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OCTOBER 17,  2011

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 9:45 P.M. ET:

CAIN BEATS UNABLE – A new Rasmussen poll has Herman Cain beating the less-than-able Barack Obama in a head-to-head matchup.  Cain pulls 43% to Obama's 41%.  Of course, Cain has received a flood of good notices recently, and the herd mentality may be in play.  At the same time, he's facing increasing scrutiny.  Liberal blacks are smearing him as another Clarence Thomas, and CNN's Anderson Cooper has been relentless.  Tomorrow night's debate is critical for Cain.  We're entering the home stretch before primary voting begins.  If he can hit some home runs against his competitors, he could make this a very exciting race.

SOUND FAMILIAR? – Dan Shechtman, who just won the Nobel Prize in chemistry reports that, earlier in his career, he was ridiculed, laughed at, treated like someone who is slow mentally, and thrown out of research groups as a "disgrace," for the very ideas that later won him the Nobel.  Sound familiar?  Scientist who dare question global warming are often treated the same way, even compared to racists or Holocaust deniers.  A New York Times story, just yesterday, on why Americans don't embrace "global warming" made not a single reference to the criticisms raised by first-class scientists.  The article attempted to portray those who ask questions as anti-science.

WHY AM I SKEPTICAL? – The Washington Post prominently displays a piece quoting "experts" as saying that Iran's nuclear program has suffered major setbacks.  Hmm.  You don't think this piece was floated by people trying to take the steam out of the story that Iran plotted to murder the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. on American soil, do you?  Nah.  Couldn't be.  But it's a strange thing:  every time Iran behaves very badly, it isn't long before we're told that they're beset with technical problems and that we're exaggerating our concerns about their nuclear program.  I'd go with the worriers on this one.  Iran is becoming increasingly aggressive, and good sense requires that we take their nuclear program with the utmost seriousness.

CALENDAR SET – The critical Iowa caucuses have now been set for January 3rd, leaving only New Hampshire to set the date of its primary.  This gives New Hampshire the chance to become "first in the nation" by setting its contest in December, which would mean only two more months of campaigning before voting begins.  An early New Hampshire primary could give Mitt Romney a major boost, as he's far ahead in the polls there.  New Hampshire, of course, borders Massachusetts, where Romney served as governor.

October 17, 2011     Permalink

IRANIAN INTRIGUE – AT 9:08 A.M. ET:  Intelligence and defense types are still debating whether the administration's report of an Iranian plot to murder the Saudi ambassador to Washington on our soil holds water. 

One area of skepticism has been the conclusion that the Iranians were using Mexican drug cartels to further the plot.  Some observers ridicule this idea, conjuring up the image of sophisticated Iranian operatives of the Quds Force using crude drug dealers.  And yet Ken Allard, former dean of the National War College, says it makes all kinds of sense:

Iran’s actions here are consistent not only with its sorry record of contravening human rights and international law, but also with its well-documented use of covert forces. The regime has constantly used such methods to extend its influence and to strike directly at lesser rivals as well as the greater Satans.

The Mexican drug cartels are the only group that may be more professional and lethal than the Quds Force. The cartels preside over a logistical empire extending from just south of my San Antonio home to nationwide outlets as close as your neighborhood 7-11. If you seek to do serious harm to the United States, they’re an excellent choice thanks to the scope and reach of their networks, just as Hertz and Avis make a good choice for car rentals.

COMMENT:  We'll be hearing more about this plot in the weeks ahead.  As we've reported, Washington is taking it very seriously.  Whether our reaction to Iran is effective, however, is another story entirely.  Thus far nothing we've done in terms of sanctions has stopped that country, which is moving swiftly toward deadly nuclear technology.

October 17, 2011     Permalink

GOP LATEST – AT 8:44 A.M. ET:  We anticipate the GOP debate tomorrow night.  I think we can now safely say that this is the GOP field.  It is probably now too late for anyone else to start a campaign.  Primary voting begins in a few months.

Despite the fact that he is unloved, Mitt Romney continues, like the good foot soldier he is, to make progress toward the nomination.   Some have questioned how well he could run outside his home base in New England.   The Politico reports:

David Drucker reports that Mitt Romney is the "favorite" to win South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint's 2012 endorsement, a nod that would help in DeMint's home state, as well as symbolically among conservatives nationwide.

And...

Romney's tenacity in the 2012 primary has gradually brought a number of hesitant 2008 supporters back onto his team. Last week, Romney won back former New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg, former House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran, all of whom had been neutral in the race. Earlier, Romney picked up former Minnesota Rep. Vin Weber, a 2008 supporter who worked for Tim Pawlenty's short-lived campaign this time around.

And...

A couple more polls like this one, from Virginia's Christopher Newport University and the Richmond Times-Dispatch, and Mitt Romney's inevitability narrative really will start to take hold:

While former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney can't seem to break 25 percent in any national polls of GOP presidential hopefuls, the CNU poll finds 43.8 percent of likely Republican primary voters in Virginia favor him for the nomination.

In a far distant second is former Godfather's Pizza chief executive Herman Cain at 11.7 percent, followed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry at 10.2 percent.

That's a far cry from a Quinnipiac University poll released last week showing Cain and Romney locked at 21 percent among GOP voters in the state. …

If Romney were the nominee, Obama trails 45.8 percent to 42.3 percent. The president is in a statistical tie with Perry, the poll shows, with Perry at 43 percent and Obama at 42.7 percent.

I still think it's too early to say that the nomination is Romney's to lose.  One slip of the tongue for a candidate who arouses little passion can be devastating.  And what if Herman Cain shines in tomorrow night's debate?  What if Rick Perry suddenly comes alive? 

I honestly don't think Perry can cut it.  He still comes across as strictly local.  His economic/energy plan, released a few days ago, didn't make many waves, although it has solid features.  It may be too late for him to make up the ground he's lost.  As for Cain, he must now be presidential, without losing his inspiring, infectious style.  He's got to prove to the American voter that a man who's never held public office can be president, which means he's got to debate foreign policy as well as his tax plan.

Big stakes tomorrow night.

October 17, 2011       Permalink

OH HOW THEY SUFFER – THE PAIN, THE AGONY, THE MYTHS – AT 8:06 A.M. ET:  The political left is endlessly fond of telling us that "the root cause" (oh, they love that term) of terrorism is oppression.  Terrorists are terrorists because they are impoverished, with no hope, desperate, and so they turn to blowing up airliners.

Now, from Britain, comes a bit of a corrective, as London's Daily Mail reports:

Two-thirds of British terror suspects are from middle-class backgrounds and those who become suicide bombers are often highly educated, a classified MI5 document reveals.

The paper, marked ‘Secret: UK Eyes Only’, also debunks the myths that terrorists and suicide bombers are ‘loners’ and ‘psychopaths’.

Instead, the security service says that 90 per cent of them can be categorised as ‘sociable’ and have a high number of friends.

And...

While the report says that Western foreign policy and the perception that ‘Islam is under siege’ plays a role, they are not the main cause.

Instead, the four causes of radicalisation are:

‘Trauma’, such as the death of a loved one: Ten per cent of terror suspects became radicalised after a life trauma, says the report.

‘Migration’: A third of all extremists ‘migrated to Britain alone’.

 ‘Criminal activity’: Two-thirds of the sample had criminal records.

‘Prison’: Muslim prisoners who are not religious are often radicalised in prison. The report identified 60 known Islamist extremists operating in British jails.

The study says that the ‘mean age’ at which a Muslim becomes radicalised is 21.6 years, while anyone between the ages of 16 and 32 is regarded as vulnerable.

COMMENT:  This is fascinating stuff.  I'm especially intrigued by the comment that two thirds of those studied already had criminal records.

I don't know how much impact the British study, which was classified and has now leaked, will have on us here in America.  The "he's oppressed" scenario is pretty standard on college campuses, even though Harvard studies debunked it years ago.  The political left clings to its myths because the left today is less a set of political beliefs than a medieval religion.

We have difficulty in America understanding ideology.  We are a decent society, and we find it hard to accept that people perpetrate the evil that they do.  In World War II, many American naval officers could not comprehend the Kamikaze.  They could not understand how a soldier could commit suicide.  We had an entirely different view of survival.

But let us try to understand that we are facing ideologies that would not hesitate to take out an American city if they could.  We can deal with the problem, or pretend it doesn't exist as we cope with other challenges.  We will be reminded, I fear.

October 17, 2011       Permalink 

THE GRIM REALITY – AT 7:35 A.M. ET:  The term is "downward mobility," and it's not the first time in our history we've visited it.

During the one painful term of Jimmy Carter, Carter conceded that America's children might not live as well as their parents.  Carter left office almost a generation ago, and the same fears are stalking America today.  They are generating much of the economic debate, and encouraging movements, however vague and confused, like the "occupy" demonstrations around the country. 

The hints have been there for a long time, especially the fact that two-income families today often don't live any better, and in some cases live worse, than one income families of our youth.  Frankly stating it, many American women, and mothers, are today working essentially for nothing.  The so-called "feminist" movement hasn't exactly noticed. 

Another hint has been the vastly inflated cost of higher education.  I'll tell you a story:  A year ago I was speaking with a very famous and highly respected educator, who originally trained as a lawyer.   He told me that when he attended a distinguished law school in the late 50s, the tuition was about $900 a year.  Last year the tuition at the same school was $52,000 a year, wildly higher than the pace of tuition.  He asked me rhetorically, "Where is all that money going?"  Many young people leave college and graduate school today with debts they will paying for the rest of their lives.

Robert J. Samuelson, a liberal economics writer for the Washington Post, correctly states:

It’s already happening. “A decade of health care cost growth has wiped out real income gains for an average U.S. family,” report two Rand Corp. researchers in the journal Health Affairs. From 1999 to 2009, total compensation of a typical four-member family with employer-paid health insurance rose by $23,000. About 95 percent of this (almost $22,000) went to inflation and health care, including employer costs, family premiums, out-of-pocket payments and taxes. For most families, higher costs didn’t deliver parallel benefits. The reason: Health spending is concentrated; the sickest 5 percent account for half the total.

Meanwhile, spendable incomes — what people consider their living standards — stagnate. The squeeze will continue. In 1990, there were 32 million Americans 65 and over; by 2040, that’s reckoned at 80 million. Rising costs for Social Security and Medicare have created a new political dynamic: If benefits for the elderly aren’t cut, burdens on the young will go up. Decaying infrastructure poses similar choices. Either pay for repairs or tolerate substandard roads and dilapidated schools.

Our children’s futures have been heavily mortgaged.

And...

Generational gains tempered individual setbacks. We may now lose this comforting cushion. Our leaders might try to avoid that by boosting economic growth, controlling health spending and trimming benefits for the elderly. But we aren’t sure how to do the first and lack the political will to do the second and third. The future is never entirely predictable, but downward mobility is not just a scary sound bite. It’s a real possibility.

COMMENT:  The answer to this dilemma will certainly not be more government programs, which is what the opposition, symbolized by the Obamans, proposes.  Our side must propose an economic program that will grow the economy while keeping costs down...which may be Mission Impossible.  Or at least Improbable.

Jimmy Carter had no answers.  Ronald Reagan let the economy roar again, and we thought we were out of the woods.  Now the Carter years are back, and I don't see another Ronnie.  What I do see, though, is a growing recognition of one fact – that this country's economic future will depend on our becoming, once again, a nation that makes things, that innovates, that doesn't ship manufacturing abroad. 

Great leaders are often remembered for one great thing.  I don't recall what Lincoln's tax policy or agricultural program was.  If a leader could show us the way toward a maufacturing future, where every iPad said "made in USA," I somehow think that leader would be well remembered.

October 17, 2011     Permalink

OCTOBER 16,  2011

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:46 A.M. ET:

CANTOR MODERATES HIS STAND – House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has seemingly moderated his stand on the "occupy" movement, which he'd compared to a mob last week.  Now Cantor is saying that, yes, America needs greater income mobility.  This is a smart move.  There are things some of the "occupiers" are saying that resonate with the American people.  Republicans can acknowledge them, even embrace them, while rejecting the radical nature of the movement itself.  Both FDR and Reagan acknowledged an ideological debt to certain movements, yet kept their physical distance from those movements.  It's good politics and good government.  Sympathize with an idea, like income mobility, but keep away from the extremists.

FEINSTEIN WARNS – Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, says that the U.S. and Iran are on a "collision course," but that now is not the time for military action.  She confirmed what others had suspected, that the information that led Washington to charge Tehran with trying to murder the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. on American soil came from extremely solid sources.  Her terminology suggested communications intelligence.  In other words, intercepts.  Feinstein is considered one of the Democratic adults on national security.  The term "collision course" is chilling.  However, non-military means have not worked up to now.

CAIN UNDER THE MICROSCOPE – A good chunk of talk-show chatter on Sunday dealt with Herman Cain and his readiness to be president.  Cain will come under certain fire at the next Republican debate in 48 hours.  His "9-9-9" tax plan is only one of the targets.  The other major one will be his zero experience in foreign policy.  He said today he would depend on advisers, and mentioned Henry Kissinger, John Bolton and K.T. McFarland, a former Pentagon official.  But Cain's comments did not inspire much confidence, and he has to do better, lest he turn into the next Rick Perry, who has seemed at times uninformed.  Cain said he wasn't familiar with the neoconservative school of foreign policy, which seemed stunning.  I like Herman Cain and think he has great potential.  He is rising in the polls.  It's time for him to avoid the "authority" trap by becoming thoroughly informed on a range of issues.  So far, not much evidence of that.

October 16, 2011       Permalink

THE USUAL COURSE – The "occupy" movement had a big day yesterday, demonstrating in this country and around the world.  But the big day fell strangely flat.

The demonstration in Rome was particularly violent.  In New York, 70 were arrested, and many demonstrators were arrested around the country.

The signs displayed are getting uglier and uglier.  In Washington, Frances Fox Piven, a Marxist academic, called for revolution.  She and her late husband are "credited" with developing a plan to flood governments with welfare applicants in an attempt to bring down the "system."

Dan Rather threw his support behind the "anti-greed" campaign of the protesters yesterday.  Does anyone remember Dan Rather?

Again, in New York, demonstrators have amassed a considerable war chest, so money does not seem to be an object.  You can be sure that more will be coming from Hollywood stars eager to polish their radical credentials.  From the New York Post:

The Wall Street protesters have amassed a $230,000 war chest and a warehouse full of supplies for their long-haul campaign.

And the money continues to pour in -- through online donations, money orders and about $1,000 a day dropped in a plastic jug and paint buckets in Zuccotti Park.

Occupy Wall Street has also been flooded with goods -- everything from peanut butter to tampons -- at a rate of about 100-400 new packages a day that has overwhelmed the local UPS branch.

Most of the supplies are being stashed in a United Federation of Teachers storage facility near the park.

Those are the people who teach our children.

The movement’s CFO is a 21-year-old art student at Cooper Union with no financial experience -- though it’s unclear how Victoria Sobel wound up with the lofty post.

But she has plenty of help with money matters, as any expenditure greater than $100 requires a vote by the hundreds who gather for daily “general assembly.”

COMMENT:  There are plenty of things to criticize about Wall Street.  We've published our fair share of criticisms here.  But this crowd will come up with nothing because they've thought nothing through.  They have no real solutions that Americans will accept.  These mass movements make the same mistakes every time.  They think they know, vaguely, what they're against, but they never know what they're for.  And, along the way, they make some ugly alliances. 

I don't see, yet, that this "movement" is catching fire.  But, with the help of the press, they may be able to go on through the election.

October 16, 2011       Permalink

KING DEDICATION TODAY – AT 11:08 A.M. ET:  The Martin Luther King Jr. memorial will be formally dedicated today.  I recall King quite well.  Despite his personal flaws, and some political opinions that were too far left, he was one of the better civil rights leaders, and it is appropriate to have a monument to him.

At the same time, the memorial itself is troubling.  The statue of king is disgraceful, making him look like some Communist-era apparatchik standing in front of a government bureau.  And the choice of a sculptor from Communist China, a dictatorship, is equally troubling.  The sculptor should have been American, reflecting American values and ideals.  Reportedly, the sculptor brought with him a number of laborers who were housed in a local hotel, under orders. 

Sadly, the civil rights movement, which was needed, was riddled with hard leftists, a fact whose implications have never been confronted.  Paul Robeson, a great artist, was also a dedicated Communist and front man for the Soviet Union.  Today, Harry Belafonte fronts for Castro.   Some members of the Congressional Black Caucus, past and present, like Cynthia McKinney and Barbara Lee, have clear affiliations with dictatorships.

I could never understand the failure to comprehend the contradiction between calling for freedom on the one hand, and backing enslavers on the other.  The press, naturally, has never confronted the issue.

We wish the memorializers well.  I wonder what King would have thought, though, about the current state of his movement.  It seems today to often be more of an employment agency for activists than an effective device to raise up a people.  Eric Hoffer, the famous longshoreman philosopher, once said that all movements become businesses, then they become rackets.  There are still some final organizations and individuals working on behalf of African Americans, and Herman Cain is one of them.  But the businessmen and racketeers are at the gates, and some have gotten through.

October 16, 2011       Permalink

WHO, US? – AT 10:37 A.M. ET:  Iran is shocked, shocked, that anyone would charge it with planning an assassination in Washington.  From Fox:

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed Sunday U.S. accusations that Iranian government agents plotted to kill the Saudi ambassador in the United States.

"Iran is a civilized nation and doesn't need to resort to assassination" Ahmadinejad was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying Sunday. "Terror belongs to you," he said, addressing the United States.

Two men, including a member of Iran's special foreign actions unit known as the Quds Force, have been charged in New York federal court with conspiring to kill the Saudi diplomat, Adel Al-Jubeir.

Iranian officials have consistently denied the allegations since they first emerged last week.

Ahmadinejad's statements, and similar Saturday remarks by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are the first comments made by the country's two highest leaders.

Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters in Iran, had said that the U.S. seeks to bring greater pressure on Iran through making unsubstantiated allegations.

COMMENT:  The vigorous Iranian denials, apparently in the face of substantial evidence, may well indicate that Iran is becoming very nervous about possible American retaliation.  While the plot, as described by Eric Holder, does seem amateurish, it wouldn't be the first time a major sponsor of terror has placed its fortunes in the hands of amateurs.  The 19 hijackers of 9-11 weren't exactly pros.  And think of the underwear bomber. 

The Iranians are getting support in their position from the usual suspects in Washington – a claque of regime supporters and those who believe the Iranians are just misunderstood.  It recalls the pro-Nazi Americans and Brits from the 1930s, who fronted for Hitler's regime, even when the ugly facts began to come out.  Included among them was the head of the United States Olympic Committee, Avery Brundage.   So don't be shocked if you see a series of articles in the American press expressing skepticism of the American government's claims.

October 16, 2011     Permalink