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WEDNESDAY,  JANUARY 7,  2009

FUND DRIVE? - at 6:31 p.m. ET:  We are seriously considering a fund drive here at Urgent Agenda to send Chris Matthews to an appropriate mental-health facility.  The latest has Matthews commenting on NBC reporter Chuck Todd's first-time questioning of Barack Obama:

On MSNBC minutes later, Chris Matthews noted that it was Todd's first time in what's essentially a prelude to the White House briefing room.

"I noticed the familiarity between you and the President-elect," Matthews joked, adding that Obama called the rookie correspondent "Chuck" a few times.

Matthews then said that Todd had "just lost his virginity" by asking his first question.

COMMENT:  Lost his virginity?  Matthews is the same guy who said he got a tingle up his leg whenever he heard Obama speak.  This man has issues, and only a trained person can deal with them.  We extend our sympathies and stress that there is no shame in having unusual feelings.

 
ACTUAL HEADLINE AT THE WASHINGTON TIMES - AT 6:11 P.M.:

Busy Gupta performs brain surgery, reports for CNN

COMMENT:  We have standards here, and will avoid CNN jokes.  But I can't control what you're thinking.

OF COURSE, I ALWAYS INTENDED - AT 4:49 P.M. ET: 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the incoming chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Wednesday she intends to support President-elect Barack Obama's choice for CIA chief, Leon Panetta, despite earlier comments that she had reservations about the choice.

COMMENT:  You know, as Obama's inauguration approaches, things are getting more cynical by the hour.  Suddenly Di-Fi is supporting a man she doubted, even before hearings are held.  Such change we can believe in.  Such change.

BE SEATED - AT 4:48 P.M. ET: 

WASHINGTON (CBS) —

Senate leaders began to clear the way for Roland Burris to take over President-elect Barack Obama's vacant seat, saying they wanted the issue resolved quickly.

Burris met Wednesday with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Dick Durbin, a day after his paperwork was rejected at the opening of the 111th Congress.

They called the meeting ''positive'' and indicated that the Senate would be open to seating Burris once legal hurdles are resolved and Burris clears the air over his appointment.

COMMENT:  This is a sordid affair.  Apparently, the law is on Burris's side, but his blatant playing of the race card - surrounded by African-American supporters whenever he appeared - was sickening.  I repeat an earlier comment:  The president-elect should have intervened to prevent this racially charged spectacle.  You'd also think that black leaders would have wanted to insure that this appointment to the Senate, to fill the seat of the first black president, would be pristine.  For some, though, this "moment in history" is just business as usual. 

DOW NOW - AT 4:35 P.M. ET:  The Dow closed down 245 points, to 8770, erasing most of 2009 gains.

GREETINGS FOR OBAMA - AT 1:26 P.M. ET:  From The New York Times: 

Worries about falling profits and soaring unemployment dragged Wall Street lower on Tuesday, damping some of the optimism that had crept back into the markets in the new year.

Stock markets dropped sharply on Wednesday as warnings from the media company Time Warner and the computer chip maker Intel foreshadowed a bleak season for fourth-quarter corporate earnings.

COMMENT:  Obama will hit the ground spending, but a quick tax cut would be the best way to move forward.  The money goes immediately back to the people, rather than to programs that can take years to implement.
 

BERNARD LEWIS

Posted at 8:14 a.m. ET

It's always a pleasure to quote Bernard Lewis, who probably knows more about the Mideast than any other Westerner.  Of course, the new academic crowd has tried to destroy Lewis and replace him with the usual anti-American "scholars," but Professor Lewis (Princeton) fights on, brilliantly:

One approach to peace is exemplified by the policies of Anwar Sadat, president of Egypt until his assassination in 1981. He sought peace and publicly declared his willingness even to go to Jerusalem. Sadat did not take these measures because he was suddenly persuaded of the merits of Zionism. His reason was more practical and immediate -- his awareness, shared by a growing number of his compatriots, that Egypt was rapidly becoming a Soviet colony. Already the Soviet presence in Egypt was more widespread and more obtrusive than the British had been.

And...

In several Arab countries at the present time, and in wider Arab circles, there is a growing perception that once again they face a danger more deadly and menacing than Israel at its worst: the threat of militant, radical Shiite Islam, directed from Iran.

The Arab dilemma:

During the war in Lebanon in 2006 between Israel and the Iranian-supported Shiite militia Hezbollah, the usual Arab support for the Arab side in a conflict was strikingly absent. It was clear that some Arab governments and Arab peoples were hoping for an Israeli victory, which did not materialize. Their disappointment was palpable.

We see similar ambiguities over the situation in Gaza.  On the one hand, pan-Arab loyalty demands support for Gaza, under whatever type of Arab rule, against the encroaching Israelis. On the other, many see the Gaza enclave -- ruled by Hamas, a Sunni group but increasingly controlled by Iran -- as a mortal threat to the Sunni Arab establishment all round.

The plot thickens:

In this situation, it is not impossible that some consensus will emerge, along the lines of Sadat’s accommodation with Israel, for the maintenance of the status quo. Such a peace, like that between Egypt and Israel, would be at best cool, and always threatened by radical forces both inside and outside. But it would certainly be better than a state of war, and it could last a long time.

The second hope for change would be the growth of real democracy in the Arab world. Though unlikely at the present time, there are signs that such a development is not impossible.

Some Arabs have even been willing to speak out and welcome Israel as a pioneer of democracy in the region, a model that could help them to develop their own democratic institutions.

And...

In the past, any assessment of the prospects for peace in the region would have assigned a major, perhaps decisive, role to outside powers. This is not true today.

The U.S., no longer confronting the challenge of a global rival, and amply provided with cheap oil, is unlikely to involve itself in the messy politics of the region. Russia, no longer resigned to being marginalized, has resumed some role in the Middle East. But it remains minor, and Russia is seriously impeded by its own Islamic problems at home.

In earlier times one would have assigned a major role to Europe, but at the present day what matters is not so much the European role in the Middle East as the Middle Eastern role in Europe. A prominent Syrian intellectual recently remarked that the most important question about the future of Europe is: Will it be an Islamized Europe, or a Europeanized Islam?

Lewis is always worth reading.  He brings vast knowledge, something in short supply in the chattering classes.

January 7, 2009.      Permalink          

SLEAZE COMES TO TOWN - AT 7:53 A.M. ET:  It appears that no-self-respect Roland Burris, appointed by disgraced Governor Rod Blagojevich to the Senate seat vacated by the president elect, will get to sit down after all.  From AP: 

WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats are looking for ways to defuse the standoff that has denied Roland Burris the vacated Senate seat of President-elect Barack Obama of Illinois, but maybe not much longer...

...Knowledgeable Senate officials in both parties said the saga was widely expected to end with Burris being seated.

COMMENT:  It's sad that the Senate seat held by the first African American to be elected president should be filled in such a sleazy manner.  Illinois Democrats should have made every effort to fill this seat in accordance with the highest ethical standards and with the best possible candidate, as a tribute to the president elect.  But Illinois Democrats don't know from high ethical standards. 

MORE FOOD FIGHTING - AT 7:23 A.M. ET:  From The New York Times, on the competition for the Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton:

Even as Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo insisted he was staying out of the competition for New York’s soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat, a top Cuomo aide urged labor leaders and upstate officials to refrain from embracing Caroline Kennedy for the job, according to several people with direct knowledge of the conversations.

Now, for those of you who don't follow the gossip, Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo is the son of former Governor Mario Cuomo.  He is also the ex-husband of Kerry Kennedy, daughter of the late Robert Kennedy.  Their divorce was spectacular, a real juicy mess.  So there's a family feud at work here in New York.  This can get very ugly very fast.

THE SAME-OLD STORY - AT 7:15 A.M. ET:  Israel will call a three-hour cease-fire in Gaza today to allow in humanitarian supplies.  I don't recall any country calling a cease-fire so its enemy can be fed and treated.  But the press is, as usual, turning increasingly against Israel.  After all, Israel wants to win against Hamas terrorism, and the concept of victory is considered beneath the high-minded level of intellectual elites.

At the same time, Hamas bluntly rejected any permanent cease-fire with Israel:

Despite mounting international pressure for an end to hostilities between Israel and Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip, Hamas declared on Wednesday that they would not accept any permanent cease-fire with Israel.

Let's see how much criticism they get.  Don't hold your breath.

FOOD FIGHT - AT 7:06 A.M. ET:   So Paul Krugman, reliably leftist columnist for The New York Times, and, to be fair, Nobel laureate in economics, doesn't like Obama's apparent pick for surgeon general of the United States, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, of the equally leftist CNN.  Oh, it's so much fun to see them fight:

So apparently Obama plans to appoint CNN’s Sanjay Gupta as Surgeon General. I don’t have a problem with Gupta’s qualifications. But I do remember his mugging of Michael Moore over Sicko. You don’t have to like Moore or his film; but Gupta specifically claimed that Moore “fudged his facts," when the truth was that on every one of the allegedly fudged facts, Moore was actually right and CNN was wrong. 

Oh, I love it, I love it.  They will battle over the intellectual honesty of Michael Moore.  That's like fighting over the long-term vision of Fannie Mae. 

TUESDAY,  JANUARY 6,  2009

WE'RE NOT IN THE MONEY - AT 7:55 P.M. ET:  From The Politico: 

President-elect Barack Obama said Tuesday that $1 trillion deficits could last for “years to come” as he sought to make the case for budget reforms amid an economy in peril.

Obama’s warning came as he met for the second consecutive day in Washington with his top economic officials, this time in a session devoted to fixing the budget process.

COMMENT:  Suddenly the realities of governing are closing in on Obama.  Both Republicans and Democrats are asking tough questions.  Obama's first hundred days may be more of a marriage counseling session than a honeymoon.

COLEMAN FIGHTS - AT 5:06 P.M. ET: 

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Republican Norm Coleman said Tuesday he is suing to challenge Democrat Al Franken's apparent recount victory in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race, delaying a resolution of the contest for weeks or months.

At a Capitol news conference filled with cheering supporters, Coleman said he won't accept a board's determination a day earlier that Franken won 225 more votes in the November election. He had a seven-day window to file the lawsuit.

"We are filing this contest to make absolutely sure every valid vote was counted and no one's was counted more than anyone else's," Coleman said.

COMMENT:  Probably a good move.  It's unlikely Coleman would be doing this unless his lawyers told him he has a good chance of prevailing.  The recount was strange, to put it mildly.  It's a time to fight. 

JEB OUT - AT 4:55 P.M. ET:  From The Washington Post:

UPDATED, 3:48 p.m. ET: Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush will not run for the open Senate seat of Sen. Mel Martinez, he announced in a statement released moments ago.

"After thoughtful consideration, I have decided not to run for the United States Senate in 2010," said Bush. "While the opportunity to serve my state and country during these turbulent and dynamic times is compelling, now is not the right time to return to elected office."

COMMENT:  A big blow to Florida Republicans.  Some reports say personal and business considerations were behind the Bush decision.  There is some speculation that he might run for president in 2012, but that would be a stretch.  While popular in Florida, Bush would be hindered nationally by identification with his less than popular brother, President Bush.

APPEASEMENT, OBAMA STYLE - AT 4:53 P.M. ET: 

WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Tuesday that President-elect Barack Obama apologized to her for not notifying her ahead of time that Leon Panetta was his pick for CIA director.

His name leaked to the press before Obama informed Feinstein, a California Democrat and incoming Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, who will oversee Panetta's nomination hearing.

"I have been contacted by both President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden, and they have explained to me the reasons why they believe Leon Panetta is the best candidate for CIA Director," she said.

COMMENT:  Sen. Feinstein is sending a message to Obama - don't mess with Congressional powers.  So now he's apologizing, not messing.  We live, we learn.

JEOPARDY FOR OBAMA A-G PICK - AT 4:25 P.M. ET:  From The New York Times:  WASHINGTON – A leading Republican senator issued a broad attack Tuesday on President-elect Obama’s pick as attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., and questioned the nominee’s political independence in advance of Mr. Holder’s confirmation hearing next week.

COMMENT:  The fact that the attack came from Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, a liberal Republican from a state with a large African-American population, is significant.  (Holder is black.)  Republicans are signalling that they aren't rolling over, and that's good.  Holder has some significant ethical problems, something not a plus in any nominee, especially one for attorney general.  Holder will be confirmed, but there'll be pounds of sweat.

HINT NOT TAKEN - AT 11:29 A.M. ET: 

WASHINGTON (AP) _ President-elect Barack Obama's appointed successor was turned away when he appeared at the U.S. Capitol to take his seat.

Roland Burris announced the decision to deny him the seat as he stood before a large throng of reporters and cameras in the rain outside the Capitol building.

COMMENT:  You'd think Mr. Burris would have more dignity than to go through with this charade.  Who would want even to accept an appointment to the Senate from the corrupt governor of Illinois?

HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD?  FINALLY?  - AT 10:30 A.M. ET:  Talk-show host Mike Scully - I'll be doing his show tomorrow and will give you details - reminds us of Andrew Breitbart's great new site focusing on conservatives in Hollywood, and the need for same.  It's here.  Check it out.

MODERATE DEMOCRATS?  REALLY?

Posted at 10:28 a.m. ET

Some good news from Congress?  Let me pinch myself.

The New York Times reports that the new Congress may have a decidedly moderate cast, thanks in large measure to moderates elected as Democrats.  Dennis Kucinich must be taking pills over this:

Building on the 2006 class that gave Democrats a majority, this freshman class serves to broaden a moderate coalition considered more conservative on social issues, particularly in the House. The Democratic leadership almost certainly will be mindful — as it was in the 2008 election — of the members’ individual vulnerabilities, especially since several were elected by extraordinarily narrow margins.

Guess it wasn't the wipeout that the mainstream media was screaming about on election night.

Gary C. Jacobson, an expert on Congress and a professor at the University of California/San Diego, described the cumulative impact of the 2006 and 2008 elections: “I think the effect is to move the Democratic caucus somewhat to the right and if it wants to stay as large as it is now, it has to accommodate these folks.

“You’re not going to see any wild, left-wing policymaking,” he added. “You’re not going to get the Berkeley wish-list out of this crowd.”

Oh goody.  I can sleep well tonight.

A former Nixon aide, Walt Minnick of Idaho, was elected as a moderate Democrat:

Mr. Minnick has already joined the emerging chorus of conservative Democrats, sometimes known as blue-dog Democrats, to sound alarms over the potential for ballooning deficits sure to accompany a stimulus package estimated at $875 billion to a trillion dollars. “I feel very strongly that the federal government needs to live within its means,” Mr. Minnick, a timber executive from Boise, said.

A Democrat said this?  Is he still alive?

Aaron Schock, the 27-year-old Republican from Illinois, was even more insistent that taxpayers have grown increasingly impatient with bailout after bailout. “There’s a level of frustration from people saying enough taking care of fat cats, the executives, the stockholders,” he said.

And that's good, coming from a Republican.

So the old adage applies:  Be careful what you wish for.  You may get it.  The Democrats increased their majority, but the liberal left in the party may actually have been weakened by the last election.  We await the first call from Manhattanites and San Franciscans to secede, and maintain their ideological purity.  It will come.

January 6, 2008.      Permalink          

CAROLINE NO HIT - AT 8:26 A.M. ET:  Caroline Kennedy, who'd like to be appointed senator from New York to succeed Hillary Clinton, is apparently not making the grade in the court of public opinion, as WCBS reports:

NEW YORK (CBS) —

Caroline Kennedy appears to be losing momentum in her bid for Hillary Clinton's U.S. Senate seat.

A new survey conducted by Public Policy Polling shows 58 percent of voters would prefer to see Gov. David Paterson appoint state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to the seat.

That's compared to Kennedy's 27 percent.

Among Democratic voters, Cuomo leads by about 20 points. That's about the same lead Kennedy enjoyed just a month earlier.

COMMENT:  Kennedy has done poorly in interviews.  In the media age, that's a devastating minus.  It's sad because, by every account, she's a lovely woman.  But lovely doesn't quite do it.  And most Americans alive today don't remember her father, who was assassinated some 45 years ago, so the name doesn't have the impact it once did. 

CHILLY TOWARD PANETTA

Posted at 7:55 a.m.

The Obama team, as it starts its maiden voyage in government, may have brushed an iceberg.  The president-elect's selection of Leon Panetta to head the CIA has been met with a big chill.

It isn't that Panetta is unpopular.  He's a former congressman and White House chief of staff under Bill Clinton, and is respected as both competent and smart.  But in a time of war the nation usually expects a CIA director to have some experience in intelligence work.  The Panetta resumé is blank on that one.  CQ reports, in a dispatch carried by Yahoo:

The incoming and outgoing chairs of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee signaled concerns about President-elect Barack Obama's choice of Leon E. Panetta to head the CIA, primarily because of Panetta's thin intelligence resume.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who was miffed that she wasn't consulted on the nomination, reiterated her stand that a CIA director should have relevant experience.

Added an aide to John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., who served as chairman of the committee in the 110th Congress: "I think, based on press reporting if it proves correct, Sen. Rockefeller has some concerns about his selection. Not because he has any concerns about Panetta, whom he thinks very highly of, but because he has no intelligence experience and because he has believed this has always been a position that should be outside of the political realm."

Not much applause there.

Christopher S. Bond, R-Mo., vice chairman of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, questioned the choice.

"Job No. 1 at the CIA is to track down and stop terrorists," Bond said in a statement. "In a post-9/11 world, intelligence experience would seem to be a prerequisite for the job of CIA director."

If Panetta were a Broadway show, it would be closing already.

But not everyone was opposed:

"First of all, he's certainly dealt with a lot of intelligence," said Hamilton, an Obama ally. "In the Iraq Study Group we dealt with it every day. As chief of staff in the White House, you deal with it every day, too."

Hamilton said Panetta would need top deputies from the intelligence community. "It's a complicated, arcane business," he noted. But he added, "What his strength will be is he brings an outsider's perspective to the intelligence community."

I'm not sure Panetta will want such faint praise.  "Dealing" with intelligence is far from being an expert on intelligence operations or how to run a spy agency.  I "deal" with medical matters whenever I read a medical story.  But I'm not a physician. 

Look, he'll probably be confirmed.  But the choice is disappointing because Obama has bowed to the left wing of his party, which opposed any new CIA director who had anything to do with intelligence operations under the Bush administration.  That pretty much ruled out anyone who'd served in the last eight years.  The Panetta apointment is the equivalent of Harry Truman choosing a military leader in 1946, to confront the Soviet Union, who hadn't served in World War II.

Not change we can believe in.

January 6, 2009.      Permalink          

CHAVEZ CLOSES THE TAP - AT 7:14 A.M. ET:  From the Boston Herald:

Joe Kennedy announced yesterday he’s laying off 20 employees and temporarily halting most of his winter fuel-assistance programs due to Citgo yanking $100 million in support for the nonprofit Citizens Energy.

Citgo, owned by the Venezuelan government led by leftist loudmouth president Hugo Chavez, recently informed Kennedy that it was “temporarily” suspending its oil donations for the low-income program.

Kennedy, who was clearly distraught by the unexpected decision, said Citgo’s move is apparently tied to the recent dramatic fall in crude-oil prices.

COMMENT:  In the story, Kennedy says he'll try to meet with Chavez to turn this around, and urged people to write to the Venezuelan "leader."  This is pathetic - asking Americans to go begging to an America-hating thug.  Most outrageous, the request comes from a member of the family of an American president who vowed to pay "any price" in defense of freedom.  Joe, this is what happens when you depend on people like Chavez.  Why can't you understand it? 

THE RULES OF GAZA - AT 6:56 A.M. ET:  --  From Mona Charen at Real Clear Politics:

It was lost amid the news of Israel's counterattack on Hamas in the past few days, but Hamas' leadership passed several new laws for Gaza in December. They've adopted the Sharia criminal code, which legalizes a number of medieval punishments including cutting off of hands, stoning, lashing, and crucifixion. Possession of wine will now get you 40 lashes in Gaza City. Thus does Hamas express its solidarity with its patron and inspiration, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

COMMENT:  Toward the end of World War II, General Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered American soldiers marched through the newly liberated death camps of the Third Reich.  He said at the time that American boys might not know what they were fighting for, but at least they would see what they were fighting against.  The paragraph above gives us a small glimpse of what, today, the free nations are fighting against.  The question is whether we will care enough, and see the battle through.