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THURSDAY, AUGUST 26, 2010

THE DECLINE OF THE LEFT – AT 8:32 P.M. ET:  It's sad to see the left in such decline.  Well, not really, but we have to say that to sound gracious and open.  But the dive of liberalism into what it is today – a kind of snotty, top-down movement run by those who'd never rub shoulders with those they claim to weep about – is pretty evident.  Charles Krauthammer has been out front in pointing that out.  Here he comments on the latest indicator:

Ah, the people, the little people, the small-town people, the "bitter" people, as Barack Obama in an unguarded moment once memorably called them, clinging "to guns or religion or" — this part is less remembered — "antipathy toward people who aren't like them."

That's a polite way of saying: clinging to bigotry. And promiscuous charges of bigotry are precisely how our current rulers and their vast media auxiliary react to an obstreperous citizenry that insists on incorrect thinking.

Beautifully said.  I was watching a CNN reporter go crazy over the Ground Zero mosque again.  I felt like e-mailing her to recommend she seek professional assistance.

Resistance to the vast expansion of government power, intrusiveness and debt, as represented by the Tea Party? Why, racist resentment toward a black president.

Disgust and alarm with the federal government's unwillingness to curb illegal immigration, as crystallized in the Arizona law? Nativism.

Opposition to the most radical redefinition of marriage in human history, as expressed in Proposition 8 in California? Homophobia.

Opposition to a 15-story Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero? Islamophobia.

Charlie nails it.

Note what connects these issues. In every one, liberals have lost the argument in the court of public opinion...

...What's a liberal to do? Pull out the bigotry charge, the trump that pre-empts debate and gives no credit to the seriousness and substance of the contrary argument.

Finally...

The Democrats are going to get beaten badly in November. Not just because the economy is ailing. And not just because Obama over-read his mandate in governing too far left. But because a comeuppance is due the arrogant elites whose undisguised contempt for the great unwashed prevents them from conceding a modicum of serious thought to those who dare oppose them.

COMMENT:  It is a sad time for a once dynamic and decent party.  And to think, this is the party that formed much of the basic American defense doctrine that eventually won the Cold War.  Harry Truman wouldn't recognize his party today.  He would probably leave it.

August 26, 2010      Permalink

THERE ARE SOME PROBLEMS BESIDES THE ECONOMY – AT 7:08 P.M. ET:  Iran will loom larger and larger as the months progress and the country's nuclear sophistication increases.  Even a former UN inspector is going public with his concerns:

(Reuters) - Iran has stockpiled enough low-enriched uranium for 1-2 nuclear arms but it would not make sense for it to cross the bomb-making threshold with only this amount, a former top U.N. nuclear official was quoted as saying.

In unusual public remarks about Iran's disputed nuclear programme Olli Heinonen, the former chief of U.N. nuclear inspections worldwide, told Le Monde newspaper that Iran's uranium reserve still represented a "threat."

Until he stepped down earlier this month for personal reasons, Heinonen was deputy director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency and head of its nuclear safeguards department, which verifies that countries' nuclear programmes are not being diverted for military use.

A no-nonsense Finn, he was one of the U.N. agency's leading experts on Iran, which denies Western suspicions that its nuclear programme is aimed at making bombs despite intelligence indications to the contrary, which he investigated for years.

In the interview published on Thursday, Heinonen said the Islamic Republic now possessed three tonnes of low-enriched uranium, material which can be used to fuel nuclear power plants, or form the core of a bomb if refined much further.

COMMENT:  Remember the 2007 U.S. report that said Iran had given up its weapons program?  Remember all those cheery estimates that it couldn't have the bomb until, say, 2015?  Apparently, revision is in order.

We have made no progress with Iran.  Think where they might be a year from now.

August 26, 2010      Permalink

REALITY INTRUDES – AT 9:09 A.M. ET:  Argentinian reader Susana Kohan alerts us to today's column by George Will, commenting on the Mideast.  Remember that face-to-face "peace talks" begin next week between the Israelis and the Palestinians.  But Will's portrait of "Palestine" gives us no hope for encouragement:

Israelis can watch West Bank Palestinian television incessantly inculcating anti-Semitism and denial of Israel's right to exist. Across the fence that has substantially reduced terrorism from the West Bank, Israelis see Ramallah, where Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, lives and where a square was recently named in honor of Dalal Mughrabi. In 1978, she, together with 11 other terrorists, hijacked an Israeli bus and massacred 37 Israelis and one American. Cigarette lighters sold on the West Bank show, when lit, the World Trade Center burning.

Please note that last sentence.  After September 11, 2001, in an act of pure corruption, most of the American press suppressed pictures of Arabs dancing in the streets at the murder of 3,000 souls.  It didn't fit the leftist party line.  Maybe we should ask the mosque builders at Ground Zero about this. 

And consider this:

The Obama administration, which seems to consider itself too talented to bother with anything but "comprehensive" solutions to problems, may yet make matters worse by presenting its own plan for a final settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Barack Obama insists that it is "costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure," although he does not say how. Gen. David Petraeus says Israeli-Palestinian tensions "have an enormous effect on the strategic context." As though, were the tensions to subside, the hard men managing Iran's decades-long drive for nuclear weapons would then say, "Oh, well, in that case, let's call the whole thing off."

Some common sense from George Will.  But our "Muslim outreach" president undoubtedly has his own ideas.  Does anyone doubt where his multicultural heart lies? 

The Arab-Israeli conflict will not be solved until the Arabs are reconciled to Israel's existence, and our dispute with the Islamic world will not be solved until Islam recognizes that it will not be permitted to take over our cultures and values.  That will take some work on our part, however, and I don't see that work being done.  It's not considered chic or "progressive" by our elites.

August 26, 2010     Permalink

ECONOMIC GRIMNESS – AT 8:53 A.M. ET:  Reports on the housing market continue to raise alarm.  They get worse and worse.  People no longer see homes as an investment, and that removes much of the allure.  From the Washington Post:

Sales of new homes dropped to their lowest level since the government started tracking the numbers more than four decades ago, offering an ominous sign for the direction of the already fragile housing market.

The Commerce Department's report, released Wednesday, was the second this week to underscore home buyers' crumbling confidence.

It said new homes sold in July at an annual rate of 276,000, off 12.4 percent from June's pace while plummeting 32.4 percent from a year earlier. That's the lowest level since 1963 and far worse than what analysts expected.

The report comes a day after the National Association of Realtors said sales of existing homes in July plunged to their lowest point in more than a decade. Sales were down 27.2 percent from June, the largest monthly drop since 1968.

COMMENT:  In addition, many American homeowners are underwater.  Their homes are worth less than the cost of their mortgages.  This isn't the bill of goods sold to them in other times, when they were told that real estate never goes down.  (Apparently, no one ever heard of the great Florida land bubble in the 1920s.)

In addition, many people cannot sell their homes, or cannot sell them for anywhere near what they paid for them, and are trapped.  Some of these people have become unemployed.  And all have to pay often increasing property taxes.  There's a lot of hurt out there, and it isn't being eased.

August 26, 2010      Permalink

I LOVE IT, I LOVE IT, I LOVE IT – AT 8:31 A.M. ET:  Well, maybe next time the Obamas won't vacation so close to the sea.  Some Americans have something planned for them.  From the L.A. Times's Top of the Ticket blog:

Having successfully shut down an estimated 23,000 American oil drilling jobs off the Gulf Coast, citing possible environmental concerns, the Obama administration is now moving on New England fishermen.

It's rained during much of Obama's latest vacation there. And now the Democratic president is scheduled to be confronted with a flotilla of protesters today off his private estate on the souvenir-laden island of Martha's Vineyard.

The immediate boating protest is about their claim the feds are using bad science to set extremely limited area fishing allotments, certain to wipe out many traditional private family businesses.

The fishermen -- possibly involving as many as two dozen vessels -- will be traveling from as far away as New Jersey and all along the Northeastern coastline. Wednesday the noon protest earned the support of the Greater Boston Tea Party.

The fishermen maintain that once-threatened stocks have returned naturally under existing regulations and don't require the newly shaped government-run market system favored by President Obama. Elizabeth Scalia calls it: "So Soviet."

As explained by the ever-thoughtful Ed Morrissey, the move by Obama appointee Jane Lubchenco, the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is designed to replace private fishing with new government-regulated operations:

"They want to close the fisheries into 'commodities markets' where the government essentially licenses fishermen and then allocates the catch based on a predetermined distribution plan. The 'commodities markets' will kill many fishing-based jobs and essentially turn fishermen into government employees, and they’re not happy about it."

COMMENT:  Day by day, action by action, Obama officals are trying to socialize America, to turn it into the European ideal they've admired since they spent their junior years abroad, debating Marx in the cafes of Paris.  And they have a willing press corps fronting for them.

November can't come around too soon.

August 26, 2010     Permalink

DEMS IN DESPAIR – AT 7:59 A.M. ET:  House Democrats are starting to realize the possibilities of a November disaster.  From The Politico:

Top Democrats are growing markedly more pessimistic about holding the House, privately conceding that the summertime economic and political recovery they were banking on will not likely materialize by Election Day.

In conversations with more than two dozen party insiders, most of whom requested anonymity to speak candidly about the state of play, Democrats in and out of Washington say they are increasingly alarmed about the economic and polling data they have seen in recent weeks.

They no longer believe the jobs and housing markets will recover – or that anything resembling the White House’s promise of a “recovery summer” is under way. They are even more concerned by indications that House Democrats once considered safe – such as Rep. Betty Sutton, who occupies an Ohio seat that President Barack Obama won with 57 percent of the vote in 2008 – are in real trouble.

In two close races, endangered Democrats are even running ads touting how they oppose their leadership.

“Democrats kept thinking: ‘We’re going to get better. We’re going to get well before the election,’” said one of Washington’s best-connected Democrats. “But as of this week, you now have people saying that Republicans are going to win the House. And now it’s starting to look like the Senate is going to be a lot closer than people thought.”

A Democratic pollster working on several key races said, “The reality is that [the House majority] is probably gone.” His data shows the Democrats’ problems are only getting worse. “It’s spreading,” the pollster said.

COMMENT:  That's encouraging, but it's only encouraging.  The only poll that counts is the one on election day.  Many of the races that Republicans are depending on are actually very close.  A Democratic surge, or a successful fear campaign by the Dem leadership ("They'll take away your Social Security") may just reverse enough races to save things for the president's party.  For our side it has to be work, work, work.  Work as if you're 20 points behind.  Then, we can smile.

August 26, 2010     Permalink

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 25, 2010

SICKENING REPORTING – AT 8:55 P.M. ET:  The sins of the press are, as college professors like to put it, many and varied.  There has been a horrible crime committed in New York – a Muslim cab driver was stabbed, almost to death, by a man who first asked him if he were a Muslim, then attacked.

Hate crime, right?  Bigot, right?  It sure looks that way at first:

The man charged with the anti-Muslim slashing and stabbing of a cabdriver was arraigned Wednesday afternoon in Manhattan Criminal Court on charges of second-degree attempted murder as a hate crime, first-degree assault as a hate crime and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon.

An emergency medical technician said that had the cut been any deeper or longer, the driver would have died, prosecutors said.

Judge ShawnDya L. Simpson ordered the man, Michael Enright, 21, held without bail.

James Zaleta, an assistant district attorney, said in court that Mr. Enright hailed a taxi near 24th Street and Second Avenue on Tuesday evening. Mr. Enright asked the taxi driver, who was from Bangladesh, whether he was Muslim, Mr. Zaleta said.

After the driver said he was, Mr. Enright responded with the Arabic greeting, “Assalamu alaikum,” according to the criminal court complaint.

Then Mr. Enright said, “Consider this a checkpoint,” before pulling out a Leatherman utility knife and slashing the taxi driver’s throat, Mr. Zaleta said. The driver turned and Mr. Enright slashed him in his face and forearms, Mr. Zaleta said.

Sickening and outrageous.  But, way, way, way down in the story, in The New York Times, we read this:

Mr. Enright is a volunteer with Intersections International, a nonprofit that works to promote cross-cultural understanding and has spoken out in favor of the proposed Islamic cultural center near ground zero.

Huh? 

What we have here, I would imagine, is a mental-health situation, not a political act.  But the left is already milking this on TV.  I hope the usual suspects have the decency to show some restraint.

August 25, 2010     Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 8:23 P.M. ET:  The mosque debate rages.  Now a group of leftist "clergymen" has weighed in on the side of the mosque.  They're led by ultra-leftist Jim Wallis, who is close (natch) to President Obama.  They claim they're concerned about religious liberty.

Strange, when Terri Schiavo was put to death in Florida, and the chic left ridiculed her family's Christian beliefs, I didn't hear any of these pro-mosque clergymen warning about attacks on religion.  Did you? 

When the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., in whose church Barack Obama sat for 20 years, engaged in his anti-Semitic hate-mongering, I didn't hear Rev. Wallis or his crowd expressing outrage.  Did you?

But now, on behalf of a mosque at Ground Zero, presided over by an imam who mixes "moderation" with some standard America-bashing and Israel-abolishing speech, the "clergymen" are anguished. 

Wes Pruden of the Washington times says it well:

The American elites no longer understand strongly held convictions, good or evil, religious or political. The church and synagogue is only a place for rites and ritual, a place to marry your daughters and bury your dead. But devout Muslims really believe. They never apologize for who they are or what they believe. They have only contempt for the platitudes they have learned to use so effectively in hoodwinking the West — and for presidents who peddle the moonshine.

We make a distinction between truly moderate Muslims, and there are legions of them, and the frauds.  The fact is that Islam is both a religion and a political/military movement.  We have a right to examine its beliefs and motives. 

And Pruden is right that American elites no longer understand strongly held convictions.  How can they, when any idea, absurd or not, is presented to them in our "best" universities simply as "an alternative narrative"?

The elites are making fools of themselves.  They will be replaced.

August 25, 2010        Permalink

NEW THREAT FROM YEMEN – AT 10:19 A.M. ET:  At a time when we're concentrating on domestic politics, let's not forget that threats from some peace-loving nations are increasing.  We are apparently stepping up military operations in Yemen:

For the first time since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, CIA analysts see one of al-Qaeda's offshoots - rather than the core group now based in Pakistan - as the most urgent threat to U.S. security, officials said.

The sober new assessment of al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen has helped prompt senior Obama administration officials to call for an escalation of U.S. operations there - including a proposal to add armed CIA drones to a clandestine campaign of U.S. military strikes, the officials said.

"We are looking to draw on all of the capabilities at our disposal," said a senior Obama administration official, who described plans for "a ramp-up over a period of months."

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, stressed that that analysts continue to see al-Qaeda and its allies in the tribal areas of Pakistan as supremely dangerous adversaries. The officials insisted there would be no letup in their pursuit of Osama bin Laden and other senior figures thought to be hiding in Pakistan.

Indeed, officials said it was largely because al-Qaeda has been decimated by Predator strikes in Pakistan that the franchise in Yemen has emerged as a more potent threat. A CIA strike killed a group of al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen in 2002, but officials said the agency has not had that capability on the peninsula for several years.

COMMENT:  The war on terrorism will go on for decades, possibly for generations.  Leon Panetta seems to be doing a good job as head of CIA, despite a lack of experience in intelligence work.  He was, before taking the post, a liberal Democrat, but leaning toward the saner end of things, more like the old "national defense liberals." 

There is also increased Al Qaeda activity in Somalia, on Africa's west coast.  Sooner or later, one of these Al Qaeda offshoots will succeed in an attack against Americans, possibly right here in the U.S.  And Americans will be reminded of the intensity of this struggle.  And, sooner or later, these terror groups will acquire some form of WMD, possibly biological even before nuclear.

This is still our first responsibility, even if the chattering classes really don't want to talk about it.

August 25, 2010      Permalink

WITH STORIES LIKE THESE – AT 8:52 A.M. ET:  The media is filled with negative economic stories, given a huge boost by yesterday's news of a dramatic decline in home sales.  Where is this recovery we were told about? 

Consider this bit of "happy days are here again":

Positive gross domestic product readings and other mildly hopeful signs are masking an ugly truth: The US economy is in a 1930s-style Depression, Gluskin Sheff economist David Rosenberg said Tuesday.

Writing in his daily briefing to investors, Rosenberg said the Great Depression also had its high points, with a series of positive GDP reports and sharp stock market gains.

But then as now, those signs of recovery were unsustainable and only provided a false sense of stability, said Rosenberg.

Rosenberg calls current economic conditions "a depression, and not just some garden-variety recession," and notes that any good news both during the initial 1929-33 recession and the one that began in 2008 triggered "euphoric response."

"Such is human nature and nobody can be blamed for trying to be optimistic; however, in the money management business, we have a fiduciary responsibility to be as realistic as possible about the outlook for the economy and the market at all times," he said.

The 1929-33 recession saw six quarterly bounces in GDP with an average gain of 8 percent, sending the stock market to a 50 percent rally in early 1930 as investors thought the worst had passed.

"False premise," Rosenberg said. "And guess what? We may well be reliving history here. If you're keeping score, we have recorded four quarterly advances in real GDP, and the average is only 3%."

COMMENT:  Not exactly news that sends you to the Lexus dealer.  I am not an economist, but even laymen know that economic conditions rest very heavily on psychology.  Americans are growing more pessimistic, not optimistic, about the economy, meaning that they'll be willing to spend less and risk less, and may be hesitant about investment.

We are in danger.  Will someone tell the president.  Send him a message stuffed inside an ice cream cone.

August 25, 2010         Permalink

ALL LIBERALS KNOW THAT MEN CAN'T BE TRUSTED – AT 8:22 A.M. ET:  The president has fallen below the magic 40% approval mark among men.  Even in Martha's Vineyard, this has to be alarming news:

(CNSNews.com) - President Barack Obama’s job approval rating among American men has fallen to a record low, hitting 39 percent in the week of Aug. 16-22, according to the Gallup Poll.

The week of Aug. 16-22 also marked the first time Obama’s average weekly approval rating dropped below 40 percent for either gender. His approval rating among American women was 46 percent for the week.

When Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, his job approval rating was 64 percent among men and 69 percent among women, according to Gallup. That was the highest his approval ever hit with men.

Obama’s approval rating first dipped below 50 percent among men in the week of Aug. 24-30, 2009. In October and November of 2009, it rebounded above 50 percent for a four-week stretch, but then in the week of Nov.16-22 it dropped to 46 percent and has never again exceeded 48 percent.

The last time Obama had an average weekly approval rating as high as 50 percent among American women was the week of June 28-July 4.

COMMENT:  Nothing seems to help the president because he is almost pathetic in his leadership skills.  He will speak of achievements, but most Americans see the achievements as things they oppose, like Obamacare. 

There does not appear to be anything on the horizon between now and the midterms, save a miracle recovery in the economy, that can strengthen Mr. Obama.  He has gotten himself into this mess, and has no clue on how to climb out.

August 25, 2010      Permalink

YIKES!! – AT 8:02 A.M. ET:  Stand by.  There is a major political upset underway in...Alaska.  Or, after today, maybe it will be called Sarahstan.  Incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski is trailing in her bid to be renominated.  The clear reason:  Her virtually unknown opponent was recently endorsed by former Governor Sarah Palin.

If challenger Joe Miller wins, it will be a political earthquake, and shatter the myth that Sarah has lost popularity in her native state.  From the Anchorage Daily News, this morning:

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski is battling for her political life this morning against Republican primary challenger Joe Miller, the Tea Party-backed candidate who had a slim lead as ballots continued to be counted overnight. Miller, a Fairbanks attorney, led from when the first returns came in Tuesday night, and was on the verge of pulling off one of the biggest election upsets ever in Alaska. With 84 percent of Alaska's precincts reporting around 2 a.m., Miller had 45,188 votes to 42,633 for Murkowski.

Miller credited the support of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for his lead.

"I'm absolutely certain that was pivotal," he said.

Cautionary note:  The winner will not be known with certainty for a week, for 16,000 absentee ballots were sent out.  But so far, political history is being made.  And Sarah may well retain her magic touch.  I look forward to Katie Couric's spin on this.

August 25, 2010      Permalink