Daily Loaf

The big news internationally today is President Obama, along with Gordon Brown and Nicholas Sarkozy, accusing Iran of building a secret underground facility to manufacture nuclear fuel.

What this means for the immediate future is uncertain;  the U.S. was prepared to begin talks with Iran next Thursday.  Do those talks continue now?  Conservative critics will have a “told-you-so” field day, but short of going to war, what’s the best strategy going forward?

For better or worse, the rest of the world looks to the President of the United States for answers.  For many of us, we’re happy it’s Barack Obama who will be providing the answers in this case, and not George W. Bush.  But as Joe Biden said during the general election campaign, crises are bound to happen that will test the mettle of this 47-year-old man.

Speaking of Obama, some interesting new poll numbers came out of the CBS News/NY Times poll released last night.

First of all, POTUS’ approval ranking is at 56 percent— that’s higher than other recent polls that show him right at the 50% mark.

Download the report here.

But more interesting  is the public’s show of disfavor with Obama’s stance on  Afghanistan, which at this moment is actually unclear: We don’t know if he’ll go along with the recommendations of General Stanley McChrystal to increase troop levels in Afghanistan.

The other interesting parts of the poll indicate strong support for a government public option in health care reform.  But in both this poll and an NBC News/WSJ survey, a lot of folks still don’t understand what the plan actually is.

That same poll shows that if health care doesn’t happen, the American public is prepared to blame Republicans for that failure.

Locally, I attended a fund-raiser for Miami Beach State Senator Dan Gelber, who is running for the Democratic nomination for Attorney General next year.

I spoke with former Tampa area Congressman Jim Davis.  Now working as a lobbyist for the Tampa law firm Holland & Knight, the former U.S. Representative, who had been in public office for much of his adult life until losing to Charlie  Crist for governor in 2006, confessed that he may get back in the political arena soon.

I always admired the late Tim Russert, but he always annoyed me when he would ask his guests at the end of his program, “Are you going to be running for president?”  When it was somebody like Condi Rice, the question always just seemed silly.

But I went into that mode at the end of our conversation last night, asking Davis if he was thinking of running for office.

Yes, he admitted, he was.  With one son in college and another about to enter university life, he admitted to feeling a bit of empty nest syndrome.

What about Tampa Mayor in 2011?  “I’m not ruling it out.”

Speaking of Tampa, the City Council debated converting wastewater into potable water again last night.

The effort is being led by Charlie Miranda, who went over the top in classic fashion raising the specter of tainted water, arguing in support of “your river water.”

(Listen to WMNF’s audio story here.)  Mayor Iorio clarified her position after the meeting by saying that, although she does believe the public needs education on the volatile issue, she does believe it is possible to treat reclaimed water to drinking water standards.

Miranda wants the issue on the 2011 March ballot (when voters will decide on Iorio’s replacement).  That’s a year and a half away.  That should give everyone in the city plenty of time to discuss the pros and cons of the issue.

Councilwoman Linda Saul-Sena has previously said that such an important issue should be decided by the Council, and not the public.  But it’s not like voters won’t have any time to weigh in.  In politics, a year and a half is an eternity.  Let’s have the debate.

And Florida Senator Bill Nelson’s amendment to require pharmaceutical companies to give bigger discounts to Medicare on drugs given to seniors with low incomes went down to defeat, when the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee , Montana’s Max Baucus, joined two other Democrats and all of the Republicans to quash it.

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