Mukesh Ambani, head of India’s biggest company, Reliance Industries.
Various events will also give executives from smaller companies a chance to mingle.
“The most immediate benefit of the visit could be that another group of American industry executives become aware of the India opportunity,” said one of the scheduled attendees, Gunjan Bagla, the managing director of Amritt Ventures, which advises American companies coming to India.
Trade and investment between the countries has grown sharply since the Indian government began easing state control of its economy in 1991.
But disagreements between the United States and India have been a big roadblock in negotiations in the Doha round of global trade talks, which have been stalled since 2008. American officials have been pushing for India and other developing nations to open more industries like financial services to foreign competition, while the Indians are seeking reductions in American farm subsidies.
American jobs are also a sore point. In Washington, Democratic lawmakers earlier this year pushed through a $2,000 increase in fees for employment visas, writing the law in such a way that it primarily hurt Indian technology companies. Mr. Obama has also advocated changing tax law to make it more expensive for American companies to outsource work to India and other countries.
That is why President Obama will probably focus his talks here on securing deals for American companies that can demonstrably create jobs in the United States, according to administration officials. Some of those deals, which might include the sale of Boeing cargo planes to India’s military forces, have been in negotiation for some time.
American companies like Wal-Mart are also hoping that New Delhi will allow them to set up retail stores in India. Right now, foreign companies cannot operate retail stores that sell products from multiple brands. Indian officials have recently signaled that they might soon change those rules.
The Indians, for their part, have said they hope Mr. Obama will agree to ease export restrictions on so-called dual-use technologies, like cryptography, that can be used for both military and civilian purposes.
MUMBAI, India — As President Obama pays his first visit to India this weekend, he may want to take his lead from Mary Kay. Or Harley-Davidson, Cinnabon or Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Since Mr. Obama took office two years ago, America’s top economic policy makers have visited India numerous times but left with little to show for their long flights. This time, too, officials on both sides have tried to temper expectations, given the geopolitical and trade tensions between the two nations.
But, even without a big policy push from Washington, companies from both countries have already been forging deals at a fast and furious pace.
American brands as diverse as Mary Kay cosmetics, Harley-Davidson motorcycles and Cinnabon sticky buns have recently set up shop or expanded in India, often with local partners helping them navigate this country’s notoriously convoluted bureaucracy. Meanwhile, American corporate giants like General Motors and the drug maker Bristol-Myers are expanding factories, sales outlets and research laboratories in India.
As a result of such moves, American exports to India in the first six months of 2010 hit $14.6 billion, up 14 percent from the period a year earlier and nearly five times what it was a decade earlier.
Corporate America mainly hopes the visit by the president, with more than 200 American executives in tow, can help better define the common economic interests of the United States and India and build on the trade and investment foundations the business community has already laid.
“Business had been leading the way from the very beginning,” said Ron Somers, the head of the United States India Business Council, a business advocacy group. Now, Mr. Somers said, “we want to crown that with a genuine strategic partnership.”
Harold McGraw 3rd, the chairman of McGraw Hill and one of the executives in the Obama entourage, said the visit was “all about economic and job growth for both the U.S. and India.” India is America’s 14th-largest trade partner, he noted, but “should be a lot higher.”
For many American executives, India seems to have become the “new China” — a place where they feel compelled to do business, lest they miss getting a foothold in a nation with low-cost labor and a potentially billion-person consumer market.
But American government officials still seem to be struggling to define India’s role, beyond saying that “it’s not China.”
India, with its lively democracy and messy infrastructure, is certainly no China, with its forced-march development model. In fact, encouraging India as a counterweight to China — both economically and militarily — is a motive for President Obama’s visit, with potential sales of military technology high on the American agenda.
Compared with China, trade between India and the United States is relatively balanced. In 2009, America bought only $7.2 billion more in goods and services from India than it sold. Total trade between the countries was $60.2 billion. But that is just a small fraction of the $434 billion annual trade between China and the United States, which is lopsided $262 billion in China’s favor.
On paper, at least, India and the United States already have many shared interests and common goals. But Mr. Obama and his New Delhi counterpart, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, have few significant bilateral achievements on economic issues. And one promising partnership, involving nuclear energy, may not even get off the ground.
In 2005, President George W. Bush and Mr. Singh announced what is considered the most ambitious agreement yet between their countries. The United States would remove restrictions on the export of civil nuclear technology to India and American companies would sell power equipment to India, which hopes to increase its nuclear power generation more than tenfold.
This past August, though, the Indian Parliament set that deal back by voting to make contractors and suppliers partly liable for any damages from nuclear accidents that might occur at the new plants. American companies say the new law deviates from international nuclear norms and would keep them from selling power equipment. Many economists and corporate executives say the power plant impasse and other tensions between the countries — most notably Washington’s continued, if wary, military embrace of Pakistan — suggest that Mr. Obama and Mr. Singh may be unable to reach any meaningful economic concord on this trip.
Both leaders face difficult economic and political realities at home. High unemployment, concern over the outsourcing of American jobs and the threat of a more confrontational Congress will limit Mr. Obama’s ability to strike deals with India.
Mr. Singh, meanwhile, is hemmed in by a coalition government that is conflicted about its relationship with the United States and is uncertain about the pace at which India should open its economy to the world.
“There is a limited amount that the visit can achieve,” said Arvind Panagariya, an economist at Columbia University and an India expert. “As long as they give a good communiqué and send some positive signals, that’s the best we can expect.”
Analysts say the more concrete results may come from corporate, not government, meetings. The chief executives accompanying Mr. Obama will include Jeffrey R. Immelt of General Electric and Indra K. Nooyi, the Indian-born head of PepsiCo. They will meet with the likes of Ratan Tata, chairman of the multinational conglomerate Tata Group, and Mukesh Ambani, head of India’s biggest company, Reliance Industries.
Various events will also give executives from smaller companies a chance to mingle.
“The most immediate benefit of the visit could be that another group of American industry executives become aware of the India opportunity,” said one of the scheduled attendees, Gunjan Bagla, the managing director of Amritt Ventures, which advises American companies coming to India.
Trade and investment between the countries has grown sharply since the Indian government began easing state control of its economy in 1991.
But disagreements between the United States and India have been a big roadblock in negotiations in the Doha round of global trade talks, which have been stalled since 2008. American officials have been pushing for India and other developing nations to open more industries like financial services to foreign competition, while the Indians are seeking reductions in American farm subsidies.
American jobs are also a sore point. In Washington, Democratic lawmakers earlier this year pushed through a $2,000 increase in fees for employment visas, writing the law in such a way that it primarily hurt Indian technology companies. Mr. Obama has also advocated changing tax law to make it more expensive for American companies to outsource work to India and other countries.
That is why President Obama will probably focus his talks here on securing deals for American companies that can demonstrably create jobs in the United States, according to administration officials. Some of those deals, which might include the sale of Boeing cargo planes to India’s military forces, have been in negotiation for some time.
American companies like Wal-Mart are also hoping that New Delhi will allow them to set up retail stores in India. Right now, foreign companies cannot operate retail stores that sell products from multiple brands. Indian officials have recently signaled that they might soon change those rules.
The Indians, for their part, have said they hope Mr. Obama will agree to ease export restrictions on so-called dual-use technologies, like cryptography, that can be used for both military and civilian purposes.
America's elections: The Republicans ride in
The Economist
Now they must prove that there is more to their cause than blind fury
Nov 4th 2010
ONLY four years after the voters sent them packing, handing both chambers of Congress to the Democrats at the 2006 mid-terms, the Republicans are back. Voters then (and again in 2008) decided that Republican policies had blown up the deficit with unaffordable tax cuts, let the banks run wild, dragged America into two costly wars and produced a wretched harvest of stagnant wages, rising job insecurity and soaring health-care costs. Now they seem to have decided that they like Barack Obama and the Democrats even less.
The mid-term elections on November 2nd saw the biggest swing to the Republicans for 72 years (see article). With a few results still to come, they have picked up over 60 seats in the House of Representatives, for a solid majority of at least 50. In the Senate they gained at least six seats, though they will fall short of control there.
From Barack to Boehner
Mr Obama, the lesson is simple enough: sharpen up, and prepare for a tough two years. Yes, this was hardly an enthusiastic vote for his opponents, more a howl of rage against incumbents from citizens struggling after the worst slowdown since the 1930s. And he has a string of legislative achievements to his name. But plenty of centrists plainly fear that he has drifted too far to the left, that he dislikes business and that he does not understand middle America. He looks a far less competent figure than he did two years ago. With a hostile House and a gridlocked Senate, the chances of passing any big new laws are remote; and Republican victories in crucial swing states such as Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania will make the president’s re-election battle in 2012 a lot harder. If Mr Obama is to win again, he needs to move back to the pragmatic centre of what is still a pretty conservative country.
But so do the Republicans. If the road ahead for Mr Obama is filled with pot-holes, that in front of John Boehner, the next speaker of the House, is strewn with elephant traps. He has just inherited, along with Nancy Pelosi’s gavel, a trillion-dollar fiscal deficit coupled with a weak recovery that is generating hardly any new jobs. It is a Republican House that must now pass America’s budgets, decide whether to stimulate the stricken economy or tighten the purse strings, and figure out what to do about the government’s debt, which will soon bump up against the $14.3 trillion limit currently set for it by law. Whether Mr Boehner decides to work with Mr Obama or against him, voters will accord him a share of the blame if things continue to be miserable.
And what exactly does Mr Boehner head? It never pays to underestimate the American right. In the past two years of opposition, it has rediscovered one great strength, a belief in small government that George Bush foolishly shed. But this is clouded by three other things: fury, an absence of ideas and more than a little craziness. Much though the leaders of the tea-party movement claim the mantle of Ronald Reagan, they lack both the Gipper’s sunny optimism and his pragmatism.
Take for instance the thing the right affects to care about most: the deficit. To reduce America’s debt involves cutting spending, increasing taxes, or a combination of both. Tax rises are anathema. But Republicans are strangely silent about what spending they would like to cut, apart from those inadequate old standbys, earmarks and government waste. No red-blooded conservative will touch defence expenditure at a time when America’s troops are in combat and the country faces toner-wielding terrorists and a rising China. Reforming entitlements, which mostly means chopping away at Medicare, the health scheme for the elderly, is the obvious place to start. But tea-partiers, who tend to be elderly themselves, are rather keen on that bit of big government. (Of course, Mr Obama has no credible plan to deal with the deficit either. But at least by backing a stimulus now he has a cogent answer to the immediate problem of the stuttering recovery.)
Mr Boehner is from the more sensible end of his party. He is surely aware that American elections are won in the centre. The tea-partiers, for all their energy, threw away at least two Senate seats, in effect, by imposing unelectable oddballs (including a self-confessed ex-witch) in states where Republican victory had been assured. But he will be under pressure to keep his base happy. And there will be the additional distraction of various Republicans, including perhaps Sarah Palin, jockeying for their party’s presidential nomination.
Who wants to live in a town called Nope?
It is easy to tell Speaker Boehner what not to do. Impeaching Mr Obama, for instance, as some of his newer recruits are keen to do, would be a huge mistake: a pointless distraction from far more serious issues. Blocking everything in sight in the hope of denying Mr Obama re-election may work against the Republicans, just as shutting down the government hurt them in 1995 after their last congressional takeover, and helped Bill Clinton to re-election the next year. Sabotaging Mr Obama’s health-care plans, as Republican leaders say they plan to do, is risky as well: the reforms are unpopular, but creating chaos, which is all the Republicans will be able to manage thanks to Mr Obama’s veto pen, could prove even more so.
In theory, there could be room for some form of useful grand bargain on the economy. Mr Obama could extend more help to small businesses, offer tax reforms that would make commerce simpler and generally do more to show that he understands how wealth is created. The Bush tax cuts, due to expire at the end of this year, could be extended and a short-term stimulus agreed upon. Mr Boehner and Mr Obama could work together on a convincing medium-term plan for bringing down the deficit, one which included entitlement reform.
The danger is that the opposite may happen. A deficit deal will prove impossible. Deadlock over the Bush tax cuts will see them expire, letting taxes rise sharply by default. Without further help from the federal government, cash-strapped states will sack employees and cut benefits next year. It is in everybody’s interest that Sheriff Obama and the Republican posse work together. But a shoot-out seems more likely.
Now they must prove that there is more to their cause than blind fury
Nov 4th 2010
ONLY four years after the voters sent them packing, handing both chambers of Congress to the Democrats at the 2006 mid-terms, the Republicans are back. Voters then (and again in 2008) decided that Republican policies had blown up the deficit with unaffordable tax cuts, let the banks run wild, dragged America into two costly wars and produced a wretched harvest of stagnant wages, rising job insecurity and soaring health-care costs. Now they seem to have decided that they like Barack Obama and the Democrats even less.
The mid-term elections on November 2nd saw the biggest swing to the Republicans for 72 years (see article). With a few results still to come, they have picked up over 60 seats in the House of Representatives, for a solid majority of at least 50. In the Senate they gained at least six seats, though they will fall short of control there.
From Barack to Boehner
Mr Obama, the lesson is simple enough: sharpen up, and prepare for a tough two years. Yes, this was hardly an enthusiastic vote for his opponents, more a howl of rage against incumbents from citizens struggling after the worst slowdown since the 1930s. And he has a string of legislative achievements to his name. But plenty of centrists plainly fear that he has drifted too far to the left, that he dislikes business and that he does not understand middle America. He looks a far less competent figure than he did two years ago. With a hostile House and a gridlocked Senate, the chances of passing any big new laws are remote; and Republican victories in crucial swing states such as Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania will make the president’s re-election battle in 2012 a lot harder. If Mr Obama is to win again, he needs to move back to the pragmatic centre of what is still a pretty conservative country.
But so do the Republicans. If the road ahead for Mr Obama is filled with pot-holes, that in front of John Boehner, the next speaker of the House, is strewn with elephant traps. He has just inherited, along with Nancy Pelosi’s gavel, a trillion-dollar fiscal deficit coupled with a weak recovery that is generating hardly any new jobs. It is a Republican House that must now pass America’s budgets, decide whether to stimulate the stricken economy or tighten the purse strings, and figure out what to do about the government’s debt, which will soon bump up against the $14.3 trillion limit currently set for it by law. Whether Mr Boehner decides to work with Mr Obama or against him, voters will accord him a share of the blame if things continue to be miserable.
And what exactly does Mr Boehner head? It never pays to underestimate the American right. In the past two years of opposition, it has rediscovered one great strength, a belief in small government that George Bush foolishly shed. But this is clouded by three other things: fury, an absence of ideas and more than a little craziness. Much though the leaders of the tea-party movement claim the mantle of Ronald Reagan, they lack both the Gipper’s sunny optimism and his pragmatism.
Take for instance the thing the right affects to care about most: the deficit. To reduce America’s debt involves cutting spending, increasing taxes, or a combination of both. Tax rises are anathema. But Republicans are strangely silent about what spending they would like to cut, apart from those inadequate old standbys, earmarks and government waste. No red-blooded conservative will touch defence expenditure at a time when America’s troops are in combat and the country faces toner-wielding terrorists and a rising China. Reforming entitlements, which mostly means chopping away at Medicare, the health scheme for the elderly, is the obvious place to start. But tea-partiers, who tend to be elderly themselves, are rather keen on that bit of big government. (Of course, Mr Obama has no credible plan to deal with the deficit either. But at least by backing a stimulus now he has a cogent answer to the immediate problem of the stuttering recovery.)
Mr Boehner is from the more sensible end of his party. He is surely aware that American elections are won in the centre. The tea-partiers, for all their energy, threw away at least two Senate seats, in effect, by imposing unelectable oddballs (including a self-confessed ex-witch) in states where Republican victory had been assured. But he will be under pressure to keep his base happy. And there will be the additional distraction of various Republicans, including perhaps Sarah Palin, jockeying for their party’s presidential nomination.
Who wants to live in a town called Nope?
It is easy to tell Speaker Boehner what not to do. Impeaching Mr Obama, for instance, as some of his newer recruits are keen to do, would be a huge mistake: a pointless distraction from far more serious issues. Blocking everything in sight in the hope of denying Mr Obama re-election may work against the Republicans, just as shutting down the government hurt them in 1995 after their last congressional takeover, and helped Bill Clinton to re-election the next year. Sabotaging Mr Obama’s health-care plans, as Republican leaders say they plan to do, is risky as well: the reforms are unpopular, but creating chaos, which is all the Republicans will be able to manage thanks to Mr Obama’s veto pen, could prove even more so.
In theory, there could be room for some form of useful grand bargain on the economy. Mr Obama could extend more help to small businesses, offer tax reforms that would make commerce simpler and generally do more to show that he understands how wealth is created. The Bush tax cuts, due to expire at the end of this year, could be extended and a short-term stimulus agreed upon. Mr Boehner and Mr Obama could work together on a convincing medium-term plan for bringing down the deficit, one which included entitlement reform.
The danger is that the opposite may happen. A deficit deal will prove impossible. Deadlock over the Bush tax cuts will see them expire, letting taxes rise sharply by default. Without further help from the federal government, cash-strapped states will sack employees and cut benefits next year. It is in everybody’s interest that Sheriff Obama and the Republican posse work together. But a shoot-out seems more likely.
quarta-feira, 3 de novembro de 2010
'Precisamos trabalhar melhor', diz Obama após derrota nas urnas
O Estado de S. Paulo
WASHINGTON - O presidente dos EUA, Barack Obama, disse nesta quarta-feira, 3, um dia depois de seu partido perder a maioria na Câmara dos Representantes e ceder espaço para a oposição no Senado, que o resultado das eleições legislativas de meio de mandato mostram claramente a decepção dos americanos com o seu governo e disse que ele e o Congresso devem fazer um "trabalho melhor".
"Tenho que melhorar meu trabalho como presidente, assim como todos que trabalham em Washington devem melhorar também. Os eleitores querem que trabalhemos ainda mais duro e juntos. Haverá pontos de discórdia, mas é preciso agir com responsabilidade", disse o presidente em entrevista coletiva, na qual deu suas primeiras declarações após a dura derrota sofrida pelo Partido Democrata nas urnas.
"As eleições mostraram que as pessoas estão frustradas com o ritmo da recuperação da economia. Os americanos querem seus empregos de volta mais rapidamente", disse o presidente democrata. "Nos últimos anos, fizemos progressos, mas o americanos claramente não veem esse progresso. Os partidos políticos precisarão trabalhar juntos para progredir mais", completou.
Os democratas sofreram uma dura derrota ao perder o controle da Câmara dos Representantes. O Partido Republicano conseguiu o maior número de deputados e agora promete barras algumas reformas de Obama. A presidência da casa, atualmente ocupada pela democrata Nancy Pelosi, será do republicano John Boehner.
No Senado, que renovou 37 de suas 100 cadeiras, os republicanos arrebataram por enquanto os assentos dos democratas em Indiana, Dakota do Norte, Arkansas, Pensilvânia, Illinois e Wisconsin. Os conservadores precisavam de mais dez lugares para assumir o controle da casa, mas os democratas conseguiram manter a maioria. A corrente ultradireitista Tea Party emplacou dois representantes no Senado.
Além disso, os republicanos avançaram em pelo menos dez Estados antes controlados pelos democratas. O partido de Obama, por sua vez, elegeu candidatos na Califórnia e em Nova York e conseguiu duas regiões antes republicanas, embora tenha perdido o controle de um Estado para um candidato independente.
Desemprego
Obama admitiu que a economia é a principal preocupação dos americanos e lembrou do principal assunto abordado pelos republicanos durante a campanha - os impostos e o déficit dos EUA. O presidente disse que se reunirá com líderes de ambos os partidos para discutir cortes de gastos, mas alertou que não quer ver disputas nesse sentido.
Com uma taxa de desemprego que chega a 9,6%, tanto o presidente quando os republicanos estarão sob pressão para melhorar a situação do país. Obama sinalizou que deverá atender a algumas demandas da oposição, mas afirmou que "nenhum partido sozinho poderá ditar o caminho que será seguido daqui em diante.
WASHINGTON - O presidente dos EUA, Barack Obama, disse nesta quarta-feira, 3, um dia depois de seu partido perder a maioria na Câmara dos Representantes e ceder espaço para a oposição no Senado, que o resultado das eleições legislativas de meio de mandato mostram claramente a decepção dos americanos com o seu governo e disse que ele e o Congresso devem fazer um "trabalho melhor".
"Tenho que melhorar meu trabalho como presidente, assim como todos que trabalham em Washington devem melhorar também. Os eleitores querem que trabalhemos ainda mais duro e juntos. Haverá pontos de discórdia, mas é preciso agir com responsabilidade", disse o presidente em entrevista coletiva, na qual deu suas primeiras declarações após a dura derrota sofrida pelo Partido Democrata nas urnas.
"As eleições mostraram que as pessoas estão frustradas com o ritmo da recuperação da economia. Os americanos querem seus empregos de volta mais rapidamente", disse o presidente democrata. "Nos últimos anos, fizemos progressos, mas o americanos claramente não veem esse progresso. Os partidos políticos precisarão trabalhar juntos para progredir mais", completou.
Os democratas sofreram uma dura derrota ao perder o controle da Câmara dos Representantes. O Partido Republicano conseguiu o maior número de deputados e agora promete barras algumas reformas de Obama. A presidência da casa, atualmente ocupada pela democrata Nancy Pelosi, será do republicano John Boehner.
No Senado, que renovou 37 de suas 100 cadeiras, os republicanos arrebataram por enquanto os assentos dos democratas em Indiana, Dakota do Norte, Arkansas, Pensilvânia, Illinois e Wisconsin. Os conservadores precisavam de mais dez lugares para assumir o controle da casa, mas os democratas conseguiram manter a maioria. A corrente ultradireitista Tea Party emplacou dois representantes no Senado.
Além disso, os republicanos avançaram em pelo menos dez Estados antes controlados pelos democratas. O partido de Obama, por sua vez, elegeu candidatos na Califórnia e em Nova York e conseguiu duas regiões antes republicanas, embora tenha perdido o controle de um Estado para um candidato independente.
Desemprego
Obama admitiu que a economia é a principal preocupação dos americanos e lembrou do principal assunto abordado pelos republicanos durante a campanha - os impostos e o déficit dos EUA. O presidente disse que se reunirá com líderes de ambos os partidos para discutir cortes de gastos, mas alertou que não quer ver disputas nesse sentido.
Com uma taxa de desemprego que chega a 9,6%, tanto o presidente quando os republicanos estarão sob pressão para melhorar a situação do país. Obama sinalizou que deverá atender a algumas demandas da oposição, mas afirmou que "nenhum partido sozinho poderá ditar o caminho que será seguido daqui em diante.
Obama: "La gente está frustrada con la economía"
La Nación
WASHINGTON.- El presidente de EE.UU., Barack Obama, afirmó hoy que el resultado de los comicios legislativos demuestra que "la gente está profundamente frustrada con el ritmo de la economía" y aseguró: "Como presidente, acepto la responsabilidad en esto".
Obama habló así en una rueda de prensa después de que las elecciones legislativas de ayer en su país dieran una clara victoria al Partido Republicano, que retomará el control de la Cámara de Representantes y avanza seis escaños en el Senado, además de conseguir 10 gobernaciones.
"La gente se siente frustrada, muy frustrada. Esperan que Washington trabaje para ellos. Queremos decirles a aquellos que sienten que sus voces no están siendo oídas, que estoy enfrentando ese desafío y darle respuestas a esa gente. Realizamos progresos, pero muchos no lo sintieron. Yo soy responsable como presidente", expresó en forma contundente Obama.
En otro pasaje sobre la economía, indicó: "La preocupación mayor de la gente es la economía. Si bien la estabilizamos y vimos crecer nuevamente el empleo, la gente no vió en concreto ese progreso. Mi desafío es que sigamos creciendo, que haya más empleo".
"Debemos reducir el déficit y promover inversiones en tecnologías que nos permitan ser competitivos en el mundo. La contienda no es demócratas y republicano, sino EE.UU. y nuestros opositores en el mundo", afirmó el presidente.
"Estoy ansioso de escuchar buenas ideas, no importan quién las aporte. Aquí está mucho en juego. Tendremos otra oportunidad en 2012, pero ahora todos debemos trabajar para llegar al consenso", indicó y agregó: " Este es un país con resistencia que siempre se vuelve a levantar. El progreso siempre se realizó porque creemos en el trabajo y somos miembros de una ciudadanía fiel al país".
Conteo. En la Cámara de Representantes, cuanto todavía faltan las últimas cifras del escrutinio, el partido republicano tenía 240 escaños conquistados y estaba encaminado a obtener tres más, mientras que los demócratas sólo consiguieron 184 y se dirigían a lograr otros ocho. Eso representa que la oposición le arrebató 60 bancas.
Por su parte, en el Senado, el escenario también era frágil y complicado para los demócratas, que seguirán controlando ese cámara. Sin embargo, la diferencia es mínima, ya que el partido de Obama logró quedarse con 51 escaños, contra los 46 obtenidos por los republicanos.
El otro dato de la elección fue la sorpresa compartida de demócratas y republicanos por el fuerte apoyo que tuvieron los candidatos del Tea Party, el movimiento ultraconservador que expresa enojo popular.
El voto castigo es todo un mensaje para el gobierno de Obama y para su, ahora, incierto proyecto de reelección en 2012. En los hechos lo obligará a hacer cambios para impulsar su agenda en los próximos dos años.
Elección de gobernadores. Los republicanos se apoderaron de gobernaciones demócratas en al menos 10 estados, incluyendo algunos que serán clave en las elecciones presidenciales de 2012, y esperaban aún algunas victorias más.
Los siguientes estados pasaron de tener gobernadores demócratas a republicanos: Pensilvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Tennessee, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nuevo México y Wyoming.
Aún así hubo algunas alegrías para los demócratas. En California, el demócrata Jerry Brown superó a la ex presidenta de eBay, Meg Whitman, para reclamar el puesto que mantuvo hace tres décadas. Reemplazará al republicano Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Los demócratas lograron otro puesto en Hawai, el estado donde nació el presidente Barack Obama, con la victoria del ex representante de la Cámara baja Neil Abercrombie sobre el vicegobernador republicano James Aiona. Asimismo, los demócratas mantuvieron sus gobernaciones en Nueva York, Massachusetts, Maryland, Nuevo Hampshire, Arkansas y Colorado.
En siete estados los resultados no estaban lo suficientemente definidos como para emitir un veredicto:Illinois, Oregón y Maine, con gobernadores demócratas, y Connecticut, Florida, Minnesota y Vermont, con gobernadores republicanos.
WASHINGTON.- El presidente de EE.UU., Barack Obama, afirmó hoy que el resultado de los comicios legislativos demuestra que "la gente está profundamente frustrada con el ritmo de la economía" y aseguró: "Como presidente, acepto la responsabilidad en esto".
Obama habló así en una rueda de prensa después de que las elecciones legislativas de ayer en su país dieran una clara victoria al Partido Republicano, que retomará el control de la Cámara de Representantes y avanza seis escaños en el Senado, además de conseguir 10 gobernaciones.
"La gente se siente frustrada, muy frustrada. Esperan que Washington trabaje para ellos. Queremos decirles a aquellos que sienten que sus voces no están siendo oídas, que estoy enfrentando ese desafío y darle respuestas a esa gente. Realizamos progresos, pero muchos no lo sintieron. Yo soy responsable como presidente", expresó en forma contundente Obama.
En otro pasaje sobre la economía, indicó: "La preocupación mayor de la gente es la economía. Si bien la estabilizamos y vimos crecer nuevamente el empleo, la gente no vió en concreto ese progreso. Mi desafío es que sigamos creciendo, que haya más empleo".
"Debemos reducir el déficit y promover inversiones en tecnologías que nos permitan ser competitivos en el mundo. La contienda no es demócratas y republicano, sino EE.UU. y nuestros opositores en el mundo", afirmó el presidente.
"Estoy ansioso de escuchar buenas ideas, no importan quién las aporte. Aquí está mucho en juego. Tendremos otra oportunidad en 2012, pero ahora todos debemos trabajar para llegar al consenso", indicó y agregó: " Este es un país con resistencia que siempre se vuelve a levantar. El progreso siempre se realizó porque creemos en el trabajo y somos miembros de una ciudadanía fiel al país".
Conteo. En la Cámara de Representantes, cuanto todavía faltan las últimas cifras del escrutinio, el partido republicano tenía 240 escaños conquistados y estaba encaminado a obtener tres más, mientras que los demócratas sólo consiguieron 184 y se dirigían a lograr otros ocho. Eso representa que la oposición le arrebató 60 bancas.
Por su parte, en el Senado, el escenario también era frágil y complicado para los demócratas, que seguirán controlando ese cámara. Sin embargo, la diferencia es mínima, ya que el partido de Obama logró quedarse con 51 escaños, contra los 46 obtenidos por los republicanos.
El otro dato de la elección fue la sorpresa compartida de demócratas y republicanos por el fuerte apoyo que tuvieron los candidatos del Tea Party, el movimiento ultraconservador que expresa enojo popular.
El voto castigo es todo un mensaje para el gobierno de Obama y para su, ahora, incierto proyecto de reelección en 2012. En los hechos lo obligará a hacer cambios para impulsar su agenda en los próximos dos años.
Elección de gobernadores. Los republicanos se apoderaron de gobernaciones demócratas en al menos 10 estados, incluyendo algunos que serán clave en las elecciones presidenciales de 2012, y esperaban aún algunas victorias más.
Los siguientes estados pasaron de tener gobernadores demócratas a republicanos: Pensilvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Tennessee, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nuevo México y Wyoming.
Aún así hubo algunas alegrías para los demócratas. En California, el demócrata Jerry Brown superó a la ex presidenta de eBay, Meg Whitman, para reclamar el puesto que mantuvo hace tres décadas. Reemplazará al republicano Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Los demócratas lograron otro puesto en Hawai, el estado donde nació el presidente Barack Obama, con la victoria del ex representante de la Cámara baja Neil Abercrombie sobre el vicegobernador republicano James Aiona. Asimismo, los demócratas mantuvieron sus gobernaciones en Nueva York, Massachusetts, Maryland, Nuevo Hampshire, Arkansas y Colorado.
En siete estados los resultados no estaban lo suficientemente definidos como para emitir un veredicto:Illinois, Oregón y Maine, con gobernadores demócratas, y Connecticut, Florida, Minnesota y Vermont, con gobernadores republicanos.
Tuesday's results are open to (careful) interpretation
The Washington Post
History is replete with politicians and political parties that misinterpreted the meaning of elections. President Obama and Republican leaders are in danger of doing so again.
For Republicans, it's the classic problem of over-interpreting the mandate of an election. For the president, it's the risk of under-interpreting the message the voters delivered Tuesday.
The talking points for the day were set before the votes were fully counted Tuesday night. From both the White House and congressional Republicans came the same message: Americans want us to work together. That is the easy part. For the victors, the rules require no gloating. For the losers, humility is the order of the day.
It took the president nearly an hour at his Wednesday news conference before he opened up, describing the results as "a shellacking" and admitting that his relationship with the American people "has gotten rockier and tougher" over the past two years.
For most of the rest of the hour, however, he sounded little different than he had before the election, unwilling it seemed to consider whether he had moved too far to the left for many voters who thought he was a centrist when he ran in 2008.
History tells the president not to panic. Ronald Reagan suffered serious midterm losses in 1982 and won reelection in one of the biggest landslides in history. Bill Clinton looked flattened after 1994, when Republicans ended 40 years of Democratic rule in the House and added the Senate as well. He, too, won an easy reelection two years later. Obama referred to both in his news conference.
But Tuesday's results showed just how much work the president has to do to turn around his presidency. He has lost touch with many people. His coalition is now badly fractured: Neither young people nor African Americans showed up in numbers approaching 2008. Democrats disappeared in some big states, as turnout dropped dramatically.
Independents didn't just defect from the Democrats. They deserted them in droves. If there is one number from all the exit polls that leaps out, it is from Ohio, where independents went for Rob Portman, who won the Senate race, by a staggering margin of 39 percentage points. In the governor's race there, independents backed winner John Kasich by 16 points. Overall, independents voted Tuesday for Republicans by a margin of 18 points. Two years ago, Democrats won them by eight points.
Independents continue to swing back and forth. Obama may hope they will be back in his column by 2012, if the economy has recovered. Perhaps. But the message from independents was not only unhappiness with the results of Obama's economic and domestic agenda, but also with the agenda itself. According to exit polls, 57 percent of independent voters said Obama's policies would hurt the country in the long run. Just 38 percent said they would help.
When he ran for president, Obama was a political phenomenon. There is little likelihood that Obama can rekindle the magic of 2008 and his extraordinary campaign. Two years as president during some of the most difficult times the country has seen in many years have taken their toll on the relationship between the president and the public.
Those who doubted him from the start now are hard-core in their opposition. Many of those who were inspired by his candidacy are, at a minimum, let down. Those who were merely hopeful have lost hope. Which means the president must find a way to reconnect in a different way.
Obama has suffered few such setbacks in his life. With the exception of a loss in his first race for Congress, Obama has always arrived ahead of schedule on a career path that has moved at an astonishing pace from community organizer to state senator to U.S. senator to president.
What happened Tuesday represents the biggest and broadest rebuke he has ever received. Asked at his news conference Wednesday afternoon how it feels, Obama said, "It feels bad."
The president has great faith in himself, which may serve him well in this time of travail, but which also could compound his problems. During the campaign, he was known for taking both victories and losses in stride, never too down in the darkest moments, as after New Hampshire, or too exuberant when he deserved to bask in victory, as the night he was elected. Steadiness in the face of adversity will be essential in the months ahead.
At the same time, that sense of self-confidence risks understating what happened Tuesday. It was Obama, after all, who was resistant to advice from some of his team not to go so fast in 2009 and 2010, particularly on health care. If Obama can remain unruffled by the slings of cable chatter, minor setbacks or the slow pace of recovery, the danger is that he still remains too detached from the crowd - and from the people who elected him.
His message this fall was that he and his party had done a lot that people didn't yet know about. That suggested a lack of gratitude on the part of the people. He also suggested that in hard times people are hard-wired not to think rationally. That echoed his description of economically hard-pressed people being "bitter" and "clinging" to guns and religion.
The public wondered whether Obama really understands them and he now has two years to show that he does.
House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) and other GOP leaders have sought in the early hours after their victory to assure people that they do not regard the results as a genuine affirmation of the Republican brand. But if history is any guide, hubris could quickly set in, in which case they will have trouble avoiding the conclusion that this election was a sweeping endorsement of their agenda.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said as much when he suggested Democrats hadn't gotten the message of Tuesday's results. "We're determined to stop the agenda Americans have rejected and to turn the ship around," he said.
But voters still view Republicans with distrust. Independents who so soundly backed Republican candidates Tuesday are as disdainful of the GOP as they are of the Democrats. According to the exit polls, 58 percent of independents said they view the Democrats unfavorably and 57 percent said they view Republicans unfavorably.
Republicans have challenged Obama by arguing that he has governed from the left while the country is center right. But will Republicans interpret Tuesday's results by lurching too far to the right? They may look at the exit polls and see that 41 percent of voters called themselves conservatives, a high watermark, and say the country has shifted dramatically.
The party's center of gravity has certainly shifted, but has the entire country? Republicans now have a hard-right base in what is still a country that prefers its politics closer to the center. Pleasing the base and the newly elected conservatives, while staying focused on the middle, is the leadership's first task.
Republicans may have been ill served by the primary process. The primaries produced candidates, many with tea party connections, who could not withstand the scrutiny of voters even in a year when those voters were more predisposed to back Republicans.
Either because of their eccentric styles - think Delaware's Christine O'Donnell - or their extreme conservatism - think Nevada's Sharron Angle - these tea party favorites were not ready for prime time. That may have cost the GOP Senate seats in Nevada, Delaware and Colorado, where Ken Buck trails Sen. Michael Bennet (D). That also may allow Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) to sneak back into the Senate in a write-in campaign after losing her primary to Joe Miller, who was backed by the tea party and Sarah Palin.
Republicans cannot count on the same electorate in 2012. The percentage of white voters was 78 percent Tuesday. Two years ago it was 74. If the electorate of 2008 had shown up Tuesday, Republicans still would have gained seats, but far fewer.
That doesn't diminish the historic nature of what Republicans accomplished Tuesday, but it is a reminder that this country remains in pain and unsettled politically - highly polarized but unsettled in the center. That's why misreading Tuesday's results is dangerous for both sides.
History is replete with politicians and political parties that misinterpreted the meaning of elections. President Obama and Republican leaders are in danger of doing so again.
For Republicans, it's the classic problem of over-interpreting the mandate of an election. For the president, it's the risk of under-interpreting the message the voters delivered Tuesday.
The talking points for the day were set before the votes were fully counted Tuesday night. From both the White House and congressional Republicans came the same message: Americans want us to work together. That is the easy part. For the victors, the rules require no gloating. For the losers, humility is the order of the day.
It took the president nearly an hour at his Wednesday news conference before he opened up, describing the results as "a shellacking" and admitting that his relationship with the American people "has gotten rockier and tougher" over the past two years.
For most of the rest of the hour, however, he sounded little different than he had before the election, unwilling it seemed to consider whether he had moved too far to the left for many voters who thought he was a centrist when he ran in 2008.
History tells the president not to panic. Ronald Reagan suffered serious midterm losses in 1982 and won reelection in one of the biggest landslides in history. Bill Clinton looked flattened after 1994, when Republicans ended 40 years of Democratic rule in the House and added the Senate as well. He, too, won an easy reelection two years later. Obama referred to both in his news conference.
But Tuesday's results showed just how much work the president has to do to turn around his presidency. He has lost touch with many people. His coalition is now badly fractured: Neither young people nor African Americans showed up in numbers approaching 2008. Democrats disappeared in some big states, as turnout dropped dramatically.
Independents didn't just defect from the Democrats. They deserted them in droves. If there is one number from all the exit polls that leaps out, it is from Ohio, where independents went for Rob Portman, who won the Senate race, by a staggering margin of 39 percentage points. In the governor's race there, independents backed winner John Kasich by 16 points. Overall, independents voted Tuesday for Republicans by a margin of 18 points. Two years ago, Democrats won them by eight points.
Independents continue to swing back and forth. Obama may hope they will be back in his column by 2012, if the economy has recovered. Perhaps. But the message from independents was not only unhappiness with the results of Obama's economic and domestic agenda, but also with the agenda itself. According to exit polls, 57 percent of independent voters said Obama's policies would hurt the country in the long run. Just 38 percent said they would help.
When he ran for president, Obama was a political phenomenon. There is little likelihood that Obama can rekindle the magic of 2008 and his extraordinary campaign. Two years as president during some of the most difficult times the country has seen in many years have taken their toll on the relationship between the president and the public.
Those who doubted him from the start now are hard-core in their opposition. Many of those who were inspired by his candidacy are, at a minimum, let down. Those who were merely hopeful have lost hope. Which means the president must find a way to reconnect in a different way.
Obama has suffered few such setbacks in his life. With the exception of a loss in his first race for Congress, Obama has always arrived ahead of schedule on a career path that has moved at an astonishing pace from community organizer to state senator to U.S. senator to president.
What happened Tuesday represents the biggest and broadest rebuke he has ever received. Asked at his news conference Wednesday afternoon how it feels, Obama said, "It feels bad."
The president has great faith in himself, which may serve him well in this time of travail, but which also could compound his problems. During the campaign, he was known for taking both victories and losses in stride, never too down in the darkest moments, as after New Hampshire, or too exuberant when he deserved to bask in victory, as the night he was elected. Steadiness in the face of adversity will be essential in the months ahead.
At the same time, that sense of self-confidence risks understating what happened Tuesday. It was Obama, after all, who was resistant to advice from some of his team not to go so fast in 2009 and 2010, particularly on health care. If Obama can remain unruffled by the slings of cable chatter, minor setbacks or the slow pace of recovery, the danger is that he still remains too detached from the crowd - and from the people who elected him.
His message this fall was that he and his party had done a lot that people didn't yet know about. That suggested a lack of gratitude on the part of the people. He also suggested that in hard times people are hard-wired not to think rationally. That echoed his description of economically hard-pressed people being "bitter" and "clinging" to guns and religion.
The public wondered whether Obama really understands them and he now has two years to show that he does.
House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) and other GOP leaders have sought in the early hours after their victory to assure people that they do not regard the results as a genuine affirmation of the Republican brand. But if history is any guide, hubris could quickly set in, in which case they will have trouble avoiding the conclusion that this election was a sweeping endorsement of their agenda.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said as much when he suggested Democrats hadn't gotten the message of Tuesday's results. "We're determined to stop the agenda Americans have rejected and to turn the ship around," he said.
But voters still view Republicans with distrust. Independents who so soundly backed Republican candidates Tuesday are as disdainful of the GOP as they are of the Democrats. According to the exit polls, 58 percent of independents said they view the Democrats unfavorably and 57 percent said they view Republicans unfavorably.
Republicans have challenged Obama by arguing that he has governed from the left while the country is center right. But will Republicans interpret Tuesday's results by lurching too far to the right? They may look at the exit polls and see that 41 percent of voters called themselves conservatives, a high watermark, and say the country has shifted dramatically.
The party's center of gravity has certainly shifted, but has the entire country? Republicans now have a hard-right base in what is still a country that prefers its politics closer to the center. Pleasing the base and the newly elected conservatives, while staying focused on the middle, is the leadership's first task.
Republicans may have been ill served by the primary process. The primaries produced candidates, many with tea party connections, who could not withstand the scrutiny of voters even in a year when those voters were more predisposed to back Republicans.
Either because of their eccentric styles - think Delaware's Christine O'Donnell - or their extreme conservatism - think Nevada's Sharron Angle - these tea party favorites were not ready for prime time. That may have cost the GOP Senate seats in Nevada, Delaware and Colorado, where Ken Buck trails Sen. Michael Bennet (D). That also may allow Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) to sneak back into the Senate in a write-in campaign after losing her primary to Joe Miller, who was backed by the tea party and Sarah Palin.
Republicans cannot count on the same electorate in 2012. The percentage of white voters was 78 percent Tuesday. Two years ago it was 74. If the electorate of 2008 had shown up Tuesday, Republicans still would have gained seats, but far fewer.
That doesn't diminish the historic nature of what Republicans accomplished Tuesday, but it is a reminder that this country remains in pain and unsettled politically - highly polarized but unsettled in the center. That's why misreading Tuesday's results is dangerous for both sides.
The Republicans strike back
The Economist
Nov 3rd 2010, 7:11 by E.M. | WASHINGTON, DC
"TONIGHT," exulted Rand Paul, the victorious Republican candidate for the Senate from Kentucky, "there's a tea-party tidal wave." And so, in almost all respects, it was: the Republicans, fired up by the enthusiasm of tea-party activists, look set to pick up some 60 seats in the House of Representatives. That makes it the biggest upheaval in the House since 1948, exceeding even the Republican landslide of 1994. It entirely undoes the Democrats' gains of 2006 and 2008, and serves as a massive rebuke to Barack Obama. The president can no longer count on a Democratic majority in Congress to enact his agenda; he will now have to recast his presidency in the light of America's abrupt jerk to the right.
The Democrats held the Senate, but by a much diminished margin. That constitutes the slenderest of silver linings for the party, in an otherwise dismal night. Races that had been considered toss-ups, in such states as California, Nevada and West Virginia, broke their way in the end. Despite Mr Paul's exuberance, prominent tea-party candidates, such as Sharron Angle in Nevada and Ken Buck in Colorado, did not do as well as expected.
But that was remarkable only because the night was otherwise such a triumph for Republicans. Almost all close races in the House broke their way. Centrist "blue-dog" Democrats, many of them in Republican-leaning districts, were obliterated. Even stalwarts such as Ike Skelton, a congressman of 34 years and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and John Spratt, a 28-year veteran who runs the House Budget Committee, were booted out of office. Republicans returned to areas they had been evicted from two years ago, such as New England, while Democrats lost many of their toe-holds in the Great Plains, the Rockies and the South.
The area around the Great Lakes, as predicted, was a particularly barren wasteland for Democrats. The Republicans picked up dozens of House seats in the region, plus Senate seats in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Illinois, not to mention governorships in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin. The Republicans also triumphed in hard fought governors races in Texas and, it seems, in Florida. The only prominent governorship the Democrats have definitely picked up is in California, where Meg Whitman, a former software executive who spent some $140m of her own money and $20m of others' on her campaign, nonetheless succumbed to Jerry Brown, who held the same job 28 years ago. Meanwhile, Republicans seem to have won over about ten state legislatures.
A few races remain so close they are bound to be the subject of recounts and legal disputes for months to come. Florida, as it so often does, produced a squeaker, in which Rick Scott, the Republican candidate for governor, leads Alex Sink, his Democratic rival, by about 1% of the 5m-odd votes cast. There may be an automatic recount in Colorado, where Democrat Michael Bennet leads Mr Buck by a few thousand votes. And in Alaska, Lisa Murkowski's potential victory as a write-in candidate will not be confirmed for several weeks, as electoral officials pore over each hand-written vote in her favour.
None of that, however, detracts from the Republicans' resounding victory. Their leaders, including John Boehner, the party's presumptive choice as speaker of the House, and Sarah Palin, the most prominent standard-bearer for the tea-party movement, have called on Mr Obama to heed the voice of the electorate, rein in his big spending ways and co-operate with Republican efforts to deflate the federal government. Mr Obama will give a press conference later today, in which he will doubtless lay out his initial response to the Democrats' drubbing. But it seems unlikely that he will accede to the Republicans' demands to reverse course on his most cherished causes, such as health-care reform. He must now decide whether to curtail his ambitions dramatically, and pursue some sort of accommodation with the new Congress, or stick to his guns, even if that appears to ignore the voters' will and leads to legislative gridlock.
Republicans, too, face some unpalatable choices. It is not clear that the election results represent an endorsement of their policies so much as a protest at the economy and a repudiation of Mr Obama's performance so far as president. The last time the party swept to a majority in the House, in 1994, it initiated and lost a duel with the White House, paving the way for Bill Clinton's re-election two years later. Yet many of the new members seem determined to fight tooth and nail for dramatic cuts to the budget in particular. They are a remarkably conservative lot in other respects too: keen to abolish whole government departments in many cases, determined to crack down on illegal immigration, sceptical about global warming and opposed to abortion, among other controversial stances. If they push these views too aggressively, they may quickly alienate the independent voters who have just handed them such a resounding victory.
Mr Boehner, a level-headed sort, will probably try to curb the more radical members of his caucus. But he has not always been able to maintain party discipline among his current, less fire-breathing ranks. All Republican congressmen will be wary of showing too many signs of moderation for fear of prompting primary challenges at the next election. It will not help, of course, that Republican grandees who see the election results as a sign of Mr Obama's weakness in the presidential election of 2012, will soon start jockeying for the party's nomination, with all the grandstanding that entails. The speaker-in-waiting, who wept with emotion at his party's resuscitation last night, may soon find himself overcome by the difficulty of marshalling his new troops.
Nov 3rd 2010, 7:11 by E.M. | WASHINGTON, DC
"TONIGHT," exulted Rand Paul, the victorious Republican candidate for the Senate from Kentucky, "there's a tea-party tidal wave." And so, in almost all respects, it was: the Republicans, fired up by the enthusiasm of tea-party activists, look set to pick up some 60 seats in the House of Representatives. That makes it the biggest upheaval in the House since 1948, exceeding even the Republican landslide of 1994. It entirely undoes the Democrats' gains of 2006 and 2008, and serves as a massive rebuke to Barack Obama. The president can no longer count on a Democratic majority in Congress to enact his agenda; he will now have to recast his presidency in the light of America's abrupt jerk to the right.
The Democrats held the Senate, but by a much diminished margin. That constitutes the slenderest of silver linings for the party, in an otherwise dismal night. Races that had been considered toss-ups, in such states as California, Nevada and West Virginia, broke their way in the end. Despite Mr Paul's exuberance, prominent tea-party candidates, such as Sharron Angle in Nevada and Ken Buck in Colorado, did not do as well as expected.
But that was remarkable only because the night was otherwise such a triumph for Republicans. Almost all close races in the House broke their way. Centrist "blue-dog" Democrats, many of them in Republican-leaning districts, were obliterated. Even stalwarts such as Ike Skelton, a congressman of 34 years and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and John Spratt, a 28-year veteran who runs the House Budget Committee, were booted out of office. Republicans returned to areas they had been evicted from two years ago, such as New England, while Democrats lost many of their toe-holds in the Great Plains, the Rockies and the South.
The area around the Great Lakes, as predicted, was a particularly barren wasteland for Democrats. The Republicans picked up dozens of House seats in the region, plus Senate seats in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Illinois, not to mention governorships in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin. The Republicans also triumphed in hard fought governors races in Texas and, it seems, in Florida. The only prominent governorship the Democrats have definitely picked up is in California, where Meg Whitman, a former software executive who spent some $140m of her own money and $20m of others' on her campaign, nonetheless succumbed to Jerry Brown, who held the same job 28 years ago. Meanwhile, Republicans seem to have won over about ten state legislatures.
A few races remain so close they are bound to be the subject of recounts and legal disputes for months to come. Florida, as it so often does, produced a squeaker, in which Rick Scott, the Republican candidate for governor, leads Alex Sink, his Democratic rival, by about 1% of the 5m-odd votes cast. There may be an automatic recount in Colorado, where Democrat Michael Bennet leads Mr Buck by a few thousand votes. And in Alaska, Lisa Murkowski's potential victory as a write-in candidate will not be confirmed for several weeks, as electoral officials pore over each hand-written vote in her favour.
None of that, however, detracts from the Republicans' resounding victory. Their leaders, including John Boehner, the party's presumptive choice as speaker of the House, and Sarah Palin, the most prominent standard-bearer for the tea-party movement, have called on Mr Obama to heed the voice of the electorate, rein in his big spending ways and co-operate with Republican efforts to deflate the federal government. Mr Obama will give a press conference later today, in which he will doubtless lay out his initial response to the Democrats' drubbing. But it seems unlikely that he will accede to the Republicans' demands to reverse course on his most cherished causes, such as health-care reform. He must now decide whether to curtail his ambitions dramatically, and pursue some sort of accommodation with the new Congress, or stick to his guns, even if that appears to ignore the voters' will and leads to legislative gridlock.
Republicans, too, face some unpalatable choices. It is not clear that the election results represent an endorsement of their policies so much as a protest at the economy and a repudiation of Mr Obama's performance so far as president. The last time the party swept to a majority in the House, in 1994, it initiated and lost a duel with the White House, paving the way for Bill Clinton's re-election two years later. Yet many of the new members seem determined to fight tooth and nail for dramatic cuts to the budget in particular. They are a remarkably conservative lot in other respects too: keen to abolish whole government departments in many cases, determined to crack down on illegal immigration, sceptical about global warming and opposed to abortion, among other controversial stances. If they push these views too aggressively, they may quickly alienate the independent voters who have just handed them such a resounding victory.
Mr Boehner, a level-headed sort, will probably try to curb the more radical members of his caucus. But he has not always been able to maintain party discipline among his current, less fire-breathing ranks. All Republican congressmen will be wary of showing too many signs of moderation for fear of prompting primary challenges at the next election. It will not help, of course, that Republican grandees who see the election results as a sign of Mr Obama's weakness in the presidential election of 2012, will soon start jockeying for the party's nomination, with all the grandstanding that entails. The speaker-in-waiting, who wept with emotion at his party's resuscitation last night, may soon find himself overcome by the difficulty of marshalling his new troops.
US midterm election results herald new political era as Republicans take House
The Guardian
Barack Obama was today facing a harsh new US political reality in the wake of one of the worst Democratic defeats for 70 years.
In midterm election races across America, Republicans pummelled their opponents, capturing the House of Representatives and a fistful of Senate seats.
With some seats still to be counted, the Republicans picked up at least 60 House seats, eclipsing their 54 gains in 1994 and the party's best result since 1938. They also gained at least six Senate seats, falling short of the 10 they needed to gain control of the upper house.
It was a remarkable comeback from two years ago, when many experts expected the party to endure a long time in the political wilderness in the wake of Obama's emphatic 2008 presidential election victory.
Instead, Obama faces a hard political lesson after a hammering that wiped away the last vestiges of the euphoria that swept him to the White House.
The political momentum has swung to the rightwing Tea Party movement, which energised the Republican base and notched up a string of high-profile victories.
The loss of the House is the first major setback Obama has faced in his relatively untroubled political rise from a community worker in Chicago to the presidency, and means that Nancy Pelosi – its first female Speaker – will give way to the Republican John Boehner.
The swap of a liberal San Franciscan woman for a conservative Ohio man is a symbol of the deep shift in US politics heralded by the midterm results.
Boehner said: "It's pretty clear the Obama-Pelosi agenda has been rejected. They want the president to change course. Change course we will," he said.
Pelosi called for party cooperation to avoid gridlock. "We must all strive to find common ground to support the middle class, create jobs, reduce the deficit and move our nation forward," she said.
The Democrats best results came in the Senate races, winning in Colorado, West Virginia and Nevada, where the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, pulled off a surprise victory against the Tea Party darling Sharron Angle in one of the most bitterly fought contests of the campaign.
California seemed to act as a bulwark holding back the Republican tide.
Not only did Senator Barbara Boxer defeat her Republican challenger, Carly Fiorina, but Jerry Brown beat Meg Whitman to wrest the California governorship back into Democratic hands after eight years of "the Governator", Arnold Schwarzenegger.
However, despite these glimmers of Democratic hope, there was no denying the stark outcome, which included ten new Republican governors.
Republicans will now be able to use their position of power to wage a guerrilla war against Obama in the remaining two years of his presidential term – the next 24 months are likely to be marked by rancorous partisan bickering and little in the way of new legislation.
Indeed, Republicans may even try to undo substantial areas of Obama's legislative achievements, especially his landmark healthcare reforms. During the campaign, many Republican candidates vowed to take measures to stop his healthcare law from being funded.
Obama made a late-night call to Boehner to offer his congratulations and discuss working together to creating jobs and improving the economy.
Although Obama remains favourite to secure re-election in 2012, last night's congressional defeats, as well as the loss of governorships, have removed his air of invincibility.
Tea Party favourite Sarah Palin, and a possible opponent for Obama in 2012, predicted a rough ride ahead for the president.
Writing on Twitter she said the electorate has sent a clear message to Obama. "We'll send our representatives to DC to stop your fundamental transformation of America. Enough is enough," she wrote.
Exit polls yesterday showed that the number one issue for the electorate was the economy, with 86% saying they were concerned about it.
The Tea Party, which did not even exist less than two years ago, has benefited from this anger, and last night established itself as a force in US politics.
Now prominent Tea Party-endorsed politicians have swept into positions of real influence, giving the rebel movement a taste of real power for the first time.
Rand Paul, a Republican candidate backed by the Tea Party, won the Kentucky race for a place in the US Senate. In his victory speech, he said the US was witnessing a "Tea Party tidal wave". He will be joined there by another Tea Party favourite, Marco Rubio, who won in Florida.
But there is no place in the Senate for the most written-about member of the Tea Party, Christine O'Donnell, who put out the now infamous political ad declaring she was not a witch.
O'Donnell, a social conservative, was easily defeated in Delaware, a liberal state where a more mainstream Republican might have had a chance. And the Tea Party candidate for Senate in Alaska, Joe Miller, is also expected to lose out to the Republican Lisa Murkowski, who was standing as a write-in candidate.
Obama is almost certain to be magnanimous at a White House press conference at lunchtime today, and a White House official said it was likely he would call on the Republicans to work with him.
The president is about to set off on a 10-day visit to Asia, but one proposal is that he might invite Republicans to his retreat at Camp David for a summit on how to tackle the economy and other issues.
But both sides are preparing for a series of battles in Congress and in the courts. In a radio interview with a station in Chicago yesterday, Obama said: "My hope is that I can co-operate with Republicans."
But he went on to suggest that such co-operation was unlikely given the agenda the Republicans have already signalled.
"That means that their desire to roll back healthcare reform, that they've already announced, or their desire to roll back financial regulatory reform, that they've already announced – that's going to be their agenda," he said.
Barack Obama was today facing a harsh new US political reality in the wake of one of the worst Democratic defeats for 70 years.
In midterm election races across America, Republicans pummelled their opponents, capturing the House of Representatives and a fistful of Senate seats.
With some seats still to be counted, the Republicans picked up at least 60 House seats, eclipsing their 54 gains in 1994 and the party's best result since 1938. They also gained at least six Senate seats, falling short of the 10 they needed to gain control of the upper house.
It was a remarkable comeback from two years ago, when many experts expected the party to endure a long time in the political wilderness in the wake of Obama's emphatic 2008 presidential election victory.
Instead, Obama faces a hard political lesson after a hammering that wiped away the last vestiges of the euphoria that swept him to the White House.
The political momentum has swung to the rightwing Tea Party movement, which energised the Republican base and notched up a string of high-profile victories.
The loss of the House is the first major setback Obama has faced in his relatively untroubled political rise from a community worker in Chicago to the presidency, and means that Nancy Pelosi – its first female Speaker – will give way to the Republican John Boehner.
The swap of a liberal San Franciscan woman for a conservative Ohio man is a symbol of the deep shift in US politics heralded by the midterm results.
Boehner said: "It's pretty clear the Obama-Pelosi agenda has been rejected. They want the president to change course. Change course we will," he said.
Pelosi called for party cooperation to avoid gridlock. "We must all strive to find common ground to support the middle class, create jobs, reduce the deficit and move our nation forward," she said.
The Democrats best results came in the Senate races, winning in Colorado, West Virginia and Nevada, where the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, pulled off a surprise victory against the Tea Party darling Sharron Angle in one of the most bitterly fought contests of the campaign.
California seemed to act as a bulwark holding back the Republican tide.
Not only did Senator Barbara Boxer defeat her Republican challenger, Carly Fiorina, but Jerry Brown beat Meg Whitman to wrest the California governorship back into Democratic hands after eight years of "the Governator", Arnold Schwarzenegger.
However, despite these glimmers of Democratic hope, there was no denying the stark outcome, which included ten new Republican governors.
Republicans will now be able to use their position of power to wage a guerrilla war against Obama in the remaining two years of his presidential term – the next 24 months are likely to be marked by rancorous partisan bickering and little in the way of new legislation.
Indeed, Republicans may even try to undo substantial areas of Obama's legislative achievements, especially his landmark healthcare reforms. During the campaign, many Republican candidates vowed to take measures to stop his healthcare law from being funded.
Obama made a late-night call to Boehner to offer his congratulations and discuss working together to creating jobs and improving the economy.
Although Obama remains favourite to secure re-election in 2012, last night's congressional defeats, as well as the loss of governorships, have removed his air of invincibility.
Tea Party favourite Sarah Palin, and a possible opponent for Obama in 2012, predicted a rough ride ahead for the president.
Writing on Twitter she said the electorate has sent a clear message to Obama. "We'll send our representatives to DC to stop your fundamental transformation of America. Enough is enough," she wrote.
Exit polls yesterday showed that the number one issue for the electorate was the economy, with 86% saying they were concerned about it.
The Tea Party, which did not even exist less than two years ago, has benefited from this anger, and last night established itself as a force in US politics.
Now prominent Tea Party-endorsed politicians have swept into positions of real influence, giving the rebel movement a taste of real power for the first time.
Rand Paul, a Republican candidate backed by the Tea Party, won the Kentucky race for a place in the US Senate. In his victory speech, he said the US was witnessing a "Tea Party tidal wave". He will be joined there by another Tea Party favourite, Marco Rubio, who won in Florida.
But there is no place in the Senate for the most written-about member of the Tea Party, Christine O'Donnell, who put out the now infamous political ad declaring she was not a witch.
O'Donnell, a social conservative, was easily defeated in Delaware, a liberal state where a more mainstream Republican might have had a chance. And the Tea Party candidate for Senate in Alaska, Joe Miller, is also expected to lose out to the Republican Lisa Murkowski, who was standing as a write-in candidate.
Obama is almost certain to be magnanimous at a White House press conference at lunchtime today, and a White House official said it was likely he would call on the Republicans to work with him.
The president is about to set off on a 10-day visit to Asia, but one proposal is that he might invite Republicans to his retreat at Camp David for a summit on how to tackle the economy and other issues.
But both sides are preparing for a series of battles in Congress and in the courts. In a radio interview with a station in Chicago yesterday, Obama said: "My hope is that I can co-operate with Republicans."
But he went on to suggest that such co-operation was unlikely given the agenda the Republicans have already signalled.
"That means that their desire to roll back healthcare reform, that they've already announced, or their desire to roll back financial regulatory reform, that they've already announced – that's going to be their agenda," he said.
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