Great Newsweek cover story by conservative author Andrew Sullivan examining how Obama’s critics are attacking a straw man that they claim is President Obama but has no basis in reality. Below are some facts that Republicans have attempted to ignore, obscure, or even distort or simply change… facts that Obama will obviously be campaigning upon in the coming months.

On job creation:

“When Obama took office [in January 2009], the United States was losing around 750,000 jobs a month. The last quarter of 2008 saw an annualized drop in growth approaching 9 percent. … No fair person can blame Obama for the wreckage of the next 12 months, as the financial crisis cut a swath through employment. Economies take time to shift course. … The job collapse bottomed out at the beginning of 2010, as the stimulus took effect. Since then, the U.S. has added 2.4 million jobs. That’s not enough, but it’s far better than what Romney would have you believe, and more than the net jobs created under the entire Bush administration. In 2011 alone, 1.9 million private-sector jobs were created, while a net 280,000 government jobs were lost. Overall government employment has declined 2.6 percent over the past 3 years. (That compares with a drop of 2.2 percent during the early years of the Reagan administration.) To listen to current Republican rhetoric about Obama’s big-government socialist ways, you would imagine that the reverse was true. It isn’t.”

On taxes:

“You’d think, listening to the Republican debates, that Obama has raised taxes. Again, this is not true. Not only did he agree not to sunset the Bush tax cuts for his entire first term, he has aggressively lowered taxes on most Americans. A third of the stimulus was tax cuts, affecting 95 percent of taxpayers; he has cut the payroll tax, and recently had to fight to keep it cut against Republican opposition.”

On debt:

“His spending record is also far better than his predecessor’s. Under Bush, new policies on taxes and spending cost the taxpayer a total of $5.07 trillion. Under Obama’s budgets both past and projected, he will have added $1.4 trillion in two terms.”

On healthcare:

“The great conservative bugaboo, Obamacare, is also far more moderate than its critics have claimed. The Congressional Budget Office has projected it will reduce the deficit, not increase it dramatically, as Bush’s unfunded Medicare Prescription Drug benefit did. It is based on the individual mandate, an idea pioneered by the archconservative Heritage Foundation, Newt Gingrich, and, of course, Mitt Romney, in the past. It does not have a public option; it gives a huge new client base to the drug and insurance companies; its health-insurance exchanges were also pioneered by the right. It’s to the right of the Clintons’ monstrosity in 1993, and remarkably similar to Nixon’s 1974 proposal.”

On foreign policy:

“On foreign policy, the right-wing critiques have been the most unhinged. Romney accuses the president of apologizing for America, and others all but accuse him of treason and appeasement. Instead, Obama reversed Bush’s policy of ignoring Osama bin Laden, immediately setting a course that eventually led to his capture and death. If George Bush had taken out bin Laden, wiped out al Qaeda’s leadership, and gathered a treasure trove of real intelligence by a daring raid, he’d be on Mount Rushmore by now. But where Bush talked tough and acted counterproductively, Obama has simply, quietly, relentlessly decimated our real enemies, while winning the broader propaganda war. Since he took office, al Qaeda’s popularity in the Muslim world has plummeted. Obama’s foreign policy, like Dwight Eisenhower’s or George H.W. Bush’s, eschews short-term political hits for long-term strategic advantage. It is forged by someone interested in advancing American interests—not asserting an ideology and enforcing it regardless of the consequences by force of arms. By hanging back a little, by “leading from behind” in Libya and elsewhere, Obama has made other countries actively seek America’s help and reappreciate our role. As an antidote to the bad feelings of the Iraq War, it has worked close to perfectly.”

In summary:

“Sure, Obama cannot regain the extraordinary promise of 2008. We’ve already elected the nation’s first black president and replaced a tongue-tied dauphin with a man of peerless eloquence. And he has certainly failed to end Washington’s brutal ideological polarization, as he pledged to do. But most Americans in polls rightly see him as less culpable for this impasse than the GOP. Obama has steadfastly refrained from waging the culture war, while the right has accused him of a “war against religion.” He has offered to cut entitlements (and has already cut Medicare), while the Republicans have refused to raise a single dollar of net revenue from anyone. Even the most austerity-driven government in Europe, the British Tories, are to the left of that. And it is this Republican intransigence—from the 2009 declaration by Rush Limbaugh that he wants Obama “to fail” to the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s admission that his primary objective is denying Obama a second term—that has been truly responsible for the deadlock. And the only way out of that deadlock is an electoral rout of the GOP, since the language of victory and defeat seems to be the only thing it understands.”

My fellow Americans: The next time that one of your British friends tells you that it is they who speak “proper” (or, as they will enunciate… “proe-puh”) English, hit them with this little tidbit of history:

In 1776, whether you were declaring America independent from the crown or swearing your loyalty to King George III, your pronunciation would have been much the same. At that time, American and British accents hadn’t yet diverged. What’s surprising, though, is that Hollywood costume dramas get it all wrong: The Patriots and the Redcoats spoke with accents that were much closer to the contemporary American accent than to the Queen’s English.

It is the standard British accent that has drastically changed in the past two centuries, while the typical American accent has changed only subtly.

Traditional English, whether spoken in the British Isles or the American colonies, was largely “rhotic.” Rhotic speakers pronounce the “R” sound in such words as “hard” and “winter,” while non-rhotic speakers do not. Today, however, non-rhotic speech is common throughout most of Britain. For example, most modern Brits would tell you it’s been a “hahd wintuh.”

It was around the time of the American Revolution that non-rhotic speech came into use among the upper class in southern England, in and around London. According to John Algeo in “The Cambridge History of the English Language” (Cambridge University Press, 2001), this shift occurred because people of low birth rank who had become wealthy during the Industrial Revolution were seeking ways to distinguish themselves from other commoners; they cultivated the prestigious non-rhotic pronunciation in order to demonstrate their new upper-class status.

The talent I admire most at this point in my life is the ability to play acoustic guitar… especially if you write your own acoustic guitar music… especially if you write your own great acoustic guitar music. I admire it so much that if you combine all those things together, I’ll forgive you for wearing a samurai headband and karate gi while you play.

Ewan Dobson is from Canada.

After the fact, I’ll throw in a second one especially for my dad… because I know he’ll love this one.

Sunshine and I are staying at my parents winter home here in Florida, hoping to get our own place soon now that I’m not paying for the rental house that we had in the Philippines anymore. But, in the meantime, with Mom and Paul returning next Monday, Sunshine and I have to move out of the master bedroom and start sharing my small office/bedroom… which pretty much only has room for the one twin bed and my desk. So instead of trying to cram ourselves onto a single twin bed, I decided to be clever and order this “unfolding” chair/bed thing from Amazon.com for me to sleep in while Sunshine would get the twin bed.

Sunshine had a good day today. We did not do anything special, but she got up early, made coffee, and got to work on cooking pork adobo for lunch. We had Uncle Bob over when that it was done being cooked. Ahh… the tastes of “home” are very a welcome thing. I missed Filipino food. Of course, a meal of starchy rice and high-fat-concentration pork (followed by more of Sunshine’s chocolate chip cookies from last night for dessert) is not something I can do every day. I guess the diet starts tomorrow.

I played Skyrim for a while this afternoon. You know, if you get all of your archery skills and bonuses, and sneak skills and bonuses maxed out, along with good archery magic equipment… when you combine that with triple sneak attack bonus plus 50% critical hits, you can sneak around and deal out 450 points of damage per arrow over a huge distance. I killed a dragon today with just 3 arrows.

Okay… that’s enough geekiness.

Tomorrow afternoon it is back to church and then a lasagna dinner. Sunshine and I are looking forward to that.

The temperature is dropping again. We’ve got the heater on to get the inside temperature above 75°.

Our order from one of the Pinoy Food websites showed up today. Sunshine got her order of stinkyfish and special vinegar so she can have her traditional Filipino breakfast now. ($25 for what would have cost $4 back home, once you add in shipping and handling.) It goes without saying that she will have to refry the stinkyfish outside on the grill, and eat it out on the back porch. If we get the smell from refried stinkyfish in the carpets and upholstery, my mother will kill us.

Oh… the chair/bed arrived today too.

Not much going on today. Sunshine took Uncle Bob’s advice to “set some goals”, and decided to start off by learning to cook. So this afternoon Sunshine and I went out to the store and bought pork belly to make pork adobo tomorrow, and shrimp to make garlic shrimp today.

The garlic shrimp was great, by the way: Sunshine actually can cook — any previous lack of evidence notwithstanding. The garlic shrimp was made by cooking the shrimp in a mixture of (get this) butter and 7-Up, with garlic and spices. We ate the shrimp straight up, but I just cannot imagine how tasty that would be tossed with linguine.

In the evening, I dropped Sunshine off at Aunt Alice’s house where she went to socialize and learn how to bake chocolate chip cookies, while I went to Epiphany Cathedral for my weekly catechism class. Tonight, we learned about the sacrament of anointing of the sick, and also the biography of the first bishop in America. It was fairly interesting, though not at the same level of interesting as last Sunday’s presentation. This was mostly dry “rules and regulations” stuff about the who/when/where/why/how of blessing the infirm.

I’ve kind of figured it out: Catholicism is more about believing and process; Protestantism is more about faith and effort. In Catholicism, as long as you believe in what the church knows about the way things are, and as long as you adhere to the process proscribed in church canon, you are all set. God (through the church) will take care of the rest: Eucharist in… salvation out. In Protestantism, the church has various ways to connect with God on offer and within it, the nature of the tripartite deity are pondered. You just have to hope that your own ecclesiastical efforts… like planting seeds… will yield results from God way down the line. What the Protestant church promises is that if you have faith that what you are doing is reaching out to God, coupled with the actual effort to just be Christian, you will find salvation… rules be damned.

Anyway, after class, I picked up Sunshine and then we went home with a big box of chocolate chip cookies. Add that to the butter/7-Up shrimp and… The diet starts tomorrow.

I would just like to say: I have the most awesome family when it comes to helping Sunshine adjust. Uncle Bob has great and wise advice for Sunshine that she takes very seriously, and Aunt Alice is simply the best friend and spiritual support Sunshine could hope to find. Two wonderful people. On Monday, Mom and Paul will be back to add even more support and structure to which Sunshine can gain support. At that point, I think that the worst of the transition period of homesickness and anxiety will be behind us.

I took Sunshine to the Mote Aquarium in Sarasota, keeping her mind occupied on not being homesick. There was a little pouting on the ride there, but once we got in the place Sunshine cheered right up. It was a very nice aquarium with rare black-footed penguins as the special exhibit, as well as sea turtles, manatees, and obviously lots of fish. (We got to watch the manatees fart. I don’t know why I find that noteworthy… but, well… manatees fart. A lot.) There was one lonely dolphin there as well. Only sick dolphins stay at the center, and there was only the one dolphin who was still under the weather. It kind of made for a crappy “dolphin display”, if you know what I mean. They should get some hypochondriac dolphins who are willing to stick around to keep the dolphin exhibition filled up… or get a few addicted to pain killers. That would work too.

After the aquarium, we went to the “Old Salty Dog” restaurant just down the road, which had quarter-pounder hot dogs. I guess the diet starts tomorrow.

Uncle Bob came over for cocktails as per usual. After that, I had a nice phone call from my old minister back in my hometown, whom I had not talked to in 20 years. He’s a reader of this blog and we talked about how Sunshine and I are doing, and he had some kind and reassuring words for me. I thanked him already, of course, but I’ll thank him again now: Thanks again Dave. Keep in touch.

I got Sunshine out of bed, got her dressed, and took her to the beach. She requested some doughnuts on the way which I stopped and bought for her. After that, we drove down to the beach and walked down the beach, each with our music, wearing our headphones. (I figured the headphones would make the prolonged silences less uncomfortable.) Sunshine gave me part of her doughnuts, which was a good sign. On the way home, Sunshine still had her headphones on and was singing… another good sign.

For lunch, we had Uncle Bob over for hot roast beef sandwiches.

After lunch, I found that Sunshine had climbed back into bed in the dark bedroom with her music, and I had to drag her out and tell her that she couldn’t spend all day lying around in bed (which is what she planned to do); that it wasn’t conducive to good physical health or mental health, lying in the dark listening to music and feeling sad. That brought the tears, which I hugged her through. We sat on the back porch just starting at the yard for an hour.

In the evening, Uncle Bob took us out to the local Eagles Club for “wings and taco night”. There was a band playing country music, and all the old timers were dancing. I always thought that out of all the places Sunshine would feel most out of place, this would be the place. I looked next to me at Sunshine, and she was watching the sea of white hair on the dance floor with a happy smile on her face, bobbing her head to the music, thoroughly enjoying herself.

Tonight, while I was working, Sunshine came in and started massaging my neck, then gave me a hug and said, “I’m sorry I was so moody.”

The problem Sunshine faces is one of sheer loneliness. She grew up in a tiny hut/house with 7 people in it. Everywhere she went, she never went alone. Even now, when she is alone, she gets on the internet and “hangs out” with her friends. She has never had to spend any significant moment of her life finding things to do by herself. She is “handicapped” in that she has never had to just entertain herself… just find things to do. More importantly, she is not interested in doing things by herself. I can take her hand and lead her on all sorts of little adventures, and she does not mind doing those things, but she would not do them by herself, and when I come in my office to work or read the news or write e-mails, she just has no inkling that picking up a book, or doing a puzzle, or even learning what is on American TV could be remotely interesting.

Well, I will just keep pressing and trying, and hopefully she will come around. At least the anger Sunshine had seems to be gone.

Somebody I knew said that this blog would be important, because it would show what having one’s Filipina wife coming to America would be like… the ups and downs. I agree. I certainly am learning the hard way that there is more to it than the “hug at the airport of the long-separated lovers and then they live happily ever after.” I don’t mind sharing what we are going through, if it helps some other Fil-Am couple understand their own situation better.

Anyway: I took away Sunshine’s computer.

The kernel of the idea was put in my head yesterday talking with Aunt Alice: She asked Sunshine, “Do you miss your family more when you don’t chat with them on the internet… or when you do?” Sunshine responded, “When I do.”

I had joked with Uncle Bob that Sunshine couldn’t possibly miss The Philippines because she was spending 16 hours a day there: She had her local radio station tuned in on the internet, she had video of her living room back home streaming on Skype, and she had all of her friends chatting on Yahoo Messenger. She had live Filipino television streaming through her browser. And, of course, Facebook… every detail of every friend’s life was there with minute-by-minute updates and photos.

16 hours a day, more or less… sitting there, thinking about… watching… MISSING… being-at-but-not-really-at home.

Then my mother wrote me an e-mail reminding me that even kids who go to camp are not allowed to call home, reinforcing what Aunt Alice had made me think: The more time Sunshine spent online communicating with her family and friends back in The Philppines, the more she homesick she felt.

I had to do it, though I knew it was not going to go over well. I took her computer away. She can have it for 2 hours every day, no more… at least for the time being.

In the meantime, I took Sunshine out to Starbucks, a wander through Target, out for some pizza, off to a beauty supply store, and then to the salon to get a manicure and pedicure. She was silent the whole time, angry with me of course over the computer thing, but she was already in a bad mood anyway and had been for days. Well, we certainly needed to do something to break out of whatever this nasty spiral that we were getting into was.

Then, finally, since she wants to escape Florida so badly, I have given her a book that I enjoyed reading a whole bunch… The Hunger Games. Let her escape there. I’ve also offered to show her how to navigate the cable television system, but she isn’t interested… yet. She’s reading at least.

I don’t know. It’s the best I can think of. I don’t know that this solved any problems. I don’t know that this just created new problems or more problems. But I do know that what we have been in for a while now was definitely a “rut” that we needed to get out of. If that means Sunshine moping around the house giving me the silent treatment, at least it is a different rut.

I took Sunshine to Epiphany Cathedral in Venice today. She has been feeling homesick and (a) I figured she could use some religious comfort, and (b) we had been told that if we wanted to meet other Filipinos in the area, Mass would be the place to start. The Cathedral is huge, seating over 1,000 people, and it was a nice service, although highly modern and sing-songish (whereas I prefer the more stodgy, old-white-folks, presbyterial, droning-mumbling-subdued pipe organ services like ones I grew up with — if I go to church at all, that is).

During services, after the Eucharist, Father Richard (leading Mass) called up any little kids who could not take Communion for a special blessing. This little Filipino toddler came bouncing up for his blessing, and afterwards, Sunshine and I followed him with our eyes back to his mother, who was sitting just off to the side of where we were. After services, we introduced ourselves, and gave our phone number to the lady, whose name was Joyce. (The little boy was Marcos.) She promised to call us next time the Filipino folks in Venice planned to do something.

After that, we met Father Richard, and he invited me to join the church, and to stop by the church offices later in the afternoon for an “introduction to the Church” meeting he was holding. I figured since Epril and I are married, and she is a Catholic, if I wanted to continue to go to church with her, I should probably become an actual Catholic, so I agreed.

Sunshine and I went home and had some lunch (tilapia, mildly spiced, with white rice). After that we went to visit Aunt Alice. Since Sunshine has been feeling homesick and (a) I figured she could use some socializing, and (b) she would probably like to hang out with another female instead of being around nobody but me and Uncle Bob all the time. We had a great time visiting, looking at family photos, drinking lemonade, eating cookies, and planning additional get-togethers (especially for ladies’ Bible study for Sunshine).

From Aunt Alice’s house, we went back to the Cathedral and met Father Richard. He gave Sunshine and I (along with 5 other people) an introductory presentation to The Church. I was actually quite surprised at how in-depth Fr. Richard went in describing the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism, given that this was just supposed to be an “overview.” I actually learned stuff: and I’m no newbie when it came to the subject being covered.

I talked with Fr. Richard after the presentation. Due to my status of having been baptized (which led to another interesting discussion about how protestant baptisms and Eucharist’s are flawed because they are merely “gestures” whereas the catholic versions include “spiritual manifestations within the physical objects used… but protestant baptisms are acceptable because in them God does all the work, whereas protestant Eucharist requires ecclesiastical intercession), I am a catechuman, meaning that although catechism classes started back in November, I’m educated (and qualified… and knowledgeable) enough to hop into the process right now halfway through.

Unfortunately, I think it is going to be difficult for me to work my way through the entire 8-month Catholic Catechism right now. It requires 2 nights a week plus every Sunday. If I have to fly out to Asia for any length of time in the next 4 months, I will have to drop out. Fr. Richard and I spoke and I think for the time being, I’ll attend and if I have to leave, well then I’ll just have to leave and pick up the process again a year later.

As I stated before, Sunshine is homesick. I could deal with it if she were just telling me that she is homesick — I could comfort her as she deals with the pain of being separated from her family. But it is more than that: Sunshine is telling me repeatedly she wants to go home. That really hurts my feelings, because in her words, I hear her rejecting her husband and our marriage so that she can go back to her family. When I look in her eyes, I can easily see that bringing Sunshine here has changed her… changed us… our marriage. I’ve done everything I can to help Sunshine’s homesickness and been exemplary in filling her days with as much love and happiness and fun as I could scrape together… but I am afraid that there are greater problems underneath all of this that we will need to work on.

I’m not giving up, of course. I never will. But I am very worried and wounded, and my emotions — due to being exposed constantly to Sunshine’s negative attitude, and the realization that all of my efforts at getting Sunshine’s visa have only seemed to annoy her, not cheer her — are not at all where I was hoping they would be at this point so soon after our reunion.

It seems like no matter who we are planning on sticking in the White House — the incumbent, or one of his challengers — it means that The United States is going to remain not just guarded about Iran… not just antagonistic… but openly hostile. The question we need to ask ourselves is the same one that Ron Paul is asking: Why do we care about Iran?

Two points: The first comes from Andrew Sullivan:

Imagine that three scientists working on the US nuclear arsenal were assassinated in the streets of Chicago or Washington or Los Angeles by agents of Iran. Now imagine that an explosion took place at one of our nuclear facilities – also engineered by Iran. Also imagine that Iran was capable of blockading US ports to cripple the US economy. Imagine the dollar collapsing because of this and a new depression initiated. What do you think Mitt Romney would be saying? I suspect he would be saying that Iran has already declared war on the US.

But all these things have happened in Iran, probably by the hands of Israeli intelligence, perhaps by the US, or some combo of the two. Is it surprising that the Iranians are throwing rhetoric around, even if much of it is empty? Of course not.

Iran is a weak little country, not much more of a threat than Iraq was (and you remember how much of a threat they were) and certainly of no direct threat to American citizens or soil.

But what about their nuclear program? The second point from Sullivan as well:

Jon Rauch also notes that the debate we’re having about Iran is very very similar to the debate we once had about China’s nuclear capacity:

Fifty years ago, [China] was the Iran of its day, a rising regional power that was radical, ideological, boldly antagonistic.

It fought the U.S. in Korea, attacked India and Taiwan, supported violent insurgencies and more. Its leader, Mao Zedong, mused that killing half of mankind might be a price worth paying to make the world socialist. Understandably alarmed, some of President Eisenhower’s advisers urged a pre-emptive nuclear attack. (Ike wisely forbore.) President Kennedy said a nuclear China would dominate Southeast Asia and “so upset the world political scene” as to be “intolerable.”

Notice the classic Kennedy recklessness in foreign policy (he was George W Bush avant la lettre), and the characteristic Eisenhower sanity. Now look at the history. Since China’s adoption of nuclear status, it has actually behaved more responsibly abroad, not less. Jon makes a very persuasive case that nuclear weapons really don’t give countries much of an edge, and, if anything, tend to calm them down, especially is they are in a region where they have foes who do have such weapons.

The United States keeps backing countries into corners with its diplomatic/economic/military persuasions. It’s like somebody repeatedly slapping you on the head while repeatedly saying, “Why can’t you be peaceful? Why can’t you be peaceful?”

I’m not saying that Iran should not be pressed to be peaceful, but (1) the fact is that nobody is giving them incentives to do so, and the disincentives are not working and actually have never worked on any country since World War Two, (2) Iran really is not the concern of The United States, but rather of it’s more immediate neighbors, and (3) based on what we have seen with every other nuclear armed country on earth, having a nuclear arsenal does not lead to that country starting a nuclear war.