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JUNE 23,  2011

SHAMELESS OBAMA? – AT 11:16 P.M. ET:  In monitoring the stories about President Obama's Afghanistan speech, and the reactions to it, I get the sense of a growing anger.  I'm not referring to the leftist loonies' anger over Obama not pulling out fast enough, but by a sense in some circles that the president's policies are cynical, somewhat corrupt, and mostly decided by his political needs. 

Michael Gerson, once a speechwriter for George W. Bush, put it on the line very directly in the Washington Post:

Since the beginning of his swift political rise, Barack Obama has fashioned himself a unique historical figure. With his latest speech on Afghanistan, he has finally become one.

What other American president has employed a public argument so transparently political — the need to “rebuild our infrastructure” and “find new and clean sources of energy” — to explain his choices as commander in chief? What other president has deployed the words “fidelity” and “unwavering belief” — citing examples of military tenacity and courage — to announce a policy of premature retreat? What other president has more dramatically claimed “a position of strength” while more effectively conveying an impression of weakness?

There is a boldness to this rhetorical approach, which might better be called shamelessness.

Don't you love subtlety?

The surge he ordered came to full strength only last August. American forces quickly gained control of key areas in the Taliban heartland — causing the enemy to fight for territory it once securely held. Now, with less than a year in full effect, Obama is “fully recovering the surge” by next summer, apparently without conditions. “Recovering” is an inspired euphemism, avoiding the need for “withdrawing.” He is using the success of a military strategy to justify letting up on a reeling enemy.

This may or may not be fatal to the military’s counterinsurgency strategy, but it certainly undermines it. Can there be any doubt that by 8:16 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday our enemies in Afghanistan were relieved, our allies disheartened and the undecided encouraged to play both sides of the conflict?

And...

A president provides for the common defense and promotes the general welfare, instead of positing a dangerous choice between the two.

Given the difficulty of the undertaking, the weariness of Americans and the erosion of support in both parties, it would take exceptional leadership to achieve a good outcome in Afghanistan. Even limping across the 2014 deadline will require some positive effort of persuasion. For years, our conflicted president has been largely silent in this task. His words were worse.

COMMENT:  Gerson makes excellent points.   Whether one agrees or disagrees with Obama's course, he is no leader.  One key task of a political leader in a democracy is to organize the electorate, to persuade it, shape it.  Obama, a great campaigner, lost his voice at his first encounter with responsibility. 

He seems to think the presidency is a goal, not a job.

One interesting aspect to Obama's Afghanistan speech:  It did nothing to raise his stature.  And when a commander-in-chief speaks, and his stature doesn't rise, he is failing.

June 23, 2011      Permalink

WHERE OBAMA STANDS – AT 9:39 P.M. ET:  Today's Gallup poll continues the drumbeat of bad news for the president.

Obama's approval stands at only 43%, but disapproval is at 50%.  These are not good reelection numbers.

By contrast, Rasmussen has Obama's approval at 46%, but disapproval at 53%. 

The economic news is constantly grim.  There seem to be no bright spots on which Mr. Obama can hang a claim.

But there are no guarantees here.  The Dems will try to picture the Republicans as anti-Social Security and anti-Medicare, and some blundering by Republicans, hardly unusual, can make those charges seem at least somewhat credible. 

We also wonder whether, with so much disapproval of both parties being voiced, there will be a movement toward a third party, or at least a third candidate in the race.  Remember that the 1992 was a three-way race between Bush 41, Bill Clinton, and Ross Perot.  It is widely believed that Perot's vote handed the election to Clinton.

June 23, 2011       Permalink   

ANOTHER GREAT VICTORY FOR THE PROGRESSIVE FORCES OF SWEDEN – AT 9:46 A.M. ET:  Some years ago I was having lunch in New York with my Swedish publisher, who told me that Sweden was a country where half the population supported the other half.  I'm afraid that's turned out to be true.

I must admit that I find Sweden annoying.  I'm sure the Swedes are fine people, and they've given us some good, well-designed products, but their government types waltz around the world lecturing everyone on how they should lead their lives.  There are special messages for the inferior Americans.  At the same time, Sweden is falling apart.  In its third largest city of Malmo, firefighters can't answer a fire call in some sections without a police escort because the "immigrant" population (polite term) attacks the firemen. 

And some famous Swedish names, that came to define the nation in past decades, aren't even Swedish any longer.  Volvo is now owned by the Chinese.  That may bring comfort to Swedish leftists, but the rest of the country can't be pleased that perhaps its most prestigious marquee name couldn't make it in Sweden.

And now this, from AP:

STOCKHOLM – Saab's owner said Thursday it doesn't have the money to pay employees' wages, deepening the financial crisis that is pushing the struggling Swedish brand ever closer to ruin.

Dutch owner Swedish Automobile, previously known as Spyker Cars, has courted Chinese and Russian investors and put the Saab factory up for sale in its attempts to revive the brand it took over from General Motors Co. last year.

But after months of production stoppages and problems with paying suppliers, Saab said the situation is so dire that it won't be able to pay its 3,700 employees, adding to doubts over how long the brand can survive.

"I do not see a future for the car maker in the current position," said Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, an auto analyst at the University of Duisburg-Essen.

Analysts have sounded the death knell for Saab several times since Spyker, a small luxury sports car maker, bought it from GM last year for $74 million in cash plus $326 million worth of preferred shares. Skeptics questioned how Spyker and its smooth-talking CEO Victor Muller could turn around a car maker that posted loss after loss during GM's ownership.

But every time the company appeared to be on the edge of bankruptcy, Muller came up with a new lifeline. His latest move was lining up two Chinese investors — Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile Co. and Pang Da Automobile Trade Co. — in a deal to make and distribute Saab in China. The deal has not yet been approved by Chinese authorities.

Well, as Bogie might have said to Bergman, "we'll always have IKEA."  But I recall when Sweden was looked to for innovation, especially in automotive design.  I guess the country will have to settle for assemble-it-yourself bookcases.  This decline is usually the path these socialist systems take.

No more lectures to us, okay Swedish government?

June 23, 2011       Permalink

FREE SPEECH VICTORY – AT 9:26 A.M. ET:  True believers in free speech are celebrating this morning.  In an action surprising in politically correct Europe, a Dutch court has acquitted one of the country's leading politicians of hate-crime charges. 

Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch parliament, came close to going for prison for expressing politically incorrect ideas about the dangers of Islam.  His case has made him famous around the world.  He speaks frequently to conservative groups in America.  From Reuters:

A Dutch court on Thursday acquitted populist politician Geert Wilders of charges of inciting hatred against Muslims, in a case that tested freedom of speech in the traditionally liberal country.

The court case has attracted attention, not just because of Geert Wilders' controversial comments about Islam -- which he compared to Nazism -- but also because of the increasing influence of his political party, which supports the minority Dutch government on economic and other issues.

Get this:

Unusually, the prosecution team have also asked for an acquittal, arguing that politicians have the right to comment on problem issues and that Wilders was not trying to foment violence or division. However, the judges have the power to convict regardless of the prosecution's stance.

That's correct.  The prosecution didn't want to prosecute, but the judges kept the case alive.  In the end, though, they acquitted Wilders.

Wilders is the latest of a number of prominent souls brought up on hate-crime charges in Western nations.  Columnist Mark Steyn faced a similar tribunal in Canada.  He, too, was acquitted.  One thing that helps in getting an acquittal is publicity.  The thought police have enough sanity to realize that publicity isn't their friend, but their enemy.  Publicizing these cases usually results in public outrage, and questions about whether these speech laws and panels have any place in a free society. 

Oh, by the way, most news outlets that we've seen this morning are reporting the story straight.  But The New York Times, outrageously, in its first reports of the acquittal said in its headline that Wilders had "beat" the charges.  The Times has since cleaned up the story and is saying, "Dutch Anti-Islam Politician Acquitted."

June 23, 2011       Permalink

BRASS WORRIES – AT 8:52 A.M. ET:  In a surprisingly straightforward piece, The New York Times reports that military leaders are analysts are seriously worried by President Obama's new withdrawal strategy for Afghanistan:

On Afghanistan’s battlefields, the most significant effect of President Obama’s latest orders will be felt at this time next year, when as many as 23,000 American troops who would have been on missions at the peak of the summer fighting season will instead be packing for home.

This will make it more difficult, if not impossible, military experts said, for the commanders to carry out one of their major goals for next year.

It's pretty clear that meeting objectives wasn't the highest goal for the president.

Senior officers said their military campaign plan for 2012 envisioned building on security gains earned by troops who had already flowed into Afghanistan’s south and southwest, with plans to turn some of those areas over to local forces. This would have freed American troops to pivot toward the vulnerable eastern border with Pakistan, but these forces may now be sent home.

Mr. Obama’s plan, announced Wednesday, has two stages. In the first, the United States will withdraw 10,000 troops by the end of this year, or about double what the military had desired. In the second, 20,000 additional troops, the remainder of the 2009 surge, will be withdrawn by the end of next summer.

And...

“Bringing 10,000 out by December is more than the military wanted, and quicker than the military wanted, but it is doable without any major impact on the ground plan this year,” said Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, who retired from the Army in 2006 after serving as the senior American commander in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005.

“But putting a September 2012 expiration tag on the rest of the surge raises real concerns,” added General Barno, now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a policy research center. “That’s the middle of the fighting season.”

COMMENT:  I wonder whether the plan announced by Mr. Obama last night will actually be carried out.  What if conditions on the ground change?  Since we've now given the enemy our schedule, he practically has a script for disrupting our plans and embarrassing the president.

This story is far from over.

June 23, 2011       Permalink

BULLETIN:  WEEKLY JOB CLAIMS RISE TO 429,000 – AT 8:43 A.M. ET:  That's a rise of 9,000, and is extremely grim news.

The figures are just being released in Washington now.  The unemployment picture in America is worsening, not getting better.  That will, in turn, lead to more psychological damage in the economy.

Are we having a jobless recovery?  I don't think Americans will accept the notion that any change that involves this level of unemployment is a recovery at all.  The economy is going to be the major issue in next year's election, barring some foreign-policy catastrophe.  If numbers continue like this, Mr. Obama's reelection would become a political miracle.

We'll be monitoring reaction to these figures throughout the day.

June 23, 2011     Permalink

JUNE 22,  2011

THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF SPEAKS – AT 10:40 P.M. ET:  President Obama made one of his rare speeches to the nation on military affairs tonight, telling us his plan for Afghanistan.

It was like Santa Claus in military fatigues.  There was something for everyone.  Obama reminded me of Ed Sullivan, putting on a "really big sheew."  For the left, there was the promise to pull 33,000 American troops from Afghanistan by the end of next summer, otherwise known as right before the election.  For the right, there was the promise to get the job done.  Exactly what the job is was somewhat difficult to discern.  From Fox:

President Obama, outlining his vision for ending the war in Afghanistan, vowed Wednesday to withdraw all surge troops by next summer and declared that after a decade of fighting "the tide of war is receding."

Yeah, right.  That's what we said in late '44, just before the Battle of the Bulge.

In a prime-time address from the East Room of the White House, the president assured the nation that the U.S. military will begin its drawdown next month from a "position of strength" following the death of Usama bin Laden. He described that drawdown as "the beginning, but not the end, of our effort to wind down this war" -- a transition he wants complete by 2014.

If you're in a position of strength, Field Marshal Obama, how about pressing your advantage?  When you've got the enemy by the neck, squeeze the neck.  Or is this "position of strength" business just more political rhetoric?

"We have put Al Qaeda on a path to defeat, and we will not relent until the job is done," the president said.
As anticipated, the president called for 10,000 troops to be withdrawn by the end of this year. He said the rest of the surge troops, or about 23,000 will be removed by the end of summer in 2012. It is expected that all surge troops will be out of Afghanistan by September next year.

The president, in framing the drawdown, tried to appeal to competing factions on Capitol Hill and elsewhere over the war. To those urging the president to cut the mission short and withdraw forces at a more rapid pace, Obama affirmed that his interest is "nation-building here at home," not in Afghanistan.

"We won't try to make Afghanistan a perfect place. We will not police its streets or patrol its mountains indefinitely," he said.

But to those concerned the impending withdrawal could leave Kabul ill-equipped to keep the Taliban at bay and extremist elements out, Obama vowed not to let Afghanistan again become a "safe haven" for terrorists.

I'm surprised he didn't sincerely describe his attitude toward dentistry in Afghanistan.  You know, we can't fill every cavity, when we have cavities at home, but we can get most of them.  But no orthodontia.

As could be expected, no one was entirely pleased with the speech, which wasn't exactly ringing with the spirit of America. 

Anti-war Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., scoffed at the president's announcement, saying such a reduction in 2011 would "not even get us back to pre-escalation levels." She suggested withdrawing 50,000 combat troops and is planning several amendments aimed at de-funding the mission.

Lee has been all over the tube, and is the most left-leaning member of Congress.  A Fidelista, she was the only member to vote against military action after the 9-11 attacks.  Strictly party line.  Not a serious person.

Democrats have been joined by Republicans, some Tea Party-aligned, in calling for a swift end to the war. Even some GOP candidates for president have echoed the call.

I wish some of these Republicans would explain how their stand differs from that of the Democratic left. 

But as the president faces bipartisan pressure to get out of Afghanistan, he also faces bipartisan pressure not to leave too quickly.

Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, expressed concern that the withdrawal plan would put too much of a burden on the remaining troops and "increase risk in a number of areas."

House Speaker John Boehner said Wednesday he'd be "concerned about any precipitous withdrawal" from Afghanistan.

At least these guys have the guts to stand up to temporary trends in public opinion.  We are at war.  Decisions must be made based on good strategy, not straws in the wind.

COMMENT:  We are a nation in peril from a number of threats, both military and economic.  The president simply does not come off as a leader.  He has the image of Jimmy Carter, a deal maker in over his head.  It's widely reported that he developed his Afghanistan plan against the advice of his generals.  That, of course, is hardly a crime.  Lincoln defied his generals as well, to the national good.  And Truman finally tired of the imperial MacArthur, and fired him.  The president is commander-in-chief and must decide independently.

At the same time, Lincoln and Truman were leaders with a clear vision.  But Mr. Obama has rarely sought to try to explain what his goal in Afghanistan actually is, and how his stragegy will achieve it.

I don't know whether this new approach will work, make things better, or make things worse.  I do know that I was less than assured that there is a coherent strategy at work.  Mr. Obama is to be commended for accepting many of George W. Bush's security policies.  Now he is on his own, and no one is particularly confident.s

June 22, 2011     Permalink

MR. GLOBAL WARMING CHARGED IN SUIT – AT 10:17 A.M. ET:  James Hansen, a major NASA executive, has been one of the most passionate advocates of the global warming scare.  You could even call him "Mr. Global Warming."  His perch as head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies has given him a kind of credibility that others might not have.

Now, however, a group is claiming that Hansen has profited handsomely from his "advocacy."  From Fox:

The NASA scientist who once claimed the Bush administration tried to "silence" his global warming claims is now accused of receiving more than $1.2 million from the very environmental organizations whose agenda he advocated.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Washington, D.C., a group claims NASA is withholding documents that show James Hansen failed to comply with ethics rules and financial disclosures regarding substantial compensation he earned outside his $180,000 taxpayer-paid position as director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

"Hansen's office appears to be somewhat of a rogue operation. It's clearly a taxpayer-funded global warming advocacy organization," said Chris Horner, a co-founder of The American Tradition Institute, which filed the lawsuit. "The real issue here is, has Hansen been asking NASA in writing, in advance, for permission for these outside activities? We have reason to believe that has not been occurring."

COMMENT:  Obviously, Hansen is entitled to the presumption of innocence.  However, we have long argued here that money, and lots of it, is fueling a good part of the global-warming debate. 

In his January, 1961, farewell address to the nation, the famous "industrial-military complex" speech, President Eisenhower cautioned about the impact that federal grants could have on the integrity of science.  He was correct.  If federal grants might influence scientific "outcomes," then outside fees and "awards" can have the same effect.  We should be on guard.

June 22, 2011       Permalink 

SNIPPET – AT 10:03 A.M. ET:  From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Six days before a college football player was arrested at San Francisco International Airport in a dispute that began when a US Airways employee asked him to pull up his sagging pants, a man who was wearing little but women's undergarments was allowed to fly the airline, a US Airways spokeswoman conceded Tuesday.  A photo of the scantily clad man was provided to The Chronicle by Jill Tarlow, a passenger on the June 9 flight from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to Phoenix. Tarlow said other passengers had complained to airline workers before the plane boarded, but that employees had ignored those complaints.

Only in San Francisco would this be made into a racial issue.  The sagging pants guy is black, the lingerie guy is white.  Obvious racism!  Story shows the photo of lingerie guy.  Frankly, he'd look prettier in pink. 

INVESTIGATE,  INVESTIGATE – AT 9:28 A.M. ET:  A tragedy of substantial proportions has been narrowly averted at JFK International Airport in New York, and it cries out for an intense, politically incorrect investigation.  Read the story and hear the recording:

Air traffic control tower audio conveys the frightening exchange between the tower at John F. Kennedy International Airport and a Lufthansa flight as the airbus came dangerously close to colliding with another jet.

The incident happened at about 6:30 p.m. Monday when an EgyptAir pilot apparently did not follow air traffic control instructions to hold short of its taxiway and veered into the path of the other plane, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

"Egypt Air 986, a B777, did not follow ATC instructions to hold short of Taxiway D. As a result, air traffic canceled the takeoff clearance for Lufthansa 411, an A346 on Runway 22R," FAA spokesman spokesman Jay Blackman said.

The Lufthansa flight had been cleared for take-off moments before the EgyptAir plane veered into its path, and the pilots had to slam on the brakes to avoid a crash, reports The New York Post.

"Cancel take off! Cancel take-off plans!" shouted an air controller who saw the Munich-bound Lufthansa plane barreling toward the EgyptAir flight.

COMMENT:  Urgent Agenda is not a red-meat site.  We don't scream here.  At the same time, may we cautiously suggest that one factor that must be examined is whether EgyptAir 986 intentionally rolled into the path of the onrushing Lufthansa jet.  The story plainly reports that the EgyptAir crew "did not follow" instructions to stop.  Why didn't it follow those instructions? 

I refer to the strange case of EgyptAir 990, which plunged into the Atlantic Ocean on October 31, 1999, killing all 217 people on board.  Our own National Transportation Safety Board found, based on clear and convincing evidence, that the crash was intentional, the suicidal actions of the first officer, who was flying the plane while the pilot was out of the cockpit.  Both the voice and data recorders were recovered, and NTSB could come to no other conclusion but that intentional action by the first officer caused the crash.  He could be heard on the voice recorder muttering a Muslim prayer.

Egypt, of course, disagreed, blaming the crash on mechanical problems.  But NTSB countered that no mechanical problems showed up on any of the retrieved data, and the mechanical issues theorized by Egyptian "investigators" could easily be overcome.  The American press, to its politically correct disgrace, did not pursue the story very far.

Could this be a repeat?  Could it be a "martyrdom operation"?  I raise the questions but make no charges.  I don't have the facts.  But let's get them, starting with an investigation of the backgrounds of the EgyptAir crew.  And no political correctness. 

June 22, 2011       Permalink

PRESIDENTIAL SPEECH TONIGHT – AT 8:45 P.M. ET:  During the 2008 presidential campaign Mr. Obama became our new "great communicator," with a speaking style that attracted millions.  Since taking office, though, the great communicator has turned into the magnificent mumbler, never quite getting his message across, and sometimes letting major issues like Libya slip by with virtually no explanation at all.

Tonight the president gives himself another chance, as he announces plans for Afghanistan.  Advance word is that he will take a middle course, announcing a drawdown of troops that is too much for his military advisers, too little for his critics on the left.  WaPo has some good insights on this:

President Obama will face a stiff political challenge Wednesday in presenting his plan for a gradual end to the U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan. His prime-time address must remind a skeptical electorate and a concerned Congress that the country’s longest war remains worth fighting — and funding — for several more years.

Obama’s generals have requested more time to consolidate the gains they say have been made since the president dispatched 33,000 additional U.S. troops to the country last year. The escalation, which angered his party’s antiwar base, followed a months-long strategy review to determine how to salvage a flagging war effort.

Since then, public opinion has turned increasingly against the war, except for a now-diminishing boost in approval after the killing of Osama bin Laden in May.

As he begins the promised withdrawal, Obama’s challenge will be to provide his generals with the resources to wage the war’s final phase while persuading Congress that, at a time of fiscal strain, maintaining most of a $10 billion-a-month war effort is worthwhile.

COMMENT:  A well-stated analysis.  You wonder sometimes what goes on in Obama's mind.  Is he really behind his own policies, or is he going through the motions just to avoid being called an appeaser?  Can he gather up the backbone to praise some of the policies of George W. Bush, which he's continued, or is Bush Derangement Syndrome still alive in the White House? 

This is a critical speech.  The president has chosen to take military action in Libya without so much as giving a speech on it to the American people.   Tonight he will talk of Afghanistan, where we've been for ten years.  Americans are understandably skeptical, and are made more so by the trendy reporting of the leftist press.  Obama must inform and convince, tasks he's failed at in office.

Senator James Webb of Virginia, a Vietnam veteran, has said that for 45 years we've lived a myth in this country – the myth that we lost the Vietnam War.  We never lost a battle in Vietnam.  Vietnam was lost because of cynical news reporting, much of it later shown to be inaccurate, and a loss of faith by the American people.  We pulled the plug on funding our South Vietnamese allies in 1975, an act of dishonor as President Ford said at the time, and sent them to their fate.  We face hard going in Afghanistan.  I can't claim to know the right answers.  But I hope we don't repeat the Vietnam experience, and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. 

June 22, 2011       Permalink

OBAMA SINKING – AT 8:29 A.M. ET:  A new Bloomberg poll shows the president in serious, and worsening, trouble, unless the economy improves:

Americans are growing more dissatisfied with President Barack Obama’s handling of the economy and say it will be hard to vote to re-elect him without seeing significant progress over the next year and a half.

By a margin of 61 percent to 37 percent, a Bloomberg National Poll conducted June 17-20 shows Americans say they believe that Obama will have had his chance to make the economy “substantially better” by the end of 2012.

Only 30 percent of respondents said they are certain to vote for the president and 36 percent said they definitely won’t. Among likely independent voters, only 23 percent said they will back his re-election, while 36 percent said they definitely will look for another candidate.

“As far as the economy goes, I don’t see that he has delivered on the change that he promised,” said Sharon Ortiz, a 38-year-old independent voter from Hampton, Virginia, who supported Obama in 2008. “The jobs that he promised -- I haven’t seen it.”

At the same time, Americans are skeptical that Republican control of the White House and Congress will be a better prescription for their economic wellbeing. Sixty percent said that any Republican candidate will need to move so far to the right on fiscal and social issues to win their party’s nomination that it will be very hard to back the nominee.

Even so, the intensity among respondents who strongly agreed about judging Obama on his record of job creation was higher -- 45 percent versus 33 percent -- than those worried about a Republican nominee pushed to the right.

COMMENT:  Grim news for Obama, but, once again, we see no great love for the Republicans either.  Too often the GOP becomes gleeful when it sees a negative poll on Obama, not realizing that its own popularity is nothing to brag about. 

We must see the election ahead as difficult, and run as if we're 20 points behind.

June 22,  2011     Permalink