While president Barack Obama is home, Michelle is off to South Africa, making photo ops and good press. Whenever anyone appears with Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, it usually is positive. When it's Michelle Obama, it's off the charts.

But the prez hasn't been twiddling his thumbs. Not only does he seem to be bucking the generals on Afghanistan policy, he's aggressively on a campaign to lower gas prices. It's an ingenious strategy that is frustrating the republicans - they don't know what to do about it.

If you remember, a month or two ago, Obama directed the Dept. of Justice to investigate whether or not unseemly and perhaps illegal speculation was going on in the oil markets as gasoline climbed toward $4/gallon, a figure which really hurts about everyone, especially now when money is so tight. It's a tax of sorts that doesn't go for the common good - it goes for the profits of mega international conglomerates like Exxon.

Obama actually spoke publicly about his directive to the DOJ to go after these speculators that were unnecessarily driving the price of gas up. The news media and the republicans shrugged it off as a publicity stunt, basically.

But today, after Brian Williams, host of NBC Nightly News, reported that Obama had, today, surprisingly, ordered a relatively modest amount of oil released from the national strategic oil reserve, he mentioned that speculators weren't speculating on oil at the moment. Oh really? I wonder why? Could it be because they were laying low trying to avoid getting arrested?

And Obama's "out of the blue" action of releasing this oil from the reserve just coincidentally came right at the right time to keep the prices of gas supressed through some of the heaviest driving times of the summer.

It's really quite smart for Obama to do this. There is no single way to stimulate the economy at the moment any better than keeping gasoline prices down. This is money that we, the average people, well, even the not so average ones, are already spending. So getting any relief from that puts money in our pockets and relieves a little stress.

And late today, the news media is reporting the republicans have pulled out of the debt ceiling talks with VP Biden because those dastardly democrats keep saying that budget talks have to include a discussion of governmental revenues. And the republicans can't agree to that?

It could be one of the shortest majorities in the House of Representatives in history. One has to wonder just how dumb some politicians are. It's hard to imagine but unfortunately, seems to be true.

If the debt ceiling isn't passed, and there is economic turmoil, most US citizens are going to blame it on the republicans for not having a serious conversation with the democrats. My gut feeling is that it won't get passed before the deadline, but will get passed shortly thereafter as global economic conditions continue to deteriorate and other countries begin to realize that some contact with the US is better than none. Conditions on the ground will get so intense that even the hawkest budget hawk won't be able to stand the pressure. One has to wonder what is in store.