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AUGUST 29,  2011

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:23 P.M. ET:

PERRY ROMPS – A new poll more than confirms Rick Perry's status as GOP frontrunner.  A CNN poll has Perry at 32%, Mitt Romney at 18%, and Michele Bachmann at 12%.  At the same time, Perry's frontrunner status has gotten him some additional scrutiny, even by Republicans.  The Politico ran a piece called "Is Perry Dumb?"  Others are demanding more detailed answers and prescriptions from Perry.  The poll results are seen less as an endorsement of Perry than as a verdict on Mitt Romney's failure to ignite the GOP base.

GOP JOBS PLAN – The Republicans rolled out a modest jobs plan today, calling for decreased regulations and reduced taxes for small businesses.  I have no idea why anyone would roll out a plan at the end of August.  The plan won't get much attention, and is too narrowly focused to be called a national strategy.  I suppose it was rushed out to preempt President Obama's jobs plan, to be announced next week, unless a golf game intervenes.  The Republicans would do better by waiting, drawing up a truly comprehensive program, and presenting it to the American people in a big way, as Newt presented the Contract with America in the early 1990s. 

EXITING HOME SALES DECLINE – Sales of existing homes fell in July for the first time in three months.  Even lower prices and borrowing costs couldn't prevent the decline.  We are still coming out the housing bubble, with no end to the declines in sight.  We are constantly told by the administration that there is a recovery underway, just as America was told by Herbert Hoover that prosperity was just around the corner.  But the "recovery" seems to have touched very few people.   Many Americans are trapped in homes that are "underwater," meaning that more is owed on the mortgage than the home is worth.  Not a good time.

IT'S ABOUT TIME – The state of New Mexico is looking into its program of providing financial incentives to moviemakers to shoot in the state.  Many states and localities have such incentives, but questions are increasingly being raised as to how much these programs actually benefit the people of the area.  New Mexico, under severe economic strain already, paid $102-million to moviemakers in the last year.  The state's governor, Susanna Martinez, is often mentioned as a possible vice presidential possibility on the Republican ticket.  Maybe she can figure these programs out, and explain Hollywood accounting.  If she can, she should be president.  In fact, if she can, she should be queen.

August 29, 2011       Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 10:50 P.M. ET:  Norah O'Donnell, the new CBS White House correspondent, and someone who makes Katie Couric look politically neutral, gives her assessment of President Obama's response to Hurricane Irene, as reported by RealClearPolitics:

CBS White House correspondent Norah O'Donnell said President Obama displayed his engagement to the federal government's response to Hurricane Irene by returning a day early from vacation and meeting with the head of FEMA. O'Donnell says the administration wanted to make sure no comparison to the government's handling of Katrina was made.

"I think it's important to note too that the Obama administration was really determined to avoid any comparisons to the failed federal government response to Hurricane Katrina. So, President Obama made a very public display of his engagement on this issue. He returned from his vacation a day early. Yesterday, he went to the headquarters of FEMA where he talked not only with the head of FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security, but also all the Governors and state and local officials. So, that was key certainly for this President," O'Donnell reported.

COMMENT:  That is a classic example of what too often happens in "journalism" – a reporter reports in accordance with an approved "narrative" that becomes fact regardless of the truth.  We see it most dramatically in foreign-affairs reporting that casually mentions the United States "losing" the Vietnam War, which was simply not the case.  We withdrew because of domestic political pressure.  We never lost one battle in Vietnam.

In O'Donnell's case she accepts the "narrative" of a "failed federal government response" to Katrina.  It has become the accepted party line of the mainstream media.  In fact, it was a far more complex picture.  Most of the failure was at the local and state level.  The federal response, especially in its early stages, was remarkably good.  The projected death toll in Katrina was about 10,000.  The actual death toll was about 1,100.  Yet, not a single reporter, to the best of my knowledge, has investigated that gap.  The low death toll was largely due to the fact that President Bush ordered federal assets to New Orleans as soon as Katrina became a major threat to the city.  Most of those assets were in the form of the Coast Guard, which did remarkable lifesaving work.  Yet, you never hear of it. 

FEMA came in for severe criticism after Katrina, some of it deserved.  But that very same FEMA, just a year before, had handled five hurricanes in Florida and acquitted itself quite well.  The difference?  Florida had a real governor in Jeb Bush.  Louisiana had an inadequate governor in Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans had a borderline clown named Ray Nagin as mayor. 

The approved narrative is wrong.  It won't be changed. 

August 29, 2011        Permalink

THE RIGHT SNAPS BACK ON DEFENSE SPENDING – AT 10:37 A.M. ET:  We've been a bit concerned here about the lax response of some conservatives (and national-defense Democrats) to reported plans to slash the defense budget irresponsibly.  Now the grown-ups are getting organized and fighting back against the cuts-at-any-price crowd.  From The Hill:

Conservative lawmakers and analysts are seizing on the Pentagon’s finding that China is “closing the gap” with other militaries to criticize the Obama administration’s plans to pare U.S defense spending.

The critics say the president does not fully grasp the Asian giant’s global ambitions.

No surprise there.

“The [Pentagon’s] China military power report acknowledges China's insatiable desire to become a 'world class economic and military power' as it advances toward transforming its military into a dominant regional force by 2020 and an unrivaled international power by 2050,” House Armed Services Readiness subcommittee Chairman Randy Forbes (R-Va.) said.

Forbes then turned his sights, in a veiled way, on plans to trim at least $350 billion from U.S. military budgets between 2013 and 2023.

“There is no question that China is rapidly closing the technology gap and striving to challenge the United States' military prowess — there is a question, though, of whether the United States will simply cede its global and military leadership role to a nation with uncertain intentions, but known disregard for human rights, basic freedoms, and democratic institutions,” Forbes said in a statement.

In its annual report to Congress, released Wednesday, the Pentagon acknowledged that China’s military is "steadily closing the technological gap with modern armed forces."

Speaking to reporters that afternoon, Deputy Assistant Secretary of defense for East Asia Michael Schiffer said Beijing’s buildup could end up being a “destabilizing” force in the Asia-Pacific region.

You think?

COMMENT:  Our concern with radical Islam centers on terrorism, including, potentially, nuclear terrorism.  It also focuses on attempts to infiltrate and change Western nations.

China, on the other hand, represents a classic military challenge.  China is able to field large land armies, and will soon have a threatening naval force that could challenge the United States for control of the seas.  And yet, we remain curiously unconcerned. 

I suspect we'll get a surprise ten years down the road.  That's usually what it takes to wake up democracies.  In the meantime, our side has to work every day to maintain adequate defense spending, and not make the mistakes we made in the 20th century.  During that recent century the United States experienced four major defense drawdowns...and lived to regret every one of them.

August 29, 2011       Permalink

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 9:56 A.M. ET: 

From the Times of London, via the Australian:  BARACK Obama's long-lost "Uncle Omar" has been arrested for alleged drunk-driving outside Boston and detained as an illegal immigrant, The Times can reveal.  The arrest ends a mystery over the fate of a relative that the US President wrote in his memoir had moved to America from Kenya in the 1960s, although the circumstances of his discovery may now prove to be an embarrassment for the White House.  Official records say Onyango Obama, 67, was picked up outside the Chicken Bone Saloon in Framingham, Massachusetts, at 7.10pm on August 24. Police say he nearly crashed his Mitsubishi 4x4 into a patrol car, and then insisted that the officer should have given way to him.

Outrageous.  Obvious discrimination.  It's clearly time for another beer summit at the White House.  Oh, wait.  Drunk driving?  Make that an apple juice summit.  Or, as an alternative, just throw Uncle Omar under the bus parked outside the White House.  He can have a long redemptive talk with Rev. Wright. 

PERRY'S GAMBLE – AT 9:29 A.M. ET:  Social Security has often been called the "third rail" of American politics – touch it and you die.  And yet, Rick Perry is taking the risk, an enormous risk, that his attacks on the Social Security system will pay off.  Look, he may be right.  From The Hill:

Republican presidential contender and Texas Gov. Rick Perry continued his criticisms of Social Security calling the program a "monstrous lie" reports the Houston Chronicle.

"It is a Ponzi scheme for these young people. The idea that they're working and paying into Social Security today, that the current program is going to be there for them, is a lie," Perry said at a campaign stop in Ottumwa, Iowa. "It is a monstrous lie on this generation, and we can't do that to them."

In his anti-Washington book "Fed Up!" published in 2011 Perry had harsh words for Social Security, criticisms he has reiterated on the campaign trail.

Campaigning in Iowa Perry also suggested a willingness to means-test Social Security benefits. "Does Warren Buffett need to get Social Security?  Maybe not," said Perry.

COMMENT:  Perry is known to have a very sharp political team.  And he has never lost an election.  But attacks on any aspect of Social Security get a candidate into the "soon to be history" risk area.  What Perry must do is show how he'll strengthen Social Security, the most popular government program in existence, by putting it on a firmer financial footing.  If he doesn't, he opens himself to the "he'll rob mom and dad" kind of attacks in which liberals specialize, and which will doom his campaign.

There'll be a new GOP candidates' debate in a few week, the first one in which Perry will participate.  He'll no doubt be challenged on Social Security.  He'd better have a good answer, one that goes beyond simple criticism of the current system.  Right now Perry is doing very well among seniors in political polls.  Maybe that's because they don't know him very well.  Seniors vote in massive numbers.  Perry's introduction to them in the next few weeks had better take account of political reality.

August 29, 2011        Permalink 

IS IT FINALLY HAPPENING? – AT 8:37 A.M. ET:  Is it possible that even some economic writers for liberal papers are getting disgusted by the behavior of the "environmental movement"?  We certainly hope so.

Robert J. Samuelson of the Washington Post has written a "must read" column about the struggle to get approval for the Keystone Pipeline from Canada's oil sands in Alberta to refineries on our Texas coast.  For people with brains, this is a no-brainer.  For people who live their lives according to an ideological script, it's all kinds of anguish.  Samuelson:

When it comes to energy, America is lucky to be next to Canada, whose proven oil reserves are estimated by Oil and Gas Journal at 175 billion barrels. This ranks just behind Saudi Arabia (260 billion) and Venezuela (211 billion) and ahead of Iran (137 billion) and Iraq (115 billion). True, about 97 percent of Canada’s reserves consist of Alberta’s controversial oil sands, but new technologies and high oil prices have made them economically viable. Expanded production can provide the U.S. market with a growing source of secure oil for decades.

We would be crazy to turn our back on this. In a global oil market repeatedly threatened by wars, revolutions, and natural and man-made disasters — and where government-owned oil companies control development of about three-quarters of known reserves — having dependable suppliers is no mean feat. We already import about half of our oil, and Canada is our largest supplier, with about 25 percent of imports. But its conventional fields are declining. Only oil sands can fill the gap.

Oh, oh, Mr. Samuelson, you're forgetting the destruction of the Earth, which surely would follow any development of oil sands.  All humankind would stop, and Hurricane Irene would be reborn.  I mean, the greenhouse gases!

If Obama rejects the pipeline, he would — perversely — increase greenhouse gas emissions. Canada has made clear that it will proceed with oil sands development regardless of the American decision. If the United States doesn’t want the oil, China and other Asian countries do. Pipelines would be built to the West Coast. Transporting the oil by tanker to Asia would almost certainly create more emissions than moving it by pipeline to closer U.S. markets...

...By all logic, the administration’s Keystone decision — overseen by the State Department, which issued a final environmental impact statement last week — should be a snap. Obama wants job creation. Well, TransCanada, the pipeline’s sponsor, says the project should result in 20,000 construction and manufacturing jobs. Most would be American, because 80 percent of the 1,661-mile pipeline would be in the United States. Continued development of oil sands would also help the U.S. economy; hundreds of American companies sell oil services in Canada. Finally, production technologies are gradually reducing environmental side effects, including greenhouse emissions.

COMMENT:  That is great stuff, and I encourage you both to read the Samuelson column and to circulate it. 

What will Obama decide?  Well, the left wing of his party is becoming hysterical over the issue, but the arguments for Keystone are overwhelming.  I don't know what he'll decide, or whether he'll move to put off his decision until after the election. 

I know what a Republican president would decide, which is one reason why next year's election is so important.

August 29, 2011       Permalink

NOW THEY TELL US – AT 8:09 A.M. ET:  Look, this is the slowest news week of the year.  It's the week when a politician makes announcements he doesn't want anyone to hear, like confirming a police report that he abused his wife or stole his grandma's Social Security checks. 

So we shouldn't be shocked by the appearance of stories like this, from The New York Times, acknowledging what we already know, that there was something rotten about the reporting of Not-quite-a-hurricane Irene:

It began as something far off and dangerous — a monster storm, a Category 3 hurricane that packed winds of 115 miles an hour as it buzz-sawed through the Caribbean last week, causing more than a billion dollars of destruction in the Bahamas alone.

But when Hurricane Irene finally chugged into the New York area on Sunday, it was like an overweight jogger just holding on at the end of a run. Its winds had diminished to barely hurricane strength, and the threat from its storm surge, which officials had once worried might turn Manhattan into Atlantis, was epitomized by television news reports showing small waves lapping over reporters’ feet.

All hurricanes evolve, and most weaken, as they track northward, their size and strength affected by water, wind and terrain. And all hurricanes eventually die — a relatively quick downgrade to a tropical storm in the case of those, like Irene, that travel inland, a more lingering demise for those that trail out to the colder waters of the higher latitudes.

But Irene’s fall — from potential storm of the century to an also-ran in hurricane lore — was greater than most.

COMMENT:  Some experts were indeed warning, as the storm moved north, that it was mostly hype.  I must modestly point out that I started noticing a discrepancy between the hype and the actual statistics from the storm on Thursday night. 

Our national and state nannies will tell us that it's better to be safe than sorry, and that is true.  But it's better still to tell the whole truth.  As we've pointed out here, there've been a number of these over-hyped storm reports, and the danger is that people will just start tuning out.  Indeed, it happened in New York over this last weekend. 

They should rename Irene as Hurricane Duracell, for the chief beneficiary of the storm.  The networks might also consider charging politicians for the air time in the future.  Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey was on TV so much, I thought it was a telethon.  I wanted to make a pledge.

Media critic Howard Kurtz has a solid assessment of the journalistic hype here.

Oh, there are reports of locusts...

August 29, 2011     Permalink

AUGUST 28,  2011

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT MIDNIGHT

DOWN, DOWN, DOWN – Gallup on Sunday recorded its lowest ever approval rating for President Obama – 38%.  The previous low was 39%.  We should note that other pollsters have the number somewhat higher, but the RealClearPolitics average stands at 43.6%.  This is a bad, but not a disastrous figure.  Even those who disapprove might vote for Obama next year if the GOP candidate is a disaster.  Also, the political season starts in earnest after Labor Day, and increased public attention may result in changes in approval numbers, up or down.

IS IT TRUE THIS TIME? – The Lockerbie bomber, outrageously released from a Scottish prison several years ago because he was said to be within a few months of dying, is now reported actually to be dying.  It's hard to know whether to accept this at face value, considering Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's miraculous recovery once his Scottish jailers threw away the key.  New documents that have come to light show that the British government was heavily involved in securing Scotland's release of the murderer in order to facilitate commercial transactions with Libya.

PERRY AND BUSH – A number of news stories report a growing antagonism between Texas Governor Rick Perry and the Bush family.  Perry is on record criticizing George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism," and spokesmen say he won't back down from the criticism.  Bush loyalists are calling Perry an ingrate, for Bush, and Karl Rove, were instrumental in advancing Perry's career.  I would take this split very seriously.  One of the things that plagued Lyndon Johnson through his presidency, and helped bring him down, was the hatred of the Kennedy family, which had allies in the media and the universities. 

August 28, 2011     Permalink

SICKENING – AT 11:51 A.M. ET:  We now await, with no eagerness whatever, the inevitable claims that Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene was caused by global warming.  Already The New York Times is exploiting the storm to inform us that some climate scientists believe storms will get worse because of global warming.

Well, there hasn't been any real global warming in a decade.  How do they explain that?  And how about that blizzard in New York last winter? 

Now, Mr. Hot Sky, Al Gore, is out with more vulgarity, placing him squarely in the camp of the new McCarthyites.  From the Daily Caller:

One day climate change skeptics will be seen in the same negative light as racists, at least so says former Vice President Al Gore.

How's that for the grand smear?

In an interview with former advertising executive and Climate Reality Project collaborator Alex Bogusky broadcasted on UStream on Friday, Gore explained that in order for climate change alarmists to succeed, they must “win the conversation” against those who deny there is a crisis.

What conversation is he referring to?  He refuses to have any conversation.  He simply denounces anyone who disagrees as a racist, and that's that. 

“I remember, again going back to my early years in the South, when the Civil Rights revolution was unfolding, there were two things that really made an impression on me,” Gore said. “My generation watched Bull Connor turning the hose on civil rights demonstrators and we went, ‘Whoa! How gross and evil is that?’ My generation asked old people, ‘Explain to me again why it is okay to discriminate against people because their skin color is different?’ And when they couldn’t really answer that question with integrity, the change really started.”

The former vice president recalled how society succeeded in marginalizing racists and said climate change skeptics must be defeated in the same manner.

How awful.  Among the "skeptics" are leading members of the scientific community.  As scientists, they ask questions.  They demand observation and proof.  There's a lot of money being made on "climage change," and government grants are available.  I suspect that cash, rather than reality, is the basis of the passion.

“Secondly, back to this phrase ‘win the conversation,’” he continued. “There came a time when friends or people you work with or people you were in clubs with — you’re much younger than me so you didn’t have to go through this personally — but there came a time when racist comments would come up in the course of the conversation and in years past they were just natural. Then there came a time when people would say, ‘Hey, man why do you talk that way, I mean that is wrong. I don’t go for that so don’t talk that way around me. I just don’t believe that.’ That happened in millions of conversations and slowly the conversation was won.”

“We have to win the conversation on climate,” Gore added.

What a vile man.  What he's really saying is that he's prepared to destroy the reputation of any individual who disagrees with him.  In other words, blacklist that person.

Sadly, it will probably work.  Very few people are willing to fight back.  And many in the sciences depend on government grants to survive. 

Wait 'til Gore's crowd starts asking, "Are you or have you ever been a climate skeptic?"  And watch the silence of the left.

Any decent editorialist, right or left, should be denouncing Gore in editorial columns.  Don't hold your breath.

August 28, 2011       Permalink

NOT GOOD, NOT GOOD – AT 10:48 A.M. ET:  Once again we see signs from the "Arab spring" that aren't very springlike.  We went to bat, seriously, for the Libyan rebels.   But, if you'll notice, Arab nations aren't very big in the "thank you" department.  Consider this, from Fox:

TRIPOLI – Libya's new government will refuse to hand over Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al Megrahi if Britain seeks his extradition, The (London) Sunday Times reported, citing senior officials.

Members of the Transitional National Council (TNC) said they would reject any attempt to return Megrahi to prison in Scotland.

Hassan al Sagheer, a member of the TNC and a legal expert, said, "Libya has never extradited or handed over its citizens to a foreign country. We shall continue with this principle."

That is despite the UK and Libya having ratified an extradition treaty in 2009.

A senior judge who took part in the early stages of the uprising that has toppled dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi emphasized another reason why Megrahi would not be sent to Britain or, as some US politicians have demanded, America -- the bomber is a member of one of the largest tribes that sided with Qaddafi during the revolt.

"Any move to hand him back would cause internal conflict at a time when we are trying to bridge differences," the judge said.

Megrahi, who was controversially released from a Scottish prison in 2009 on humanitarian grounds as he battled cancer, was convicted of killing 270 people in the notorious 1988 Pan Am airplane bombing.

COMMENT:  Thanks, guys.  Next time you get into trouble, how about calling someone else.  Our line is busy.

August 28, 2011       Permalink

GOODBYE, IRENE – AT 10:31 A.M. ET:  Hurricane Irene, now Tropical Storm Irene, is passing through the New York area, and I can report, from good sources, that the end of the world has not occurred.  Indeed, New York City is still there, and the outlying areas will live to be soaked another day.

As usual, the storm came nowhere near the hype.  Yes, it's been a bad storm, with wind and rain, but I've seen Nor'easters that are almost as bad.  There's been some flooding, some power outages, and people still aren't venturing out on the street here in White Plains, about 22 miles north of Manhattan.  But I don't see a single tree branch on the ground, and the storm passed my now-famous chandelier test.  We have a chandelier over our dining-room table, and it did not sway even an eighth of an inch.  Absolutely rock solid.  What kind of a storm is that?

The TV networks, and all the big local stations, devoted wall-to-wall coverage to this event, and, obviously, newsmen have to prove their worth by standing near a beach and saying, "Just look at that ocean."  So I looked, hour after hour.  And I saw waves.  But it wasn't exactly a tsunami.

Just peeked outside again.  People are starting to walk their dogs.  The rain has stopped.  I expect that some of the food stores will be open later today.  I've run out of Diet Coke, and I'm advised that this does not rise to the level of a 911 call.  So I'll have to go myself. 

So, it was mostly a good TV show.  Yes, there's quite a bit of damage, but it's low-level stuff, and the area will be past this very quickly.  Actually, blizzards are far more serious because streets can be blocked for days and everyone has to shovel out.

Back to politics.

August 28, 2011     Permalink