TUESDAY,  MARCH 31,  2009

ANOTHER SARAH FLAP - AT 7:39 P.M. ET:  From Fox News:

Sarah Palin is out and Newt Gingrich is in.

Congressional Republicans Tuesday decided to ditch the former GOP vice presidential nominee in favor of the former Speaker for the critical House-Senate fundraising dinner in Washington June 8. It's the marquee Republican event to raise money for GOP House and Senate candidates.

Just weeks ago, the House and Senate Republican campaign committees were giddy at securing the telegenic Palin for the dinner. But then things grew murky. At the time, the Alaska governor's office told FOX News that Palin was still considering the invitation and had not yet made a decision. Meantime, spokespersons for the committees insisted that Palin was scheduled and it was just a misunderstanding between the Alaska governor's office and Palin's political action committee, SarahPAC, that accepted the invite.

Sources familiar with the Palin snub fumed openly about how the governor handled this.

"She was a disaster," one Republican source told FOX News. "We had confirmation."

COMMENT:  I hate to say it, but this may be the kick in the shins that Sarah needs.  I like her, but she is deeply flawed and often amateurish.  She also seems to think of herself as a kind of queenly figure.  She is not.  She's engaged in a number of antics more suitable for a Hollywood diva.  This is not appreciated in politics, and her welcome is being worn out.  I hope she makes corrections because she has real talent.

March 31, 2009   Permalink

WHAT IS IT WITH THIS CROWD? - AT 7:33 P.M. ET: 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Health and Human Services nominee Kathleen Sebelius recently corrected three years of tax returns and paid more than $7,000 in back taxes after finding ''unintentional errors'' -- the latest tax troubles for an Obama administration nominee.

COMMENT:  Imagine if she'd found "intentional errors."  How does Obama manage to pick so many people with tax problems?  He has a special knack.

March 31, 2009   Permalink

IS THIS SERIOUS? - AT 7:21 P.M. ET: 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States will seek election to the U.N. Human Rights Council this year, the State Department said Tuesday, announcing the Obama administration's latest reversal of former President George W. Bush's foreign policies.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said in a statement that the administration will join the council to help make it more effective as part of President Barack Obama's desire to create a "new era of engagement" with the international community.

The Bush administration had boycotted the council over its repeated criticism of Israel and its refusal to cite flagrant rights abuses in Sudan and elsewhere abroad.

"Human rights are an essential element of American global foreign policy," Clinton said. "With others, we will engage in the work of improving the U.N. human rights system to advance the vision of the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights."

COMMENT:  A depressing decision, signifying more groveling.  The council is a waste of time and space.  It won't be improved by our presence because the dictatorships and Muslim religious states that dominate it will simply ignore what we say.  All we're doing is adding credibility to a morally bankrupt instrument.  President Bush was right.  By boycotting the council, it became a marginalized laughing stock.  Of course, this decision will please the political left.

I find it amusing that Secretary Clinton now says that human rights are an essential part of our foreign policy.  She sang a different tune in China, when she downplayed human rights as an element in our relations with the Chinese.

March 31, 2009   Permalink

HILLARY THREATENS N. KOREA.  DOES THE BOSS KNOW? - AT 7:12 P.M. ET:  From Fox News:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that North Korea's preparations to launch a missile are another example of it provocative behavior and Japan would have every right to defend itself.

"It is an unfortunate and continuing example of provocation by the North Koreans," Clinton told a news briefing at a conference in The Hague, Netherlands.

"There will be consequences" if North Korea launches a missile, she said, noting possible U.N. Security Council actions. "Japan has every right to protect and defend its territory."

COMMENT:  This is the kind of talk that is rare in this administration.  Is the secretary speaking for herself, or for the president?  Let's see exactly what Obama does if the missile is launched, which it almost certainly will be.  The North Koreas have announced their intent, and would lose face if they backed down.

March 31, 2009   Permalink

DOW UP - AT 1:22 P.M. ET:  The Dow is up 142 points, to 7664.  But a Bloomberg story reads:

Confidence among U.S. consumers stayed near a record low and a survey of purchasing managers showed business deteriorated further in March, indicating the economy remains deep in a recession.

So go figure the stock market.

March 31, 2009

DEFENSE CUTS - AT 1:19 P.M. ET:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Senate defense committee chairman says the Pentagon budget will include large, painful cuts. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin said Tuesday that major program cuts will not be pushed off until the 2011 budget, but will be included when Defense Secretary Robert Gates sends his spending plan to the president later this month.

COMMENT:  We are handing trillions over to failed corporations, but we're cutting our defense budget in the face of threats that are rising, not falling.  Will Republicans object, or sleepwalk through it?  The impression of Carter II continues to grow.

March 31, 2009   Permalink

OBAMA APPROVAL UP - AT 9:45 A.M. ET:  Rasmussen is reporting a dramatic upturn in the president's approval rating.  A 13-point spread between those who approve and those who disapprove, registered only last week, has now turned into a 20-point spread, with 59% approving and 39% disapproving.

Rasmussen's presidential approval index - the spread between those who strongly approve and those who strongly disapprove, only four points on March 28th, has now grown to 11 points, only three days later.

Statistical fluke?  I don't know.  The dramatic upturn follows the stock-market advance, before yesterday, of the last two weeks.  It also follows the president's constant appearances on television to sell his programs.  It will take weeks more of measurement to see if this is a real trend for the president.

March 31, 2009   Permalink 

WARNING FROM THE TALIBAN - AT 8:49 A.M. ET:  From the AP:

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan — The commander of the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility Tuesday for a deadly assault on a Pakistani police academy and said the group was planning a terrorist attack on the U.S. capital.

Baitullah Mehsud, who has a $5 million bounty on his head from the U.S., said Monday's attack outside the eastern city of Lahore was in retaliation for U.S. missile strikes against militants along the Afghan border.

"Soon we will launch an attack in Washington that will amaze everyone in the world," Mehsud told The Associated Press by phone. He provided no details.

Mehsud and other Pakistani Taliban militants are believed to be based in the country's lawless areas near the border with Afghanistan, where they have stepped up their attacks throughout Pakistan.

COMMENT:  Of course, this could be bravado.  But, if anyone told us before
9-11 that a ragtag group of fanatical Muslims could attack the United States and kill 3,000 Americans, we would have called that bravado as well.  This threat deserves the most careful scrutiny. 

March 31, 2009   Permalink

GETTING THE MESSAGE - AT 8:17 A.M. ET: 

March 31 (Bloomberg) -- Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. may have this response to the U.S. government’s offer of $7.2 billion for high-speed Internet projects: Keep it.

Unlike the businesses that welcomed the $787 billion stimulus package approved by Congress last month, the two biggest U.S. phone companies have reservations. They’re urging the government not to help other companies compete with them through broadband grants or to set new conditions on how Internet access should be provided.

“I don’t think there’s much for them to gain financially from going after this money,” especially if the government attaches strings to it, said Rebecca Arbogast, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in Washington.

COMMENT:  Maybe some American corporations are getting the message.  You lie down with bureaucrats, you wake up with socialists.  But the question is when the American people are going to start to resist the greatest power grab we've had in Washington in generations.  I certainly don't mean to defend some of the companies that have gotten help.  Some of them have been horribly and cynically run.  But we should be extremely careful about transferring private control to public control, assuming, as some Americans apparently do, that Washington will be wiser, more competent, or more honest.  There isn't much history to back up that assumption.

March 31, 2009   Permalink 

DID OBAMA BLUNDER? - AT 7:50 A.M. ET:  The New York Times, to its credit, has recently run some surprising critiques of the Obama administration.  This morning, an op-ed piece by William J. Holstein, author of "Why G.M. Matters: Inside the Race to Transform an American Icon," raises the possibility that the president's drastic decisions regarding G.M. are wrongheaded:

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S stunning decision to demand that Rick Wagoner resign as chairman and chief executive of General Motors was based on the wrong set of premises and raises the prospect that the administration will intervene too deeply in the automaker, seriously jeopardizing a transformation effort that has come a long way in the right direction...

...Mr. Obama indicated he did not believe G.M. had moved fast enough in facing up to global competition. But the company is coming close to achieving the cost structure of Toyota’s assembly plant in Georgetown, Ky. — largely because Mr. Wagoner and his team stripped thousands of dollars out of the cost of every vehicle...

...Mr. Wagoner also encouraged G.M.’s adoption of Toyota’s lean manufacturing techniques and quality control. So much so that Buick tied with Jaguar for first place in the latest J. D. Power ranking of dependability, coming in ahead of Toyota and its Lexus brand.

And...

The Cadillac CTS and Chevrolet Malibu both won car-of-the-year awards last year and the newly revived Camaro — which is hitting the roads just as Mr. Wagoner is being ousted — represents the high-water mark of revitalized American car design...

...Mr. Obama has not only failed to understand these contributions, he has also deprived G.M. of Mr. Wagoner’s presence on the board...

...Mr. Obama’s intervention does not stop there. His aides were quoted as saying they are going to remake the entire G.M. board. But deciding which director should go and which director should be added is far beyond the competence of any government.

And the president's mouth:

Mr. Obama also failed to end the bankruptcy talk that has hung over G.M. and hurt its sales. In his statement on Monday he admitted that “I know that when people even hear the word ‘bankruptcy’ it can be a bit unsettling.” He’s right — and that’s exactly why he shouldn’t have said it was a possibility.

Finally...

It may have been politically expedient for Mr. Obama to give Mr. Wagoner the pink slip. But politics in Washington have real world consequences. Before he goes too far, Mr. Obama should recognize the huge distance that G.M. has traveled and strike the right balance in respecting the role of the private sector. Unlike the insurance giant A.I.G. or Wall Street’s failed banks, General Motors consists of real factories where real people make real things. As it looks to micromanage an entire industry, let’s hope the administration doesn’t lose sight of the human side of things.

COMMENT:  This is a powerful, well-written indictment by an expert on General Motors.  We, the American people, have a right to ask what's going on here.  Do the people in Washington know what they're doing?  Who decided to oust Rick Wagoner, and why?  Who made him a villain, when, apparently, he was doing many right things? 

The people in the president's "auto task force" - do they know anything about cars?  About manufacturing?  Or are they numbers crunchers who went to the right schools?  Steve Rattner, who heads the task force, is a financier and investor, an Ivy Leaguer, and a former reporter for The New York Times.  (I didn't know a man could have that many strikes against him.)  Three members of the auto "team" are climate-change experts.  I am not kidding. 

This calls for a major congressional investigation.  It won't happen because Democrats control Congress.  But the president may have killed General Motors just when its engines were beginning to roar again.

March 31, 2009   Permalink

HANSON ON "THE ONE" - AT 7:27 A.M. ET:  Victor Davis Hanson detects an excess of me, me, me, in Mr. Obama's public statements, and wishes he would change:

I think our president needs to invest more in the use of the third-person "government," since his speeches more and more center on the narcissistic "I" and "me." Even the car-takeover speech was "I-ed" to death. E.g.

My Auto Task Force

And so today, I am announcing that my administration will...

In this context, my administration will offer General Motors adequate working capital over the next 60 days. During this time, my team will be working closely with GM to produce a better business plan.

I am committed to doing all I can to see if a deal can be struck...

Now, I know that when people even hear the word "bankruptcy" it can be a bit unsettling, so let me explain what I mean. What I am talking about is..

COMMENT:  Cult of personality?  What cult of personality?  Do you see it?  Nothing to see, nothing to see.  Move on, please.

At least he hasn't said, "I am America.  I am the state."  Coming soon.

March 31, 2009   Permalink

MONDAY,  MARCH 30,  2009

FRANCE BALKS - AT 8:07 P.M. ET:  From London's Telegraph:

President Sarkozy yesterday threatened to wreck the London summit if France’s demands for tougher financial regulation are not met.

France will not accept a G20 that produces a “false success with language that sounds good but contains no commitments”, his advisers said.

Asked if this meant a possible walk-out, Xavier Musca, Mr Sarkozy’s deputy chief of staff for economic affairs, said: “A basic rule with nuclear deterrence is that you do not say at what point you will use the weapon.”

COMMENT:  President Obama heads for London tomorrow, with an entourage of 500.  Virtually every report I've seen says that he faces a cold reception from the G20.  His personal popularity remains high, but his policies, especially his vast spending, have gotten poor reviews.  Let's see if his much-vaunted "diplomacy" will have any effect.

March 30, 2009

HILLARY SPEAKS - AT 5:23 P.M. ET: 

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says the Obama administration has indeed abandoned the term ''global war on terror.''

Clinton says that while she hasn't seen any specific orders, the new administration in Washington simply isn't using the phrase.

The term was a rallying cry for President George Bush after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. But the use of the term ''global war on terror'' is widely disliked overseas.

COMMENT:  It is widely disliked overseas, so therefore we will not use it.  Well, democracy is widely disliked in a large chunk of the Muslim world.  Maybe we should abandon that, too.  After all, we'd be showing respect.  Right?

The fact that "global war on terror" defines the issue well is, of course, of no significance with this new, ultra-elitist crowd.  I mean, who are we to question other cultures?

March 30, 2009   Permalink

DOW CLOSE - AT 4:35 P.M. ET:  The Dow closed down 254 points, to 7522, after a small rally in the last hour of trading.

PAKISTAN TERROR - AT 3:26 P.M. ET:  An update to our 7:49 a.m. story about the latest terror attack in Pakistan:

March 30 (Bloomberg) -- The siege of a Pakistani police academy near Lahore ended with the death of four attackers and the arrest of three. Eight policemen were killed and 50 were injured in the attack, the military said.

Pakistani soldiers battled seven gunmen armed with automatic weapons and grenades who attacked the police building in Manawan and fought the security forces for more than seven hours, said a military spokesman, who asked not to be identified, in a phone interview from Rawalpindi, near the capital, Islamabad.

The Interior Ministry had earlier said 22 people had been killed in the assault, the second terrorist attack in the vicinity of the the eastern city this month.

COMMENT:  The numbers, as you can see by comparing our two stories, are all over the place.  There is a tremendous problem of inaccuracy in reporting the results of terror attacks in Pakistan.  The key point is that Islamists are now attacking regularly, in an unstable country that possesses nuclear weapons.

March 30, 2009   Permalink

DOW STILL DOWN - AT 3:18 P.M. ET:  With about 42 minutes to the closing bell, the Dow is down 289 points, to 7488.  It was down well over 300 points earlier in the day.

I'M SHOCKED, SHOCKED! - AT 3:12 P.M. ET:  Well, what do you know?  The New York Times has discovered what we've known for years - that the American Bar Association's ratings of judicial nominees are tilted toward liberals: 

...a series of studies have found indications that liberal nominees do better in the process than conservative ones. The latest, to be presented next month at the Midwest Political Science Association, found evidence consistent with ideological bias.

“Holding all other factors constant,” the study found, “those nominations submitted by a Democratic president were significantly more likely to receive higher A.B.A. ratings than nominations submitted by a Republican president.”

COMMENT:  I never would have known.

March 30, 2009   Permalink

DOW DOWN - AT 9:46 A.M. ET:  The Dow is down 212 points, to 7564.

REPORT FROM AN EYEWITNESS - AT 8:42 A.M. ET:  Urgent Agenda has a number of contacts around the world, and we welcome their expertise.  This report, from an American expert visiting Afghanistan, reacts to the president's plan for the region, unveiled Friday:

I have been able to look at it only briefly and only in second-hand
summaries. That said, I have to say that it seems surprisingly adult. Seems to "get" the nature of the counterinsurgency fight here, no sign of a crippling time-based exit strategy, willing to apply the appropriate resources that a serious plan requires.

The "get-tough" with Pakistani and Afghan leaders aspect is a little
troubling. It is important to remember the personal risks these
leaders take in stepping forward. And to understand the balancing act
they are performing, battered by countervailing pressures from power
centers that are hard to understand from afar. I am not at all
against the accountability and transparency that the administration
seems to be demanding, but we will have to give leaders in precarious
positions enough maneuver space to survive (sometimes literally) among
their own people. I think the criticism of the Bush administration
as too beholden to Karzai and Musharraf is a bit simplistic and naive.

But overall, this approach to Afghanistan seems to depart from the
pattern of unserious non-solutions this administration has established
thus far.

COMMENT:  Okay.  We hope our traveler is correct, and that this is an improvement over past plans.  We'll be watching carefully, always happy to praise the president if he gets it right. 

March 30, 2009   Permalink

BIG TROUBLE IN PAKISTAN - AT 7:49 A.M. ET: We keep hearing, and it is correct, that Pakistan is key to our problems with extremism in South Asia.   Instability in Pakistan is a major danger.  Pakistan has nuclear weapons, and, should these fall under the control of Islamic insurgents, our problems will increase geometrically.  Now there is a new incident.  From London's Telegraph:

Dozens of Pakistani policemen are being held hostage in Lahore after gunmen stormed their training camp, leaving about 60 dead.

Gunfire is echoing around the outskirts of the city and fighters are positioned on rooftops, firing at security forces in the streets below. The latest attack in Lahore bears a strong similarity to the assault on the Sri Lankan cricket team in the city earlier this month.

Earlier, loud explosions were heard from inside the police compound on the outskirts of Lahore where about 25 gunmen fought their way in with assault rifles and hand-grenades...

...The latest incidents in Lahore, the capital of Punjab, appear to show that Islamist insurgents are extending their influence across Pakistan.

COMMENT:  This comes just after the president announced his new plan for the Afghan/Pakistan region.  Will it affect the plan?  There is an old military saying that all war plans are out the window on first contact with the enemy.  I suspect there'll be many plans before this fight is over, and surveys show that the American people are tiring of our presence in the region.  Big problems ahead.

March 30, 2009   Permalink

BLOW TO OBAMA - AT 7:36 A.M. ET:  From AP, Moscow:

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev indicated he would not increase pressure on Iran over its nuclear program in exchange for the United States backing off on plans to deploy missile-defense elements in Eastern Europe.

"I don't think any trade-offs are possible in this respect," Medvedev said in a transcript of an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. aired Sunday.

The former US administration said putting the anti-missile system in Europe was necessary to block possible attacks by so-called rogue states such as Iran, but Russia says the system is aimed at undermining its own defenses.

COMMENT:  One of the first groveling steps of the Obama administration was to knife our East European allies in the back by hinting that Washington would drop the anti-missile system, which these allies embraced, in exchange for Russian pressure on Iran to curb its nuclear program.  You see how successful this trick was.  We antagonized our allies and made them doubt our reliability, and got zero in return.

March 30, 2009   Permalink

SPECIAL ELECTION - AT 7:28 A.M. ET:  From The New York Times:

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- Two months ago, it would have been hard for the most ardent political wonk to find the state's 20th Congressional District on a map. On Tuesday, it will be the center of the American political landscape, with Republicans hoping desperately a win there will knock President Barack Obama off stride and Democrats looking to build on the momentum of the past two years.

Republican Jim Tedisco, a state legislator for 27 years, faces Democrat Scott Murphy, a businessman who has the backing of the president and influential unions. The special election is to replace Kirsten Gillibrand, who was named to the U.S. Senate in January after former Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton became secretary of state.

COMMENT:  Too much is being made of this.  The 20th is nominally Republican, but has been trending Democratic.  U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, the most recent congresswoman from the district, is a moderate Democrat. 

The national parties will spin the result as either significant or insignificant, depending on whether they win or lose.

March 30, 2009   Permalink

GENERAL MOTORS AND CHRYSLER - AT 7:20 A.M. ET:  Rarely has a story without physical violence struck with such impact. The United States Government, presumably limited in power under our system, has forced out the head of General Motors, and is requiring Chrysler to merge, as conditions of further federal aid.  From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — The White House on Sunday pushed out the chairman of General Motors and instructed Chrysler to form a partnership with the Italian automaker Fiat within 30 days as conditions for receiving another much-needed round of government aid.

The decision to ask G.M.’s chairman and chief executive, Rick Wagoner, to resign caught Detroit and Washington by surprise, and it underscored the Obama administration’s determination to keep a tight rein on the companies it is bailing out — a level of government involvement in business perhaps not seen since the Great Depression.

COMMENT:  This is pretty chilling.  Is it our future?   Let me say right off that there's a lesson here:  When you take government money, you take government control.  In fact, the government has a fiduciary responsibility to oversee the spending of its funds.   Think of that every time you're asked to vote for euphemisms like "paid for by the American people" or "made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts."

But the fact that Washington can now dictate who the next chairman of GM will be is profound.  Washington has agendas that go beyond the health of General Motors.  Watch, as the Obama environmental agenda, which may or may not be sound, is forced on the carmaker.  Watch as the sheer number of union voters in the state of Michigan becomes a consideration, with the 2012 presidential election in the minds of White House "advisers." 

This is awfully close to full nationalization.  Add this to the government's power over banks, and we're entering a brave new world, and without an exit strategy.

Most fascinating, to me at least, will be the reaction of the American people, generation by generation.  Measuring that reaction will probably start immediately. 

And watch for the GOP reaction.  The party leaders should have been up all night crafting a creative reply that will move the American people and demonstrate the party's vision and seriousness.  Don't hold your breath.

And do not underestimate the size of this story.

March 30, 2009   Permalink