This just in from the home office…

Next Wednesday evening, President Obama will deliver his first State of the Union address. The President will lay out a clear vision of the challenges we face and our national plan to meet them.

Certainly, the path toward change got a bit steeper after Tuesday’s disappointment in Massachusetts. But this movement has persevered before, and Wednesday’s speech is an important opportunity to reconnect, take stock of the road ahead, and continue forward together.

So OFA members will be gathering at State of the Union Watch Parties in living rooms across the country. We’ll huddle on the phone with Obama for America campaign manager David Plouffe, and plan for what comes next.

Can you sign up to host a State of the Union Watch Party?

If you can provide the TV, telephone, and living room, we’ll invite folks in your area to join you. Together we’ll launch the next phase of our work together in your neighborhood — and across the country.

Host a State of the Union Watch Party [Obama for America]

Ezra Klein wonders whether we’re mistaking theatrics for performance:

You could imagine a lot of presidents more dogmatically liberal than Obama, but I wonder whether there are a lot of plausible hypotheticals in which they amass more liberal achievements than Obama.

Which begs the question: What liberal achievements? We fully acknowledge that Barack Obama is not George W. Bush, and we shall always remain grateful for that. We also grant that ideology can be counterproductive to practical results. But this Be thankful Obama’s not X line of thought just underlines the point: Obama didn’t campaign for or win the presidency promising to be a competent caretaker.

Nope. Once upon a time, we were the people we’ve been waiting for. We’re sticking with Irony.

How liberal is Obama? [WaPo]

How bad are the Bush Wars? This bad: No good songs. No good movies. No good cartoons. Even the Korean War got a good television series, if you didn’t mind waiting a generation.

But all we have tonight is this Open Thread/Bond Drive for Barack Obama’s Afghanistan speech. Make your participation count — you’ll need an answer handy when your grandkids ask what you did during the liveblog.

John Heilemann in New York magazine:

Yet the emerging doubts about Obama among even his most ardent and sensible fans are deeper and more nuanced than that. After 300-plus days in office, the president remains, for many of his supporters, a worryingly indistinct figure. One whose pragmatic sensibility is crystal clear but bedrock convictions are still blurry.

Well, those convictions are only blurry if you keep ignoring items like this:

Even though a Bush-era request to conduct blanket searches of computer files was rebuked by judges, the Obama administration is now pushing to have the decision reversed, according to court documents filed the week of Thanksgiving.

Then again, we’ve had plenty of time to get used to it.

Obama Lost, Obama Found [New York, via Political Wire]

Following Bush-era argument, Obama attorneys push to weaken search protections [Raw Story]

Back before we sent a team of Zombie Ninjas to render him to our Black Site, Serolf Divad made some noise with a post showing how conservatives made a wee mistake using the Dow as a measure of Obama’s economic policy — the stock market had just clicked above its Inauguration Day level.

That would be 7486, on March 17.

So conservatives moved the goalposts, saying you really have to start from Election Day 2008, when the Dow closed at 9625.

Fine, fine. Today’s close? 10,015.

Dumb Metrics [Patriot’s Quill, March 18]

After Previously Blaming Obama For Slumping Markets, Boehner Now Downplays Surging Dow [Think Progress]

Candidate Barack Obama, November 29, 2007: “America is ready to get rid of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. All that is required is leadership.”

Candidate Obama, April 7, 2008: “I reasonably can see ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ eliminated.”

Read more »

Back at the Book Birther Beat, the National Journal asks Bill Ayers whether he really did ghostwrite Obama’s first book, which would constitutionally disqualify Barry from holding office:

“Here’s what I’m going to say. This is my quote. Be sure to write it down: ‘Yes, I wrote Dreams From My Father. I ghostwrote the whole thing. I met with the president three or four times, and then I wrote the entire book.'” He released National Journal’s arm, and beamed in Marxist triumph. “And now I would like the royalties.”

We applaud his forthrightness, but we suspect he’s still holding back. We’ll just have to wait until publication to prove that Ayers also ghostwrote Going Rogue.

Bill Ayers: Sure, I Wrote Obama’s Book. Now How ‘Bout Those Royalties? [TPM]