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Yesterday, the President announced the end of a 22-year ban on travel to the United States by people who had tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS, fulfilling a promise he made to gay advocates and acting to eliminate a restriction he said was “rooted in fear rather than fact.”

Now he just has to work on that don’t ask, don’t tell policy.

Despite Bill O’Reilly claiming Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize upset was good for America, whether he deserved it or not, we still think that one of these six people would have been a better choice for the award.

No, seriously, he did; for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

Not to say he doesn’t deserve it, but it feels like he won not for anything he did in particular, but because he isn’t George W. Bush.  And yet, if this honor drives the President to work harder on behalf of US citizens and the world at large, you know, so that he feels like he’s earned it than this will have been worth it. 

“To be honest,” the president told the New York Times, “I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who have been honored by this prize, men and women who’ve inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.”

I tend to think of the Nobel Peace Prize as an award given to someone with their sleeves rolled up and their knees deep in the shit.  Rigoberta Menchu comes to mind, as does Ghandi and Nelson Mandela.  In his defense, however, Obama does give good speech.

In case you missed it because you fell asleep while watching the season two premiere of Castle. Not admitting that happened to me, of course, but obviously it’s been known to happen. Is it hot in here? It feels really hot. I’m just going. To. Step. Aside.

He was everywhere yesterday talking about all sorts of topics.  Here he is with  Meet the Press’s David Gregory. Watching this video is somewhat painful and just another reminder why everybody hates the press more than lawyers and child molesters.

Obama will also become the first sitting President to appear on David Letterman’s show, so he’s got that going for him tonight.

Whoa.  Whoa.  Whoa.  Whoa.  Our President really is a gigantic dork.  Here he is wielding a lightsaber after a fencing demonstration on the White House lawn yesterday during a photo op to promote Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympic Games.

I know people said Dubya would be fun to have a beer with, and for sure I think he would (if he’s drinking), in a sort of let’s watch sports or go fishing kind of way.  But, Obama looks equally as fun, in a man we’re giant dorks let’s discuss our Warcraft guild or debate the inherent shitiness of Episode I. [via]

I guess we’ll have to start the morning off with talking about Obama’s healthcare speech. It was nice and firm, but you’ll excuse me if I’m one of many who thinks the time for speeches is over and the time for twisting arms must begin.  Still, it was a good speech and will probably be remembered for the idiot Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) who called the President a liar.

So classy, though I quite like the idea of British-style political heckling being added to American politics.

Could you imagine if the Democrats had the gall to do that to Bush and Cheney?  It’d be a whole lot of liar.  Anyway, the funny thing about it was that Wilson called the president a liar, but during that portion of the speech he was essentially being truthful that illegal immigrants won’t receive healthcare.

Anyway a roundup of reactions from across the web.  MORE »

When does a President have time to read?!?  Honestly.  Does he have his assistants read the books and give him notes on them? Or does he just not sleep.

• The Way Home by George Pelecanos, a crime thriller based in Washington, D.C.;
• Lush Life by Richard Price, a story of race and class set in New York’s Lower East Side;
• Tom Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded, on the benefits to America of an environmental revolution;
• John Adams by David McCullough;
• Plainsong by Kent Haruf, a drama about the life of eight different characters living in a Colorado prairie community.

The thing is, the McCullough and Friedman books, were ones I assumed people bought but never read.  The look nice on a coffee table or on a shelf. 

The two crime thrillers are excellent calls (coincidentally, both were writers for HBO’s The Wire).  And I’ve never heard of the last one.

11-year-old student reporter, Damon Weaver, finally got his deeply-desired interview with President Obama, and in the process became “the youngest reporter to conduct a one-on-one interview with a sitting President.”

Here’s a terrorist fist bump across the intertubes from me to you bud.

John Hodgman roasts  President Barack Obama at the 2009 Radio & TV Correspondents’ Dinner.  He makes fun of Obama for being the first nerd president of the US, but also wonders if he is nerdy enough.

And here is Obama’s response.

Now if he could just use some of those techniques to actually go ahead and lay the smack down against the obstructionists preventing him for oh, I dunno, actually doing anything. What, he’s been in office like five months now. The clock is ticking.

The Obamas welcome into their lives, a 6-month-old Portuguese water dog which Sasha and Malia have named Bo.  Could that dog be any more adorable with the lei?