AT THE ANGEL'S CORNER TONIGHT:

1.  The President's failure
2.  Whatever became of Hollywood?
3.  The solemn giving of the Pompous Fool Award
4.  The Forum

(subject to change if events warrant)

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1.  ALFRED HITCHCOCK EXPLAINS THE WORLD
2.  A HITCH LESSON IN IRAN

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WEDNESDAY,  JUNE 17,  2009

McCAIN BLASTS OBAMA - AT 10:11 P.M. ET:  Senator John McCain properly goes after President Obama over the president's Carteresque approach to the pro-democracy demonstrations in Iran.  The president seems to be getting his inspiration from the peanut farmer from Plains and his operational advice from the apostles of Brent Scowcroft, Bush 41's less-than-brilliant national security adviser.  McCain dissents, as The Politico reports:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) criticized President Barack Obama Wednesday for failing to take a strong leadership role in voicing opposition to the election results in Iran.

“I do not believe that the president is taking the leadership that is incumbent upon an American president, which we have throughout modern history, and that is to advocate for human rights and freedom, and free elections are one of those fundamentals,” McCain said during an interview on CNN.

McCain said the president “obviously doesn’t agree” that Iranians have the right to protest the election results as a “fundamental principle.”

COMMENT:  We'll be discussing this tonight at The Angel's Corner.  McCain is correct, and he is right to use the phrase "incumbent upon an American president..."  We expect certain behavior of our presidents.  Part of that behavior is the upholding of American ideals.

But what happens when we have a president who, clearly, has a certain contempt for his own country and its history?  A president who seems to have no "feel" for American culture?  And those American ideals? 

Well, we see what happens.  Aren't you proud?

June 17, 2009   Permalink 

UP, UP, UP - AT 7:10 P.M. ET:  We have always felt here that a rise in gasoline prices has the potential to alter the political landscape:

NEW YORK (AP) - Retail gas prices climbed for the 50th straight day Wednesday, and crude prices that had slumped all week bounced back.

Historically, filling station prices tend to rise during the summer as millions of Americans take to the road. But a surge in crude prices during the past few months and less production from the refiners that make gasoline has added pressure on prices.

"Refiners slowed production and did a lot of maintenance on the expectation that this was going to be a lousy year for demand," said Fred Rozell, retail pricing director at Oil Price Information Service. "It turns out it wasn't so bad."

COMMENT:  So far the in-the-tank press hasn't asked the White House many questions about gasoline prices.  After all, most reporters either don't drive to work, or drive very short distances.  They may not feel it as much.

But higher energy prices can stifle an economic recovery, fuel (pun intended) inflation, and lead to gas lines, tensions, and discontent.  If prices continue to rise into the 2010 midterm election year, the political effect could be serious.  If, added to these prices, Americans suddenly see sharp rises in electric bills because of global-warming legislation, and both GM and Chrysler continue into failure, things could get very dicey for the party in power.

Gasoline prices, and home-heating-oil prices, aren't abstractions, like the national debt.  People experience them every day.

June 17, 2009   Permalink

OH, THESE COUNTRY PEOPLE, WITH THEIR LITTLE PICKUPS, ARE SUCH A NUISANCE - AT 1:34 P.M. ET:  We've been reporting on this, the emergence of a solid group of moderate Democrats who find it possible to resist The One and his band of followers in Congress.  This has happened in the Democratic Party before.  The Politico reports:

Angered by White House decisions on everything from greenhouse gases to car dealerships, congressional Democrats from rural districts are threatening to revolt against parts of President Barack Obama’s ambitious first-year agenda.

“They don’t get rural America,” said Rep. Dennis Cardoza, a Democrat who represents California’s agriculture-rich Central Valley. “They form their views of the world in large cities.”

Not only don't they "get" rural America, they don't like rural America.  Those are the people who rush to recruiting stations in time of war, who actually believe their country is worth defending, and who don't feel that the major goal in life is getting 700s on their college boards.  What kind of people could these be?

Without their votes, Democrats can’t move legislation over Republican filibusters — such as the one sure to come if the health care plan that moves through the Senate includes a public option supported by the administration.

In the House, rural Democrats threaten to marshal nearly 50 votes against the climate and energy bill backed by the administration.

One issue is coal.  Many of those running the Democratic Party have probably never seen a lump of coal.  If they do encounter one, they immediately put on their Ralph Lauren gas masks. 

And many of these regions that run on coal also happen to be electoral swing states, leaving Republicans licking their chops.

“It will cost every North Carolinian somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,400 to $3,000 a year in just the electrical surcharge,” said Sen. Richard Burr, a Republican who hails from a state Obama carried last year and would like to win again. “That’s a surcharge larger than their annual electric bill.”

COMMENT:  Look for a restoration of the traditional coalition of Republicans and moderate Democrats.  The liberal left thought it would be running things, but Americans have other ideas.  We continue to argue that a well-run Republican campaign next year can reverse some of the losses of the last two congressional elections.  Look at those electrical surcharges projected for North Carolina.  How many voters would vote the masterminds behind those surcharges back into office? 

June 17, 2009   Permalink

ANOTHER EXPRESSION OF DEVOTED PUBLIC SERVICE AND SINCERE INQUIRY - AT 8:22 A.M. ET:  I guess he thinks no one is watching:

WASHINGTON — Congress wants to meet the Uighurs — in sunny Bermuda.

A top Democrat is planning a field hearing in the Atlantic paradise to give four ex-Guantanamo Bay inmates recently resettled there a chance to deny lingering accusations of terrorism ties.

"I hope to conduct a hearing in Bermuda and have these four indivuals testify," said Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.), who chairs a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee. He did not set a date.

Field hearings on foreign soil — or sand — are rare.

It would also be uncomfortable for Bermuda and the Obama administration.

Britain has accused its two allies of blindsiding it with a controversial deal that moved hundreds to stage a protest Tuesday outside Bermuda's cabinet building.

Delahunt gave a hint of how a hearing in Bermuda would unfold by assembling a friendly panel on Capitol Hill Tuesday.

COMMENT:  So, let's see:  The released Gitmo detainees are swimming in the Bermuda surf.  And Congressman Delahunt will soon be swimming in that same Bermuda surf, in between these serious "hearings."

Wonder what our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are doing today?  They're not swimming in the surf.

They used to call trips like these "junkets."  But now, with the Dems in power, the press will call them "commissions of inquiry."

Oh, get the next to the last paragraph:  "Britain has accused its two allies..."  Bermuda is an ally of Great Britain?  It's a British overseas territory.  But geography is such a middle-class, pre-multicultural, imperialist concept.

June 17, 2009   Permalink 

SHOCKED, SHOCKED - AT 7:23:  From The Washington Times:

Relations between ABC News and President Obama are being criticized as becoming too intimate, as the network announced it would produce a prime-time broadcast from the White House that includes questions solicited from viewers without equal time for the Republican point of view.

Media credibility and fairness are at issue, with waggish bloggers renaming ABC the "All Barack Channel."

At issue is "Prescription for America," a live, one-hour special to be moderated by ABC's Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer, set to air at 10 p.m. June 24 from the East Room. Even before that prime-time hour, Ms. Sawyer will have interviewed Mr. Obama on "Good Morning America," and Mr. Gibson will have anchored "World News Tonight" from the White House's Blue Room.

COMMENT:  I find it shocking, shocking, that some rabid right-wing, Bible-thumping, Iraq-liberating, missile-defending, tax-cutting bloggers would accuse that fine news organization of anything but absolutely balanced reporting.  I'm upset enough to complain to Bill Moyers.

Why, don't you recall Charlie Gibson's fair, balanced and entirely gracious interview with Sarah Palin during the last campaign?  The way he helped her through, showing respect and deference.  Mock this neutral journalist?  That's treason.

You can stop laughing now.

June 17, 2009   Permalink

WHAT DOES THE PRESIDENT WANT, AND WHEN DOES HE WANT IT?  Robert Kagan, in the Washington Post, provides a superbly argued analysis of the Obama policy on Iran, complete with its ugly cynicism.  Yes, we'll sure feel proud of America again, won't we?

Obama's policy now requires getting past the election controversies quickly so that he can soon begin negotiations with the reelected Ahmadinejad government. This will be difficult as long as opposition protests continue and the government appears to be either unsettled or too brutal to do business with. What Obama needs is a rapid return to peace and quiet in Iran, not continued ferment. His goal must be to deflate the opposition, not to encourage it. And that, by and large, is what he has been doing.

If you find all this disturbing, you should. The worst thing is that this approach will probably not prevent the Iranians from getting a nuclear weapon. But this is what "realism" is all about. It is what sent Brent Scowcroft to raise a champagne toast to China's leaders in the wake of Tiananmen Square. It is what convinced Gerald Ford not to meet with Alexander Solzhenitsyn at the height of detente. Republicans have traditionally been better at it than Democrats -- though they have rarely been rewarded by the American people at the ballot box, as Ford and George H.W. Bush can attest. We'll see whether President Obama can be just as cold-blooded in pursuit of better relations with an ugly regime, without suffering the same political fate.

COMMENT:  What is remarkable is that the press sold Obama to us as an idealistic, more-moral-than-Bush president.  He may be idealistic, although I begin to shudder at what his ideals probably are.  More moral than Bush?  Let's not be silly.

June 17, 2009   Permalink

YOU KNOW, HE JUST MAY BE RIGHT - AT 6:58 A.M. ET: 

PARIS —Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency, said it was his “gut feeling” that Iran’s leaders wanted the technology to build nuclear weapons “to send a message to their neighbors, to the rest of the world: don’t mess with us.”

He was speaking in a BBC interview broadcast Tuesday and Wednesday as protesters took to the streets of Teheran and other cities, demanding that last Friday’s disputed election result be overturned and confronting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with the leadership’s biggest domestic challenge since the Islamic revolution three decades ago.

COMMENT:  I'm glad the gentleman's gut is finally coming up with the correct answers.  Now if he brain engages, he might be able to propose a solution.

June 17, 2009   Permalink

TUESDAY,  JUNE 16,  2009

CALIFORNIA TREATED LIKE AN AMERICAN ALLY - AT 9:27 P.M. ET:  From The Detroit News:

Washington -- The Obama administration has turned back pleas for emergency aid from one of the biggest remaining threats to the economy -- the state of California.

Top state officials have gone hat in hand to the administration on several occasions, armed with dire warnings of a fast-approaching "fiscal meltdown" caused by a budget shortfall. Alarm has grown inside the White House in recent weeks as California's fiscal condition has worsened, leading to high-level administration meetings. But federal officials are concerned that a bailout of California would set off a cascade of demands from other states.

COMMENT:  I just don't understand these Californians. All they have to do is develop an illegal nuclear-weapons program, or launch some missiles into the Pacific, and help would be on the way.

You know, this is what happens when you elect a bodybuilder as governor.  No respect for the benefits of technology.

June 16, 2009   Permalink 

PERFECTLY FINE WORDS - AT 6:48 P.M. ET:  President Obama, with the president of South Korea at his side, has issued some perfectly fine words about the conflict with North Korea:

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama said Tuesday that a nuclear-armed North Korea poses a "grave threat" to the world and vowed to end a cycle of allowing Pyongyang to create a crisis and then be rewarded with incentives to back down.

"This is a pattern they've come to expect," Obama said. "We are going to break that pattern."

With South Korean President Lee Myung-bak at his side in the White House Rose Garden, Obama said they agreed that a new U.N. resolution seeking to halt North Korea's development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles must be fully enforced. The U.N. did not authorize military force to enforce the measures.

Lee said he and Obama agreed that "under no circumstance are we going to allow North Korea to possess nuclear weapons.

COMMENT:  That's a perfectly fine statement, but this president often makes perfectly fine statements, then never backs them up.  Will we actually enforce that UN resolution, or just have "discussions" with our allies?  Will we go back to the UN for "clarifications"?  The whole world is watching, including the Iranian government.

June 16, 2009   Permalink

THIS CAN'T BE SERIOUS.  IT REALLY CAN'T.  NO, IT CAN'T - AT 6:13 P.M. ET:  Congress does foolish things.  I can't believe it would go this far:

Oakland Rep. Barbara Lee wants Congress to officially recognize veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas "for her pioneering career as a woman in journalism."

The Democrat has introduced a three-page resolution that would bestow the House of Representatives' recognition on Thomas and honor her "unflagging and honest coverage of every president of the United States since John F. Kennedy."

Lee said she authored the resolution to provide "a small token of gratitude to her for her many years of service."

"Helen has been a trailblazer for women in the field of journalism and has served as a model of true journalistic integrity throughout her career," Lee said. "Having served as a correspondent for nearly six decades and covered every president since John F. Kennedy, her love for the written word and for politics is an inspiration to us all."

COMMENT:  All right, we must make allowance for the fact that the resolution was written by Barbara Lee, the most left-leaning member of Congress, the only member who voted against military action following the 9-11 attacks.  We must also make allowance for the fact that she represents Oakland, a place not usually associated with the word "sanity."

But still.

Helen Thomas is the wicked witch of both the East and West.  Add North and South.  You can insert those in-between directions if you like.  She's a whack job of the first magnitude, who has consistently abused her position in the White House press corps to advance her way-out-left political opinions.

House resolution?  Let's hope they have enough sense to bury it.  Maybe, instead, they can give Helen a trip to her favorite dictatorship.

June 16, 2009   Permalink

THE OBAMA FOREIGN POLICY RIPPED - AT 9:03 A.M. ET:  Bret Stephens, of The Wall Street Journal, has written one of the best, and one of the toughest, critiques of the crumbling Obama foreign policy.  Republican spokesmen, please note.  Stephens contrasts the treatment of the Israeli prime minister, an ally, with the treatment of the Iranian president, an enemy.

Question: Toward which of these two leaders does President Obama intend to play the heavy?

Not, apparently, with the Iranian. On Saturday, spokesman Robert Gibbs said the White House "was impressed by the vigorous debate and enthusiasm that this election generated, particularly among young Iranians." On Sunday, Joe Biden allowed that there "was some real doubt" about the election, but said the U.S. would continue its outreach to Iran anyway. It was only after 48 hours that the president finally echoed his spokesmen.

And...

Now a presidency that's supposed to be all about hope is suddenly in cynical realpolitik mode -- the only "hope" it means to keep alive being a "grand bargain" over Iran's nuclear program. This never had much chance of success, but at least until Friday's sham poll it wasn't flatly at odds with the interests of ordinary Iranians. Not anymore.

Here's a recent comment from one Iranian demonstrator posted on the Web site of the National Iranian American Council. "WE NEED HELP, WE NEED SUPPORT," this demonstrator wrote. "Time is not on our side. . . . The most essential need of young Iranians is to be recognized by US government. They need them not to accept the results and do not talk to government as an official, approved one."

Finally...

Rarely in U.S. history has a foreign policy course been as thoroughly repudiated by events as his (Obama's) approach to Iran in his first months in office. Even Jimmy Carter drew roughly appropriate conclusions about the Iranian regime after the hostages were taken in 1979.

Maybe this president will now draw roughly appropriate conclusions, too. Or maybe he'll just turn his gaze from his nonstarting overture to Tehran to the Holy Land, whose pastures look ever-so slightly greener thanks to Mr. Netanyahu's attempt at reasonableness and conciliation. Israelis shouldn't count on Mr. Obama responding in kind.

COMMENT:  But when will the in-the-tank Obama press finally realize what is happening?  There are some encouraging signs in some news organizations, like AP, but there are too few.  Too many journalists have their careers invested in Bush-hatred and Obama-love.  It's hard to leave the chosen one.

June 16, 2009   Permalink

GOP SCORES ON NATIONAL SECURITY - AT 7:48 A.M. ET:  The Republicans are down, but some are fighting back, and a new Gallup survey, reported here last night, shows conservatives to be the largest ideological block.  National security is a natural GOP advantage, as reported by The Politico's "The Huddle" column:

GOP NATIONAL SECURITY GROOVE: The party out of power is still doing well on national security issues, as Steve Dennis reports in today’s Roll Call: “Congressional Republicans are at their weakest point politically in decades, but they still appear to be keeping Democrats on the defensive when it comes to national security.

“The GOP attacks, particularly on the closing of the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, prison and the treatment of suspected terrorists there, have tied Democrats in parliamentary knots and repeatedly put President Barack Obama on the spot. While Democrats don’t believe the GOP is making major political headway, Republicans are relishing the fight. “The president made some major missteps, including announcing he would be closing Gitmo without fully understanding it,” House Intelligence ranking member Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) said.”

COMMENT:  Republicans can score major gains, based on the issues, in next year's congressional races.  The president's coattails may not be that long, and large chunks of the population disagree with him on the issues.  The attack on Dem policies must be sustained, but must be accompanied by Republican alternatives. Criticism alone doesn't do it. 

The Republican contract with America, containing real proposals, helped win the 1994 midterms for the GOP.  It can be done again.

June 16, 2009   Permalink

PLOT AGAINST CARTER? - AT 7:28 A.M. ET:  From Fox News:

Hamas has discovered two roadside bombs planted near a crossing between Israel and Gaza on a path Former President Jimmy Carter's convoy took to meet with the group's leaders, a Palestinian source tells FOX News.

According to the source, the aim of the bombs was to hit Carter's vehicle as he exited Gaza. There is some suspicion that Hamas extremists identified with Al Qaeda may be behind the attempt.

The former president says he's trying to persuade Hamas leaders to accept the international community's conditions for ending its boycott of the Islamic militant group.

COMMENT:  Hard to know what to believe here.  Why would Al Qaeda want to kill Jimmah Carter, one of the world's leading flacks for the Arab cause?  Well, of course they might want to do it and blame it on Israel, and CNN would take that seriously.  You can just see Christiane Amanpour, fake British accent and all, reporting from the blast scene.

We'll wait and see on this.  It will be interesting to see how different news organizations play the story.

June 16, 2009   Permalink

IRAN ON THE EDGE - AT 7:19 A.M. ET:  The tensions in Iran are smoldering.  AFP reports on the latest maneuver by the ruling crowd:

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran's election watchdog said on Tuesday it was ready for a recount in the hotly disputed presidential vote as the nation braced for further protests after seven people were killed in street battles.

The stage was set for possible further confrontations as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's camp and supporters of defeated rival Mir Hossein Mousavi both called for rallies in the biggest outpouring of public anger since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

In an apparent bid to quell the unrest, the Guardians Council election watchdog said it was prepared for a recount if irregularities were found in Friday's election, which gave Ahmadinejad a landslide win over Mousavi.

Seven people were killed in fighting in Tehran on Monday after a mass rally which saw Mousavi appear in public for the first time since polling day, and demonstrations have also spread to other major cities across the country.

COMMENT:  The recount will be a farce.  It will only be held if  "irregularities" are found in the election.  We know what the result will be.

The Obama administration's response to the Iran turbulence - very typically Carteresque - is to do nothing much and to continue plans for an "outreach" to the Iranian regime.  Must be awfully encouraging to the people in the streets.

Obama came to office saying he wanted Americans to feel proud of their country again.  Well, most of us never lost our pride.  But we can quickly lose our pride in this country's foreign policy with Mr. Obama guiding, or torpedoing, the ship of state.

June 16, 2009   Permalink

CAUTION ON NORTH KOREA - AT 6:50 A.M. ET:   David Sanger, of The New York Times - a fine reporter - outlines the administration's first physical response to the new UN sanctions on North Korea, voted last week by the Security Council:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will order the Navy to hail and request permission to inspect North Korean ships at sea suspected of carrying arms or nuclear technology, but will not board them by force, senior administration officials said Monday.

The new effort to intercept North Korean ships, and track them to their next port, where Washington will press for the inspections they refused at sea, is part of what the officials described as “vigorous enforcement” of the United Nations Security Council resolution approved Friday.

The planned American action stops just short of the forced inspections that North Korea has said that it would regard as an act of war. Still, the administration’s plans, if fully executed, would amount to the most confrontational approach taken by the United States in dealing with North Korea in years, and carries a risk of escalating tensions at a time when North Korea has been carrying out missile and nuclear tests.

COMMENT:  This is a half-decent first step, but the decision not to board by force gives the North Koreans a huge advantage:  Why should they cooperate if they know their ships will not be boarded?  All they have to say is that they'll resist boarding "by force," and, presumably, we'll back off.  What is our fallback position?  Why, we'll "press" for inspections in port.

I can't imagine the North Koreans being very impressed with this.  I certainly can't imagine anything here that will change that country's policies.  Again, we go nowhere with tough-sounding words.

The late Gen. Lauris Norstad, one-time commander of NATO, said that toughness is not a policy.  He was right.  You have to decide what to be tough about.  The Obama decision on North Korea is, by that standard, disappointing.

June 16, 2009   Permalink