The Obama Administration Releases First Budget And Iraq Pullout Plan

Hi all. It's been a long day and I'm beat. I don't mean to turn this blog into AC360 Review By Bullet Points, but I think I'm going to bring those little devils back again for another night. It's how I roll when I'm lazy. Let's get the show on the road:

• Oh noes! President Obama is breaking his Iraq withdrawal campaign promise by a whole three months. Let us all now clutch our pearls. Meh. Maybe I'm just overly cynical, but I never even listened to his specifics on Iraq because I assumed things would change after the election. I'm not saying I thought Obama was being coldly political, but I mean, it's a war--you can't just put a check on the calender. I'm actually surprised (and pleased) that he seems serious in having combat troops out of the country by 2010, though I imagine there'll be some wiggling with that date as we get closer as well.

• Man, 360 is obsessed with everything's price tag. Said Anderson Cooper: "Right now, we want to tell you about the other major story brewing today, the battle over President Obama's new budget announced today and the eye-popping bottom line, $3.6 trillion in spending. That's a three and a six followed by 11 zeros." Okay, we're not retarded.

• Yay to transparent and honest government! No, you can not spend billions on war and pretend like that shouldn't go in the budget.

• In response to an Obama quote that government budgets should be run as honestly as family budgets, Anderson had this to say: "Well, we should point out, households cannot run deficits, but there are reasons for the government to do it to stimulate the economy. Still, the numbers are staggering." Many people on the live-blog rightly called him out for that completely inaccurate comment, so I hate to pile on. Oh...what the heck? Er, duh, Anderson. Ever hear of a credit card or mortgage?

• Hm. This is turning into Anderson quote night. Last bullet point I bopped him on the nose; this one I give him a cookie (emphasis mine): "Now, setting aside the obvious fact that the Republicans said very little about exploding the deficit when it was President Bush's budget-busting budgets, putting that aside, are their criticisms legitimate?"

• I have to say, I'm not digging David Gergen's concern trolling (again!) regarding the "much more activist government" Obama is proposing. He was just saying the other week that our economic problems were too big for the private sector and would require the intervention of government. Well, so too with our other huge problems right now. Hello! I'm also annoyed at his statement that he's not sure the American people know what they voted for. Yes, because the pundit knows us better than we know ourselves. C'mon Gerg. Puhleese. This is the same guy who thought for sure people would have warm thoughts about the last creep that left office.

• Michael Ware! In the studio! Out of danger and cleaned up real nice. Yes, please.

• I sort of expected Michael to at least partially slam Obama's Iraq plan, so when he said it was a "relatively sound strategy," I got on board even more.
  

• Kudos to Anderson for bringing up the fact that there's no clear strategy in Afghanistan. If the newsies want to go after Obama for something, go after him for that. I need to see some feet-to-the-fire holding. Too many lives at stake to play around.

• The ban on photographing coffins coming into Dover has been lifted. Finally. Another horrible policy goes by the wayside. It's time to truly look at what this war wrought. As I've written previously, let's stop being afraid of reality.
  

• The Randi Kaye piece on the crumbling schools was very good. It's a huge issue in this country, yet inexplicably rarely gets the kind of coverage that was in the piece. The conditions that some children have to try to learn in are mind boggling. Though the schools I went to weren't quite as bad as some of those featured, I can sympathize. Growing up I experienced overcrowding, a horrible leaky roof that lead to water trickling down the steps, and bolted shut windows in 90 degree heat with no air conditioning. I'm sure it's only worse now.

• I loved Anderson's reaction to that racist watermelon email sent by Mayor Dean Grose: "That's unbelievable. There's no -- I mean, how can you -- that's just stunning." Bwah! It's like he started on a train of thought, but then saw a flashing sign saying, "warning, warning, opinion ahead!," and quickly jumped off onto safe ground.

• Michael Ware's piece on the Mexican drug war was really interesting...and really disturbing. I'm glad to see he was able to take a break from Iraq, but still do the kind of reporting he loves. I've been hearing a lot lately about the trouble going on in Mexico and apparently Anderson has a 60 Minutes piece on it airing Sunday. I knew he was going there because of the open webcast mic (heh), but kept it on the down low just to be safe.
  

• Anderson was on Regis and Kelly this morning, so of course that was the "shot". Those who watched his last co-hosting appearance might remember our anchor getting his butt whooped by Kelly Ripa in germ trivia. Today, he got himself a rematch over...Donald Trump trivia. No, really. Trump was a guest. Blech. You know what's really disturbing? I am very much not a Trump fan and yet I totally rocked the house on this one. I win! It's all about the logic. Anderson came so close to winning, but then blew it on the tie-breaker. I guess the logic got away from him because I'm sorry, but if The Donald did a musical number with Rosie O'Donnell in 2006, that totally would have been mentioned during the big feud they had a couple years back, and it was not. Speaking of that, didn't Anderson mock them both relentlessly? And today he had to sit next to one of them. Awwwkward. Also, I'm usually not a big enough fan of Kelly's to watch her without the bonus of the Silver Fox, but I thought she was really "on" today. She had me cracking up several times. And...that'll do it.