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MONDAY,  FEBRUARY 15,  2010

GREAT – AT 10:05 P.M. ET:  There's good military news this evening.  From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — The Taliban’s top military commander was captured several days ago in Karachi, Pakistan, in a secret joint operation by Pakistani and American intelligence forces, according to American government officials.

The commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is an Afghan described by American officials as the most significant Taliban figure to be detained since the American-led war in Afghanistan started more than eight years ago. He ranks second in influence only to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban’s founder and a close associate of Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mullah Baradar has been in Pakistani custody for several days, with American and Pakistani intelligence officials both taking part in interrogations, according to the officials.

COMMENT:  I'm glad no one read him his Miranda rights.  And I hope they don't bring him to New York to be tried at Radio City after a performance by the Rockettes.

This is good news.  But it should remind us of how foolish it is for the administration to pledge that we'll start withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2011.  Why give the enemy a timeline?

February 15, 2010   Permalink

POLITICAL SHOCKER – AT 6:14 P.M. ET:  It's all the buzz.  Senator Evan Bayh, moderate Democrat of Indiana, has decided not to run for reelection this year. 

Bayh comes from a prominent political family.  His father, Birch Bayh, served in the Senate until defeated by Dan Quayle. 

Bayh's announcement came as a surprise.  It opens a huge opportunity for Republicans in normally red Indiana to pick up a Democratic seat. 

Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh will not seek re-election this year, he announced Monday, a decision that hands Republicans a prime pickup opportunity in the middle of the country.

"After all these years, my passion for service to my fellow citizens is undiminished, but my desire to do so by serving in Congress has waned," Bayh said at a press conference in Indianapolis.

Bayh cited the lack of bipartisan comity as one of the main reasons for the decision. "There is too much partisanship and not enough progress -- too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving," he said. "Even at a time of enormous challenge, the peoples' business is not being done." He specifically cited the recent vote that killed the creation of a debt commission as evidence of the partisan gridlock.

Bayh was first elected to the Senate in 1998 and was re-elected easily in 2004. National Republicans had recruited former Sen. Dan Coats to challenge Bayh in 2010 although polling suggested Bayh began the race with a 20-point edge. He also had $13 million in the bank at the end of the year.

COMMENT:  Republicans had already recruited former Senator Dan Coats to run against Bayh, but Coats carries some embarrassing baggage.  He's been out of the state for years, and some of his lobbying work in Washington could raise questions.  Stories are circulating – and we stress that these are unproved – that he's had associations with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. 

There are no obvious Democratic replacements for Bayh on the ballot.  Republicans would almost have to work to lose this one, but they've been successful at that effort before, so don't mark your scorecard just yet. 

February 15,  2010   Permalink

JOE BIDEN, CPA – AT 5:53 P.M. ET:  Would you trust this man to do your taxes?  Joe Biden, self-declared expert on all things governmental, now asserts that New York City exaggerated the anticipated costs of holding terror trials.  From CBS:

NEW YORK (CBS) — It's a sign of just how angry the White House is at having its plans to hold terror trials in New York City thwarted.

Vice President Joe Biden took a swing at Mayor Michael Bloomberg, accusing him of inflating estimates of the trial's security costs.

Imaging telling Mayor Bloomberg he doesn't know how to count? Well, that's just what Vice President Biden did, charging that the mayor and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly exaggerated the cost of trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his terror pals in Manhattan.

Both Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly put the estimate at $200 million a year for five years, saying it would be an expensive proposition for the City.

Biden, however, disputes the numbers.

"The mayor came along and said the cost for providing security to hold this trial is x-hundreds of millions of dollars which I think is much more than would be needed," Biden said...

...City officials are irked at Biden's assertion.

"I will leave the security of New York City up to the mayor and police commissioner. I think Joe Biden should have talked to City officials. No city should have to put up with the burden and risk of the trial so the administration can have a terroristic pony show," said City Councilman Peter Vallone, Jr. (D-Queens).

COMMENT:  This is world-class dense on Biden's part.  First, who knows more about budgeting in new York, Mayor Bloomberg and superlative Police Commissioner Kelly, or Joe Biden?  Second, New York is angry enough at the administration for trying to put the show trials in the city.  Why do more damage?

Mr. one-heartbeat-away can't keep his mouth shut.  And the "sophisticates" of journalism said Sarah Palin would have been an embarrassment as vice president.  She would have been Margaret Thatcher compared to Joe.

February 15, 2010   Permalink

BLAIR REDUX? – AT 5:34 P.M. ET:  The New York Times is acknowledging that one of its reporters copied material from another paper:

In a number of business articles in The Times over the past year, and in posts on the DealBook blog on NYTimes.com, a Times reporter appears to have improperly appropriated wording and passages published by other news organizations.

The reporter, Zachery Kouwe, reused language from The Wall Street Journal, Reuters and other sources without attribution or acknowledgment.

The Times was alerted to the problem by editors at The Wall Street Journal. They pointed out extensive similarities between a Journal article, first published on The Journal’s Web site around 12:30 p.m. on Feb. 5, and a DealBook post published two hours later, as well as a related article published in The Times on Feb. 6.

The Times promises appropriate action, but is clearly not ready to indicate what that action will be. 

Assuming the charges are true, this is a dismissal offense.  Readers will recall the Jayson Blair scandal at The Times, in which reporter Blair, in 2003, appropriated material from other journalists and falsified elements of news stories.  There had been repeated warnings about Blair's work, but he was kept on for an inordinate amount of time.  Some observers suggested that The Times was reluctant to dismiss a promising African-American journalist, but eventually the paper forced Blair out and ran a detailed account of his sins.

The paper is moving much more quickly this time.  There is no racial issue involved.   

Generally, news outlets act responsibly when confronted with plagiarism and fakery issues.  Book publishers have a decidedly mixed record.  The Nobel Prize guys, confronted with alleged fakery by literature prize winner Rigoberta Menchu, of Guatemala, did nothing. 

If you're a book author who fakes it, and you can tell a good personal story, you may wind up as a sympathetic guest on a TV talk show. 

February 15, 2010   Permalink

LATE POLLING NEWS – AT 9:42 A.M. ET:  On President's Day, Scott Rasmussen gives us a taste of lasting public assessment of past presidents:

Eighty-nine percent (89%) of adults have a favorable opinion of Washington, including 54% who view the nation's first president very favorably. Ninety-three percent (93%) regard Lincoln favorably, with 63% who have a very favorable opinion of the 16th president.

Huh?  Only 54% view Washington very favorably?  What did he do wrong?  I would have imagined that both he and Lincoln would have scored higher in the "very favorable" category.  Maybe the educational establishment has had its impact in tearing down our past.

Men have a higher opinion of Washington; women favor Lincoln more. Republicans put Washington first, with Lincoln and Reagan nearly tied for second. Democrats rank Lincoln highest and Roosevelt second, well ahead of Washington. Adults not affiliated with either party put Lincoln in first, closely followed by Reagan and Washington.

It is remarkable to see the impact that Reagan has had.  Now, a cautionary note:  People are more familiar with recent presidents, and that accounts for some bias.  But still, Reagan's standing glows. 

I would have put Truman way up there as well.  His handling of the post-war years made it possible for us eventually to win the Cold War. 

February 15, 2010   Permalink

DEFLECTING THE NEXT ATTACK – AT 8:55 A.M. ET:  The great Eli Lake, one of the best national-security reporters around, reports on the new challenge for those tasked with preventing terror attacks against the United States – detecting terrorists who speak our language.  Important reporting from the Washington Times:

U.S. and allied counterterrorism authorities have launched a global manhunt for English-speaking terrorists trained in Yemen who are planning attacks on the United States, based on intelligence provided by the suspect in the attempted Christmas Day bombing after he began cooperating.

U.S. officials told The Washington Times that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, facing charges as a would-be suicide bomber,revealed during recent cooperation with the FBI that he met with other English speakers at a terrorist training camp in Yemen. Three U.S. intelligence officials, including one senior official, disclosed on the condition of anonymity some details of the additional bomb plots.

Said one official: "It's safe to say that Abdulmutallab is not the only bullet in the chamber for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula," the Islamist terrorist group based in Yemen.

"Farouk took a month to get operational. Once he left [training in Yemen], it did not take very long," the official said.

That is stunning.  Only a month?  The 9-11 hijackers took several years.  If this is accurate, it means Al Qaeda has now developed methods to train and use terrorists far more efficiently than in the past. 

Information about the bomb plots was shared with the FBI after Mr. Abdulmutallab's family traveled from Nigeria to help coax the former student into cooperating, after a period of about five weeks when he refused to help authorities.

The FBI interrogated Mr. Abdulmutallab for 50 minutes after he was arrested on Christmas Day at Detroit Metro Airport upon his arrival on Northwest Airlines Flight 253. Officials said the homemade bomb sewn into his underwear failed to detonate but burned him. Had it detonated, the bomb could have killed 289 people aboard the flight.

Al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen absorbed in 2008 the largely defeated branch of the group in Saudi Arabia. The group has made threats against the United States, and the Obama administration has authorized drone strikes in Yemen against the group and its leaders.

COMMENT:  Clearly, we can expect more attacks, either on our homeland or on American targets overseas.  Overseas targets are easier to hit, and, as the embassy bombings in Africa proved in the 90s, can be catastrophic. 

February 15, 2010   Permalink

TWO STEPS FORWARD, ONE STEP BACK AT WAPO – AT 8:33 A.M. ET:  We follow with interest the progress, or regression, in major news organizations.  The Washington Post has made some announcements, as reported in The Politico:

The Washington Post, which already provides a home for Michael Gerson on its op-ed page, today featured a new weekly online column from another former Bush speechwriter, Marc Thiessen...

...In the past, Thiessen has written in support of torture, and is now making the rounds to promote his new book: “Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack.”

That is grossly unfair, and, I'm sorry to say, a sign of the leftward drift I've noticed in The Politico in recent weeks, as the Obama administration comes under increasing political pressure.  For the record, Thiessen, an extremely well informed chap, has denied that he supports torture, but says that he supports interrogation techniques that fall short of torture.  One can argue definitions, but for The Politico to say bluntly that he "has written in support of torture" is indefensible journalism.

Another Post decision was disappointing:

The Post also added a liberal voice to the roster this week, giving Katrina vanden Heuvel a weekly online column.

Huh?  When did Katrina vanden Heuvel become a liberal?  The Politico misuses the term, which left-leaning journalists use far too often to describe anyone on the left.  Vanden Heuvel is, in my view, the irresponsible and borderline Marxist editor of The Nation, which is emphatically not a liberal publication, but a far-left magazine.  There is a difference.  The blurring of the difference between "liberal" and "far left" is one of the embarrassments of modern journalism. 

The Post's editorial page, and op-ed page, continue to evolve.  The opinion pages of The Post are far stronger than those of The New York Times, and, from what I've seen, do seek to give readers a variety of well-written viewpoints.  A strong welcome to Marc Thiessen.  Half a clap for vanden Heuvel.

The Post will also add centrist Matt Miller to its op-ed page, which is just fine. 

February 15, 2010  Permalink

CLIMATE SCANDAL PROGRESS – AT 8:14 A.M. ET:  There are some signs, early and tentative, that the climate-change scandal is producing results.  Now, a key British figure in the climate-change establishment is calling for a major investigation.  From The Times of London:

The UN body that advises world leaders on climate change must investigate an apparent bias in its report that resulted in several exaggerations of the impact of global warming, according to its former chairman.

We stress the phrase, "its former chairman."  Now we're getting somewhere.

In an interview with The Times Robert Watson said that all the errors exposed so far in the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) resulted in overstatements of the severity of the problem.

Professor Watson, currently chief scientific adviser to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said that if the errors had just been innocent mistakes, as has been claimed by the current chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, some would probably have understated the impact of climate change.

They call that common sense.  It is lacking in our own media, and in the White House. 

The errors have emerged in the past month after simple checking of the sources cited by the 2,500 scientists who produced the report...

...Professor Watson, who served as chairman of the IPCC from 1997-2002, said: “The mistakes all appear to have gone in the direction of making it seem like climate change is more serious by overstating the impact. That is worrying. The IPCC needs to look at this trend in the errors and ask why it happened.”

He said that the IPCC should employ graduate science students to check the sources of each claim made in its next report, due in 2013. “Graduate students would love to be involved and they could really dig into the references and see if they really do support what is being said.”

I'm a bit hesitant about that.  I'd rather employ senior or retired scientists.  Graduate students are susceptible to career pressure and pressure to get grants.  The grant-giving system may be part of the corruption here.

He said that the next report should acknowledge that some scientists believed the planet was warming at a much slower rate than has been claimed by the majority of scientists.

“We should always be challenged by sceptics,” he said. “The IPCC’s job is to weigh up the evidence. If it can’t be dismissed, it should be included in the report. Point out it’s in the minority and, if you can’t say why it’s wrong, just say it’s a different view.”

COMMENT:  As this scandal unfolds, the Obama administration is forging ahead with plans for special offices to promote the doctrine of climate change.  One of NASA'S major missions under this administration will be advancing the climate change narrative.  And we are assured by Senator John Kerry that climate-change legislation, based on the trendy narrative, is far from dead.

John F. Kennedy wrote a book called "Why England Slept," about British indifference to Nazi militarism before World War II.  Will someone have to write a book entitled, "Why America Slept"?  Might be too late by then.

February 15, 2010    Permalink

THEY NOTICED – AT 8:03 A.M. ET:  The U.S. is stepping up its rhetoric against Iran.  Question:  Will there be anything serious beyond the words?  From The New York Times:

DOHA, Qatar — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Monday that the United States feared Iran was drifting toward a military dictatorship, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seizing control of large swaths of Iran’s political, military, and economic establishment.

“That is how we see it,” Mrs. Clinton said in a televised town hall meeting of students at the Doha campus of Carnegie Mellon University. “We see that the government in Iran, the supreme leader, the president, the Parliament, is being supplanted and that Iran is moving towards a military dictatorship.”

The United States, she said, was tailoring a new set of tougher United Nations sanctions to target the Revolutionary Guard Corps, which controls Iran’s nuclear program and which she said had increasingly marginalized the country’s clerical and political leadership.

Mrs. Clinton’s remarks were remarkably blunt, given her audience in Qatar, a Persian Gulf emirate with close ties to Iran. But they build on the administration’s recent strategy of branding the Revolutionary Guard Corps as an “entitled class” that is the principal menace in Iran.

COMMENT:  Iran is already a dictatorship, its elections a farce.  (You have to have the government's permission to run for office.) 

The proposed sanctions will focus on the Revolutionary Guards to avoid damaging the civilian population?  Will they work?  It seems very unlikely.  The Guards have their own industries and sources of income.  Also, as the "toughest" of the Iranians, they are not going to fold easily in the face of pressure.

And if they don't work, and Iran's nuclear program continues unscathed?  Then the issue of military pressure must be faced head-on.  Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned over the weekend that a military strike on Iran would have "unintended consequences," signalling our current opposition to that route. 

So what, exactly, do the Iranians have to fear?  Well, not much. 

And, given the fact that their security forces have successfully put down the democracy movement, at least for now, regime change does not seem likely.

What seems more likely is an Iranian nuclear bomb, or at least the capacity to build one.

Welcome to an Obama "success" story.

February 15,  2010   Permalink

SUNDAY,  FEBRUARY 14,  2010

READING BETWEEN THE LINES - AT 8:46 P.M. ET:  The White House has a new strategy for defending itself on terror, as The Politico reports:

Any day spent talking terrorism isn’t automatically a good one for the Obama administration, given the Republicans’ traditional edge on the issue among voters.

But debating Dick Cheney on terrorism? The Obama White House says it’s happy to do that anytime, as it did with Sunday’s split-screen standoff between Cheney and Vice President Joe Biden.

The dueling appearances, along with what is a clear administration strategy to play up its newly aggressive approach in Afghanistan, show a White House determined to project a posture of strength on national security and trying to gain the upper hand with Republicans who wish to portray Obama as weak.

"We have never engaged in chest-beating on what we're doing on terrorism,” said a White House official, who was pleased by how the interviews had played out. “But this dynamic where we're responding to criticism from the former vice president gave us the opportunity to explain what we're doing, without just going out and talking tough.”

And there is some evidence to suggest the strategy is working for Obama. A Washington Post poll released last week found that 56 percent approve of the way the president handles the threat of terrorism, making it Obama’s strongest core issue. Meanwhile his ratings on the domestic issues that got him elected slip: Only 45 percent approve of his handling of the economy, and 43 percent are with him on health care.

COMMENT:  This is a very weird story.  First, Vice President Cheney's poll numbers have risen as he's continued his attack on the Obama administration.  Second, the administration is now playing up policies that seem remarkably similar to those pursued by....Bush-Cheney. 

So the polls seem to show that, the closer Obama gets to the approach of the Bush administration on the terror question, the more confidence the American people have in Obama.   Maybe the White House should ponder that.  Debating Cheney may have some short-term benefits, especially on the left, but it may backfire if Cheney can claim that he's won the argument because Obama is moving closer to his position.

And if there's a successful terror attack, and Obama blows it the way his team blew it with the Christmas-day bomber, Cheney wins hands down.

February 14, 2010   Permalink

STUNNING – AT 8:14 P.M. ET:  The case of the University of Alabama (Huntsville) professor accused of murdering three faculty members on Friday, and severely wounding three others, gets more and more curious, and sickening.

First, we learned that this woman shot and killed her brother in 1986, and was let off despite police protest – the shooting was officially ruled an accident – and that all the records from that killing are missing.

Then we learned that the shooter's mother held a political position.

Next we learned that the district attorney in charge of the 1986 case was William Delahunt, now an influential congressman from Massachusetts, who says he doesn't recall the case.  How a man can forget the killing of a boy by his sister is beyond me. 

And now this, from the Boston Globe:

The professor who is accused of killing three colleagues at the University of Alabama on Friday was a suspect in the attempted mail bombing of a Harvard Medical School professor in 1993, a law enforcement official said today.

It was the second startling revelation in two days about the past of Bishop, who is accused of fatally shooting three colleagues and wounding three others Friday afternoon at a faculty meeting on the University of Alabama's Huntsville, Ala. campus.

A Massachusetts police chief revealed Saturday that Bishop had fatally shot her brother in 1986.

Rosenberg was opening mail, which had been set aside by a cat-sitter, when he returned from a Caribbean vacation on Dec. 19, 1993, according to Globe reports at the time.

Opening a long, thin package addressed to "Mr. Paul Rosenberg M.D.," he saw wires and a cylinder inside. He and his wife ran from the house and called police.

And...

Bishop surfaced as a suspect because she was allegedly concerned that she was going to receive a negative evaluation from Rosenberg on her doctorate work, the official said. The official said investigators believed she had a motive to target Rosenberg and were concerned that she had a history of violence, given that she had shot her brother to death in 1986.

Note that the alleged motive for Friday's murders in Alabama was that Bishop was denied tenure by the university.

Officially, Bishop was cleared in the attempted bombing of the Harvard professor.  Officially, she was cleared of her brother's killing, even though he was shot in the chest at point-blank range. 

But there is much that is curious here.  As we said yesterday, it goes to the issue of public records, and how much a university, like Alabama, had a right to know about a prospective faculty member.

We'll follow this.

February 14, 2010   Permalink

BE A CLOWN, BE A CLOWN – AT 7:13 P.M. ET:  If Joe Biden had been a Republican, he would have been ridiculed out of public life long ago. 

The man has a tin ear – so much so that Obamacare will cover political hearing aids for him, the digital kind.

Here is our one-heartbeat-away guy today, on the Iraq War:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Vice President Joe Biden says the Iraq war hasn't been worth its "horrible price."

He says the war was mishandled from the outset and that the U.S. took its eye off the ball. As a result, he says the U.S. was left in a more dangerous position in Afghanistan, where al-Qaida hatched the Sept 11 attacks.

Biden tells NBC's "Meet the Press" that the war also has cost the United States support from other nations.

Still, Biden predicts Iraq will have successful parliamentary elections next month and he says the U.S. is likely to bring home some 90,000 combat troops by the end of the summer.

Does Biden even begin to understand the impact his statements have on the families of those who were killed or wounded?  Does he understand what it must be like to be a soldier in a veteran's hospital hearing the vice president of the United States say that it wasn't worth it?

We can agree or disagree with the policy, just as those in wartime can agree or disagree with individual aspects of strategy or even with battle plans.  But to call it a waste...what a disgrace.

And, of course, Biden, whose point of view is as permanent as a starlet's virginity, didn't always feel that way.  In 2002, Biden said, "We have no choice but to eliminate the threat. This is a guy who is an extreme danger to the world."  See the video here.

Last week Biden said Iraq could be one of the great triumphs of the Obama administration.  So he's taking credit for something he opposed, but didn't always oppose.  He was for it before he was against it, and now says it wasn't worth it, but will be a great triumph.

One heartbeat away.

February 14, 2010   Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 11:21 A.M. ET:  After a year in office, Barack Obama is still an enigma.  Jennifer Rubin, at Contentions, has an excellent take on what makes Obama tick, or whine, or whatever it is that he does:

Obama is getting flack from his own party for lacking the common touch, failing to connect with ordinary voters, and struggling to identify with Middle America. The mainstream media is baffled because, they say, he came from a middle-class background. What’s the problem? They are stumped.

Much of the problem is that his background isn’t so much middle class as it is academic. A large chunk of his adult life has been spent attending, teaching in, and living in close proximity to elite universities. The intellectual bent (e.g., disdainful of American exceptionalism, ignorant of the workings of free-market capitalism, infatuated with the public sector) and the posture (e.g., remote, condescending) of liberal academics are evident in Obama’s persona and governing style. And his saturation in Left-leaning elite schools certainly explain much of what ails him.

And...

The media was mesmerized by an elite-credentialed author and law professor who seemed so very cool and so intellectually compatible with themselves. But the Harvard Law Review and Con Law 101 don’t prepare one for the presidency. Indeed, it turns out that those who are attracted to such endeavors may lack the stuff of successful presidents — common sense, appreciation for the private enterprise, toleration of criticism, attention to the bottom line, etc. Next time, maybe we should look for someone who fits less well into the Ivy League and more comfortably into the private sector and Middle America. The better presidents, after all, can hire academics — and learn when to ignore them when their advice proves impractical or downright foolish.

COMMENT:  I've always loved first-class academics.  But it always struck me that the best teachers, and scholars, are always the first to tell you what they don't know.  One of my mentors, Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois, a distinguished professor of economics (and a Marine hero) constantly stressed to me the limits of academic research. 

I recall traveling with Senator Douglas through Rockford, Illinois, in 1960.  I looked around and made a typical, sneering University of Chicago undergraduate comment about "the kind of people who live here."   Mr. Douglas corrected me.  "Bill," he said, "let me teach you something:  Never underestimate the wisdom of a small town."  I've always remembered that, and remembered that it came from a revered professor. 

One problem in this administration is that it has contempt for the very people it serves.  And the media shares that contempt.  You see it in the handling of health care.  You see it in the president's pathetic apologies to foreign nations.  The people of this country are developing a certain dislike for Mr. Obama, and he thoroughly deserves it.  He should stop underestimating the wisdom of a small town.

February 14, 2010   Permalink

LITTLE BY LITTLE, MY FRIENDS, LITTLE BY LITTLE – AT 10:09 A.M. ET:  Our contributor, Renee Nielsen, refers us to this piece from London's Daily Mail.  Little by little, the truth is starting to come out about the global-warming fiasco:

The academic at the Centrex of the ‘Climate gate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.

Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers.

Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organizational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.

The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

COMMENT:  This is just outrageous.  We have never said, by the way, that global warming doesn't occur.  What we have asked for is far more proof that 1) it's occurring over a significant time period and 2) that it's mainly caused by man. 

All we've gotten back is a series of insults and dodges, and assertions that people who reject global warming are in the same league as Holocaust deniers.  But a disturbing series of events, reported, as Renee points out, mainly in the British press, has cast serious doubt on the whole global-warming enterprise.

We wait in vain for some intelligent response from the president, whose science adviser is firmly in the global-warming camp.

February 14, 2010   Permalink 

THE WAY THINGS ARE – AT 9:50 A.M. ET:  Apparently, change we can believe in, isn't. 

The great Michael Barone says that crony capitalism is back in Washington, despite Obama's pledge to banish it.  From the Washington Examiner:

Crony capitalism is now the order of the day in the United States. The government and the United Auto Workers own General Motors and Chrysler, which aren't likely to pay back their billions in TARP money any time soon, if ever. Meanwhile the government tells Americans to stop driving Toyotas.

The government was going to remake the health care sector, and so Billy Tauzin and other health care industry lobbyists were busy in the White House cutting deals to keep their clients above water. The government was going to remake the energy sector, and utility CEOs and lobbyists have been busy flaunting their green credentials.

As my Washington Examiner colleague Timothy Carney has been documenting, Big Business has been busy lobbying Big Government for "reforms" that serve big companies' interests. Wal-Mart backs a health care mandate, Philip Morris shapes tobacco regulation, General Electric is setting up a joint venture to trade carbon offsets.  Wasn't that Enron's line of work back in the day?

And...

The picture is not pretty. Government's pets or, in the president's words, "savvy businessmen," use government to get policies that will give them competitive advantages and stifle smaller competitors. Pleasing their masters in government is now absorbing the psychic energy of CEOs who used to concentrate on meeting consumers' needs in order to make profits.

Back in the 1940s, there was an excuse for crony capitalism -- there was a war on. And FDR had a gift for picking people who, like Kaiser, delivered the goods. Today that excuse is not available, and it's far from apparent that Obama has that gift.

COMMENT:  Harry Truman once said that 10% of Americans had lobbyists in Washington to represent them.  The president, he said, had to watch out for the other 90%.  This president claims to be watching out, but in fact, as the machine politician he is, he goes along with the old ways, as long as his party benefits.

February 14, 2010   Permalink

LOVE NEWS – AT 9:38 A.M. ET:  Urgent report, required reading.  Scott Rasmussen unmasks the whole rotten Valentine's Day business:

Americans have a love-hate relationship with Valentine’s Day.

Thirty-six percent (36%) of adults look forward to Cupid's holiday, but 20% dread it. A plurality (43%) are indifferent to today's holiday.

Interestingly, more men look forward to Valentine’s Day than women. Adults ages 18 to 29 dread it more than those in any other age group.

Those who are married and those who are unmarried feel pretty much the same about Valentine's Day, but adults with children look forward to February 14 more than those who have no children.

COMMENT:  Today is Valentine's Day.  If your significant other happens to be a liberal, please remember the rules:  Environmentally responsible gifts only, nothing with plastic; if an edible, remember trans-fat and caloric levels; if a wearable, please look for the union label; if a driveable, please be sure to choose hybrid technology, or, better yet, a bike; if a plug-in device, please consider the use of electricity and its effect on climate change; if a readable, something from the faculty at Berkeley would be nice; if something intimate, make it gender neutral.

February 14,  2010   Permalink