Please note that you can leave a comment on any of our posts at our Facebook page.  Subscribers can also comment at length at our Angel's Corner Forum.

TUESDAY,  FEBRUARY 2,  2010

RESULTS, ILLINOIS PRIMARY – AT 10:58 P.M. ET:  Mark Kirk has easily won the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate in Illinois.  At this hour it appears that he will face ethically challenged Alexi Giannoulias, an ally of President Obama and a man with a strange banking history in something called the Broadway Bank.  (Need we say more?  Would you put your money in a name like the Broadway Bank?) 

The Dems had a fine primary candidate in David Hoffman, former inspector general of Chicago, and winner of a number of newspaper endorsements.  But, you know, he just didn't have that shady past that makes a man a man in the Illinois Democratic Party. 

We look forward to a Republican pickup, if justice and sanity prevail.  Wait, it's Illinois.  Let's say we hope for a Republican pickup if the dearly departed can be kept away from the polls.

Gubernatorial results:  Too close to call in both parties.  The governorship of Illinois is important because it's often been a springboard for the next step up in Illinois – prison.  Free meals and housing, snappy striped uniform.  What else could a governor want?  We won't have these results for a time. 

February 2, 2010   Permalink

ATTACK EXPECTED – AT 7:42 P.M. ET:  From Fox News:

WASHINGTON -- Al Qaeda can be expected to attempt an attack on the United States in the next three to six months, senior U.S. intelligence officials told Congress Tuesday.

The terrorist organization is deploying operatives to the United States to carry out new attacks from inside the country, including "clean" recruits with a negligible trail of terrorist contacts, CIA Director Leon Panetta said. Al Qaeda is also inspiring homegrown extremists to trigger violence on their own, Panetta added.

The annual assessment of the nation's terror threats provided no startling new terror trends, but amplified growing concerns since the Christmas Day airline attack in Detroit that militants are growing harder to detect and moving more quickly in their plots.

"The biggest threat is not so much that we face an attack like 9/11. It is that Al Qaeda is adapting its methods in ways that oftentimes make it difficult to detect," Panetta told the Senate Intelligence Committee.

COMMENT:  The Justice Department has swung into action to prepare.  It's probably making sure that all law-enforcement officers have framed copies of the Miranda Rights.

February 2, 2010   Permalink

EUROPE IS SO, SO UPSET;  DO YOU CARE? – President Obama, apparently not liking the scenery or something, is declining to attend a summit conference in Europe.  Europeans feel the pain:

PARIS — President Obama’s decision to skip a United States-European Union summit meeting scheduled for Madrid in May has predictably upset European officials, who suggested on Tuesday that the summit itself will now be postponed, possibly to the autumn. 

In addition to the palpable sense of insult among European officials, there was a growing concern that Europe is being taken for granted and losing importance in American eyes compared to the rise of a newly truculent China.

European Union officials found out about the decision through the news media late on Monday, senior European officials said Tuesday morning. The Obama decision was first reported on the Web site of The Wall Street Journal.

The Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who is scheduled to arrive in Washington this week on a visit, was described as angry and embarrassed, and European officials said there was a set of high-level diplomatic exchanges overnight.

COMMENT:  As FDR used to say, "I love it, I love it, I love it."  Weren't these the same suckers who, not many months ago, were bowing down to Obama, and welcoming him as the new deity?  Of course, they haven't done much for the old one lately, so maybe they were just in a shopping mood.

And Zapatero?  That America basher?  He's angry and embarrassed?  What, precisely, do we owe this frustrated matador, considered so immature that many in Spain call him "Bambi"?

The enchantment with The One has clearly worn off.  Who will Europeans boost next for president of the United States?  Well, the French like Jerry Lewis.  Sleep on that.

February 2,  2010   Permalink

DON'T TELL THIS TO ERIC HOLDER – AT 6:40 P.M. ET:  Now this is something you just don't see too often.  It'll make your day:

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A federal appeals court says a 22-year prison sentence is too lenient for an al-Qaida-trained terrorist convicted of plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport at the turn of the millennium.

A divided three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out the sentence Tuesday. It also removed the Seattle trial judge from the case and assigned the re-sentencing of Ahmed Ressam to another judge.

Border agents in Washington state arrested Ressam in December 1999 after he entered the United States from Canada on a ferry with a car packed with explosives.

A judge cited Ressam's cooperation with investigators in meting out the original sentence. But since Ressam recanted his cooperation after two years, the appeals court says he deserves a longer sentence.

COMMENT:  Sanity sometimes prevails.

February 2, 2010   Permalink

OBAMA GOES BACK TO THE FORMER JOB – AT 6:02 P.M. ET:  The fellas from CNN were on earlier, talking about Obama's trip to New Hampshire today.  David Gergen made the point that Obama seemed more a candidate than a president.

Yup, and that's the problem.  The guy does one thing really well – he campaigns.  Governing?  Well, he's not quite into that.  Hey, it's a lot more fun to talk to teenagers in Nashua than to an Iranian dictator in a steamy room.  A man's gotta live.

The problem for us is that Obama's campaign skills can be very effective.  In 1948 Harry Truman ran against the "do nothing" Republican Congress, and he made the charge stick.  (It was also accurate.)  Republicans must snap back at Obama with a real program, ready to roll, to deflect the charge that they're the party of "no." 

The Democratic plan for the year is clear:  Run against Republicans, blame everything on Bush, play the victim, send Obama into campaign mode. 

Don't sell these guys short.  The one thing they do well is the very thing that brings bodies to the polls.

February 2, 2010   Permalink

THE PREMIER TRAVELS SOUTH – AT 5:40 P.M. ET:  Reader Meg Lewiston alerts us to this late medical news from Canada:

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. -- Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams will undergo heart surgery later this week in the United States.

Deputy premier Kathy Dunderdale confirmed the treatment at a news conference Tuesday, but would not reveal the location of the operation or how it would be paid for.

"He has gone to a renowned expert in the procedure that he needs to have done," said Ms. Dunderdale, who will become acting premier while Mr. Williams is away for three to 12 weeks.

"In consultation with his own doctors, he's decided to go that route."

Mr. Williams' decision to leave Canada for the surgery has raised eyebrows over his apparent shunning of Canada's health-care system.

COMMENT:  Ah, a return to socialist tradition.  The peasants get the national health-care offerings, and the leaders go to the U.S.  It's nice to be back in the good old days.

Quick!  Get him the operation before Obamacare tells him he's too old.

February 2, 2010   Permalink

THE TALIBAN MANEUVERS – AT 10:28 A.M. ET:  A respected authority on the Afghanistan war alerts us to this piece by Bill Roggio at Threat Matrix, a blog of the Long War Journal.  Once again the enemy, as savage as it is, shows that it has a functioning brain:

This was inevitable. The Taliban have used General Stanley McChrystal's statements on his desire for negotiations in their propaganda. Here is an except from the Taliban's English-language Voice of Jihad website:

"The top commander of American forces in Afghanistan, McChrystal, in an interview with The Financial Times, has said: 'We fought along war in Afghanistan. Now there is need for peace and for efforts to establish peace. '

"His remarks come amidst reports that it is impossible for his invading forces and other coalition troops in Afghanistan to turn the Jihadic resistance. In fact, the Americans tried every means and tool to wipe out the Jihadic resistance, but the graph of the resistance of the Afghans has been ascending, and opposition to the presence of the invaders intensifying."

While we might dismiss the Taliban's statement as mere propaganda, it is very effective to their targeted audience: the Taliban commanders and fighters in the field. McChrystal's words will be viewed as a sign of weakness, and will reinforce the Taliban leadership's longstanding charge that NATO and the US have been weakened and are seeking the exit. McChrystal's statement will be a disincentive for Taliban fighters and low-level commanders who might have considered defecting to do so. This is why you offer the olive branch only after you grind down an enemy force, and not before.

COMMENT:  Absolutely accurate.  But McChrystal, who knows better, is working for a vague commander-in-chief who's already told the enemy that we plan to withdraw from Afghanistan starting in 2011.  Now that the Taliban has our timetable tacked to the wall of its command cave, why do anything except hold out and try to kill as many of us as possible?

We elected the left wing of the Democratic Party.  We're now paying the price.  That price can get much higher.

February 2, 2010   Permalink

FLORIDA STUNNER – AT 9:48 A.M. ET:  The Florida Senate race is absolutely fascinating.  Voters will decide in November who will replace retiring Republican Senator Mel Martinez.  For the GOP, this is a critical "hold."

Months ago it was expected that Governor Charlie Crist, a moderate Republican who embraced Obama's stimulus package, would have an easy run at the Senate nomination.  But enter Marco Rubio, former speaker of the Florida House.  A conservative, a Cuban-American, his campaign has caught fire.  Scott Rasmussen reports:

Former state House Speaker Marco Rubio has now jumped to a 12-point lead over Governor Charlie Crist in Florida’s Republican Primary race for the U.S. Senate.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely GOP Primary voters in the state finds Rubio leading Crist 49% to 37%. Three percent (3%) prefer another candidate, and 11% are undecided.

The new numbers mark a stunning turnaround. Crist was the strong favorite when he first announced for the Senate seat, and Rubio was viewed as a long-shot challenger.

Rubio, who has excited a lot of interest among conservatives around the nation, will likely get the nomination.  And he has a great shot at winning the November election, where the Dem candidate will likely be Rep. Kendrick Meek, an African-American congressman:

Former House Speaker Marco Rubio now posts a 17-point lead on Meek, 49% to 32%. He had a 14-point lead on the Democrat in the previous survey and a similar margin in October. In a Rubio-Meek contest, six percent (6%) like another candidate, and 13% are undecided.

Again, surprises can happen.  Meek could be pressured to withdraw in favor of a stronger candidate, and Rubio can stumble.  We run as if we're 20 points behind.

February 2, 2010   Permalink 

TONY BLAIR WARNS OF WAR WITH IRAN – AT 9:15 A.M. ET:  Blair was George Bush's greatest ally in the Iraq War, and continues to take plenty of heat for it.  He's a courageous man who refuses to back down from his concerns, while others live their illusions:

World leaders might have to go to war to stop Iran developing its weapons programme, Tony Blair suggested yesterday.

The former Prime Minister, who is now a Middle East peace envoy, said that Tehran’s actions had made him more afraid today that a rogue state could supply weapons of mass destruction to terrorists than he was when he took Britain to war with Iraq in 2003.

He warned that world leaders, including the British Prime Minister, now faced the same kinds of decision about the dangers posed by repressive regimes as he did seven years ago.

“My judgment — and it may be other people don’t take this view, and that’s for the leaders of today to make their judgment — is we don’t take any risks with this issue,” he said.

The sneer-and-smugness crowd will laugh at Blair, pointing out that we didn't find stockpiles of WMD when we went into Iraq.  This same group refuses to acknowledge that we did find the WMD programs, ready to be restarted once UN sanctions on Iraq were lifted.  They were expected to be lifted in 2003.  We can only imagine what Saddam Hussein would have had in the way of WMD today.

The former Prime Minister raised concerns about Tehran’s links with terrorist organisations.

Mr Blair said: “My fear was — and I would say I hold this fear stronger today than I did back then as a result of what Iran particularly today is doing — my fear is that states that are highly repressive or failed, the danger of a WMD link is that they become porous, they construct all sorts of different alliances with people.”

The key to dealing with Iran is the president of the United States.  There are many Iran "experts" who want us simply to accept the Iranian nuclear program.  Blair, though, has it right.  Iran is fanatical and unstable, and we know of its ties to terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.  We must assume, for our own safety, ties to Al Qaeda.

This will be the year of Iran.  So far the administration is involved in "discussions" over sanctions.  The centrifuges in Iran are not involved in discussions.

February 2, 2010   Permalink

THE GROWING SCANDAL AT THE DEPARTMENT OF INJUSTICE – AT 8:45 A.M. ET:  We speculated yesterday on how long it will be before Obama throws Attorney General Eric Holder under the bus.  Byron York, in the Washington Examiner, follows the story and gives us this report:

To Charles Grassley, a senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the questions seem pretty simple. How many of the political appointees now in charge of terrorist detainee issues at the Obama Justice Department were, not too long ago, lawyers and activists working on behalf of those very detainees? Who are they? Have they removed themselves from cases involving their former clients?

Does the term "conflict of interest" come to mind?

So far, Grassley is having a hard time getting the information he wants. His problems started on Nov. 18, 2009, when Holder appeared before the Judiciary Committee and Grassley asked him to reveal which department lawyers had represented which detainees. Grassley is still waiting for an answer.

“He said something like, ‘I have to think about it,’ ” Grassley says. “He must still be thinking about it two and a half months later.”

Eric Holder's thoughts are very deep.  They take time.

Specifically, Grassley asked Holder about lawyers like principal Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal. Katyal is well-known for representing Salim Hamdan, a Yemeni who learned jihad from Osama bin Laden himself and served as bin Laden’s driver and bodyguard until November 2001, when he was captured in Afghanistan, ultimately ending up at Guantanamo...

...Grassley also asked about Jennifer Daskal, who joined the Justice Department after working on behalf of Guantanamo detainees at the organization Human Rights Watch. In the past, Daskal, who has no prosecutorial experience, has lamented the U.S. military policy of allowing Gitmo inmates only one book in their cells at a time, and has fretted that a detainee who is a “self-styled poet” was given a pen or pencil only for short periods. Now, Daskal reportedly works on detainee issues at the Justice Department.

This is fine reporting by Byron York.  Not exactly the kind of detail you find in the wine-and-Brie press.

In the meantime, other unanswered questions about the Justice Department’s terrorism policies are piling up on Holder’s desk. There are still questions about the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed decision, as well as the administration’s misbegotten effort to close Guantanamo. And a bipartisan group of senators wants to know who decided to cut short the interrogation of accused Detroit bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, granting him full American constitutional rights in the civilian justice system and killing the chance to gain potentially valuable intelligence about the al Qaeda group that sent Abdulmutallab to the United States on his deadly mission.

And...

It is impossible to overstate how seriously Republicans view these issues, and, despite their weaknesses as the minority party, they are determined to get answers out of Holder.

COMMENT:  Holder must go.  Answers aren't enough.  And the department needs a housecleaning.  All the wrong people have been brought in, seriously hampering our war effort. 

During World War II, President Roosevelt worked around the State Department, understanding how ineffectual it was.  But it's impossible to work around the Justice Department, for it is involved, by definition, in so many critical issues.  That's why only massive personnel changes will do the job.

February 2, 2010   Permalink 

ELECTIONS 2010 – AT 8:18 A.M. ET:  As Sinatra might have put it, leave us we should remember that the midterm elections take place nine months from today. 

Nine months is about 20 lifetimes in politics.  I am becoming increasingly concerned at the overconfidence I see on our side, the belief that gains will somehow be automatic.  We have to fight as if we're 20 points behind.  The economy can improve by November, even if the improvement is more cosmetic than real.  The president might pull off some kind of "tough" international action, making him seem more than he is, which isn't difficult.  The press will return to its 2008 role as national cheerleader for the left.  And Republicans themselves, who are hardly winning popularity contests as a party, might fail to come up with anything that brings in the actual, live voters.

Another alert:  Leave us also remember that today is primary day in Illinois.  It's a wonderful day, when shuttle services run to and from the cemeteries of Chicago, bringing citizens to the polls to exercise their sacred right.  Some come three and four times, out of a spirit of patriotism.

Both parties will run primaries for gubernatorial candidates.  The prison system in Illinois has been alerted to the prospect of still one more inmate.  An embarrassing number of recent Illinois governors have found themselves in stripes, making a political and fashion statement at the same time. 

The major interest, though, is in the Senate seat, up for grabs in November.  This is the seat that was held by Barack Obama, so the symbolic value is as great as the Kennedy seat recently won by our guy, Scott Brown, in Massachusetts.  The Republican primary winner tonight will almost certainly be Rep. Mark Kirk, a conservative with moderate overtones, as is Brown.  Political observers in Illinois believe he has a good chance to win the election.

Kirk's nomination will be a test of the maturity of Republicans.  Will they go all out for him, as they did for Scott Brown, even though he is not an Ivory-pure conservative, or will the true believers take their marbles and go home?  Kirk has been a fine congressman, highly respected by conservatives I know personally, even though they may not agree with him on every single point.  He deserves the Senate seat, in large measure because of his commitment to national defense.  Illinois is traditionally blue, as is Massachusetts.  It will be a fight, and a fight we must win.

We'll be reporting the returns tonight.

February 2,  2010   Permalink

MONDAY,  FEBRUARY 1,  2010

ADVENTURES IN GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE – AT 8:13 P.M. ET:  Reader Joseph J. Gallick alerts us to this report on the wonders of government health care in Britain.  Seems there are a couple of problems.  From London's Daily Mail:

More than 500,000 patients every year are readmitted to hospital after apparently being sent home too soon, alarming figures reveal.

Labour's waiting-time targets have been blamed for the 50 per cent rise in emergency readmissions of patients within days of them being discharged.

Critics said it was a scandal that almost 1,500 a day were apparently being released before they are well enough, harming their recovery.

When politics runs a medical system, that's what happens.  Welcome to the future...if the Obamans get their way.

They say the targets put pressure on hospitals to discharge people early to free up beds and have turned the National Health Service into a 'revolving door'.

Elderly patients are particularly vulnerable if they are sent home too soon, charities warned. There are also fears hospitals are trying to cash in from being paid twice to treat the same patient.

What?  What?  You mean hospitals can act dishonestly?  You mean a single-payer system isn't paradise?  Why, in the new order there will be a ban on disturbing articles like this.

But, if you're in Britain, it may be a good idea to look in on grandma after she's been released from the hospital.  Just make sure they've disconnected the tubes.

And this is what some in the American elite would like here.

February 1, 2010   Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 6:27 P.M. ET:  From Charles Krauthammer, speaking before the Heritage Foundation:

In the real world, as opposed to what French President Nicolas Sarkozy calls President Barack Obama's "virtual world," America faces the reality of Iran's intransigence and aggressiveness; China's headlong pursuit of its own national, regional, and global interests; Russia's determination to regain its Near Abroad; the Arab states' refusal to accept any kind of a reasonable settlement of the kind that Israel has already offered under several governments; Syria's designs on Lebanon; and Hugo Chávez's designs on the weaker countries in Latin America. President Obama's foreign policy agenda of gradual American retreat will have inexorable consequences: When erstwhile allies see the American umbrella being withdrawn, they will have to accommodate themselves to those from whom we were protecting them. If Obama proves impervious to empirical evidence and experience, all these accommodations, the weakening of alliances, the strengthening of centers of adversarial power in Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, Caracas, and elsewhere will continue until we are awakened by some cataclysm.

COMMENT:  Excellent observation.  True, Obama has continued some of Bush's policies, especially in Afghanistan.  But, overall, American foreign policy is weakening.  It is also drifting.  Our opponents see, not resolve, but confusion, and a president dragged by his party's leftist (not liberal) wing into policies strangely reminiscent of the 1930s.

The neoconservatives are regularly ridiculed for saying that our situation feels like 1939.  But they're right.  It feels like 1939.  History, of course, doesn't repeat itself.  It's the psychology of history that repeats itself.  And we see a disturbing tendency today to go back to the kind of thinking – appeasement, delays, wishful dreaming, even blaming allies – that led directly to World War II.  And if we have a tragedy, the so-called "realists" will blame the very people who warned of it, after they get finished blaming BUSH (!!).

February 1, 2010   Permalink

UNDER THE RADAR – AT 6:23 P.M. ET:  We have, naturally, not seen anything about this in the mainstream media, but we've been aware of it from other sources.  Fox News reports on a George Soros-funded project that's already had an impact.

The obscure office of secretary of state within the several states can actually have substantial power over the way elections are conducted, votes are counted, voters registered, and winning candidates certified.  The Soros forces are targeting these offices, with success:

Since 2006 the Democracy Alliance, a left leaning influence group funded by George Soros among others, has had remarkable success in targeting and claiming Secretary of State's offices in 11 of 13 critical states they targeted, including Ohio, Minnesota and Iowa.

Called the Secretary of State Project (SOSP) its aim is to target and capture the obscure, often overlooked office and implement election rules changes that give democrats a better chance of winning a plurality. Among those changes that SOSP calls "election protection," are a loosening of voter registration requirements and a lessening of efforts to prevent fraudulent voting, according to Matthew Vadum, a political analyst with the Capitol Research Center.

And they have an ally in Eric Holder's Justice Department, which dropped a slam-dunk voter intimidation suit against the Black Panthers, in the face of overwhelming evidence of guilt.

'The thing that is amazing is that they can get the office for as little $100,000 in campaign funding because no one pays attention to it, and they get to control election opportunities in a state. It is cheap," Vadum said.

He said SOSP is currently targeting three states in the 2010 election: California, Michigan and Minnesota. In total they count for 82 electoral votes.

More change we can believe in:

Perhaps nowhere is the impact of the new influence of the Secretary of State had a more profound than in Minnesota, where Mark Richie defeated incumbent Republican Secretary of Sate Mary Kiffmeyer in 2006.

Ritchie, a former community organizer, said at his inauguration that he owed his upset victory to the Secretary of State project.

According to Kiffmeyer, as soon as Ritchie took office he began dismantling much of the framework that had been assembled to ensure honest voting in the state. It was that loosening of election controls, she argues, that lead to the eight month standoff between incumbent Senator Norm Coleman and challenger Al Franken in what was one of the closest Senate race ever.

And...

In a telephone interview from Minneapolis, Dan McGrath and Jeff Davis, who have formed a small research-watchdog group called the Minnesota Majority, say that their computer assisted-examination of the voting records from the 2008 election show that Al Franken's 312 vote margin of victory can be attributed to Ritchie's dismantling election rules. Specifically they charge that Franken's victory can be attributed entirely to illegally cast votes by convicted felons.

COMMENT:  I'd hate to see America turned into a third-world democracy by massive voter fraud, but I'm afraid we're headed that way.  I hope this story gets circulated further, and is featured on Fox's TV news reports.

February 1, 2010   Permalink

TERROR WATCH – AT 5:59 P.M. ET:  The latest "isolated incident" not related to any overall scheme, philosophy, religious fanaticism or anything else other than a sense of adventure:

NEW YORK -- The father of an airport driver accused of trying to cook up homemade bombs in a Colorado motel for an attack on New York City was charged Monday with trying to get rid of chemicals and other evidence.

FBI agents arrested Mohammed Wali Zazi on Monday at his home in a Denver suburb after a previous charge, lying to the government, was dropped. He was out on bail.

You mean, he didn't lie to the government?

A new indictment unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn accused Mr. Zazi of conspiring with others to destroy or hide "glasses, masks, liquid chemicals and containers" that were evidence in a foiled terrorism plot.

Mr. Zazi, the father of suspect Najibullah Zazi, was scheduled to appear in a Denver court Monday. There was no immediate response to a phone message left with his attorney, and the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn, which is leading the investigation, declined to comment.

COMMENT:  I wonder how long it took the government to read him his Miranda rights?  A minute?  Ten seconds?

And, by the way, whatever happened to that guy arrested in New Jersey last week, on a tip from an alert citizen, who had an arsenal in his home, along with jihadist material?  That story has disappeared.  Just a guy reading up on religion, I guess.

February 1,  2010   Permalink

THE BEST ARGUMENTS ARE FACTUAL – AT 10:57 A.M. ET:  Former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino knocks down some of the myths surrounding terrorist trials in the United States. 

It's nice to see the use of facts, for a change.  From The Politico:

...we've heard three people in the Sunday shows talking about the "hundreds" of terrorists that we have tried in US courts and hold in US prisons - as if KSM (the mastermind of 9-11) was just some regular Joe terrorist. Some facts:

First, the only civilian trial of a 9/11 terrorist was Zacarias Moussaoui, who was arrested before 9/11 had even happened and before the president had authorized detaining terrorists as enemy combatants.

Second, Moussaoui had his trial while the entire military commission system was under sustained legal attack by left-wing lawyers, which put all military commission trials on hold. So he couldn't have been tried by a military commission back then anyway.

Third, the trial was a circus largely because the defendant was uncontrollable and used the attention to spout hate against the US; the prosecutors were unfairly accused of misconduct, though the judge gave some credence to the accusations; and they couldn't even get the death penalty even though Moussaoui eventually admitted he was supposed to be the 20th hijacker. The Moussaoui trial is hardly viewed as a model of success.

And...

As for the "hundreds of terrorists" – that figure encompasses every type of terrorism charge DOJ brought in eight years and has nothing to do with 9/11, nor were any of those people foreign terrorists captured overseas as part of the war on terror. Those terrorists were held at Guantanamo Bay as enemy combatants with the intention of eventually trying them in military commissions.

Of course, Dana Perino's argument assumes that we're at war.  We are.  Even the president says we are.  But many of his supporters believe we're not.  They think we're involved in an inter-cultural dispute created by American triumphalism, Western imperialism, rapacious capitalism, and high-cholesterol Milky Ways dropped on unsuspecting Third World peoples. 

If things go our way in November, sanity may start to prevail.  Until then, we'll have to contend with leftist diehards who are more interested in trying George W. Bush than the terrorists who come to kill us.

February 1, 2010   Permalink

MAY JUST BE TEMPORARY – AT 9:43 A.M. ET:  Scott Rasmussen reports on the continuing gains President Obama is making as a result of the State of the Union message.  Once again we're reminded that the president is a more-than-formidable political presence, not to be sold short:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 35% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. That’s the highest level of strong approval for the President in more than seven months and reflects a significant bounce following the State-of-the-Union address. Before the speech, just 27% voiced strong approval.

Thirty-nine percent (39%) now Strongly Disapprove down from 42% before the speech. Putting it all together gives Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -4. That’s the President’s best Approval Index rating in months. In fact, he’s earned a better rating on only two days in the past six months...

...Overall, 49% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. Fifty percent (50%) disapprove.

COMMENT:  We'll look for these numbers to return to pre-speech levels in the next few weeks.  It was only days ago that the spread between approval and disapproval was seven points, not the one point we see today.  If the numbers do return, fine.  If they don't, our side has a problem. 

Obama can turn it on.  It worked in November, 2008.  It probably cannot work that effectively in influencing voters during a midterm election year.  But that will depend, in part, in how effective Republicans will be in recruiting Scott Brown-level candidates and delivering their message.

February 1, 2010    Permalink

BROWN CAUSES FAINTING SPELLS – AT 9:24 A.M. ET:  Scott Brown is making his way to Washington, and making waves.  This is a very independent man.

Don't say he didn't warn us.  When he was elected, Brown told the nation that he would work for his constituents, and would take orders from no one, including the GOP.  He's proving it, as the Washington Post notes:

Fresh off an election victory in Massachusetts, Republican Senator-elect Scott Brown advocated a big tent outlook for the GOP when asked whether his party should move in a more moderate direction.

"They can do whatever they want," Brown said of other Republicans, on ABC's "This Week." "I just know that I'm a Scott Brown Republican. What does that mean? That means I'm going to go down there and be accountable, accessible, open, and honest, and I'm going to bring good government and fairness back to the equation."

Brown said his win in a solidly-Democratic state, along with the interest in the Q&A session President Obama and House Republicans had on Friday, is proof that voters want more transparency and less backroom dealing.

"What it means is that now there will be full and fair debate," Brown said of his 41st Republican vote in the Senate that erased a Democratic supermajority. "And there will be no more behind-closed-doors actions."

That's a tough order.  Watch out for the meat grinder, Scott.

Brown, a socially moderate Republican in an age where the national party is nearly unified on opposition to abortion rights and same-sex marriage, said states should be allowed to make their own decisions on marriage rights. He said while he is pro-choice, he is against partial- birth abortions, federal funding of abortions and believes in strong parental consent notification laws.

COMMENT:  Look, this guy is a star right now, and I get the feeling that he wants to remain one.  He's chalked up one of the most stunning wins in modern American political history. 

Republicans must understand that politics is local.  Officeholders will reflect their constituencies.  Rudy Giuliani, for example, one of the toughest law-and-order types ever to hold office in New York, favors some gun-control laws.  Within limits, a party must have some flexibility.  Otherwise, it will soon be holding its meetings in a closet. 

So Brown's views may not meet every conservative test, but they will meet most tests.  It will be utterly fascinating to see how this guy, from the bluest of the blue states, functions within his party.

February 1, 2010   Permalink

WHEN YOU RUN AS A DEMIGOD – AT 8:32 A.M. ET:   No one has been sharper in his commentary on Barack Obama than Professor Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins University.  Ajami does not like what he sees, and explains why in the Wall Street Journal:

The curtain has come down on what can best be described as a brief un-American moment in our history. That moment began in the fall of 2008, with the great financial panic, and gave rise to the Barack Obama phenomenon.

Note the phrase, "un-American moment."  Someone had the guts to say it.

In a little-known senator from Illinois millions of Americans came to see a savior who would deliver the nation out of its troubles. Gone was the empiricism in political life that had marked the American temper in politics. A charismatic leader had risen in a manner akin to the way politics plays out in distressed and Third World societies.

Ouch!  Triple ouch.

The speed with which some of his devotees have turned on him—and their unwillingness to own up to what their infatuation had wrought—is nothing short of astounding. But this is the bargain Mr. Obama had made with political fortune...

...In the manner of political redeemers who have marked—and wrecked—the politics of the Arab world and Latin America, Mr. Obama left the crowd to its most precious and volatile asset—its imagination. There was no internal coherence to the coalition that swept him to power. There was cultural "cool" and racial absolution for the white professional classes who were the first to embrace him. There was understandable racial pride on the part of the African-American community that came around to his banners after it ditched the Clinton dynasty.

This is probably the best advance political obit on Obama that we've read.

Mr. Obama himself authored the tale of his own political crisis. He had won an election, but he took it as a plebiscite granting him a writ to remake the basic political compact of this republic.

Exactly right.

Mr. Obama's self-regard, and his reading of his mandate, overwhelmed all restraint...

...better ram down sweeping social programs—a big liberal agenda before the people stirred to life again.

And...

We have had stylish presidents, none more so than JFK. But Kennedy was an ironist and never fell for his own mystique. Mr. Obama's self-regard comes without irony...

...But while the Europeans and Muslim crowds hailed him, they damned his country all the same. For his part, Mr. Obama played along, and in Ankara, Cairo, Paris and Berlin he offered penance aplenty for American ways.

Finally...

There had been that magical moment—the campaign of 2008—and the true believers want to return to it. But reality is merciless. The spell is broken.

Please read the whole piece.  It's well worth it and will make your decade.  Ajami is a particularly brave writer, someone who defies the fashions of the university, not only on the subject of Barack Obama, but in his commentary on the Islamic world.

February 1, 2010   Permalink

PREPARE SPACE UNDER THE REAR LEFT AXLE – AT 8:08 A.M. ET:  There is buzz, and I suspect it will grow, that Obama will eventually have to send a basket of fruit and a dismissal notice to his attorney general, Eric Holder.

Holder's record, for only one year, is the most controversial of that of any attorney general since Nixon's manservant, John Mitchell.  And Holder is finding few strong supporters, even in his own party.  Jennifer Rubin, at Contentions, argues that it's time for him to take the honored place under the bus, possibly next to Rev. Jeremiah Wright:

...the administration’s official flack did not exactly give a ringing endorsement of either the KSM trial or of Holder himself. Appearing on CNN, Robert Gibbs would only say:

“He will be brought to justice, and he will likely be executed for the heinous crimes he has committed. … That you can be sure of.”

But he dodged repeated questions by CNN host John King about whether the administration might shift the venue back from federal court in New York to a military court, finally saying that “The attorney general believes the best place to try him is in an American courtroom,” but not committing to that option…

“We are talking with the authorities in New York,” Gibbs said. “We understand their logistical concerns. We have been discussing that with them.”

Nothing about the president having "full confidence" in the attorney general, or backing his decisions. 

So this is all the attorney general’s idea, you see. Not exactly the “buck stops here” sort of decision-making we were assured we’d get from Obama. But aside from the lack of presidential accountability and candor (who believes Holder made this monumentally dumb decision with no input from the White House?), it does leave open the potential for a serious revision in personnel and policy.

And...

His attorney general, however, has had quite a run and is fast becoming a liability for the administration. What better way to pivot and restore some bipartisan credibility than to throw Holder under the proverbial bus?

We’ve learned that it takes a lot to get fired by Obama. But if anyone has earned that fate, it is Holder. His departure would earn praise from conservatives at a time when Obama is struggling to demonstrate some bipartisanship. It would suggest that there is hope yet for this administration to steer back toward the Center of the political spectrum and away from the netroot agenda that has proven utterly unworkable and politically toxic.

COMMENT:  Look for the buzz to increase in this election year.  Some Democrats are not happy to go down with the ship.  Last week, Dems were especially harsh in their comments about Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano, another liability as a result of her handling of the Christmas-day bomber case, who didn't show up for a Congressional hearing.   

Dianne Feinstein, considered a senior, influential voice in the Democratic Party, denounced Holder's decision to try top terrorists in New York City.  Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, facing a tough reelection battle, joined the chorus.

One way out for Obama:  There are stories circulating that Associate Justice John Paul Stevens, of the U.S. Supreme Court, may step down at the end of this term.  Holder could get a court nomination, vacating the top job at the Justice Department.  His nomination would be controversial, and probably opposed by almost all Republicans, but it would probably slip through.

February 1,  2010   Permalink