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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 23,  2010

AGAIN? – AT 8:26 P.M. ET:  Where do you think the president of the United States was today?  In his office confronting North Korea?  Having critical talks with Congress over extending the Bush tax cuts?  Trying to formulate an energy policy?

Silly people.  Do you think he'd be doing any of those things when there's something more important to do?  And what is that, you ask?  Why, it's...campaigning.

Now, wait.  Isn't the election over?  Yeah, it is, but this pesty democracy stuff comes up every few years, and a man's got to be ready.  So the president was in Indiana today, and even journalists favorable to him realized what it was all about.  From WaPo:

KOKOMO, IND. - President Obama used a visit to a revitalized Chrysler transmission plant here Tuesday to tout the success of his auto industry bailout, saying that all three major U.S. automakers are profitable and growing because his administration made "the right decision" to back them.

Uh, little problem.  Ford wasn't backed because it declined any federal aid.  It's doing far better than the others.

In some ways, the president's appearance in this small Midwestern town known as the "city of firsts," where Old Ben, a two-ton bull, still gets bragging rights as the world's biggest stuffed steer, represented a kickoff of the 2012 race for the White House.

The visit by Obama and Vice President Biden was billed by the administration as part of its "White House to Main Street" effort to highlight economic progress and publicize the back-from-the-brink success of the automobile industry.

But with Republicans flexing their newfound power in Washington and gaming out their 2012 prospects, and the White House ready to put top political players back in campaign mode, it was hard not to see this visit as an opening argument for 2012.

Are you getting tired of this?  Didn't we elect this man to govern?  Is he ever off the campaign trail?  Wasn't he just on it a few weeks ago?

Barack Obama feels far more comfortable campaigning than governing.  That's the problem.  He appears to be eternally insecure about holding on to his office.

Let me tell you a true show-business story:  Jack Benny was booked to appear on one of Lucille Ball's TV shows.  Now, Lucille Ball was one of the biggest stars of television.  I can't think of anyone who was bigger.  But when Jack Benny arrived at the studio he was shocked to see Ball running around, neurotic and frenetic, telling everyone what to do and acting as if the whole show was falling apart.

Jack turned to one of the producers and remarked,  "Will someone please tell Lucy that she's already got the job."

That's exactly the way I feel about Obama.  Will someone please tell him that he's already got the job?  He seems constantly to be running for office.  But he doesn't seem to occupy the office.  Now, out on the campaign trail again, he just calls more attention to the problem.

Obama as Lucy.  What a picture.

November 23, 2010   Permalink

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 7:08 P.M. ET:

If you're planning to fly after the new year, you may find a familiar face next to you on your next flight to San Francisco. That's because Speaker Nancy Pelosi will no longer have access to military aircraft and will instead fly commercial to her district after she becomes House minority leader, her office confirmed to Politics Daily.

I want to see her go through that scanner.  I just want to see it.  I understand that the newest scanners will show what passengers looked like before the plastic surgery.

November 23, 2010      Permalink

OUR INTELLIGENCE DOLLARS AT WORK – AT 8:56 A.M. ET:  If this wasn't so serious, it would be hilarious.  From Fox:

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A man leading the Taliban side of peace talks with the Afghan government was an impersonator, an Afghan close to the negotiations said Tuesday, an embarrassing revelation for Afghan officials who have promoted reconciliation efforts as the best chance for ending the war.

Quickly moving to do damage control, President Hamid Karzai dismissed the reports as "propaganda," saying neither he nor any other members of his government had ever met with a man named Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour -- one of highest ranking members of the Taliban council leading the insurgency.

The report about the impostor first appeared in The New York Times and the Washington Post.

An Afghan familiar with the reconciliation efforts, confirmed that a delegate claiming to be Mansour "was a fraud." He spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize his contacts with both sides.

COMMENT:   What if they had reached an agreement and announced it publicly?  Does a treaty with a fraud count? 

Incredible that this could happen.  Where were the intelligence agencies?

November 23, 2010      Permalink

OBAMA'S HEALTH-CARE HOAX – AT 8:37 A.M. ET:  The Dems like to say that they "passed health care."  They did not.  They passed a law about health care.  Whether it will lead to any health care is an open question.

Day by day, we are learning that Obamacare isn't what it's cracked up to be, and that real health losses can occur.  From Byron York at the Washington Examiner:

The New York Times reports there is a "growing frenzy of mergers" in the health care field in which hospitals and other care providers, pressured by the new law's provisions, are joining forces to save money. "Consumer advocates fear that the health care law could worsen some of the very problems it was meant to solve," the paper reports, "by reducing competition, driving up costs and creating incentives for doctors and hospitals to stint on care, in order to retain their cost-saving bonuses."

The Obama administration's answer to the problem will undoubtedly be more regulation. But the wave of mergers is just one of many signs of trouble with the new law.

For example, we know that the government's Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services has found that the new law will increase health care costs, rather than reduce them, in the coming decade. We know that cuts in Medicare, with the money saved going to pay for expanding coverage to the poor, will jeopardize seniors' access to care. We know the law will make it impossibly expensive for companies that currently offer bare-bones health coverage to low-income employees to keep doing so. We know several corporations are taking giant write-downs because the bill will increase the cost of providing prescription drug coverage to retired employees. And perhaps most important, we know the law offers an enormous incentive for employers who currently provide coverage to workers to stop doing so, sending those workers to buy coverage in government-subsidized health care exchanges.

In sum, what the law means for millions of Americans is: No matter what the president said, if you like the coverage you have now, you can't keep it.

COMMENT:  To your good health.

November 23, 2010      Permalink

CRISIS IN KOREA – AT 8:15 A.M. ET:  There has been a dramatic escalation of tensions between North and South Korea, with open military action by the north.  From Fox:

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea bombarded a South Korean island near their disputed western border Tuesday, setting buildings ablaze and killing at least two marines and injuring 16 others after warning the South to halt military drills in the area, South Korean officials said.

South Korea said it returned fire and scrambled fighter jets in response, and said the "inhumane" attack on civilian areas violated the 1953 armistice halting the Korean War. The two sides technically remain at war because a peace treaty was never negotiated.

The United Nations Security Council could hold an emergency meeting in the next day or two over the attack, saying "It's in the works for either today or tomorrow. We are for it and planning is ongoing," Reuters reports.

The United States, which has tens of thousands of troops stationed in South Korea, condemned the attack and called on North Korea to "halt its belligerent action," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in Washington. He said the United States is "firmly committed" to South Korea's defense, and to the "maintenance of regional peace and stability."

The North's artillery struck the small South Korean-held island of Yeonpyeong, which houses military installations and a small civilian population and which has been the focus of two previous deadly battles between the Koreas.

COMMENT:  Why shouldn't North Korea act belligerently?  Who's stopping them?  Barack Obama, the tough man of the West? 

North Korea sank a South Korean warship earlier this year?  Where was the response?  North Korea has now built, in violation of agreements, an advanced nuclear processing plant.  Anyone interested?

What we are seeing is the fruit of appeasement.  It never changes, does it?

November 23, 2010      Permalink

OH DEAR, OH DEAR, WHAT CAN THE MATTER BE? – AT 7:46 A.M. ET:  It's only one poll, but it will not bring holiday joy to the administration.  Maybe it's true that the Thanksgiving turkey isn't the only turkey in the White House.  From Andrew Malcolm at the L.A. Times's Top of the Ticket blog:

President Obama has passed the Big 4-0 -- going the wrong way.

Turns out voters were not simply satisfied to spank the Democrat and his party in the Nov. 2 midterm elections with historic losses in the House of Representatives.

Obama's job approval rating as calculated by the Zogby Poll has now sunk to 39%, a new low for his 22-month presidency that began with so much hope and excitement and poll numbers up around 70. As recently as Sept. 20, his job approval was 49%.

A whopping 60% now disapprove of his job, up from 51% disapproval Sept. 20.

Obama now trails in hypothetical 2012 matchups against Republicans Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and the next Bush, Jeb.

And, oh, my! Lookee here! Obama has even fallen into a statistical tie with none other than Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor. How embarrassing that is because other polls have shown a majority of Americans believe she is unqualified for the presidency. So it appears many have now decided, on second thought, Obama looks that way too.

Obama began losing the support of independents in the summer of 2009, as he responded to polls showing voter concerns focused on the economy by staging 59 town hall meetings on healthcare. Independents were a crucial part of his coalition win in 2008 but have now dwindled to 39%.

Only 6% of Republicans, not surprisingly, approve of Obama's job performance. But younger voters, also crucial in the ex-state senator's convincing defeat of John McCain, now approve by only 42%.

Nearly 7 in 10 likely voters say the country is on the wrong track, rarely a good sign for incumbents.

But, Zogby notes, perhaps most ominous for the president is that he's now losing support among his own party people. His approval plopped nearly 10% in just one week, from 78% down to 72% in Zogby's latest read.

Obama, John Zogby writes, "is failing to please more than one-fourth of his own party’s voters. This is a perilous position for the President.

COMMENT:  In fairness, other polls give higher numbers to the president.  But the fact that a major pollster has him in the thirties could have a devastating psychological impact.  What is remarkable is that Obama seems to do so little to right the ship.  He seems almost indifferent and passive. 

The movements of his political staff indicate that he's going to run again.  But I really wonder.  If most of the polls follow Zogby and show him sinking into the 30s, would Obama then want to risk being the first African-American president to be turned out of office?  Or will he believe that the press will save him once again?  On that he could be right.

November 23, 2010     Permalink

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22,  2010

OH, THE GOSSIP WAS GOOD – AT 10:27 P.M. ET:  Now, you really feel you have to read this because I used the word "gossip."  Right?  Admit it.

Okay, here goes.  I was at a meeting tonight dealing with happenings in the academic world.  I cannot use names, but an exceedingly well informed source told me that he was in discussion with a formerly high official of Columbia University, circa early 80s, and the subject turned to Barack Obama, class of '83.  The Columbia man told this source, approximate quote, "Nothing at that time went through the Political Science Department without my knowing about it, and I never heard of Barack Obama."

Hmm.  There was a poll taken of 450 members of the class of '83, and not one person polled remembered Obama.  And, apparently, no faculty member recalls him.

What's going on here? 

I don't know, but I'd love to.

November 22, 2010       Permalink 

DIRECT FROM YOUR CHECKBOOK – AT 2:47 P.M. ET:  This is pretty incredble, but watch the sympathy that will come from the left:

The so-called Ground Zero mosque recently applied for a $5 million federal grant from a fund designed to rebuild lower Manhattan after 9/11, reports The Daily Beast’s John Avlon.

Developers of the controversial Park51 Islamic community center and mosque located two blocks from Ground Zero earlier this month applied for roughly $5 million in federal grant money set aside for the redevelopment of lower Manhattan after the attacks of September 11th, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

The audacious move stands to reignite the embers of a divisive debate that dominated headlines surrounding the ninth anniversary of the attacks this fall, say people vested in the issue.

The application was submitted under a “community and cultural enhancement” grant program administered by the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corporation (LMDC), which oversaw the $20 billion in federal aid allocated in the wake of 9/11 and is currently doling out millions in remaining taxpayer funds for community development. The redevelopment board declined to comment on the application (as did officials from Park51), citing the still ongoing and confidential process of determining the grant winners.

While news of the application has not previously been made public, developer Sharif El-Gamal outlined it in closed-door meetings, according to two individuals he spoke with directly. The thirtysomething, Brooklyn-born El-Gamal is motivated more by real estate ambition—one of these sources describes him as aspiring to be the next Donald Trump—than Islamic theology or ideology.

COMMENT:  Public funds?  For a religious center?  Now, just imagine if a Christian church had applied for this money.  The libs would go berserk.  They'd stamp the First Amendment on their foreheads.  I just can't wait for the revision of thought we're almost sure to see here.

The grant should be turned down.  Religious groups should raise their own funds. 

November 22, 2010       Permalink

AND THEY LECTURE US! – AT 2:41 P.M. ET:  Ireland has asked for a bailout to help solve its economic woes.  Greece came first.  And now we see the grim future.  From CNBC:

The biggest bailout the European Union will have to do if it comes to it will be Spain and it is worrying that there is not a set mechanism on how to go about it, Cornelia Meyer, CEO & Chairman, MRL Corporation, told CNBC Monday.

At the weekend, euro zone financial ministers and Irish officials agreed on a bailout of under 100 billion euros ($137 billion) for Ireland, sending stocks in Europe and the euro higher, as investors breathed a sigh of relief.

But the next in line for European Union and International Monetary Fund money may be Portugal, and then Spain, analysts said.

"We're getting near the end-game in terms of Ireland, and that was a good bailout, and we did all the right things; but hot on the heels of Ireland we have Portugal and then Spain, and Spain will be the biggie," Meyer said.

She predicted that a Spanish bailout would likely cost up to 500 billion euros; but there is no "real mechanism" to deal with it, Meyer added.

COMMENT:  The economic instability in Europe is frightening.  We know European history.  What know what economic stress produced in Germany in the 1930s.  It can happen again, in a number of places.  There is no guarantee that democracy will survive in some of these countries, especially the ones where fascism flourished until relatively recent times.

November 22, 2010      Permalink

NOVEMBER 22nd – AT 9:08 A.M. ET:  This is the 47th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy.  For those of a certain age, there are three dates that never leave us – December 7th, 1941; November 22, 1963; and September 11, 2001. 

Whether you favored President Kennedy or not, he represented the Democratic Party when it was still the national defense party.  His soaring inaugural address, in which he pledged that the United States would "pay any price" in defense of freedom, would be laughed at and ridiculed by his own party today.  Indeed, Jack Kennedy today might be a Republican.

In 1963, when President Kennedy was murdered, his Democratic Party still had a powerful Southern wing.  It was truly a national party.  It represented the feelings of working people well because it actually spoke with them.  Today the party considers itself quite superior to the people it claims to represent.

I was being discharged from the Army the hour President Kennedy was assassinated.  I still recall the absolute silence in Pennsylvania Station as I waited for my train to my parents' home on Long Island.  We'd lost presidents before.  I can still recall, vaguely, President Roosevelt's death.  But we hadn't had a president assassinated since McKinley. 

But I also recall the outrage of some northeast liberals, who would later come to symbolize the modern Democratic Party, that Lyndon Johnson would be president.  Although he was one of the great legislators of the 20th century, Johnson was despised by a certain element that couldn't stand the way he talked or where he went to school.   He wasn't like us, and that's what counted.  I didn't know it at the time, but we were seeing the start of a fatal split in the party, a cultural split, that lasts to this day.

In a few months the last Kennedy will be gone from Congress, and the dynasty, like the Roosevelt dynasty, will probably pass into history.  No one knows what President Kennedy would think of the United States today.  I think we can guess what he'd think of his party.

November 22, 2010      Permalink

THOSE PEASANTS OUT THERE, THEY'RE SO BENEATH US – AT 8:32 A.M. ET:  If liberals want to stage any kind of comeback, and if the academic and journalistic worlds want to stop alienating huge chunks of the American public, they might all take a silent pledge to eliminate the word "stupid" from their vocabulary.  This is common sense, which some of these characters just don't seem to have.  From the Washington Examiner:

Political reporters often rely on University of Wisconsin political scientist Charles Franklin for expertise. In just the past few months, his insights have appeared in articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Associated Press, Politico, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, and many other publications. He's also a co-founder of the influential website Pollster.com, as well as co-director of the Big Ten Battleground Poll.

So Franklin answered with considerable authority when he was asked, at a recent forum on the November 2 election results, why Republicans emerged victorious in so many races. "I'm not endorsing the American voter," Franklin said. "They're pretty damn stupid."

Franklin was responding to a question from Bill Lueders, news editor of Isthmus, a weekly alternative newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. In an account published Thursday (H/T Ann Althouse), Lueders says he asked Franklin why "the public seemed to vote against its own interests and stated desires, for instance by electing candidates who'll drive up the deficit with fiscally reckless giveaways to the rich."

"Franklin, perhaps a bit too candidly, conceded the point," Lueders writes. "'I'm not endorsing the American voter,' he answered. 'They're pretty damn stupid.'"

Lueders writes that he responded, "Thank you, professor. That's the answer I was looking for."

COMMENT:  Well, first of all, Bill Lueders is a walking example of why Americans have lost confidence in the media.  When he said, "That's the answer I was looking for," Professor Franklin should have stopped the conference in its tracks and replied, "I don't give answers you're looking for, young man.  I give answers I think are right."  But, alas, the professor didn't.  Maybe he didn't think there was anything wrong with Lueders's approach to his craft.

Now for Professor Franklin:  I don't think I'd be too interested in anything he has to say in the future.  Clearly, he doesn't know his own country.  Isn't it interesting, but I didn't hear "scholars" using the word "stupid" to describe the American voter after the 2008 election.  I wonder why.  Could it be that they agreed with what the voters did, and that therefore the voters were suddenly intelligent?

This is cheap talk, unbecoming a professor.  American voters are far from stupid.  As a group, they're probably the most discerning in the world.  Proof:  In the face of a Republican tide, voters in several states - Nevada, Colorado, Delaware – voted down a Republican candidate for the Senate they thought was too extreme, and in Alaska voted, with write-in ballots, for the candidate they wanted to remain in the Senate.  We may not agree with their choices, but their choices were clearly made thoughtfully, not stupidly.

I may have told this story before:  I once interviewed Charles Kuralt, the CBS reporter who did the "On the Road" series for years, driving around the country and interviewing ordinary Americans.  I asked him for the single most important thing he learned in all those years.  Without hesitation he replied, "I'm always amazed at how well informed Americans are."  And Kuralt was right.  Americans are probably the best informed voters in the world, and, as a group, they do care.  Watch tracking polls during election campaigns.  As soon as anything important happens, the polls change.  Americans are listening.

There's a whole tier of elites who love to make fun of their fellow Americans.  It makes them feel superior, more important, and more knowledgeable.  And they love words like "stupid."  Many of these people are in the knowledge industry.  Their greatest fear is that someone else may know as much as they do.  Harry Truman said it best:  "You can't tell an expert anything because then he's not an expert anymore."

Professor Franklin, like many other professors, might do well to temper his rhetoric, and demonstrate some becoming modesty.  The great professors who taught me were always the first to tell students what they didn't know.  And never, and I mean never, did I hear one of them use the word "stupid." 

November 22, 2010      Permalink

GERMANS TAKING TERROR REPORTS VERY SERIOUSLY – AT 7:54 A.M. ET:  As the holiday season approaches, we must be especially vigilant about terror.  Remember last year's Christmas Day bomber?

Apparently, Germany is taking terror warnings very seriously.  From Fox News:

BERLIN—Germany is bracing for possible terrorist attacks amid growing signs that Islamic extremists are preparing at least one assault somewhere in the country in the coming weeks, possibly in the capital, Berlin.

Authorities in Berlin are racing to track two suspected suicide bombers believed to be planning to strike a prominent location, according to a person familiar with the investigation. Police are combing through travel and visa records and scrutinizing arrivals from the Mideast and South Asia as they hunt the pair, this person said.

Meanwhile, a second group of terrorists, is reported to be planning to travel to Germany in the coming weeks to launch a small-arms attack on one or more urban centers in the next three months, according to an official familiar with the matter.

The threats have unnerved many Germans after government officials played down similar warnings from U.S. intelligence in recent months. Concerns of an imminent attack prompted a rare public warning Wednesday by Germany's interior ministry that terrorists plan to strike one or more crowded public locations in major German cities by the end of this month.

The warnings have put a damper on planned holiday festivities. Cities across Germany have begun opening their traditional Christmas markets, but many citizens are worried the fairs offer terrorists key targets.

COMMENT:  This dovetails well with the report we published yesterday that Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula boasts that it's planning a series of small attacks, instead of one large one, the better to bleed its enemies over time.

German authorities clearly regard the terror threats as extremely credible.  It is very difficult to stop a small group of terrorists, if they are successful in entering the country, unless you know exactly where and when they plan to strike.  The Germans apparently have only a small piece of the puzzle.

November 22, 2010       Permalink

TRAVEL NEWS – AT 7:47 A.M. ET:  Provided as a service, just so you'll know:

TRENTON, New Jersey (AP) — A national study finds St. Louis overtook Camden, New Jersey, as the nation's most dangerous city in 2009.

Congratulations to St. Louis.  We knew you could do it.

The study released Sunday by CQ Press found St. Louis had 2,070.1 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, compared with a national average of 429.4. That helped St. Louis beat out Camden, which topped last year's list and was the most dangerous city for 2003 and 2004.

So it's five times the national average.  So what.  Take a cab, hire a bodyguard, pack a Smith&Wesson.  You'll be fine.

Detroit, Flint, Michigan, and Oakland, California, rounded out the top five.

Each one a garden spot of the world.

For the second straight year, the safest city with more than 75,000 residents was Colonie, New York.

Frankly, I never heard of it, and I'm a New Yorker.  No crime, no publicity.

The annual rankings are based on population figures and crime data compiled by the FBI. Some criminologists question the findings, saying the methodology is unfair.

Yeah, they adctually count the number of crimes.  They should be weighing the socio-economic aspects that underpin the anti-social behavior of oppressed peoples.  That's right, isn't it?

COMMENT:  New York City addressed its crime problem with considerable success.  Why can't these other cities do the same?  And why isn't that question asked by the politically correct press? 

November 22, 2010       Permalink