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APRIL 26,  2012

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 7:57 A.M. ET:

CASH FOR ROMNEY – Republican sources say that Romney's fundraising has picked up dramatically, as those donors who did not wish to participate in the primaries are now coming off the bench for the general election.  Also, the Romney fundraising operation and the Republican National Committee's fundraising operation have been combined, bringing in many traditional check writers.

NEW NAME FOR V.P. LIST – Congressional supporters are boosting the name of Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, a woman, for the vice-presidential slot on Romney's ticket.  Ayotte, a firm conservative and a tea-party favorite, was attorney-general of New Hampshire before being elected to the Senate in 2012.  She is personable and sharp, and actually has more experience than did Barack Obama when he was elected president.  We have no indication of Romney's feelings toward her.

WORKING STIFFS DOWN ON OBAMA LIFESTYLE – Republican pollsters who recently conducted focus group sessions in a number of swing states say that blue-collar workers are becoming resentful of the Obama family's lavish vacations, taken using government funds.  They also are in despair economically.  We may have forming a new generation of what we called "Reagan Democrats" in 1980.  In this connection, though, it's important for Romney to shake the rich-guy image that the Dems will attempt to plaster him with every day.

AMERICANS DOWN ON GOVERNMENT – A new poll shows that only a third of Americans are satisfied with the federal government, the lowest level of support in 15 years.  In 2002, during the early Bush 43 years, 64% of Americans viewed the federal government favorably.  Local and state governments do better, with current standings at 61 and 52% respectively.

April 26, 2012        Permalink

NOW THIS IS JOURNALISM – AT 10:51 A.M. ET:  As readers know, we're not terribly warm here toward the mainstream media.  Low standards, bias, poor research and breathless reporting (without many facts) too often mark our journalism.  And too many "journalists" spend their time waving their Ivy League degrees, instead of doing the work. 

But Reuters has now moved a story on the background of George Zimmerman, the shooter in the Trayvon Martin case, that is just superb.  Filled with facts, not opinions.  No racialism.  No political correctness.  The case is volatile.  We've been subjected to spectacular, and often wrong, "reporting."  The usual suspects have come out of the woodwork.  And, of course, journalism's pseudo-intellectuals, like Soledad O'Brien at CNN, have tried to be profound, seeing deep social significance, where there may not be anything but a tragedy.

Please read the Reuters piece.  It's here.   An excerpt:

The 28-year-old insurance-fraud investigator comes from a deeply Catholic background and was taught in his early years to do right by those less fortunate. He was raised in a racially integrated household and himself has black roots through an Afro-Peruvian great-grandfather - the father of the maternal grandmother who helped raise him.

A criminal justice student who aspired to become a judge, Zimmerman also concerned himself with the safety of his neighbors after a series of break-ins committed by young African-American men.

Though civil rights demonstrators have argued Zimmerman should not have prejudged Martin, one black neighbor of the Zimmermans said recent history should be taken into account.

"Let's talk about the elephant in the room. I'm black, OK?" the woman said, declining to be identified because she anticipated backlash due to her race. She leaned in to look a reporter directly in the eyes. "There were black boys robbing houses in this neighborhood," she said. "That's why George was suspicious of Trayvon Martin."

COMMENT:  The piece also presents some negatives things in Zimmerman's past.  The reporter, Chris Francescani, simply did the job.  I cannot tell from the piece what side he's on, if any, which is one mark of a good journalist.

I wish the rest of the press had met this standard.  It did not.

April 26, 2012       Permalink

SOMEBODY TELL THE PRESIDENT! – AT 9:42 A.M. ET:   We have watched the president campaign endlessly, lo these recent weeks.  But apparently no one has told the chief executive that he's actually campaigning.  We consider this a staff failure.  The man has been misinformed.  From Andrew Malcolm at Investor's Business Daily:

According to an aide who claims to work for President Obama, the incumbent Democrat will launch his reelection campaign next week.

No, come on now. Get serious. This isn't that funny. We're talking 2012 presidential politics.

Jim Messina is said to be running the billion-dollar effort to keep the Obamas and his mother-in-law in the White House for four more years of shovel-ready deficit spending.

Messina says Obama will hold his first 2012 campaign rally -- oh, come on, please! Just let us get this out and then you can laugh all you want. Obama will hold his first 2012 campaign rally -- OK, go ahead laugh, folks. Get it over with now because we're going to finish this announcement one way or the other. Laugh away. That's it. Guffaw. Chuckle. Giggle. Snort. Chortle. Get it all out.

And...

You know that guy who so remarkably resembles Barack Obama, the one who's been flying all over the country for months talking about what Congress needs to do about the problems he got stuck with? The fellow who started raising campaign money more than one year, 100+ fundraisers and $127 million ago. Had another one last night, $35K a pop.

Well, apparently, the Chicago crowd expects Americans to believe that these Obama trips have been "official" forays. And that the Windy City Democrat ever stopped campaigning after 2008.

COMMENT:  Andrew Malcolm is right.  This White House is a continuing campaign.  Getting the job is all.  Doing the job...well, that's another story.

But the fact is that Obama is an excellent campaigner.  He knows it, which is why he spends so much time on the campaign trail.  Romney, however, is also turning into a fine campaigner, maybe because the debates sharpened him, and the constant grind humanized him.  He can defeat Obama, press bias and all.

April 26, 2012        Permalink

ALERT – AT 9:06 A.M. ET:  We are about to observe the first anniversary of the disposal of Osama bin Laden.  There is an alert out for a possible lone wolf attack that would mark the date.  From the New York Post:

WASHINGTON -- Just days before the one-year anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death, US authorities are warning that while there is no specific, credible threat to the US homeland they remain concerned "lone wolf" terrorists could use the date to avenge the former al Qaeda leader.

In an intelligence bulletin issued late Wednesday, the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and US Northern Command note that terrorist groups such as al Shabaab in Somalia, northern Africa's al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the Pakistani Taliban have called for revenge against the United States for killing bin Laden during the May 1, 2011 raid on his hideout in Pakistan.

The bulletin says al Qaeda or its affiliates would view an attack "on this anniversary as a symbolic victory," especially in the wake of losses suffered by al Qaeda through US drone attacks and other efforts overseas.

In addition, according to the bulletin, authorities remain concerned that so-called "lone wolf" extremists not already identified "will execute attacks with little or no warning on or about the anniversary of bin Laden's death."

A report issued Wednesday by the European Union, looking at how terrorism has changed in Europe over the past year, seems to concur, saying the "threat has evolved" since the deaths of bin Laden and other terrorist leaders.

"Lone actors or small EU-based groups are becoming increasingly prominent, as is the internet as a key facilitator for terrorism-related activities," Interpol's EU Terrorist Situation and Trend Report says.

COMMENT:  An anonymous "high" administration official was quoted earlier this week as saying the war on terror was over.  The Obamans have been trying to sell that line since they took office, as we replaced the war on terror with "Muslim outreach."  We see how far that has gotten us.

The war on terror is ongoing.  It will not be over in our lifetime.  Indeed, the potential for terror groups to get ever more powerful weapons is very real.

Remember when, after 9/11, the ideological left used to ask, "Why do they hate us?"  We were treated to profound answers about our "policies."  Well, Obama has been in office three and a half years, and terror still remains a serious threat.  Maybe they hate us because of who and what we are, and not because of the policies of George W. Bush.  Y'think?

April 26, 2012       Permalink

RECOVERY?  WHAT RECOVERY? – AT 8:51 A.M. ET:  The economy continues to struggle.  The labor reports out today continue the warning signs seen in recent weeks.  From The Wall Street Journal:

New applications for unemployment benefits stayed nearly unchanged from last week, showing that the labor market's recent improvement may be slowing.

Initial jobless claims decreased by 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 388,000 in the week ended April 21, the Labor Department said Thursday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires predicted that 376,000 new claims would be filed last week.

It was the third straight week the level topped 385,000 -- claims haven't stayed that consistently high since November.

And...

In March, U.S. employers added 120,000 nonfarm jobs, half of what they added in February.

COMMENT:  It takes 150,000 new jobs each month just to keep up with population growth.

We have a bit more than six months to go before the election.  That really isn't much time for the economy to turn around and show the kind of dramatic progress that would help Obama get re-elected.  The economy is Romney's issue.  Now he has to shape it and present a clear, convincing economic vision in order to overcome the reluctance of many Americans to change horses. 

April 26,  2012     Permalink

APRIL 25,  2012

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 8:48 P.M. ET:

NEWT OUT – Newt Gingrich is officially dropping out of the presidential race and will endorse Mitt Romney, according to a number of news sources.  The endorsement should come next week.  The only person still officially campaigning against Romney is Ron Paul, who may suspend his efforts when the spaceship comes to pick him up.

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS? – The Pentagon is suspending a course for military officers given in Norfolk, Virginia, because it allegedly contains inflammatory material about Islam.  We have no specifics, but the report is troubling.  We know that since Obama came to office, federal agencies have literally purged material on Islam, often at the behest of some Islamic organizations with worrying histories.  Training manuals are being revised throughout the security services.  Are the complaints about this Norfolk course legitimate, or is valuable information being kept out to satisfy political correctness?

ROMNEY, OBAMA TIED – A new Fox News poll has both President Obama and Mitt Romney at 46%.  The poll also shows Obama with an approval rating of 45%.  This is shaping up to be a tight, bitter election, with Republicans having a good chance to unseat a sitting president.  Even Obama conceded in an interview that the election could be very close unless the economy improves.  Romney seems to be gaining numerical strength as he is increasingly perceived as the inevitable nominee of his party.

LOOK WHO'S TRAINING LAWYERS – A top Justice Department official who misled Congress during the "Operation Fast and Furious" investigation is leaving to become dean of the University of Baltimore Law School.  Ronald Weich, assistant attorney general for legislative affairs, signed a letter to Congress stating that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives never allowed guns to be sold to drug cartel members, which turned out to be erroneous.  Strange move for an educational institution. 

April 25, 2012       Permalink

HORROR IN SYRIA – AT 9:46 A.M. ET:  There's supposed to be a ceasefire in Syria, but there really isn't.  The murders continue, day by day.  There are UN "observers" in the country, but too few to make a difference.  Besides, the government's pattern is to kill, then stop killing of an observer comes through, then resume the slaughter. 

The world is doing nothing.  Estimates of the dead thus far in the Syrian revolt range from 9,000 to 11,000. 

The great Fouad Ajami, one of the most clear-headed scholars on things Muslim and Middle Eastern, writes in the Wall Street Journal about our own country's abdication in its Syria policy: 

Little more than a year into their terrible ordeal, the Syrians are a people unillusioned. "We have been forsaken by the world," a noted figure of the opposition recently told me in Istanbul.

Days later, in a refugee camp on the outskirts of Antakya, in a tent city a stone's throw from their tormented homeland, ordinary Syrians reiterate the same message. The ongoing Kofi Annan diplomacy and United Nations-brokered "cease-fire" are seen for what they are—an alibi for the abdication of Western powers, and a lifeline for the regime.

And...

In the Syria deliberations, deliverance is always around the corner. American diplomacy is always on the verge of making Russia see its way to the proper path. In these tortured discussions, there is no end to finesse and to the parsing of things.

And...

In one of its alibis for passivity, the Obama administration falls back on the threat posed by Islamists within the ranks of the opposition. This is but a recycling of the Assad regime's own assertions that its tyranny is a secular shield for the minorities and a barrier to the rise of the Islamists. Yet the surest way the Islamists and the jihadists can come to greater power in Syria is a drawn-out war that further degrades and radicalizes the country.

And...

But behind the scenes there was a darker play: American officials have resisted and discouraged other players from providing crucial aid to the rebellion. The newly emancipated Libyans had crates of weapons and were keen to dispatch them to the Syrian rebels. But according to the Syrian opposition leader I spoke to in Istanbul, they were discouraged from doing so by American officials. Arab diplomats from the Gulf states confirm the same pattern of American obstructionism.

And...

Everyone is waiting on Washington's green light and its leadership. Turkey would act, but only under the banner of NATO, and in partnership with the U.S. Importantly, none of the proposals for Syria's rescue call for American boots on the ground...

...It is a waste of time—and of precious lives—to buy into a wishful diplomacy that maintains that a few hundred U.N. observers will ward off the evils of a merciless sectarian tyranny.

COMMENT:  The Assad regime in Syria is backed by Iran.  If Assad survives, it is a major Iranian victory.  Despite this, and the ghastly casualties, we do nothing except go to the UN, asking for some guys with old binoculars to run to Syria and report what they really aren't allowed to see. 

There is no real American policy on Syria.  And North Korea is reportedly set to test another nuclear bomb, a direct slap in our face.

When you project weakness, as this president does, this is what you get.  And our children will pay the price.

April 25, 2012       Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – FROM MARCO RUBIO – AT 9:22 A.M. ET:  Obviously, we can't read Mitt Romney's mind, but it certainly appears that Marco Rubio is on his short list for vice president.

Rubio will today make what his own office describes as a "major foreign policy speech," an unusual announcement for a U.S. senator.  Very highfalutin stuff.   He will speak, ironically, at the liberal Brookings Institution at noon, and will be introduced by Joe Lieberman (hmm).  Here is a quote from the advance text:

“I disagree with the way in which the current administration has chosen to engage. For while there are few global problems we can solve by ourselves, there are virtually no global problems that can be solved without us. In confronting the challenges of our time, there are more nations than ever capable of contributing, but there is still only one that is capable of leading. And I disagree with voices in my own party who argue we should not engage at all. Who warn we should heed the words of John Quincy Adams not to go ‘abroad, in search of monsters to destroy’ …

“I disagree because all around us we see the human face of America’s influence in the world. It actually begins with not just our government, but our people. Millions of people have been the catalyst of democratic change in their own countries. But they never would have been able to connect with each other if an American had not invented Twitter. The atrocities of Joseph Kony would still be largely unknown. But in fact, millions now know because an American filmmaker made a short film about it and then distributed it on another American invention, YouTube.

“Even in our military engagements, the lasting impact of our influence on the world is hard to ignore. Millions of people have emerged from poverty around the world in part because our Navy protects the freedom of the seas allowing the ever increasing flow of goods between nations.”

COMMENT:  Eloquent and thoughtful.  Rubio, though young, and marginal in experience, presents an excellent and compelling picture.

There are, of course, negatives to Rubio, and one is coming out in a new biography written by a Washington Post writer.  It turns out that Rubio, as a child, was converted from Catholicism to Mormonism, which is the religion of Mitt Romney.  Later, Rubio converted back to Catholicism.  It's hard to gauge how that information will play, but Romney might well reason that he won't want someone on the ticket who raises religious questions, especially as we've never had a Mormon president.  This is just starting to be discussed, and we'll look carefully at public reaction.

April 25, 2012       Permalink

MR. EDWARDS, ESQ., GOES TO COURT – AT 8:45 A.M. ET:  As our readers know, the John Edwards trial has begun.  Edwards is on trial, not for being a sleazebag – as there is no statute against that – but for misuse of campaign funds. 

The Edwards case represents one of the most catastrophic press failures I've seen in my lifetime.  John Edwards was an important U.S. senator, the Dem candidate for vice president in 2004, on the John Kerry ticket, and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.

The Kerry ticket almost won, which would have placed Edwards one heartbeat away...

In 2008, we can reasonably argue, John Edwards helped put Barack Obama in the White House.  His candidacy, for as long as it lasted, siphoned votes away from Hillary Clinton in the primaries.  If Edwards's sordid lifestyle had been exposed by an energetic press, Clinton might well have won her party's nomination.

But the press wasn't interested in going into the background of the populist Edwards.  It was too busy trashing George Bush and practicing for the destruction of Sarah Palin.  Yes, there were some early tidbits, like this in the New York Post on August 28, 2007:

WHICH political candidate enjoys visiting New York because he has a girlfriend who lives downtown? The pol tells her he’ll marry her when his current wife is out of the picture.

That was about Edwards, but the media never followed up.  It took a supermarket tabloid, the National Enquirer, to finally bring Edwards down.  He may do hard time if convicted. 

Why wouldn't the press follow leads that were clearly there?  I do believe that pure bias was involved.  Edwards made the kind of speeches the liberal media loves to hear, and they left him alone.

Some would argue that Edwards's private life – having an affair and a child with his mistress, and covering it up – was a private matter.  They cite press silence on the dalliances of John F. Kennedy.  But the Kennedy years were half a century ago, and times have changed.  Private behavior, if extreme, is now very much a subject of discussion, as it was with Bill Clinton.  This is especially true of private behavior that can subject a public official, including a president, to blackmail.

April 25, 2012       Permalink

ARE WE NEXT? – AT 8:31 A.M. ET:  Britain is now in another recession.  It isn't even being seriously denied, and we have to ask whether we're next. 

(Reuters) - Britain's economy has fallen into its second recession since the financial crisis after a shock contraction at the start of 2012, heaping pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron's government as it reels from a series of political missteps.

Britain's Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition has seen its support crumble after weeks of criticism over unpopular tax measures in last month's budget, and is under further pressure from revelations about its close links with media tycoon Rupert Murdoch.

With local elections taking place on May 3, there could hardly be worse timing for Wednesday's news from the Office for National Statistics that Britain's gross domestic product fell 0.2 percent in the first quarter of 2012 on top of a 0.3 percent decline at the end of 2011.

Most economists had expected Britain's economy to eke out modest growth in early 2012, but these forecasts were upset by the biggest fall in construction output in three years, coupled with a slump in financial services and oil and gas extraction.

Cameron said the figures were "very, very disappointing".

He told parliament: "I don't seek to excuse them. I don't see to try to explain them away. There is no complacency at all in this government in dealing with what is a very tough situation that frankly has just got tougher."

The government desperately needs growth to achieve its overriding goal of eliminating Britain's large budget deficit over the next five years. But this will be a challenge as many of Britain's European trading partners are already in recession.

COMMENT:  And that's the point.  Europe is a mess.  It may be more of a mess if, as expected, France elects a socialist government in the second round of voting on May 6th.  Numbers in our own economy are weakening again.  How much longer can we hold off a "douple dip" recession?

Dems point to "jobs growth," but it is so anemic that we've gained back only half the jobs lost during the height of our 2008-9 deep recession. 

House Speaker John Boehner is warning that we may never recover our full economy if the policies put in place by the Obama administration are continued.

The economy is Romney's strong suit...if he knows how to exploit the subject and stay on message.  The news from Europe and Britain cannot be happy for the Obama White House.

April 25,  2012     Permalink