HOME  ABOUT  /  ARCHIVE  / SNIPPETS ARCHIVE AUDIO  / AUDIO ARCHIVE  CONTACT

 

Scene above:  Constitution Island, where Revolutionary War forts still exist, as photographed from Trophy Point, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York
 

WE'RE ON TWITTER, GO HERE       WE'RE ON FACEBOOK, GO HERE

Bookmark and Share

Please note that you can leave a comment on any of our posts at our Facebook page.  Subscribers can also comment at length at our Angel's Corner Forum.

 

I appeared on Silvio Canto Jr.'s Dallas-based talk show yesterday.  It's here.

 

 

MARCH 29,  2011

RECOGNITION OF EXCELLENCE NEWS – AT 9:24 P.M. ET:  Goofball Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is being given a journalism award in Argentina.  I know that we will all want to congratulate him on this achievement:

Hugo Chavez is getting a journalism award in Argentina.

The Venezuelan leader regularly clashes with critical media, but the University of La Plata is giving him its Rodolfo Walsh Prize on Tuesday for what it describes as his work giving people without a voice access to the airwaves and newspapers.

Chavez's government has bankrolled the growth of the Telesur network, providing a state-funded alternative to privately financed broadcast stations across Latin America.

He met Tuesday with his ally President Cristina Fernandez, who is trying to transform Argentina's communications industry through a law that would break up media monopolies and force cable TV providers to include channels run by unions, Indians and activist groups.

The two presidents also plan to sign commercial accords dealing with food, transport and energy, and to visit a state-run factory where Argentina will build ships for Venezuela's oil industry.

COMMENT:  What's next, a Peabody award?  The fact that a journalism faculty could give a prize to a thug like Chavez, who only days ago expressed his support for Syrian dictator Assad, and has made an alliance with the Iranian regime, demonstrates what we often suggest here – that the media, internationally, has often been part of the problem, not part of the solution.

We are spoiled in America by a free press which, despite all its faults, is still probably the best in the world, although far below what it should be.  We don't realize the level of corruption and ideological degeneracy that dominates news outlets in many countries, including those of Britain and Western Europe.

As for Argentina, it is a problematical country with a fascist past.  Cristina Fenandez, who succeeded her husband as president, is widely regarded as unstable, even, reportedly, by Hillary Clinton.  In America, Argentina is best known through the musical play, "Evita," and for having been beaten by Britain in the Falklands War.  But I understand it's a nice place to visit.

March 29, 2011      Permalink 

Bookmark and Share    

 

POWER TO THE PEOPLE – AT 9:04 P.M. ET:  Samantha Power, a "human rights advocate" in the White House, has come out of the shadows to give fulsome praise to dear leader for his handling of Libya.

Power won the Pulitzer Prize for a book on genocide.  An Obama favorite, she had to lay low during the 2008 campaign after calling Hillary Clinton "a monster."  Thus, the precision of her wonderful mind.

She also is known as pointedly anti-Israel, interesting for a great humanitarian.   There is no record to show that Power realized that the Mideast is ruled by brutal dictators until confronted with the reality of the last several months.  She is credited, along with Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice, with pressuring Obama into acting in Libya.  She apparently had nothing to say about Iran when protesters were shot in the streets.  Power speaks:

White House aide Samantha Power, a former news reporter turned anti-genocide advocate, said President Obama’s two-year campaign to promote human rights helped trigger the uprising in Libya against Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s rule.In a speech Monday at Columbia University, Ms. Power, director of multilateral affairs at the National Security Council, defended her support for the military operation against Libyan government forces and said the president’s efforts, through speeches in various foreign capitals, made it easier for other nations to stand with the United States against tyrants.

Oh please.  The Libya revolt was made possible by the example of the other revolts that preceded it.  If Obama's speeches had anything to do with it, it would have happened much earlier.

“The president has argued our interests and our values cannot be separated,” Ms. Power said, speaking to a friendly crowd of about 130 people. “These values have caused the people of Libya to risk their lives on the street.”

Not so fast, Sammy.  We're really not sure who the rebels are.  And Obama sure exercised American values when he remained silent for days over Iran. 

Ms. Power sidestepped questions about reports she was among three female Obama administration aides who pressed the president to go to war in Libya.

On the military operation to impose a no-fly zone, however, Ms. Power, said that “force can be justified on humanitarian grounds.”

Ms. Power said the international coalition acted to save the rebel-stronghold city of Benghazi because of Col. Gadhafi’s attacks. “On a single day, he killed 1,200 people on suspicion” of being anti-government rebels, she said.

“To put Libyan events in historical perspective,” she said, “in Libya, it took us nine days impose asset freezes and travel bans,” while pressuring regimes in the Balkans and other places took years.

Power has her fans, but others feel she has little idea how the real world works, that everything to her is black and white.  We'll see if the Power Doctrine, or Obama Doctrine, or whatever it is, has any use down the road, when things may get much tougher and decisions harder.

March 29, 2011      Permalink

Bookmark and Share

 

EU GOES NUTS – AT 10:36 A.M. ET:  Well, to say that the European Union goes nuts isn't really a news story, but a continuation of an existing situation.  This, though, takes the prize.  From London's Telegraph:

The European Commission on Monday unveiled a "single European transport area" aimed at enforcing "a profound shift in transport patterns for passengers" by 2050.

The plan also envisages an end to cheap holiday flights from Britain to southern Europe with a target that over 50 per cent of all journeys above 186 miles should be by rail.

Top of the EU's list to cut climate change emissions is a target of "zero" for the number of petrol and diesel-driven cars and lorries in the EU's future cities.

Siim Kallas, the EU transport commission, insisted that Brussels directives and new taxation of fuel would be used to force people out of their cars and onto "alternative" means of transport.

"That means no more conventionally fuelled cars in our city centres," he said. "Action will follow, legislation, real action to change behaviour."

The Brits give a proper response:

The Association of British Drivers rejected the proposal to ban cars as economically disastrous and as a "crazy" restriction on mobility.

"I suggest that he goes and finds himself a space in the local mental asylum," said Hugh Bladon, a spokesman for the BDA.

"If he wants to bring everywhere to a grinding halt and to plunge us into a new dark age, he is on the right track. We have to keep things moving. The man is off his rocker."

COMMENT:  Why is it that some people have this obsessive need to run everyone else's life?  Is it their sense of their own superiority?  Their fear of modern times?  Their deep distrust of anything that resembles "the American way"?  I'd love to see a good psychiatric analysis of the European Union's growing bureaucracy, and its mentality.

March 29, 2011      Permalink

Bookmark and Share

 

QUOTE OF THE DAY – JOE SCARBOROUGH COMES ALIVE – AT 9:48 A.M. ET:   I'd lost confidence in Joe for quite a time.  He is welded to MSNBC, a journalistic enterprise that doesn't hide its left-wing flag, and Joe's defense of his former conservatism has become, in Maggie Thatcher's term, wobbly.  But today he shows a pulse in exposing the hypocrisy of the left over Libya.  From The Politico:

How can the left call for the ouster of Muammar Qadhafi for the sin of killing hundreds of Libyans when it opposed the war waged against Saddam Hussein? During Saddam’s two decades in Iraq, he killed more Muslims than anyone in history and used chemical weapons against his own people and neighboring states.

With the help of his equally despicable sons, Uday and Qusay, Saddam devastated Iraq, terrorized his people and destroyed that country’s environment. By the time American troops deposed him in 2003, Saddam had killed at least 300,000 of his own people — and human rights groups say that tally does not even include the million-plus casualties his invasion of Iran caused.

If Obama and his liberal supporters believed Qadhafi’s actions morally justified the Libyan invasion, why did they sit silently by for 20 years while Saddam killed hundreds of thousands?

And how do they claim the moral high ground in Libya while not calling for the immediate invasion of Syria? The monstrous Bashar al-Assad regime is slaughtering his own people by the hundreds. More killings are sure to happen as that corrupt regime teeters on the brink of collapse.

COMMENT:  Look, the left has no moral consistency.  It believes only in itself.  (I'd caution, however, that some Republicans are also sounding a bit hypocritical over Libya.)

There was a time when the Democratic Party had a coherent, defense-oriented foreign policy, far more thoughtful and useful than that of the old GOP isolationists.  That's no longer the case, and hasn't been since the late 60s.  Scratch the Dems down deep and they'd cut defense to the bone and, to quote their ideological leader, George McGovern, "come home America."  But, as Scarborough points out in another part of this piece, most of the Democratic left is giving support, if lukewarm support, to Obama, to help his reelection chances.  These are the same people who called Bush a fascist and baby killer for liberating Iraq.

March 29, 2011       Permalink 

Bookmark and Share

 

SETBACK IN LIBYA – AT 9:15 A.M. ET:  After a day making progress, Libyan rebels have now been set back in their effort to overthrow the regime:

BIN JAWWAD, Libya – Libyan government tanks and rockets blunted a rebel assault on Moammar Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte on Tuesday and drove back the ragtag army of irregulars, even as world leaders prepared to debate the country's future in London.

Rockets and tank fire sent Libya's rebel volunteers in a panicked scramble away from the front lines, before the opposition was able to bring up truck mounted rocket launchers of their own and return fire.

The latest rebel setback emphasizes the see-saw nature of this conflict and how the opposition is still no match for the superior firepower and organization of Gadhafi's forces, despite an international campaign of deadly airstrikes.

The two sides traded salvos over the small hamlet of Bin Jawwad amid the thunderous crash of rockets and artillery shells as plumes of smoke erupted in the town. The steady drum of heavy machine gun fire and the pop of small arms could also be heard above the din.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch:

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- As fighting between government and rebel forces rages on in several Libyan towns, world leaders will gather Tuesday in London to plan ways to put pressure on leader Moammar Gadhafi.

More than 40 foreign ministers and representatives from regional groups will attend the conference, including U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Chairman of the African Union Jean Ping and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"The purpose of this conference is to broaden and deepen the coalition effort," said British Foreign Secretary William Hague. "We all want to see that cease-fire. We all want to see Gadhafi go. Those things are clear. But once we have that cease-fire, we have something to work with."

Wait, wait, wait.  Once we have a cease-fire we have something to work with?  Really?  What do we have to work with?  I would imagine – excuse me for my ignorance – that military pressure might do the trick in removing Gadhafi from power.  I'm not sure how a cease-fire fits in.

This sounds like one of those sanctions meetings that will precede a negotiation that will precede a waiting period that will precede an international conference that will precede a UN study. 

Look, I hope we succeed, that the Libyan dictator goes, and that a reasonable government is elected in Libya.  But this does indeed look like a plan written by a committee.

March 29, 2011       Permalink

Bookmark and Share

 

MUSICAL CHAIRS IN OLD SYRIA – AT 9:02 A.M. ET:  Cosmetic surgery has come to Syrian politics.  A new facelift is under way.  From AP:

DAMASCUS, Syria — Syrian state-run television says the Cabinet has resigned as the country sees the worst unrest in decades.

President Bashar Assad accepted the Cabinet’s resignation following a meeting Tuesday.

The resignation is the latest concession by the government aimed at appeasing more than a week of mass protests.

Assad is expected to address the nation in the next 24 hours to announce he is lifting the emergency law and moving to annul other harsh restrictions on civil liberties and political freedoms.

COMMENT:  The only problem here is...Bashar Assad.  Assad is Syria's dictator.  As long as he remains dictator in one of the harshest of Arab states, none of these changes will mean a thing.  But, although the U.S. has intervened in Libya, it has pledged not to intervene in Syria, a far more important country.  And our interest in Iranian freedom seems nonexistent. 

The policy is confused and contradictory, but, let's face it, community organizing is not the same as world organizing.  The world is bigger, and they talk funny.

March 29, 2011       Permalink

Bookmark and Share

 

WHEN EVEN THE COAST GUARD IS AGAINST YOU – AT 8:44 A.M. ET:  Amidst all the chaos in the world, this was almost overlooked.  Remember the Gulf oil spill last year, the one that threatened to destroy America and the entire Universe until Barack Obama stood on the Louisiana beaches, raised his arm and proclaimed, "Hark, oil stop, in the name of me!"

Well, okay, not quite. 

It turns out the administration's anemic response to the emergency was even more pathetic than we'd thought.  The assessment comes from a study now published by the Coast Guard.  From Fox:

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration failed to set up an "effective" communications system during last year's BP oil spill and threatened its own credibility by "severely restricting" the release of "timely, accurate information," according to a newly released report commissioned by the U.S. Coast Guard.

Quietly posted on the Coast Guard's website two weeks ago, the report offers the first major assessment of the federal government's communications efforts during the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

"Several layers of review and approval by the White House and (Department of Homeland Security) prevented timely and effective crisis communications and hindered the Coast Guard's ability to ... (keep) stakeholders informed about the status of the response," the report reads, adding that "accurate and timely messaging from the response organization improves transparency with the public."

Information centers in Houma, La., and Mobile, Ala. -- established by the Coast Guard in accordance with pre-set plans for major disasters -- were "effectively muted," the report reads.

Photographs could not be released without Washington's blessing, and Coast Guard officials leading efforts on the ground "were not authorized to conduct media interviews, hold press conferences or send press releases without prior approval from DHS," according to the report.

COMMENT:  Change we can believe in.  Transparency in government, etc., etc.   But please notice that there's not a peep out of the mainstream media.  Compare please to the reporting of Katrina, in which Bush was blamed for everything but the rain itself.

No, there's no press bias.  Nothing to see here.  Nothing to see.

March 29, 2011     Permalink

Bookmark and Share


 

 

 

MARCH 28,  2011

OH DEAR, OH DEAR – AT 8:09 P.M. ET:   Supreme leader has finished.  And maybe America is finished.    You know, he speaks beautifully.  No one denies that.  He's a powerful, effective speaker, reminding us of another Illinois politician, Adlai Stevenson.  Stevenson was the darling of intellectuals in the 1950s, and became more darling as he went down to defeat twice at the hands of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Stevenson spoke beautifully and said nothing.  Obama speaks beautifully and says a great deal.  The trouble is, it's so garbled and self-contradictory that you'd need the best codebreakers of World War II to figure out what he means.

That, by the way, seems to be the consensus among the pundits we've briefly checked in the minutes after Obama finished his speech.

On the one hand, Obama declared what Wolf Blitzer correctly characterized as "the Obama Doctrine."  We intervened to prevent a massacre, and we're proud of our leadership.  On the other hand, Obama then told us that our leadership role is ending.

So, does this mean we intervene whenever there's a threat of a massacre?  What about Syria, where a massacre may be happening?  What about Iran, where another massacre can occur at any time?  When does the Obama Doctrine apply?

And Brit Hume pointed out that if our leadership was so important in preventing a mass tragedy, why is that leadership not important now, when our leadership role is handed to NATO?  Did we suddenly lose our leadership skills?  Do we really think the Europeans have become enlightened?

Oh, by the way, Obama actually came close in this speech, and it was a fine moment, to endorsing the concept of American exceptionalism.  He said that one reason for our intervention in Libya was "who we are."  We are not, he said, like other nations, who can turn our backs in the face of evil.  IN OTHER WORDS, OBAMA SEEMED TO BE SAYING, WE'RE BUSH!

Yes, the president finally acknowledged that are values may set us apart from Belgium.  I suspect some of his supporters on the left have now fainted, and will be taken to Obamacare emergency rooms to be treated for hearing unclean thoughts.  The treatment is a dose of stem cells from Dennis Kucinich.

But, on balance, the president delivered an eloquent but confused speech.  At the end, we really didn't understand what comes next, and how this precedent applies in the future.  That is what strategic thinking is about.  Only the Bushian parts were good.

March 28, 2011      Permalink

Bookmark and Share 


CAN'T WAIT – AT 7:21 P.M. ET:  We are anticipating, with almost no sense of excitement, the speech of dear leader Barack Obama, set to begin in a few minutes, in which this global thinker will outline our Libya strategy.

Our beloved supreme guide has agreed to speak to his subjects, but not from the Oval Office, as real presidents do.  Like the true demigod who was given to us, he is out amongst the masses, preaching thoughts that will last many millennia, assuming global warming doesn't roast the Earth.

We will not interrupt the flow of the magic with lowly posts of our own, but will wait until the end of the speech to comment, once we absorb the full majesty of the revealed word.

March 28, 2011       Permalink

Bookmark and Share

 

NO LEADER HE – AT 10:12 A.M. ET:  The press coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign was one of the lowest moments in modern American journalism.  The media abandoned all pretense of neutrality and went in the tank for a small-time Chicago politician with a golden voice.  No serious questions were asked of Barack Obama.  He was the dream-come-true of the sixties generation, which dominates the media:

Now we know what that election created.  Arthur Herman, the distinguished military historian, takes Obama apart and declares him a non-leader, a conclusion more and more Americans seem to be reaching themselves.  From the New York Post: 

Polls show that President Obama's Libya intervention has the lowest public support of any US military action in three decades. That's not surprising, because Obama seems ambivalent about the enterprise himself. Whatever he says tonight to rationalize it, Americans are learning a sober truth.

America's chief executive isn't simply one step behind events in Libya; he seems determined to miss a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the free world in the Mideast.

From Tunisia to Iran, the region is in the midst of a democratic seismic shift as autocracies old and new, friend and foe, rock on their foundations. Like most earthquakes, it has no predictable direction. The motives for those in the streets run from wanting a less repressive government and lower taxes (what set the whole thing off in Tunisia in the first place) to religious fundamentalism and sheer boredom.

A Ronald Reagan or a Harry Truman would realize that this is a chance not only to foster a freer and more open Mideast but also to bolster America's long-term strategic interests -- perhaps even cut off radical Islamism at the knees.

Instead, we have a president so determined not to be George W. Bush that he has preferred to lapse into total passivity. Even worse, he seems to see his passivity as helpful restraint, when it is just the opposite.

And...

If anyone wanted the world to see America as weak and unreliable, this is how to do it.

So whatever Obama says tonight to answer our doubts about Libya, there's another more pressing question he needs to answer.

What if anything will you stand up for, Mr. President?

COMMENT:  Ouch.  That is not an endorsement.  Wouldn't it be nice to have a president who believed in his own country?  Truman and Reagan are two examples, cited by Arthur Herman, who did.  They produced important results.  This president is producing another election campaign.  As one pundit wrote, he's a good speaker but a poor communicator.

He'd make a great student-body president.

March 28, 2011      Permalink

Bookmark and Share

 

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 8:58 A.M. ET:

From The New York Times:  Harry Wesley Coover Jr., the man who invented Super Glue, died on Saturday night at his home in Kingsport, Tenn. He was 94.

There'll be no funeral.  He's stuck to his bed and they can't get him out.

March 28, 2011       Permalink

Bookmark and Share


A MATTER OF FAIRNESS – AT 8:35 A.M. ET:  This may not seem like an important story, but in fact it's very important.  Fairfax, Virginia, is an influential community where many government officials live.  It also has Virginia's largest school system.

Many Americans do not realize that there has been a growing scandal in the way disciplinary proceedings are held in America's schools, especially at the high-school and college levels.  Yes, we periodically hear stories about "zero tolerance" policies used to torment kids who inadvertently bring a bottle of aspirin to school, but we often don't hear about more serious cases, which can destroy a student's life, or even move him to end that life.

In an age of political correctness, we have seen college disciplinary hearings turn into Soviet-style inquisitions, where students are guilty until proved innocent, and where propagandistic theories of the political left substitute for evidence.  One reason for horrible outcomes is that schools and colleges often refuse to keep detailed transcripts so outside observers can see exactly what is being done. 

Fairfax, Virginia, is trying to address some of these issues.  The stakes are high for every family with a child in school.  From the Washington Post:

A growing number of Fairfax school officials support the idea of creating audio recordings of student disciplinary proceedings as the district seeks to respond to parent complaints about fairness and tone in the hearing room.

The hearings, which have become a flash point in a debate over how students in trouble get punished in Fairfax, have been criticized by parents for being highly adversarial and straying from fact to suspicion.

Assistant Superintendent Barbara M. Hunter said Friday that both she and the hearings office support the concept of recording what happens during the system’s 600-plus such proceedings a year. Hunter said she could envision parents being given a tape or CD shortly after each hearing. Now, notes are taken during proceedings but are not intended as a transcript.

“We are listening very carefully to what the community is saying,” Hunter said. “One of the ideas that has emerged is this notion of recording the hearings, and we would welcome that. We think the idea is very workable.”

COMMENT:  There have been horrible cases, and suicides.  I was personally involved in an HBO project some years ago dealing with a scandalous "disciplinary" hearing at a major university, in which a student's life was almost destroyed.  The entire transcript of the multi-hour hearing consisted of an 11-line summary.  (By the way, I was fired from the project because I would not toe the politically correct line, which held that the boy under charge had to be guilty, since it was a charge of sexual misconduct.  According to the line, males are always guilty.)

I'm glad to see Fairfax address this issue.  Sure, kids do bad things and have to be punished.  But "educators" often make poor judges, especially educators indoctrinated in schools of education about what is acceptable in school settings.

There is a great organization called FIRE, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, that was founded to combat abuses of students, and it has done great work in bringing colleges, in particular, in line with sanity.   But much more needs to be done.

March 28, 2011      Permalink 

Bookmark and Share

 

LIBYA MILITARY REPORT – AT 8:19 A.M. ET:  From Fox:

Airstrikes and explosions were heard in the Libyan capital of Tripoli Sunday night, a sign that another round of attacks against strongman Muammar al-Qaddafi's military is under way.

The anti-aircraft fire comes as NATO agrees to take over control of all aerial operations -- including ground attacks -- in Libya. The U.S. will hand off responsibility for air attacks to the alliance in a power transfer that may take several days, according to a diplomat who asked to remain anonymous.

The North Atlantic Council -- the alliance's top body -- approved a plan to expand the previously agreed mission to enforce the U.N. arms embargo and no-fly zone by agreeing to protect civilians from attack.

"NATO Allies have decided to take on the whole military operation in Libya under the U.N. Security Council resolution," Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a statement.

And...

On the ground, Libyan rebels have taken a second key oil port as they continue their push west toward Tripoli. The anti-government uprising has gained newfound momentum after international airstrikes began targeting Qaddafi's military over a week ago.

After seizing Brega, a main oil export terminal in the eastern half of the country, the movement captured the oil refinery of Ras Lanouf on Sunday.

COMMENT:  Commander-in-chief Obama will address the nation tonight, seeking to explain his strategy in Libya.  Personally, I preferred the last commander-in-chief, who was ridiculed for using the word "strategery."  At least he knew what it meant.

We all want to see Qaddafi out of power, but we are very concerned about who replaces him.  We'll listen to see if Obama has any thoughts on that.  Or any thoughts.

March 28, 2011       Permalink

Bookmark and Share

 

NO MATTER WHAT WE DO – AT 7:37 A.M. ET:  I am so sick and tired of hearing about the "Arab street" and "Arab opinion."  There is no such thing as the Arab street, and Arab opinion is a farce.

Public opinion in any country does not automatically blossom forth.  It comes from 1) cultural traditions, which, in the Arab case, are hundreds of years behind modern times; 2) the media, which in most Arab countries is controlled; 3) the educational system, also controlled by the state; and 4) religious institutions, which, in the Arab world, are, at best, problematical.

So this morning's story from Fox about Obama's deteriorating reputation in the Arab world should be looked at with caution.  We have often helped Muslims, and have never received so much as a thank-you.  We helped in Bosnia.  We helped in Lebanon.  Iraq is now a fledgling democracy.  We are trying to save Arab lives in Libya.  We have given billions in foreign aid.  Nothing ever matters.  A decadent civilization remains decadent, and we're supposed to worry about its "street."  Sadly, the hard left in America and elsewhere will side with the decadent elements because it will side with anything anti-American.

We are very critical of Obama at Urgent Agenda, and we hope he will learn a lesson from what's happening today – that nothing will change Muslim opinion of America until Muslim civilization itself changes.  We already are seeing signs that the Egyptian revolution is falling apart, and, despite the fact that we're ready to place blame on Obama for many things, that isn't his fault.  It's Egyptian civilization's fault.

Despite the garbage taught in our chic, lazy, overpriced colleges, not all cultures are equal.  I don't have to accept a culture that treats women as common property.  Neither do you.

From today's Fox story:

Two years ago, President Obama was cheered in the Middle East and around the world as he toured capital cities on a diplomatic mission of reconciliation following an administration defined by two wars.

Last week looked a little different.

Crowds shouted "down with Obama" in Mali, burned him in effigy in Sri Lanka and, in Spain, brought back a slogan once used to attack George W. Bush -- "no more blood for oil."

Obama's decision to enter Libya in hopes of preventing a slaughter at the hands of Muammar al-Qaddafi could, despite its best intentions, accelerate a public-opinion shift in some quarters of the world away from the U.S. president.

That shift has been under way for some time. Though polls showed Obama's popularity soaring as he prepared to deliver his speech to the Muslim world in Egypt in the summer 2009, that affection appeared to have waned by the following year. International polling conducted last summer showed confidence in Obama plummeting in key Muslim countries.

That is not going to change, in our view here, until there are decades of real democracy in the Arab world, a truly free press, and an educational system worthy of the name.  I'm not all that optimistic, not when Western "intellectuals" often side with the most backward elements of Muslim civilization, the better to be chic and with it, and to be invited to the best parties.

We have very tough times ahead in foreign policy, and we have a president entirely inadequate for the job.  If he can't dent the Arab world, with his Muslim middle name and endless groveling, then who can?

March 28, 2011     Permalink

Bookmark and Share

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"What you see is news.  What you know is background.  What you feel is opinion."
    - Lester Markel, late Sunday editor
      of The New York Times.

 

"Councils of war breed timidity and defeatism."
    - Lt. Gen. Arthur MacArthur, to his
      son, Douglas.

 

THE ANGEL'S CORNER

Part I of The Angel's Corner will be sent late Wednesday night.

Part II will be sent over the weekend.

 

SUBSCRIPTIONS

Subscriptions to URGENT AGENDA are voluntary.  Why subscribe to something you're getting free?  To help guarantee that you'll continue to get it at all, and to get The Angel's Corner, which we now offer to subscribers and donators. 

Subscriptions sustain us.  Payments are through PayPal and are secure, but you do not have to sign up for a PayPal account.  Credit cards are fine.


FOR A ONE-YEAR ($48) SUBSCRIPTION, CLICK:

 

FOR A SIX-MONTH ($26)
SUBSCRIPTION, CLICK:


GREAT DEAL:  ONE-YEAR SUBSCRIPTION WITH ANOTHER SUBSCRIPTION SENT TO SOMEONE ELSE ($69) - PERFECT FOR A SON OR DAUGHTER AT SCHOOL.  (TELL US AT service@urgentagenda.com WHERE YOU WANT THE SECOND SUBSCRIPTION SENT.)  CLICK:


IF YOU DON'T WISH A SET SUBSCRIPTION, BUT PREFER TO DONATE ANY OTHER AMOUNT TO SUSTAIN URGENT AGENDA, CLICK:



SEARCH URGENT AGENDA

Search For:
Match: 
Dated:
From: ,
To: ,
Within: 
Show:   results   summaries
Sort by: 

 

POWER LINE

It's a privilege for me to post periodic pieces at Power Line. To go to Power Line, click here. To link to my Power Line pieces, go here.

 

CONTACT:  YOU CAN E-MAIL US, AS FOLLOWS:

If you have wonderful things to say about this site, if it makes you a better person, please click:
applause@urgentagenda.com

If you have a general comment on anything you see here, or on anything else that's topical, please click:
comments@urgentagenda.com

If you must say something obnoxious, something that will embarrass you and disgrace your loving family, click:
despicable@urgentagenda.com

If you require subscription service, please click:
service@urgentagenda.com

 

 

SIZZLING SITES

Power Line
Top of the Ticket
Faster Please (Michael Ledeen)
OpinionJournal.com
Hudson New York

Bookworm Room
Bill Bennett
Red State
Pajamas Media
Michelle Malkin
Weekly Standard  
Real Clear Politics
The Corner

City Journal
Gateway Pundit
American Thinker
Legal Insurrection

Political Mavens
Silvio Canto Jr.
Planet Iran
Another Black
   Conservative

Conservative Home
What the Heck Have
    Conservatives Done?

ClearRight





  "The left needs two things to survive. It needs mediocrity, and it needs dependence. It nurtures mediocrity in the public schools and the universities. It nurtures dependence through its empire of government programs. A nation that embraces mediocrity and dependence betrays itself, and can only fade away, wondering all the time what might have been."
     - Urgent Agenda

 

 

 

LEGAL NOTICES:

If you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe a post on this website falls outside the boundaries of "Fair Use" and legitimately infringes on yours or your client's copyright, we may be contacted concerning copyright matters at:

Urgent Agenda
4 Martine Avenue
Suite 403
White Plains, NY 10606

Phone:  914-420-1849
Fax: 914-681-9398
E-Mail: katzlit@urgentagenda.com

In accordance with section 512 of the U.S. Copyright Act our contact information has been registered with the United States Copyright Office.

 

© 2011  William Katz 


 

 
 
 
 
`````