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FEBRUARY 21,  2012

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 8:58 P.M. ET:

THE SPLENDID MISERY – That's what Jefferson called the presidency.  But now we know how Obama deals with the miserable part of it:  " President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama hosted a star-studded array of musicians to celebrate the blues Tuesday at the latest 'In performance at the White House' series of concerts.  Obama said in introductory remarks that hosting the concerts is a welcome perk of the presidency.  'Some nights when you want to go out and just take a walk, clear your head, or jump into a car just to take a drive, you can’t do it. Secret Service won't let you. And that’s frustrating,' he said. 'But then there are other nights where B.B. King and Mick Jagger come over to your house to play for a concert. So I guess things even out a little bit.'”  Yikes.  Please inform Mr. Obama that some presidents have even taken to thinking, reading, or, as in Truman's case, playing their own instrument.  But I guess that's bargain-basement stuff.

LATEST UN TRIP TO IRAN FLOPS – The UN nuclear watchdog has expressed disappointment over his group's latest inspection trip to Iran.  Iran refused to let the team inspect the military site at Parchin, which is suspected of being a nuclear-weapons development facility.  But Iran, of course, has offered further negotiations, which it has offered for many, many years.  None of these talks has gone anywhere, and yet each Iranian offer of more mouth is greeted eagerly by the Obama administration, like a kid greeting an ice cream cone offered by a child molester.  So there will be more talks, while the White House gives the impression, accurate I think, that it thinks the main problem is Israel's potential attempt to destroy Iran's nuclear program, rather than the program itself. 

AMERICAN COMMON SENSE – The Obaman philosophers are probably upset at the thought that anyone could be an enemy of America during the Obama presidency, but Americans think differently.  A new Gallup poll shows that Americans believe Iran is America's greatest enemy.  Some 87% gave Iran a negative rating, the highest in the poll's history.  Some 32% ranked Iran as the greatest enemy, followed by China at 25%, and North Korea at 10%.  The number for Iran will undoubtedly jump if we move closer to a physical confrontation with Tehran.

MOVEMENT ON SYRIA – Aside from weakness, one of the most common characteristics of the Obama foreign policy is confusion.  There are times when no one seems quite sure what the policy is.  We have, for example, firmly ruled out military assistance to Syrian rebels, especially now that we've learned the rebel movement may be infiltrated by Al Qaeda.  But today, in coordinated statements, the White house and State Department spoke of "additional measures" that may be needed to stop the slaughter.  This phrase was widely interpreted as including possible military aid, of some kind, to those resisting the Assad regime.  But the slaughter continued today.

February 21, 2012       Permalink 

NEWT NAILS IT – AT 8:48 A.M. ET:   To say that Newt Gingrich is a loose cannon is an insult to artillery everywhere.  He's way down in the polls because he is the mouth that roars, and sometimes he gets himself into major trouble.

But at other times, such as those when he critiques the press, Newt is right on.  He might not make a good president, but he'd make a spectacular presidential adviser.   He has just nailed it with his comments on the danger Obama poses to national security:

TULSA, Okla. — While discussing the threat of Iran today to a crowd of about 4,000 people at Oral Roberts University, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said that defeating Barack Obama was “in fact, a duty of national security.”

“Because the fact is, he is incapable of defending the United States,” Gingrich said.

Gingrich told the crowd, many of them young students, there was a real threat of an American city being wiped out. Gingrich said the Obama administration refuses to acknowledge radical Islamists.

“All of you should be very deeply concerned about national security. Barack Obama is the most dangerous president in modern American history,” Gingrich said.

Gingrich said the Obama administration was demonstrating “willful dishonesty” over describing what motivated the suspected terrorist from Morocco, who was arrested Friday by FBI agents for allegedly plotting to blow up the Capitol.

“Any honest person knows what motivated the person who came here,” Gingrich said. “This is not smearing everybody, this is not Islamaphobia. If we can’t have honest conversation about radical Islamists and we can’t figure out — there is a very specific group of people across the planet — there’s a very specific desire to kill us.”

Newt is correct.  And some of the worst work is being done in the Pentagon, whose report on the Ford Hood terror incident refused to acknowledge the obvious religious motivations of the shooter, Major Hasan.  And other evil is being done in the Department of Justice, which is rewriting anti-terror manuals to exclude any mention of Islamic extremism.  How do you fight an enemy when you refuse to acknowledge him?

And Newt on Obama's energy policy:

Newt Gingrich is asserting that President Barack Obama pursues an "outrageously anti-American" energy policy that snubs the Keystone oil pipeline and puts too much stock in electric car technology to wean the country from foreign oil dependency.

The former House speaker tells CBS's "This Morning" show gasoline prices have skyrocketed since Obama took office. He says Obama entertains a "fantasy" that the electric car "is going to liberate us from Saudi Arabia."

COMMENT:  That's Newt at his best.  He articulates the issue.  He thinks big.  It's too bad some of his other, less noble traits, have laid him low.  But he makes an important contribution.

February 21, 2012       Permalink

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 8:43 A.M. ET:

MOSCOW – It was an Ice Age squirrel's treasure chamber, a burrow containing fruit and seeds that had been stuck in the Siberian permafrost for over 30,000 years. From the fruit tissues, a team of Russian scientists managed to resurrect an entire plant in a pioneering experiment that paves the way for the revival of other species.  The Silene stenophylla is the oldest plant ever to be regenerated, the researchers said, and it is fertile, producing white flowers and viable seeds.

I guess this means there's hope for the Republican Party.

RICKETY CANDIDATE – AT 8:18 A.M. ET:  As Rick Santorum gains in the polls, he is coming under the expected scrutiny.  Earlier in the campaign he was ignored.  It's no secret that many Republicans are almost panicked at the idea of a Santorum candidacy, believing he has no chance of winning in November.  Despite my admiration for Santorum, I'm inclined to agree.

But what is the Santorum problem?   Why is he so objectionable?  Is it his rigid social views, a turnoff to many independents?  Yes, that's part of it.  Is it the fact that he was defeated by 18 points in his last run for reelection to the Senate?  That's another part of it.

But there's something else, a matter of style and image, critical in a candidate.  John Podhoretz has written an insightful column that captures the problem:

The question is:  Can Santorum win the presidency?

He’s making hay with the famous “electability” argument against Romney, suggesting that the results in the GOP campaign thus far don’t suggest the former Massachusetts governor would have an easier time beating President Obama than he would.

Republican voters would be eminently mistaken to believe that. As things stand right now, Rick Santorum can’t win the presidency — and Mitt Romney can.

The chief problem with Santorum isn’t his views on contraception or homosexuality or what he might have said about Obama’s religion....

...No, Santorum’s problem is — forgive the technical graduate-school political-science terminology here — that he’s a sourpuss, and sourpusses don’t get elected president.

The former Pennsylvania senator looks like he swallowed a lemon — and he acts like America is the lemon he swallowed.
The most telling quote of his presidential run was this one last week in South Dakota: “I don't think God will continue to bless America if we continue to kill 1.2 million children every year.”

These are not lightly chosen words and Santorum doesn’t take them lightly, and that is to his credit. He believes abortion is murder, and therefore that mass murder is taking place in the United States — and that a country whose legal code condones mass murder will be judged for its sin the way Abraham Lincoln suggested in his second inaugural address that the Civil War was God’s judgment on America for the sin of slavery.

All this suggests that Santorum is animated and motivated by an unpleasantly bleak outlook on the morals and manners of the country he now says he wishes to lead.

And...

There is no way that a man who expresses such a dark view of the American national character can win the presidency.

Remember: This entire process is a job interview in which the candidates are trying to get hired by the electorate. Insulting the electorate and accusing it of spiritual weakness and sinfulness are not the ways to get yourself the job of president.

Whatever Romney’s failings, he certainly doesn’t suggest that the United States is teetering on the brink of a moral cesspool. He is running as an unapologetic believer in America as a “shining city upon a hill,” in the words of the 17th century clergyman John Winthrop, words much loved by John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.

America may be in a dour condition, but it is not going to elect a dour president. The question is whether Santorum’s dourness is deeply ingrained in him — or whether it’s something he can overcome in time for a general election campaign.

COMMENT:  Very incisive.  It is true that America generally elects optimists, not national scolds.  The one recent exception was Jimmy Carter, and you recall how that worked out. 

I admire Santorum because he lives his faith.  He isn't a religious hypocrite.  But he must be careful not to become the national preacher.  FDR said that the presidency was preeminently a place of moral leadership.  However, Roosevelt knew how to use that position, what his cousin Teddy called "the bully pulpit," without haranguing the American people. 

Santorum's current appeal is limited.  He must expand it if he wishes to run in a general election.

February 21, 2012        Permalink

AND BIGOTRY AT HOME – AT 8:06 A.M. ET:  I'm glad that conservatives are finally waking up to the danger of Media Matters, a left-wing media watchdog group, reportedly close to the Obama White House.  It is run by major-league whackjob David Brock, formerly a conservative writer who switched sides and became a left-wing zealot.  From the Daily Caller: 

Officials at the National Religious Broadcasters organization say they would support the government conducting an investigation into the non-profit tax status of Media Matters after The Daily Caller reported that the liberal group took a $50,000 grant to monitor and attack religious broadcasts.

In an interview with TheDC on Monday, Craig Parshall, the senior vice president and general counsel of the NRB, said he is “deeply disturbed” by the report and said the group welcomes the Internal Revenue Service looking into whether these activities by Media Matters violate its 501(c)3 non-profit status.

It was revealed in TheDC’s “Inside Media Matters” series last week that Media Matters took the grant in 2006 from the ARCA Foundation, a 60-year-old philanthropy that funds Democratic causes.

The Christian Post first reported the news over the weekend that NRB officials support an IRS investigation.

Critics of Media Matters have questioned the group’s non-profit status, accusing it of being activist and partisan.

“I’m wondering if Media Matters needs to re-state in its 990 to the IRS, ‘Oh yeah, our charitable purpose is to conduct Spanish inquisitions of Christian broadcasters and drive them out of the media market place,’” Parshall told TheDC.

COMMENT:  Media Matters has been in other trouble recently, accused of using anti-Semitic code words in commentary about the Middle East.  It is a pretty reckless group, and, even if a government probe isn't forthcoming, some real media scrutiny is needed.  The mainstream media won't touch the subject, but Fox might take a hard look.

February 21, 2012       Permalink

SAME OLD STUFF – AT 7:54 A.M.  ET:  I have to tell you, I am so sick and tired of reading stories like this.  From Fox:

KABUL, Afghanistan – More than 2,000 angry Afghans rallied Tuesday against the inadvertent burning of Korans and other Islamic religious materials during trash disposal at an American air base. They demanded to meet the country's president over the issue and threatened to demonstrate again if their demand was not met.

U.S. Gen. John Allen, the top commander in Afghanistan, apologized and ordered an investigation into the incident, which he was "not intentional in any way."

The incident stoked anti-foreign sentiment that already is on the rise after nearly a decade of war in Afghanistan and fueled the arguments of Afghans who believe foreign troops are not respectful of their culture or Islamic religion.

Early Tuesday, as word of the incident spread, about 100 demonstrators gathered outside the sprawling Bagram Air Field, north of Kabul in Parwan province. As the crowd grew, so did the outrage.

"Die, die, foreigners!" the demonstrators shouted. Some fired hunting guns into the air. Others threw rocks at the gate of the base.

COMMENT:  Okay, a mistake was made.  We regret it.  But these people are living in the 10th century, and it's time finally to say so.  I am weary of reading how "inflamed" Muslims become over every little perceived slight.  I recall some years ago, when there was another of these endless "incidents," and some of the faithful started shouting, "Oh Allah, we redeem thee with our souls and our blood."  A commentator asked at the time, "Who in this day and age talks that way?"  But if you say that on an American college campus, you're accused of hate speech.

What's ironic is that this incident is occurring at exactly the same moment when the president of the United States is openly insulting the beliefs of millions of American Christians by demanding that their institutions buy health-care provisions for their employees that offends the institutions' religious beliefs.  What Obama is doing is wrong, and possibly unconstitutional.  But please notice that there is no rioting in the streets, nobody being "inflamed," and no threats of violence.

All cultures are not equal.

February 21,  2012     Permalink

FEBRUARY 20,  2012

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 9:44 P.M. ET:

ROMNEY FIGHTS TO AVOID DISASTER – Gallup's latest national Republican tracking poll has Santorum at 36%, Romney at 26%, and Gingrich at 13%.  But Romney's immediate task is to avoid defeat in his home state, Michigan, which votes a week from tomorrow.  Romney has poured much treasure into that state, and it's showing in the polls.  He's now within three or points of Santorum, but even a narrow win in a state he was expected to take handily would be an embarrassment.

STAYCATIONS – Get used to the term.  It means vacations taken at home because of high gasoline prices.  Economists now predict a dramatic rise in staycations this summer.  Gasoline prices have never been higher at this time of year, and normally rise as summer approaches.  It is a golden opportunity for Republicans, as gasoline is expected to go well over four bucks a gallon, heading for five.  That Keystone Pipeline, favored by Republicans and rejected by Democrats, looks awfully good.

ANALYSIS OR POLITICS? – On the surface, at least, German and American military analysts are differing in their assessment of Israel's capacity to cripple the Iranian nuclear program.  A leading German analyst says he has no doubt Israel can do it.  But a New York Times story, obviously helped along by leaks from administration types, casts doubt on Israel's capability to do more than dent the Iranian program.  The Obamans are mounting a full-court press to try to talk the Israelis out of a strike, and the Times article is part of the package.

SHADES OF DAN QUAYLE – Remember when Vice President Dan Quayle was ridiculed over his misspelling of "potato"?  Now we see that a press release put out by current V.P. Joe Biden announces that Biden will be taking a trip to "Road Island."  I guess that's the 51st State.  I read this, by the way, in a British newspaper.  It certainly hasn't made any kind of splash in America.  I wonder why.  Maybe the mainstream media believes the Dems are so intellectually superior that they don't have to lower themselves to catch spelling errors.  Well, that's okay.  I'm planning my next trip to Virginya.

February 20, 2012       Permalink

JUST PATHETIC – AT 8:58 A.M. ET:  Even the liberal Los Angeles Times is reporting on the weakness of American policy toward Iran, under Barack Hussein Obama Jr.  We are supposed to be the leader of the free world.  Yeah, right.  Those were the days:

Reporting from Washington— Despite the Obama administration's vows to cripple Iran with economic sanctions, it is leaders in Congress and Europe who have seized the lead in the West's long-running campaign to punish Tehran for its suspected nuclear weapons program.

Imagine Europe leading America? 

In recent months, the toughest moves to deter Iran from pursuing its presumed nuclear ambitions have come from a bipartisan group in Congress and European allies, especially Britain and France. The White House at first resisted these steps before embracing them as inevitable.

And the country may reelect the Obaman crowd.  Embarrassing.

...top administration officials late last year were strongly resistant when Congress slapped Iran's central bank with harsh sanctions. The European Union then went further, however, imposing an embargo to halt purchases of Iranian oil by European nations over the ensuing five months.

This month, Congress began crafting legislation that would essentially cut Iran out of the global clearinghouse for international financial transactions known as SWIFT, or the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. The far-reaching step could inflict severe damage to Iran's economy by restricting the ability of banks and other institutions to move funds in or out of the country.

On Friday, SWIFT announced that it was "ready to implement sanctions against Iranian financial institutions" in response to new regulations the EU is set to enact.

Mark Dubowitz, an energy expert who has been advising Congress on sanctions, said the Obama administration has tried to add sanctions "in a measured way to assure international support and to avoid anything that would spook oil and financial markets."

But as concern over Iran's nuclear progress has intensified, members of Congress, with support from the French and British governments, "have really taken the lead in being aggressive," said Dubowitz, who is executive director of a pro-sanctions group called Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

COMMENT:   Did we ever think we'd see the day when Britain and France were tougher than the United States?  We're seeing it now, and we saw it in Libya. 

It's pretty clear that the more rational European nations, having been initially dazzled by Obama, now realize what a bowl of Jello-O he really is.  But what is the reason for his weakness?  Is it really a strategy, or does he have, as many suspect, a certain sympathy for the Islamic world, including some of its roughest actors?  I'm afraid I'm coming to the conclusion that the latter is the answer.  The president's background, his culture, is attuned to the "third world."  But he wasn't elected president of the "third world."  He was elected president of the United States.  I hope the Republicans are strong enough to remind him of that in the fall.

February 20, 2012       Permalink

WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL – AT 8:36 A.M. ET:  This is one of the best, and best argued columns I've read in a long time.  It's by Nick Cohen, a British leftist writer who's had the guts to take on his own side.  Here, in London's Spectator, he challenges the "human rights" hypocrisy of the left.  This is a must read:

Human rights campaigners need to follow a self-denying ordinance if they are not to become enemies of the values they espouse. Like a civil servant or judge, they must leave their passions at the office door, and oppose the oppressive, whoever they are and whatever the consequences. It is easy for me to say that, but the record of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International tells you that it is hard for them to do so. To their politically committed workers impartiality can feel a thin and bloodless doctrine. It requires them to criticise people they regard as friends and provide inadvertent comfort to enemies.

Very well said.

The effort required in maintaining universal principles is too much for them, and explains why human rights organisations have gone off the rails. If you need convincing, look at the introduction to the Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2012 by Kenneth Roth, its ‘Executive Director’. is grandiose title is warning enough. It suggests that Roth sees himself more as a corporate leader than a liberal campaigner. The Executive Director’s analysis of the Middle East does nothing to dispel that suspicion.

Human Rights Watch’s main concern is opposing western governments. Fair enough, there is much to oppose, particularly in their policies on the Middle East. But the danger is that liberals start believing that their enemy’s enemy is their friend, and embrace Islamists, who are anything but liberal. You could write a book about why the liberal-left has become the excuser and indulger of reactionaries. In fact, I have written a book about it.

The point to bear in mind is that wealthy westerners, who call themselves liberals and feminists, have become the least reliable defenders of liberals and feminists from the poor world, who need their support. Nowhere more so than in the Middle East.

Cohen goes on to discuss the plight of Gita Sahgal, who was head of Amnesty International's gender section – that is, until she spoke out against Islamist persecution of women.  She was forced out. 

This is a devastating column.  It will not win Cohen many friends on the left, which has become its own religion.  But it is important, and I urge you to read it all.

February 20, 2012       Permalink

THE MITT MESS – AT 8:16 A.M. ET:  It's hard to pin it down, but you get the feeling that many Republicans really have it in for Mitt Romney.  The guy seems decent enough.  Sure, he's flip-flopped on some issues, but even Reagan was very much a compromiser when conditions warranted.  Romney has built a competent, well-functioning campaign machine.  He appears to have less baggage than any other candidate, certainly less than Santorum.  But none of this seems to matter.  From the Washington Times:

Mitt Romney’s second go-round at a presidential run is not going so well.

Nine states have voted so far, and in six of them the former Massachusetts governor has shed supporters who voted for him in 2008, winning fewer votes in each of those states than he did last time.

It’s the latest signal that this year’s race is unlike any other in recent memory, even though it follows the familiar Republican pattern of an heir apparent and a set of credible but outmatched challengers.

“Romney doesn’t seem to have a cause,” said John J. Pitney Jr., a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College in California. “There’s no Romney faction in the Republican Party. John McCain was able to present himself as the champion of political reform. [Ronald] Reagan was the champion of conservatives. Romney is trying to portray himself as a generic Republican, and I think a lot of Republicans regard him as a resident alien in the conservative movement, not as a full-fledged citizen.”...

...Mr. Romney has done worse in caucuses in Iowa, Nevada, Colorado, Minnesota and Maine, and also in Missouri’s primary — though that contest was nonbinding. In Minnesota, Mr. Romney won less than a third of the votes he won there in 2008, while in Colorado he won 30 percent fewer votes.

Still, when all of the states are combined, Mr. Romney has won more individual votes at this point in the race than Mr. McCain won in his successful 2008 nomination bid. With turnout running behind 2008’s total, Mr. Romney’s share of the vote is significantly higher — 39 percent — than Mr. McCain’s 34 percent.

COMMENT:  Once a tag is attached to a candidate, it is very hard for him to shake it.  Increasingly, Republicans seem to see Romney in exactly the terms described by Professor Pitney, in the quoted story:  a resident alien.  Not one of us.  Too wishy-washy, too preppy, not enough backbone.  These may be very unfair charges, but it's up to Romney to counter them, and thus far he hasn't succeeded.  That is his challenge as we approach the most critical primary period.

February 20, 2012       Permalink

WHAT IS THIS PARTY ABOUT? – AT 7:49 A.M. ET:  The next weeks will be critical for the Republican Party, and possibly for the country.  By the evening of March 6th, Super Tuesday, we will know whether Mitt Romney's "frontrunning" campaign is really that, or a fading mirage. 

And we may learn whether Rick Santorum really can be the Republican nominee.

How did we get to this point?  The assumed frontrunner, a man who's been running for president for four years, has failed to ignite any real enthusiasm in a party that has a golden chance to take back the presidency.  And his emerging main challenger is a warmed-over former senator, a very fine man, who is seen by many thoughtful observers as a zealot who cannot possibly attract the support of independents, who are crucial to victory in November.  He lost his last Senate race, in Pennsylvania, by 18 points.

We got to this point because the Republican Party failed to cultivate, develop and encourage its best people.  Look at those who have declined to run:  Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels, Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, Jeb Bush.  And a well-organized, muscular party would have made contact with David Petraeus, before Petraeus was sidelined by Obama with an offer of the CIA directorate.

Is there not one current Republican senator interested in the presidency?

Is there not one current Republican governor who would like to move up?

People say that all this doesn't matter, that whoever emerges from the convention will suddely take on a new aura, that he will automatically be considered presidential.  Nice try, but the Republicans fail to grasp what the press will do to that candidate immediately.  And if he is bleeding from a primary campaign, all the worse.

Oh, but wait, say the deniers.  Look at 2008, and the competition between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.  They went at it until June, and yet Obama emerged from his convention unscathed.  Yeah, but once again the GOP fails to factor in the role of the press in that contest.  Also, both candidates were seen as vigorous, current, and attractive, at least by a majority of the voters.  What do voters make of a Rick Santorum, or even a Romney?  Hash.

There is increasing talk of a contested convention.  Karl Rove poured water all over that one, saying it will never happen.  I think he may be wrong, but a contested convention that wants to start the nominating process all over must have an alternative candidate, someone so obvious that all the primary results, after the first few ballots at the convention, will be put through the shredder.  I can't see any such candidate. 

And that is the Republican dilemma, the dilemma of a party with great opportunities, but without the messengers to exploit that opportunity.  It is the dilemma of a party that, to many voters, seems to lack core values, except for an inordinate concern for the tax bills of millionaires.  It is a party in trouble, and it's in trouble for the same reason the Democratic Party went into decline in the early 70s – it is being whipped around by factions more interested in ideological purity than practical results.

These will be a fascinating two or three weeks ahead.  We hope that something will result that will be better than four more years of Barack Obama.

February 20,  2012     Permalink