The Obama Diary

CBS: During a Toys-for-Tots event Friday, a marine asked First Lady Michelle Obama to accompany him to the ball next November. The music drowns out the invitation but you can still see the exchange and hug.

ABC: While sorting donations at the U.S. Marine Corps Toys for Tots campaign, this afternoon First Lady Michelle Obama received an unusual request.

Across a pile of race cars, the Associated Press reports Lance Cpl. Aaron Leeks invited Obama to be his date for next year’s Marine Corps Ball.

The 20-year-old Marine from Maryland told the AP, Obama said “she’d love to go.”

“Actually she said I’d need to speak to her husband, too, but she said she’d love to,” Leeks said.

No word yet on whether the request has received the president’s approval. “If the president’s watching this, this might be the first he’s heard of it,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney joked at today’s daily briefing.

First Lady Michelle Obama delivers toys and gifts donated by White House staff to the Marine Corps’ Toys for Tots campaign at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington, D.C., Dec. 16, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

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The only thing that ever disappoints me about Steve Benen is that his charts aren’t BIGGER!

Any way, he’s back after a two day break and he’s catching up on the news about the drop in unemployment (see here) - this chart shows unemployment claims going back to the beginning of 2007.

And they say the Stimulus didn’t work?

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Don’t miss:

Milt Shook: There’s No Such Thing as an “Indefinite Detention Bill” and Other Pro Left Lies. (Stay to the end, and watch me expose Glenn Greenwald as a liar once again.)

Full post here

Thank you creolechild

Steve Benen on the NDAA: …… There’s been a fair amount of coverage this week, arguing that the bill, among things, empowers the executive branch “to throw American citizens into prison for life without charges or a trial.” Adam Serwer’s reporting shows otherwise.

This is not to say the NDAA is a good bill…. but it’s not quite as outrageous as some reports have suggested.

I had one related thought about this. President Obama has been facing quite a bit of criticism from the left over the NDAA’s provisions … if I’m making a list of those responsible for the NDAA’s most odious measures, the White House wouldn’t be on top. I’d start, obviously, with congressional Republicans whose misguided worldview intended to make the NDAA even more offensive, but it was a whole lot of congressional Democrats who went along with them.

… Regardless, the NDAA is done. Recalling a phrase I’m sure I’ve used more than once this year, it’s bad, but it could have been worse.

Full post here

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