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THURSDAY,  AUGUST 5,  2010

MICHAEL BARONE FINDS BAD NEWS FOR DEMS IN TUESDAY'S PRIMARIES – AT 8:34 P.M. ET:  From The Washington Examiner:

I’ve just been looking at the returns from the primary elections yesterday in Michigan and Missouri. Neither state has party registration, which means that voters can choose to vote in either the Republican or the Democratic primary...

...The big news is that in both states nearly twice as many voters chose to participate in the Republican primary as in the Democratic primary.

Another way to look at it: Republicans won 66% of the two-party vote in Michigan and 65% of the two-party vote in Missouri. Quite a contrast from the 2008 presidential election, in which Barack Obama carried Michigan 57%-41% and lost Missouri by the extremely narrow margin of 0.2%.

And...

Heavy Republican turnout helps account for the 71%-29% majority for Missouri’s Proposition C, which purports to ban any mandate to buy health insurance. But it doesn’t explain the whole thing. As Daniel Blatt points out in a GayPatriot.net blogpost, Proposition C carried all 115 counties in Missouri (St. Louis City is separate and apart from St. Louis County, which voted for C; Kansas City, whose results are reported separately, is part of Jackson County, which as a whole voted for it as well. To have the mandate rejected by 71% of voters in a state Obama missed carrying by only 0.2% is a pretty devastating result.

All in all, these are dreadful results for the Obama Democrats.

COMMENT:  Of course, Obama isn't on the ballot in November, but Dems had expected that his presence would be an asset to them.  That does not appear to be the case.

The Proposition C vote in Missouri is particularly stunning.  It represents anger, and a feeling by voters that they were ignored by the Democratic majority in Congress.  If the anger lasts through the election, Republicans would be almost certain to take the House, and may even have a shot at the Senate.

August 5, 2010      Permalink

IT DOESN'T RAIN, IT POURS – AT 7:54 P.M. ET:  We're trying to find some geographic entity where the president's poll numbers have gone up.  No success.  And now the final insult, from Reuters:

A majority of people in the Arab world now hold a negative view of President Barack Obama and the United States in a substantial change from how he was seen at the start of his presidency, according to a public opinion poll released on Thursday.

Sixty-two percent hold a dim view of Obama and the United States compared with 20 percent who view them in a positive light, according to the 2010 Arab Public Opinion Poll released by Washington-based think tank The Brookings Institution.

We have to acknowledge that Mr. Obama did reach out to the Arab world, and has tried to show an understanding of Arab sensibilities.  This is the answer he gets.  It's the same old story:  We really have no friends in Islam.  We were told that at the founding of this republic.  Arab ambassadors, even in the late 1700s, made clear their belief that Islam had to take over the world.

Some American presidents never get it.  Peanut farmers are particularly vulnerable.

In a survey early in his presidency, only 23 percent of respondents in six countries expressed a negative view of Obama and the United States, while 45 percent were positive about the new administration, which took office in January 2009.

And get this:

Among other findings, a majority of the Arab public now see a nuclear-armed Iran as being better for the Middle East.

Pathetic.  At least their governments understand the danger that Iran poses. 

This was once a great civilization, with great art, philosophy and science.  But we must ask the oldest question in politics:  What have you done for me lately?  In fact, what have you done for us in the last 2,000 years? 

If Obama can't make it among the Arabs, no American leader can.

August 5, 2010       Permalink

OUCH!  HOW DARE YOU CRITICIZE! – AT 10:23 A.M. ET:  Michelle Obama usually gets an even better press than her anointed husband.  But now, in the light of her lavish, embarrassing material-girl's trip to Spain, she's being compared to...Marie Antoinette.  She was that white French lady who said about the masses, "Let 'em eat cake."  I don't know who dreamed up this excursion, but right before an election wasn't the wisest time.  From conservative commentator Andrea Tantaros in the New York Daily News:

While many of us are struggling, the First Lady is spending the next few days in a five-star hotel on the chic Costa del Sol in southern Spain with 40 of her "closest friends." According to CNN, the group is expected to occupy 60 to 70 rooms, more than a third of the lodgings at the 160-room resort. Not exactly what one would call cutting back in troubled times.

Reports are calling the lodgings of Obama's Spanish fiesta, the Hotel Villa Padierna in Marbella, "luxurious," "posh" and "a millionaires' playground." Estimated room rate per night? Up to a staggering $2,500. Method of transportation? Air Force Two.

To be clear, what the Obamas do with their money is one thing; what they do with ours is another. Transporting and housing the estimated 70 Secret Service agents who will flank the material girl will cost the taxpayers a pretty penny.

And...

The Obama modus operandi is becoming clear. From lavish trips to Spain to reportedly flying Bo, the President's Portuguese water dog, on a separate aircraft to vacation with them in Maine, to a date night in New York City that perhaps cost nearly $100,000, their idea of austerity is really just the lap of luxury, at least for ordinary folks.

And...

Michelle Obama seems more like a modern-day Marie Antoinette - the French queen who spent extravagantly on clothes and jewels without a thought for her subjects' plight - than an average mother of two. While she's spent her time in the White House telling parents they should relieve their chubby kids' dependency on sugar and stressing the importance of an organic veggie garden, hopping a jet to Europe to meet with Spanish royalty isn't the visual the White House probably wants to project. Perhaps they've forgotten the damning image of John Kerry, on the eve of the 2004 election, windsurfing off the coast of Nantucket?

Why not?  They forgot what Rev. Wright was preaching for the 20 years they listened to him.  They forgot who Bill Ayers was.  Why shouldn't they forget a picture of John Kerry?

I don't begrudge anyone rest and relaxation when they work hard. We all need downtime - the First Family included. It's the extravagance of Michelle Obama's trip and glitzy destination contrasted with President Obama's demonization of the rich that smacks of hypocrisy and perpetuates a disconnect between the country and its leaders. Toning down the flash would humanize the Obamas and signify that they sympathize with the setbacks of the people they were elected to serve.

COMMENT:  Of course, the die-hard Obaman supporters would probably say that Michelle is merely practicing multiculturalism, and opening the eyes of the average, ignorant, narrow-minded American people to the rest of the world.  You know, they'd actually say that.

The Obama White House is increasingly disconnected from the nation.  The political staff must certainly understand the damage Michelle's trip can do politically.  Did anyone discuss this with her?  Did anyone dare?

The Obamas are starting to act like one-terms who want to squeeze everything they can out of the White House experience before being sent back to Chicago.

August 5, 2010      Permalink

CALIFORNIA, AND OBAMA'S DILEMMA – AT 9:18 A.M. ET:  Remember when California was a pretty conservative place run by a governor named Reagan?  Ah, for serenity.   Now a judicial decision in California poses a political problem for the president.  Go to bed with activists, wake up with a headache.  From The Politico:

The culture war is back.

A federal judge’s ruling Wednesday striking down California’s ban on same-sex marriage is a historic and possibly pivotal legal victory for gay rights advocates, but the decision also poses a formidable threat to President Barack Obama’s strategy of relegating divisive social issues to the back burner.

If that was the strategy, the president certainly pursued it ineptly.  Remember when he had a beer summit at the White House over the actions of a Cambridge, Massachusetts, police officer?  Hey, there was an example of relegating a divisive social issue to the back burner, wasn't it?  Not exactly.

U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker’s decision is just the latest in a series of rulings and high-profile legal challenges drawing public attention to gay rights issues in a sustained way for the first time since San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom grabbed headlines in 2004 by okaying same-sex marriages in that city.

As gay and lesbian activists celebrate what they hope is the leading edge of a wave of momentous court rulings and legislative successes, they remain uneasy with Obama’s nuanced position on gay marriage.

During the 2008 campaign, Obama took what many on both sides of the gay marriage debate viewed as a straddle. He publicly announced his opposition to same-sex marriage, but he also said that he opposed the California ballot measure seeking to ban it, Prop. 8— the same ban Walker ruled unconstitutional Wednesday.

Obama explained the seeming contradiction at the time by saying that he opposes any measure singling out a group for adverse treatment by amending the U.S. Constitution or a state constitution, as Prop 8. did, even though legal experts said that was the only viable way to block gay marriage in California.

This is what happens when you talk out of both sides of your mouth.  A gay-marriage opponent said:

“He’s got to show his cards,” said Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage. “Do you support one San Francisco judge in imposing his view of marriage on the rest of the country or not?... Anyone who just looks at this from an objective point of view realizes the president’s position is untenable.”

And so it is.  I wrote about this at the Angel's Corner this morning.  The country is suddenly beset with a raft of divisive social issues that cannot help the president, except for rallying what is left of his base.  There's the Arizona immigration law, the mosque at Ground Zero, the firing of Shirley Sherrod, the accusation that black members of Congress are being unfairly targeted in ethics probes.  The eruption of these issues comes at a time when Mr. Obama's standing among whites is at an all-time low.  He is even losing support among Hispanics.

The White House has fumbled these issues.  Enough fumbles, you lose the game.

August 5, 2010       Permalink

IS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY COLLAPSING? – AT 8:48 A.M. ET:  Well, now there's a question to wake us up.   I wouldn't break out the champagne just yet.  Wait, we're talking about liberals.  I wouldn't break out the herbal healing libations just yet.  But there are signs that the party that was riding high just two years ago may be looking at the junk heap of history, and calling ahead for accommodations.  From Contentions: 

Here are the latest findings from Democracy Corp, the group headed by James Carville and Stanley Greenberg:

Monthly tracking from Citizen Opinion shows troubling trends in the public’s experience, perceptions and conclusions. Virtually every personal measure has returned to the lowest point on our seven months of tracking and macro-expectations have darkened too. These shifts coincide with news in July of slower job growth, persistently high unemployment and weaker than expected 2nd quarter GNP growth.

These darkening perceptions have consequences: Democrats are lagging further behind Republicans on which party can best deal with the economy.

The analysis goes on to claim this:

Voters now give the Republicans a 49 to 36 percent advantage on handling the economy, the worst for Democrats in all of our polling.

For the first time in our tracking, a majority of 54 percent believes that President Obama’s economic policies have done nothing to relieve the recession and run up a record deficit; just 39 percent that believe his administration’s efforts averted a worse crisis. This is not consistent with the administration’s argument about economic success.

When asked about the vote in November, 52 percent plan to vote Republican to protest the direction of the economy — 11 points more than voting Democratic to not jeopardize the recovery.

These are terrible numbers for Democrats, of course. What is so striking, though, is how commonplace they all seem — just another drop of bad news in an ocean of bad news.

We are seeing a party (Democratic) and movement (liberalism) in the process of collapsing. That doesn’t mean the ruin will be permanent and irreversible; but it is happening at a remarkable speed. And it is somewhat astonishing to witness.

COMMENT:  What is especially astonishing is that it is happening in the face of an overwhelmingly liberal media, where professional standards of impartiality have broken down.  But Americans now have alternative sources of information, and are using them.  Their trust in the traditional outlets is at a low point.

Freedom rings, and it rocks.  Our freedom to publish, and we express it here in our own small way each morning, is having its effect.  So is a political phenomenon that many politicians refuse to recognize:  Citizens look around them, see reality, and compare it to what the political class is saying.  And they are drawing their own conclusions about that class.

We're on the winning side, but victory has to be fought for by skilled, creative practitioners.  Looking at the Republican Party historically, that's where I worry.

But, for now, things look pretty good.

August 5, 2010      Permalink

CONFIRMATION DAY – AT 8:25 A.M. ET:  Elena Kagan will be confirmed today as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.  I think it's sad.

Far too little attention has been given to Ms. Kagan.  I cannot deny a certain sentimental attachment.  We both come from the same neighborhood in Manhattan.  Our paths may have crossed many times.  But I know that neighborhood, the prevailing liberal sentiment, and the belief that anyone who lived outside Manhattan must be very quaint, and even dangerous.

We know very little about Kagan.  It's been my experience that when we know very little about the beliefs and background of a public figure on the left, there's a good reason for it.  That individual, and her allies, simply refuse to go there.  There are issues they'd rather not bring up.

A few years ago I was watching, on CSPAN, a Smith College professor defending the fact that Betty Friedan, the founder of modern feminism, lied about her background in "The Feminine Mystique."  The professor declared, "She didn't want to be asked McCarthyite questions."  That was the defense.  Translated, Friedan had been a Marxist, and didn't want it brought up.

I don't know if Elena Kagan is a Marxist, but I do know that she wrote a college thesis very sympathetic to socialism, and that she comes from an "activist" family.  That's a euphemism.  She is very personable, but we're not electing Miss America.  I worry that she's been able to shield herself from penetrating questions about her beliefs.  She's never been a judge, so there's no judicial paper trail.  I worry about her views on the Second Amendment, which on the West Side of Manhattan is right up there with Mein Kampf. 

She has not demonstrated her qualifications to be a Supreme Court justice.  The Republicans will mostly oppose her, but they began their fight far too late, and must do better next time.

It's really too bad.  We're about to put a political figure, not a judge, on the Court.

August 5, 2010     Permalink

WEDNESDAY,  AUGUST 4,  2010

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 11:07 P.M. ET:  Excellent talk-show host Mike Scully and Jean Spik, a loyal supporter of Urgent Agenda from our first day, refer us to a superb piece by Dorothy Rabinowitz in today's Wall Street Journal.  She is discussing the conflict over whether a Muslim organization should put a mosque at Ground Zero:

Americans may have lacked for much in the course of their history, but never instruction in social values. The question today is whether Americans of any era have ever confronted the bombardment of hectoring and sermonizing now directed at those whose views are deemed insufficiently enlightened—an offense regularly followed by accusations that the offenders have violated the most sacred principles of our democracy.

It doesn't take a lot to become the target of such a charge. There is no mistaking the beliefs on display in these accusations, most recently in regard to the mosque about to be erected 600 feet from Ground Zero. Which is that without the civilizing dictates of their superiors in government, ordinary Americans are lost to reason and decency. They are the kind of people who—as a recent presidential candidate put it—cling to their guns and their religion.

Wonderfully stated.  Please read the whole piece, for a Dorothy Rabinowitz column is a complete gem.  She takes on the increasingly pompous Mayor Bloomberg of New York, a generally fine mayor who sometimes enters the inebriated state of political correctness.  The mayor supports the mosque, and seems to have the same feeling for the people of New York as Barack Obama has for the people of the United States. 

And consider this, from Dorothy:

The notion that it is for the greater good that the people be led to suspect virtually any cause but the one they had the most reason to fear reflects a contempt for the citizenry that's of longstanding, but never so blatant as today. It is in the interest of higher values, Americans understand—higher, that is, than theirs—that they are now expected to accept official efforts to becloud reality.

And finally...

The center may be built where planned. But it will not go easy or without consequence to the politicians intent on jamming the project down the public throat, in the name of principle. Liberal piety may have met its match in the raw memory of 9/11, and in citizens who have come to know pure demagoguery when they hear it. They have had, of late, plenty of practice.

As I said, read the whole thing...and frame it.

August 4, 2010       Permalink

THE STAGGERING RACIAL DIVIDE – AT 6:17 P.M. ET:  A new Gallup report shows the enormity of the racial divide when measuring support for President Obama.  I guess this is understandable, but it is sad and divisive nonetheless:

PRINCETON, NJ -- President Obama's job approval rating averaged 88% among blacks and 38% among whites in July, a 50-percentage-point difference that has been consistent in recent months but is much larger than in the initial months of the Obama presidency. Obama's job approval ratings among blacks, whites, and Hispanics in July are all at their lowest levels to date, although the overwhelming majority of blacks still approve.

Issues of race and the Obama presidency have been in the news again in recent weeks with the situation involving Shirley Sherrod, the black Department of Agriculture employee who was fired and then offered a new position at the agency after edited videos of a speech she made dealing with racial matters were widely circulated on the Internet.

Blacks' approval of the job Obama is doing dipped below the 90% threshold for the second month in a row in July; the 88% July average is the lowest monthly average approval rating blacks have given Obama yet, although not significantly lower than the 89% recorded in June.

COMMENT:  I am staggered by Mr. Obama's standing among whites.  Only 38%?  And his standing among Hispanics is only 54%, barely over a majority.  When he was inaugurated, the president enjoyed 62% support among whites and 74% among Hispanics.

So, we see that Mr. Obama's overall approval ratings, now hovering in the low 40s, are distorted upward by African-American support.  African-Americans account for about one in nine citizens. 

The last two presidents promised to be uniters, rather than dividers.  Both have proved divisive.  I don't know what the answer is to this, but there surely must be someone on our side who can appeal across ethnic barriers.  It may simply be a question of using the right language.  It may also be a question of courage.  I've always believed that both African Americans and Hispanics are fundamentally conservative in their private views, but that the Republican Party never figured that out.

August 4, 2010        Permalink

THE EMBARRASSMENT, THE ANGUISH – AT 9:53 A.M. ET:  Amazing what a little pull can do.  The nation of Spain, not always regarded as a multicultural paradise, has just been cleansed by our State Department, to avoid a bit of awkwardness.  From London's Daily Mail:

The Obama administration faced an embarrassing diplomatic blunder today after it was forced to pull a warning about racism in Spain - just as the First Lady arrived in the country for a summer holiday.

Staff at the U.S. State Department removed the contentious advice to travellers, which included the phrase 'racist prejudices could lead to the arrest of Afro-Americans who travel to Spain,' on Monday.

Yeah, I could see where that would be embarrassing.  Also true.

The First Lady landed in the Costa del Sol this morning for a break with her youngest daughter Sasha, nine.

She is on a four-day visit and will be staying at the five-star Villa Padierna, rated as one of the world's top 30 hotels, with 40 friends. The party has reserved 60 rooms.

This has raised many eyebrows here.  The Obamas are taking many vacations.  We don't begrudge the first lady anything, but I wonder what the taxpayer tab for this will be.  I hope we learn that the trip is privately funded, but I doubt that it is.

But Mrs Obama's trip now risks being overshadowed by a row about institutionalised racism.
The State Department advice sat alongside information about ETA and Islamist terrorist attacks in the country.

Please note that Prime Minister Zapatero of Spain takes special pleasure in lecturing the United States.  Maybe some of this publicity will silence him, if only for a few moments.

She and Sasha were then transported by car to the seaside resort of Marbella.

Flags welcoming the Obama family were waving in the breeze as Marbella - often associated with reality TV and gangsters - geared up for their arrival.

Look, Michelle is from Chicago.  Gangsters?  In Chicago they call them neighbors...or judges.

COMMENT:  The appearances here are frankly less than ideal.  In a time of deep economic recession, the sight of the first lady on such a gala romp will ruffle feathers.  Feathers are attached to bodies that vote.

August 4, 2010       Permalink

WHAT?  YOU MEAN THESE PEASANTS ARE ALLOWED TO EXPRESS THEIR OPINIONS?  WHAT IS THIS – AMERICA?  – AT 8:45 A.M. ET:  Oh dear, oh dear, those people in flyover country have been permitted by the local, non-Ivy-League authorities to have a say on health care.  This voting business has got to stop.  From The New York Times:

Missouri voters on Tuesday easily approved a measure aimed at nullifying the new federal health care law, becoming the first state in the nation where ordinary people made known their dismay over the issue at the ballot box.

The measure was intended to invalidate a crucial element of President Obama’s health care law — namely, that most people be required to get health insurance or pay a tax penalty. Supporters of the measure said it would send a firm signal to Washington about how this state, often a bellwether in presidential elections, felt about such a law.

And...

“This really wasn’t an effort to poke the president in the eye,” said State Senator Jim Lembke, a Republican. “First and foremost, this was about defining the role of state government and the role of federal government. Whether it’s here in Missouri with health care or in Arizona with illegal immigration, the states are going to get together on this now.”

Residents in Arizona and Oklahoma are expected to cast ballots this year on amendments to their Constitutions aimed at accomplishing the same idea.

That must be scaring the daylights out of the Armani crowd in Washington.  They never noticed that the name of the country is the United States of America.  They don't like the states.  Real people live in those things. 

Missouri is sending a message.  I think there'll be many more.

August 4, 2010    Permalink

BETTER AIM NEXT TIME – AT 8:28 A.M. ET:  The president of Iran had a less than perfect day:

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad survived an attack with a homemade explosive device on his motorcade during a visit to the western city of Hamadan on Wednesday, a source in his office said.

The source said Ahmadinejad's convoy was targeted as he was traveling from Hamadan's airport to give a speech in a local sports arena and the president was unhurt but others had been injured in the blast.

One person had been arrested, the presidency source said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

I do hope President Obama has the sense not to send the dear leader a note of congratulations over having survived the attack.

And get this:

The populist, hard-line Ahmadinejad has accumulated enemies in conservative and reformist circles in the Islamic Republic as well as abroad.

Conservative and reformist circles.  What does that mean?  Some analysis please.  Wait, it's a Reuters story.  No, please don't analyze.  Reuters would

August 4, 2010 Permalinkwind up blaming BUSH (!!).

Dear leader had his own take on the assassination attempt:

During a speech to a conference of expatriate Iranians in Tehran on Monday, Ahmadinejad said he believed he was the target of an assassination plot by Israel. "The stupid Zionists have hired mercenaries to assassinate me," he said.

Standard line. 

August 4, 2010     Permalink

THE DISGRACE – AT 8:04 A.M. ET:  By now most of you know that the "Ground Zero mosque" cleared its final legal hurdle in New York City.  Now the sponsors of this project can go ahead and build...if they can raise the money.  And, as Bill O'Reilly said last night, if they can get construction workers to work on it.

What has struck me about the discussion over this issue is, once again, the arrogance of those who favor the mosque.  Some, no doubt, are well meaning.  But the endless condemnation of those who oppose the mosque as "racists" or "bigots" is pretty hard to take.  The language of the sixties is back with us, full blown.  Similarly, I'm incensed when the pro-mosquers start waving the American flag, a flag that, in other circumstances, they'd barely recognize.  I almost choke when they invoke "American values," values some of them ridicule.  Mayor Bloomberg, who has been a fine mayor, made a fool of himself yesterday when, with the Statue of Liberty as a backdrop, and surrounded by clergy, endorsed the mosque and invoked "American values."

No one is denying the First Amendment rights of those who want to build the mosque.  We are saying that their action is insensitive to the survivors and to the American people generally.  As O'Reilly also pointed out, this is a national, not a local issue.  Ground Zero is not merely a patch of real estate in Manhattan.  It is the scene of a national tragedy brought about by a military attack.  But President Obama has, disgracefully, declined to make any comment about the mosque issue.  Only 20% of Americans favor the mosque, as registered in a recent poll.  Maybe that's why the president doesn't want to get involved.  I have a hunch I know where he stands.

Press coverage has also been as insensitive as the mosque builders.  "Modern" reporters don't like to deal with such basic things as human feelings.  It isn't what they were taught be the leftovers from the sixties who miseducated them in college.

How much wiser it would have been for the Muslim community simply to say, "We understand the feelings involved.  We'll build somewhere else."  And then, they might have received widespread support and financial contributions.

Most of the journalistic and political class has performed badly.  Why am I not surprised?

Let's hope the thing never gets built.  The money people may not want to be identified with it.

August 4,  2010     Permalink