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JANUARY 15,  2011

OBAMA APPROVAL – AT 8:51 P.M. ET:  Today's Rasmussen tracker shows some improvement for the president, but not as much as one might expect, considering the fact that Americans generally rally 'round the leader in times of stress: 

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows that 26% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Thirty-eight percent (38%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -12...

...Overall, 46% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president's performance. Fifty-three percent (53%) disapprove.

COMMENT: Obama shows some strengthening in the "strongly approve, strongly disapprove" rating.  But the seven-point spread in overall approval/disapproval is pretty consistent with what we've seen in recent months. 

By Tuesday, Rasmussen will have done all his tracking in the days after the president's Tucson speech.  We'll check the numbers again.

January 15, 2010      Permalink

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 12:18 P.M. ET:

Actual headline from a Swedish newspaper yesterday:

NEW SWEDISH FILM PUTS SEX BACK ON THE MAP

Look, I don't want to take credit away from anyone.  But...but...what map have they been using in Sweden?  Was it the one where sex was taken off?  Where could you buy this map?  Rand McNally?

January 15, 2010       Permalink

NEW MEDIA SCANDAL? – AT 11:38 A.M. ET:  With all that's been happening, a fascinating media story has been downplayed by the press.  A miniseries about the Kennedys, developed for the History Channel, has been rejected by that outlet, and there are cries of censorship.  From the Scotsman:

America's most iconic political dynasty is at the centre of a censorship scandal after a TV network suddenly dropped a multi-million dollar series giving a warts-and-all look at the lives of the Kennedy clan.

Those behind the project believe members of the family "bullied" The History Channel into axing The Kennedys after objecting to the way the drama portrayed the private life and sexual escapades of assassinated president John F Kennedy.

And they claim the Kennedys have called in favours to prevent the eight-part show, starring Katie Holmes as JFK's wife Jackie, from being aired in the US.

The network Showtime became the latest to reject the project, declaring it to be "well-acted and well-produced" but that "it doesn't fit the Showtime brand."  The same claim was made by The History Channel when it pulled the plug.

The furious director of Muse Entertainment, the Canadian company that filmed the series, said he believed the networks rejected it for political reasons.

"I doubt they've even seen it. They're objecting to it before it started," John Cassar said.

Showtime's subsequent decision not to pick up the series is seen as particularly disingenuous, given that it aired The Reagans when CBS dropped it in 2003 after criticism that the documentary-drama portrayed former US president Ronald Reagan in an unfavourable light.

Actually, CBS dropped it after agreeing that the Reagan series was wildly inaccurate and mean-spirited.  Showtime picked it up.  The series was a farce.

Respected industry newspaper the Hollywood Reporter said two prominent Kennedy family members had driven a campaign to get the series scrapped.

It claimed Caroline Kennedy, JFK's last surviving child, and Maria Shriver, daughter of his sister Eunice and wife of Arnold Schwarzenegger, had used their influence in the broadcasting world to get their way, personally lobbying a Disney executive and a senior figure at NBC and A&E Television Networks, the parent of The History Channel.

Ms Shriver was an award-winning journalist with NBC, and Ms Kennedy has a book deal with a Disney-owned publisher for a collection of previously unreleased interviews with her father. Disney and NBC are part of a consortium that owns AETN.

COMMENT:  I've never had any problem with people raising objections to television productions, even before they're broadcast.  If they have a legitimate gripe, they have a perfect right to protest.  That was done, appropriately, in the Reagan case, when it became clear that the miniseries would be nothing but a Hollywood leftist hit job.  CBS made the right decision in dropping it.

Nor do I agree with the charge of "censorship," in the Reagan case or in this one.  Censorship is something done by an outside authority, which says, "You may not..."   There is no outside authority here.

However, the cancellation of the Kennedy series is particularly heavy-handed, and Showtime's rejection, after showing the awful Reagan miniseries, seems awfully hypocritical.  Mr. Kennedy's personal defects are well known.  They will not come as a shock to anyone.

I haven't seen the series, nor have I read the script.  The producer is a conservative, which may have prompted some of the objections.  I hope some small outlet picks up the production so American viewers can judge for themselves. Maybe the Fox network will step up.  At the very minimum, the script should be published so media observers can read it.

January 15, 2010       Permalink

RAHM UNDER SIEGE – AT 10:41 A.M. ET:  Rahm Emanuel is the frontrunner in the race for mayor of Chicago.  The election is February 22nd.  If no one gets 50%, a runoff will be held in the spring.

The contest has turned openly racial.  Chicago is, racially, still in the 1960s, with the large presence of Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan.  And, ironically, it is Rahm's service as Obama's chief of staff that is being held against him.  This, from a well-reported Washington Post story, is incredible:

As Rahm Emanuel prepared to leave Washington last year to run for mayor of Chicago, President Obama gave his chief of staff an emotional send-off in the East Room. He praised Emanuel for his service and pulled him in for multiple hugs. Emanuel would be a "terrific" mayor, the president predicted in a television interview.

In the months since, Emanuel's close relationship with Obama - who is still enormously popular in his home town - helped to make the former congressman an easy front-runner in the race.

Now Emanuel's rivals are trying to turn those presidential ties against him. African American and Hispanic leaders inside and outside Chicago are lining up against Emanuel as a way to vent their long-simmering complaints that Obama has not done enough to help their communities. In recent weeks, Obama's record as president has become a major undercurrent in the campaign.

Rep. Bobby Rush (D), whose district includes Chicago's South Side and who defeated Obama in a bruising 2000 House primary, said many of his colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus "harbor major resentment" against Emanuel for what they see as his lack of concern about minority issues. That, Rush said, has made Emanuel a "convenient target" for broader frustrations with the White House...

...The mayor's contest has become polarized along ethnic lines in the past two weeks as many black establishment politicians have coalesced around the candidacy of former senator Carol Moseley Braun. A Chicago native who served one term in Washington, in the 1990s, she is the only African American woman elected to the Senate.

COMMENT:  The state of black politics in Chicago can be judged by the coalescing around Moseley Braun, a corruptionist and hopeless mediocrity.  There are serious questions about her tax returns and investment practices.  As a senator she was a joke.  Her only qualification seems to be race.

It's gotten rough in Chicago.  Bill Clinton wants to come to town to campaign for Emanuel, but several black politicians have threatened him, saying that would alienate the black community.  He's coming anyway.

Chicago, where I went to school, is stuck in the past politically.  Its South Side is a shooting gallery, with a heartbreaking number of black children murdered every year.  While New York has largely addressed street violence, Chicago seems incapable.

Whoever becomes mayor has the task of moving the city into the 21st century, something that may be impossible with the sixties-style racial politics still being played.

January 15, 2010      Permalink

TUNISIA REVOLUTION – AT 10:20 A.M. ET:  I think this is the first time we've ever mentioned Tunisia, a North African Arab country, at Urgent Agenda.  The country has just had a revolution, a warning sign to Arab autocrats throughout the Mideast.  From Fox:

Tunisia has sworn in a new interim president and he has asked the prime minister to form a unity government.

Longtime autocratic ruler President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled the country Friday for Saudi Arabia following a popular uprising and deadly riots.

Fouad Mebazaa, the former president of the lower house of parliament, was sworn in as chief of state on Saturday. He says he asked the premier to form a "national unity government in the country's best interests."

Mebazaa said in his first televised address that all political parties including the opposition will be consulted "without exception nor exclusion."

COMMENT:  Unrest is continuing.  Maybe Hillary Clinton had an inkling of what was about to happen when she denounced oppression in the Arab world several days ago.

Bringing down a government through popular revolt is an enormous development in an Arab country, even one not generally in the middle of Mideast disputes.  Will it affect other authoritarian regimes?  Too early to say, but there is clearly dissatisfaction in other Arab states.

There is potential for good here, but also, as my friend Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi points out, potential for tragedy.  Too often, when Arab populations have had a shot at democracy, they've gone to the polls and elected Islamic extremists.  Look what happened with the Palestinians in Gaza, who elected the extremist group, Hamas.  And even in Iraq, which we liberated, the nuts still have a large popular following.

So we'll have to wait and see if an Arab country can pull off a truly democratic revolution this time.  And let's see if "human rights" groups show the slightest interest.

January 15, 2010     Permalink

JANUARY 14,  2011

WISDOM OF THE PEOPLE – AT 6:35 P.M. ET:  The American people continue to show far greater wisdom than some pundits and politicians in assigning blame for the Arizona shootings.  Support for the idea that "rhetoric" caused the tragedy has dropped even further since a poll taken right after the event:

Saturday's shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, in which six people were killed, could not have been prevented, 40 percent of American voters say in a Quinnipiac University national poll released today. Another 23 percent blame the mental health system, while 15 percent say it was due to heated political rhetoric and 9 percent attribute the tragedy to lax gun control.

American voters say 52 - 41 percent that "heated political rhetoric drives unstable people to commit violence," the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds. Liberals rather than conservatives are more responsible for such rhetoric, voters say 36 - 32 percent.

And...

"Americans seem to be rejecting the blame game for the Arizona shooting. By far, the largest number thinks this tragedy could not have been prevented," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "Although a bare majority of voters say political rhetoric might drive unstable people to violence, less than one in seven blame it for the Arizona incident.

COMMENT:  We note again what we reported this morning, that, despite the horror of Saturday's despicable act, attacks on members of Congress have only occurred five times in the nation's history. 

Americans are ahead of the experts.  Not that unusual, I've observed.

January 14, 2010       Permalink

NEW RNC CHAIRMAN – AT 6:12 P.M. ET:  The Republican National Committee has a new chairman, having chosen not to reelect embattled current Chairman Michael Steele:

Oxon Hill, Maryland (CNN) - The Republican National Committee tossed out controversy-plagued chairman Michael Steele Friday and tapped Wisconsin GOP Chairman Reince Priebus to lead the debt-ridden party organization into the 2012 presidential election cycle.

Priebus managed Steele's successful campaign in 2009 and went on to serve as RNC General Counsel, but he resigned the post in December to launch his own bid for the chairmanship after some arm-twisting by Steele critics eager to find a competent committee insider to replace their gaffe-prone leader.

"I am here to earn the trust and support of each and every one of you," Priebus said, addressing the RNC following his win. "I am going to start working right now as your chairman. We all recognize that there is a steep hill here ahead of us, and the only way we will be able to move forward is if we're all together."
Priebus said the RNC's top priority should be to ensure that the GOP's presidential nominee in 2012 "has the organization in place to beat Barack Obama."

COMMENT:  I can't say that I know much about the gent, but the Red State blog reports that it has had plenty of mail from grassroots figures endorsing him.  We wish him well.  He will have an uphill job, trying to retire the committee's 20-million-dollar debt and defeating President Obama in 2012.

Michael Steele was an energetic chairman, the first African-American to lead the Republican Party.  But he was gaffe-prone and turned out to be a fine man in the wrong job.  I hope that his defeat doesn't lead to cries of "racism" from the usual suspects.  After all, the RNC elected him.

January 14, 2010       Permalink

BLUNT TALK FROM HILLARY – AT 9:47 A.M. ET:  Hillary Clinton has returned to Washington from her magical mystery tour of the Middle East.

She blundered along the way, seeming to compare the Arizona shooter with Al Qaeda mass murderers, and stating that the Arizona guy had a political motive, something now essentially disproved.  It was not one of her greater moments.

But, later in the trip, Secretary Clinton made some blunt remarks that have sent ripples through the Arab world and prompted us to wonder whether something has changed, for the better, in the Obaman view of the universe.  From The New York Times: 

DOHA, Qatar — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered a scalding critique of Arab leaders here on Thursday, saying their countries risked “sinking into the sand” of unrest and extremism unless they liberalized their political systems and cleaned up their economies.

Speaking at a conference in this gleaming Persian Gulf emirate, Mrs. Clinton recited a familiar litany of ills: corruption, repression and a lack of rights for women and religious minorities. But her remarks were striking for their vehemence, and they suggested a frustration that the Obama administration’s message to the Arab world had not gotten through.

Gee, I'm shocked that the message had not gotten through.  As the old rock song says, "Wake up, little Suzie, wake up."

“In too many places, in too many ways, the region’s foundations are sinking into the sand,” she said to a stone-faced audience of foreign ministers, businesspeople and rights groups. “The new and dynamic Middle East that I have seen needs firmer ground if it is to take root and grow everywhere.”

Remarkable.  Good for Hillary.

As if to back up the secretary's remarks, there's a new poll taken among Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, which reflects the disillusion of many with Arab society:

JERUSALEM (AP) — A poll suggests that a plurality of Jerusalem Palestinians would rather remain in Israel even after a peace deal and the creation of a Palestinian state.

A poll this week shows that 35 percent of Jerusalem's Palestinian residents would choose Israeli citizenship over Palestinian citizenship.

Thirty percent said they preferred Palestinian citizenship. Another 35 percent said they did not know.

Respondents who chose Israeli citizenship cited freedom of movement, higher income and Israeli health insurance as the reasons behind their choice.

Pollsters from Pechter Middle East Polls and the Council on Foreign Relations, a U.S. think tank, interviewed 1,039 people. The margin of error was 3 percentage points. The poll was released Wednesday.

COMMENT:  I don't know how Christiane Amanpour will spin this, but she'd better figure out something fast. 

We've been told that if the Arab-Israeli dispute is solved, all the problems of the Middle East, and maybe the rest of the world as well, would evaporate.  What a myth.  What a propagandistic myth.

January 14, 2010       Permalink

THIS IS A TRAGEDY – AT 9:15 A.M. ET:  The frauds and phonies of the political left claim to be concerned about the fate of America's minorities.   If that is true, though, why do tragedies like this go virtually undiscussed?  And why, if we try to discuss them, are we called racists?

About 90 students at a Memphis High School are either pregnant, or have been recently.

The startling news was confirmed by a high ranking city official and comes as the community plans to roll out a new initiative to help combat the problem.

However, one Frayser High School graduate says teen pregnancy is not a new problem for the school.

"When we would come back from summer break, there would be a thousand people pregnant. We were like, what's going on?" joked Alicia Williamson, who graduated from Frayser in 2004.

"There were a whole lot of bellies. You had to watch out so you didn't bump into them. Being 2011, I thought a lot of them would have thought this is not the right way to go, having babies during school time," she added.

The organization, Girls, Inc. teaches girls about preventing pregnancy.

Deborah Hester Harrison, who heads the organization, says Memphis's teen pregnancy rate stands at between 15 and 20 percent, almost twice the national average.

In the Frayser zip code, the rate is about 26 percent.

And whose fault is it?  You know the answer:

Harrison partly blames the media.

"So much of our society is sexually oriented. As adults we can look at that and it doesn't impact us, but kids are different," Harrison said.

Honey, that same media is available in high schools where the pregnancy rate is close to zero.

It's why Girls, Inc. offers classes where teenage girls "care for" computerized babies to give them a feel for what teenage parenthood is like.

How moving. 

This is an ongoing tragedy.  About 60 years ago, the African-American teenage pregnancy rate wasn't much higher than the white rate.  But something terrible has happened to black family life, and the man who first warned about it in 1962, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, was called a racist for his efforts.

If problems like this are not solved, no amount of inspiration by Barack or Michelle will make a difference.  But many are reluctant to discuss the unspeakable.  That word – racism – is still too potent.

January 14, 2010       Permalink

STARTLING – AT 8:33 A.M. ET:  Here is a piece of startling information that has escaped much notice during the current "discussion" over whether conservative talk radio had anything whatever to do with the attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona:

Conservative talk radio, which at times does get a bit strident, often focuses its criticism on members of Congress.  You'd think, given that fact, that there would have been a number of attacks on those members, if talk radio had the potency attributed to it by its critics.  After all, this is a nation of 312 million people, and there are unstable folks in that huge population.

But the facts are dramatically different.  As USA Today reported:

House records indicate only a few assassination attempts against members of Congress: A duel between two House members in 1838, a brutal fistfight over slavery between two House members and a senator in 1856, an attack by Puerto Rican nationalists on Congress in 1954 and the ambush of a California congressman in 1978 while he was on an investigative trip to Guyana.

COMMENT:  The number of attacks is incredibly small throughout our history, despite the stereotype of America as a violent country.

If talk radio had the impact its critics say it has, the number of attacks on members of Congress wouldn't be one, it would be one hundred, or one thousand.  The proof that talk radio doesn't inspire our population to violence is in the numbers, which are, as we've noted, startling.

January 14, 2010       Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 8:17 A.M. ET:  From a distinguished reader, regarding the left's real view toward violence:

I can't believe our political discourse has become so poisoned.  Interesting in that violence has always been romanticized by the Left, allowing them to embrace actual murderers and terrorists like Che Guevera.  I am hoping that the American people remain sensible about all this.

COMMENT:  True.  The left has always had a special place in its heart for violence, while ignoring its human consequences.  The left – not true liberals, but the real left – was silent in the face of the Cambodian genocide, the Rwanda genocide, and, remarkably, the unspeakable wave of violence in American cities since the 1960s, which has taken the lives of tens of thousands of African Americans, presumably a group the left cares about, but really doesn't.  And, of course, let us not forget the left's embrance of the Hitler-Stalin Pact in 1940.

The left is not about human beings.  It is about an ideology, which stands above all.  Remember one of the favorite slogans of the left:  "You have to break a couple of eggs to make an omelet."  How touching.

January 14, 2010       Permalink

THIS JUST IN – AT 8:11 A.M. ET:  The headline of the day, from The Politico, regarding President Obama's speech in Tucson:

Arizona Speech was Challenge to Write

For this, some parents of a journalist paid $42,000 a year for college.

January 14, 2010     Permalink