SUNDAY,  OCTOBER 4,  2009

APPALLING - AT 10:41 P.M. ET:  We continue to follow, with increasing dismay, the remarkable campaign being waged by people in the Obama regime against General Stanley McChrystal, our commander in Afghanistan.  The Telegraph of London has the best report on this.  It doesn't matter whether one agrees or disagrees with McChrystal's views.  The fact is that the commander in chief has been out to lunch, and dinner, and snacks, while American men have been dying.  We get the feeling that McChrystal, hand picked by the Obama White House, is being set up to be scapegoated.  Given the great practice that Obama has in throwing people under the bus, we won't be surprised.  From The Telegraph:

According to sources close to the administration, Gen McChrystal shocked and angered presidential advisers with the bluntness of a speech given in London last week.

Oh really?  I heard it.  It wasn't blunt at all.  He was, as we've reported, stating what already was known about his views. 

An adviser to the administration said: "People aren't sure whether McChrystal is being naïve or an upstart. To my mind he doesn't seem ready for this Washington hard-ball and is just speaking his mind too plainly."

I wasn't aware that Washington hardball was what Stanley McChrystal is about.  I'd thought he was one of the nation's leading experts in counterinsurgency.  I guess when you learn your politics in Chicago, where the election of the city clerk is more important than the election of the president of the United States, there might be some confusion as to what's important.

Gen McChrystal delivered a report on Afghanistan requested by the president on Aug 31, but Mr Obama held only his second "principals meeting" on the issue last week.

He will hold at least one more this week, but a decision on how far to follow Gen McChrystal's recommendation to send 40,000 more US troops will not be made for several weeks.

A military expert said: "They still have a working relationship but all in all it's not great for now."

And, of course, to this touchy-feely crowd in the White House, "relationship" is what it's all about.  Great leaders can get along with tough-minded subordinates, and even welcomes them if they're good.  Not-so-great leaders can't.  Obama can't. 

As a divide opened up between the military and the White House, senior military figures began criticising the White House for failing to tackle the issue more quickly.

They made no secret of their view that without the vast ground force recommended by Gen McChrystal, the Afghan mission could end in failure and a return to power of the Taliban. 

Obama has certainly won the respect of the military, hasn't he?

Obviously, we have civilian control of the military, and military men aren't always right.  Lincoln went through a bunch of generals before getting to Grant.  Truman fired MacArthur.  But both Lincoln and Truman devoted themselves to national defense.  Obama seems to see it as a sideshow.

The administration is also being led around by Iran, which made some tiny concessions on its nuclear program, letting the usual appeasers announce a new day in our relationships with the mullah/thugs.  There is no such day.  Itan hasn't conceded anything significant, and won't.

The leaked comments on McChrystal seemed rougher than the comments about Iran, which should tell you something about the mentality of this new White House crowd.

October 4, 2009   Permalink

LIVING THE ILLUSION - AT 8:21 P.M. ET: Just thought you'd like to see the extent of the nutbaggery being published in Chicago to explain away the loss of the 2016 Olympic games.  The usual suspects are involved.  From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Some Chicago officials say anti-American resentment likely played a role in Chicago's Olympic bid dying in the first round Friday.

President Obama could not undo in one year the resentment against America that President Bush and others built up for years, they said.

"There must be" resentment against America," the Rev. Jesse Jackson said, near the stage where he had hoped to give a victory speech in Daley Center Plaza. "The way we [refused to sign] the Kyoto Treaty, we misled the world into Iraq. The world had a very bad taste in its mouth about us. But there was such a turnaround after last November. The world now feels better about America and about Americans. That's why I thought the president's going was the deal-maker."

Jackson is just disappointed that he didn't get to give his speech on TV. 

U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said she was approached by a consul general at the plaza as they waited for word Friday. "He said ... he was hearing that there wasn't enough time for Barack Obama to dispel the old image. ... But I don't know if that's it."

Now, a question:  Let us accept for a moment that there wasn't enough time for Barack Obama (blessed be his name) to reverse the enormity of the damage done by BUSH (!!).  So, tell me, how long will it take?  Another year?  Five years?  In other words, when will this crowd stop blaming President Bush for Obama's failures?  The answer is...never.  It's the game they play, the excuse game, and they're expert at it. 

Their motto is not "E pluribus unum."  Theirs is, "It's someone else's fault."  And they fly it from every flagpole in front of every failed school in Chicago.

October 4, 2009   Permalink

NOT GOOD, NOT INSPIRING - AT 6:26 P.M. ET:  President Obama's national security adviser, retired Marine General James Jones, seemed to needle General Stanley McChrystal, our commander in Afghanistan, today:

Addressing Gen. Stanley McChrystal's public call for more troops in Afghanistan, White House national security adviser James L. Jones said that advice to the president should come though the military chain of command rather than by open campaigning for a strategic decision.

"Ideally, it's better for military advice to come up through the chain of command and I think that General McChrystal and the others in the chain of command will present the president with not just one option, which does, in fact, tend to have a ... enforcing function, but a range of options that the president can consider," Jones said.

COMMENT:  As they say in diplomacy, this is not helpful.  Putting down your theater commander damages morale, unless you intend to fire him.  McChrystal did nothing wrong.  He reiterated in public what everyone knows is his point of view, and he did it in an appropriate setting.

There were also leaks from the White House earlier in the week disparaging the advice McChrystal is giving.  I don't know whether that advice is right or not, but the leaks are unseemly and divisive.  This administration doesn't do war very well, or anything else for that matter.  Hmm.  It does do going out for dinner quite well.  We'll grant that.

October 4, 2009   Permalink

BRITS GETTING IT RIGHT - AT 10:36 A.M. ET:  We like to rib Great Britain here for the political correctness that has infected British society, but, as we've also said, the British press has been remarkably astute in knocking the air out of Obama's inflated sails.  Also, there are elements in the British military that still carry on the tradition of the Britain we love.  Here, a Brit general gives blunt advice on Afghanistan that breaks through the leftist blather:

The head of the British Army, General Sir David Richards, has issued a wake-up call to the public by warning of the "terrifying prospect" of a defeat in Afghanistan.

In an unprecedented intervention, the chief of the general staff described the conflict as "this generation's war" and added that failure by NATO would have an "intoxicating effect" on militant Islam.

In his first interview as the head of the Army, Sir David told The Sunday Telegraph that if Britain and NATO failed in Afghanistan the risks to the western world would be "enormous" and "unimaginable".

He said: "If al-Qaeda and the Taliban believe they have defeated us – what next? Would they stop at Afghanistan? Pakistan is clearly a tempting target not least because of the fact that it is a nuclear-weaponed state and that is a terrifying prospect. Even if only a few of those (nuclear) weapons fell into their hands, believe me they would use them. The recent airlines plot has reminded us that there are people out there who would happily blow all of us up."

The general's intervention comes at a crucial time, with the US General in charge of operations in Afghanistan calling for more troops to be sent to the country to fight the Taliban.

COMMENT:  We wouldn't have outspoken interventions like this if military men respected President Obama's commitment to the war on terror, but they don't.  And for good reason. 

October 4, 2009   Permalink

NOW WE KNOW - AT 10:16 A.M. ET:  It's a balancing act.  On the one hand, we have civilian control over the military.  On the other, Americans have a right to know, within security bounds, what advice the military gave civilian leaders, so we don't have scapegoating if things go wrong.  The advice on Afghanistan is being given loud and clear:

WASHINGTON (AFP) – By openly declaring their views on the Afghan war, US military leaders have placed President Barack Obama in a bind as he faces a fraught decision over the troubled US-led mission.

Obama has refused to quickly approve a request from his commanders for a major troop build-up in Afghanistan, insisting first on a full vetting of the current strategy.

But while a war council takes place behind closed doors at the White House, top military officers have made no secret of their view that without a vast ground force, the Afghan mission could end in failure.

"They want to make sure people know what they asked for if things go wrong," Lawrence Korb, a former assistant secretary of defense, told AFP.

COMMENT:  As usual, left-wing commentators are bringing Vietnam into the picture, likening the military's request for more troops to the gradual escalation in Vietnam.  The two, though, are not comparable.  We were not attacked by Vietnam, but were attacked by elements protected within Afghanistan.  Also, the change of command in Vietnam from William Westmoreland to Creighton Abrams was producing important results in the late sixties, results largely ignored by journalists and historians who are locked into a fashionable "narrative."

Further, one reason for action in Afghanistan is to try to save Pakistan, a nuclear-equipped state.  If Pakistan should go unstable, and nuclear weapons compromised, our world would be very different, and even The One couldn't save it.

Finally, this is 2009, not 1964.  Almost a half century has passed.  We've learned a great deal since then about counterinsurgency.

October 4, 2009   Permalink

YOU KNOW YOU'RE IN TROUBLE WHEN... - AT 10:06 A.M. ET: That was a great Johnny Carson line.  Ah yes, I remember it well.  And it's a message for President Obama, whose immunity from ridicule is weakening.  Witness this, last night, at Saturday Night Live, via HotAirPundit:

http://hotairpundit.blogspot.com/2009/10/snl-unloads-on-obama-for-not.html

Watch and laugh.  Our time is coming.

October 4, 2009   Permalink

PURE GARBAGE - AT 9:35 A.M. ET:  The outgoing head of the International Atomic Energy Agency has done his usual fronting for Iran in a story getting major attention this morning:

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Sunday there is a ''shifting of gears'' in Iran's confrontation with the West to more cooperation and transparency and he announced that international inspectors would visit Tehran's newly revealed uranium enrichment site on Oct. 25.

This is complete garbage.  Iran got caught red-handed trying to conceal a new nuclear plant, and is offering "inspections" long before the plant actually opens.  It has also made plain that it has no intention of giving up its advanced nuclear program.  This outgoing UN official is a Muslim who has consistently fronted for Iran.  His statement comes a day after it was learned that his own organization has been suppressing an analysis that Iran now has the full knowledge to build a nuclear bomb.

The International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, speaking at a joint news conference in Tehran with Iran's top nuclear official, said his agency ''has no concrete proof of an ongoing weapons program in Iran.'' But the IAEA has ''concerns about Iran's future intentions,'' he said.

No proof.  I guess Iran acquired all that knowledge on bomb making just to produce energy to recharge iPods.

''I see that we are at a critical moment. I see that we are shifting gears from confrontation into transparency and cooperation,'' said ElBaradei.

What a fraud.  And this man won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Yet, his words will now be used by the appeasement crowd in Washington to support Obama's failed policies.

October 4,  2009   Permalink

SATURDAY,  OCTOBER 3,  2009

ANOTHER FOREIGN POLICY SUCCESS - AT 6:46 P.M. ET:  As usual, we're now learning that Iran is further ahead in nuclear weapons development than we've been officially told.  Other surprises are probably in store:

Senior staff members of the United Nations nuclear agency have concluded in a confidential analysis that Iran has acquired “sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable” atom bomb.

The report by experts in the International Atomic Energy Agency stresses in its introduction that its conclusions are tentative and subject to further confirmation of the evidence, which it says came from intelligence agencies and its own investigations.

The issue isn't only how far along Iran is, but whether it's working on a nuclear weapon at all.  Should we take a guess, or trust what the mullahs say?  Obviously, they would not have acquired all the information needed for a bomb unless they intended to build one.   

But the report’s conclusions, described by senior European officials, go well beyond the public positions taken by several governments, including the United States.

Two years ago, American intelligence agencies published a detailed report concluding that Tehran halted its efforts to design a nuclear weapon in 2003. But in recent months, Britain has joined France, Germany and Israel in disputing that conclusion, saying the work has been resumed.

The American "report" was, in the eyes of many knowledgeable observers, disgraceful, and driven by a political agenda.  But mainstream journalism ate it up at the time as a means of embarrassing President Bush.

A senior American official said last week that the United States was now re-evaluating its 2007 conclusions.

I would hope so.

The new deadline for Iran to make visible progress in dismantling its weapons program is apparently December, unless President Obama has something more important to do.  We'll see if this deadline, unlike all the others, holds.

October 3, 2009   Permalink

WARNING - DANGEROUS TO YOUR HEALTH - AT 6:24 P.M. ET:  So much attention has been paid, understandably, to foreign affairs in the last two weeks that Americans may not be aware that health-care "reform" is moving through Congress.  The energy of the opposition seems exhausted.  The Dems are in control.  And, naturally, some of the so-called Blue Dogs - the moderate Democrats - are folding and taking their orders from the leadership.  (Blue Dogs often act like Blue Puppies.)  The New York Times is reporting:

WASHINGTON — With the Senate Finance Committee set to approve its health care bill this week, Democrats are tantalizingly close to bringing legislation that would make sweeping changes in the nation’s health care system to the floor of both houses of Congress.

Party leaders still face immense political and policy challenges as they combine rival proposals — two bills in the Senate and three in the House. But the broad contours of the legislation are in place: millions of uninsured Americans would get subsidized health benefits, and the government would move to slow the growth of health spending.

COMMENT:  Well, that's the optimistic point of view.  Would anyone out there like to place a little wager - not much - on the phrase, "slow the growth of health spending"?  Is the reporter serious?  We're talking liberal Democrats here.

I hope the town meetings start up again as this monstrosity moves forward.  The main bill is more than a thousand pages, and I suspect most members of Congress don't know what's in it.  This is a surprise we don't need.  It's change we should learn more about before we believe in it.

October 3, 2009   Permalink 

QUOTE OF THE DAY - AT 3:52 P.M. ET:  From The Wall Street Journal, on the embarrassment in Copenhagen:

If Mr. Obama and the White House made a mistake, it was in their apparently boundless faith that somehow Mr. Obama's personal popularity would carry the day. As if, merely by seeing the rock star in person, the delegate from, say, Egypt would abandon his simmering dislike for America, forget all the dinners and deals cut with the Rio Committee, and reward Chicago. In that sense, the Olympic defeat is a relatively painless reminder that interests trump charm or likability in world affairs. Better to relearn this lesson in a fight over a sporting event than over nuclear missiles.

COMMENT:  Very well said.  But we worry that it was not a lesson learned.  As we said earlier this morning, it remains to be observed whether the Obamans are capable of change.  This is an administration marked by one of the most dangerous combinations you can have in politics - high College Board scores, education in the classrooms of professors left over from the sixties, extreme arrogance, and minimal experience. 

As a result, the Obama administration values process over result, style over substance, and invitations to the right parties over all else.

October 3, 2009   Permalink

DISMAY WITH OBAMA IN FRANCE - AT 11:29 A.M. ET:   We've been reporting here that French President Sarkozy is clearly disgusted with Obama and his appeasement of Iran.  Europe will soon be within missile range of Iranian weapons, something that seems to bother Mr. Obama not at all.

Financial Times is reporting that France is privately warning the United States about its foreign policy drift:

France is anxious about the Obama administration’s pursuit of a deal on Iran’s nuclear programme, warning that the US must not allow Tehran to expand its uranium enrichment without facing fresh sanctions.

France is concerned that America is going wobbly.  And for good reason.

...diplomatic attention is focused on a proposed deal under which Iran might put about 80 per cent of its low-enriched uranium out of potential military use.

Under the terms of the deal, which has been secretly drafted over the past month, Iran would transfer most of its 1,500kg of low-enriched uranium to Russia and France.

There, it would be processed into fuel that can provide medical isotopes, which Iran needs for cancer treatment.

However, French officials insist Tehran must also pledge by December to freeze expansion of uranium enrichment – otherwise new sanctions should be imposed.

A French government official said: “Iran is looking for more time and a move which would give legitimacy to its programme. Imposing the freeze is absolutely essential.”

COMMENT:  This comes a day after the State Department broadly hinted, still again, that deadlines on Iran had a certain flexibility.  Naturally.  "Flexibility" is Barack Hussein Obama's second middle name.  And get this:

In Tehran, Iranian officials on Friday welcomed the outcome of the Geneva talks as “win-win."

The semi-official Fars news agency insisted Iran had secured “the upper hand” in the talks.

And they are correct.

October 3,  2009   Permalink

THE BRITS TELL IT - AT 10:47 A.M. ET:  We've said before that British journalists have written the most perceptive pieces on the Obama administration, much to the chagrin of the White House.

Today, The Times of London's Tim Reid dissects the Obama mess, and describes it for what it is:

There has been a growing narrative taking hold about Barack Obama’s presidency in recent weeks: that he is loved by many, but feared by none; that he is full of lofty vision, but is actually achieving nothing with his grandiloquence.

A number of Americas seem to be coming to that same conclusion.

Chicago’s dismal showing yesterday, after Mr Obama’s personal, impassioned last-minute pitch, is a stunning humiliation for this President. It cannot be emphasized enough how this will feed the perception that on the world stage he looks good — but carries no heft.

Compare please with one George W. Bush - not Mr. Popularity, but with plenty of heft, and, at least in his first term, feared in all the right places.

Mr Obama was greeted — as usual — like a rock star by the IOC delegates in Copenhagen — then humiliated by them. Perception is reality. A narrow defeat for Chicago would have been acceptable — but the sheer scale of the defeat was a bombshell, and is a major blow for Mr Obama at a time when questions are being asked about his style of governance.

A style more appropriate to a student government...at a small school.

Abroad, Mr Obama promised in his Inauguration address to engage America’s enemies, and he has done just that. He has very little to show for it.

And no one seems to take his "firm stands" seriously.

Meanwhile, America and its allies are being forced to witness a very public agonizing by Mr Obama and his advisers over his Afghan strategy — six months after he announced that strategy.

This has all added to the perception that Mr Obama’s soaring rhetoric — which captured the imagination during last year’s election — is simply not enough when it comes to confronting the myriad challenges of the presidency. His spectacular Olympic failure will only add to that.

COMMENT:  Reid has Obama's number.  The issue is whether this president, with his supreme ego, is capable of change we can believe in.  If he isn't, we're in for some very tough, and dangerous times.

October 3, 2009   Permalink

WEIRDNESS - AT 9:54 A.M. ET:  There is a certain weirdness about this administration.  It is our presidential administration, but at times it does not seem of us, as if it were imported from another national culture.  Former Secretary of State Larry Eagleburger said on Fox News last night that the Obama administration has little idea of the path of American foreign policy in the postwar era, and what it had accomplished.  True.

Consider, as one exhibit, the profoundly weird "tarmac moment" yesterday, when President Obama, on the ground in Air Force One in Copenhagen, condescended to meet with his top Afghanistan commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and used the opportunity to meet McChrystal's wife.  Now, that would be okay, but the meeting lasted 25 minutes and involved the fate of thousands of American troops, and the possibility that Afghanistan could once again emerge as a launching platform for attacks on the United States.  From the Washington Post:

A brief meeting between President Obama and his top general in Afghanistan on Friday offered the commander in chief an opportunity to question directly the dire assessment of the war effort there, officials said.

To question?  In 25 minutes you barely get out the question, let alone get a thorough answer.

Until Friday, Obama had talked with McChrystal only from a distance, and had met him only once. Aides called the private meeting "productive" and went out of their way to say how fond Obama is of the man he chose to lead the war.

Fond?  General, you'd better inspect the space under that Obama bus, because you may well be thrown there.  When they start using words like "fond," the term "retirement papers" comes to mind.  And there's this gem:

Obama likes McChrystal "very much personally," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters. He added that Obama "got a chance, as I said earlier, to meet and talk with his wife, somebody who obviously is, along with General McChrystal, making personal sacrifices in this whole endeavor."

I can just hear Obama say, "Hey, bring along the wife.  We'll party after Chicago gets the Olympics."

McChrystal had made some comments in London that merely reiterated his well-known and highly publicized beliefs.

Aides refused to say whether Obama scolded McChrystal for his frank answer or his less-than-subtle campaign on behalf of his troop request.

Nothing like an anonymous knife in the back

One adviser noted, however, that the meeting was arranged hastily after Obama realized that the two men would be close to each other in Europe during the president's effort to win the 2016 Olympics for Chicago.

Realized they'd be close?  What is this, 1492?  Sailing ships?  No matter where on the globe a general is, he's within hours of the president. 

A genius comment by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs:

"The president said that McChrystal understands that he put together an assessment, and he expects and wants people to ask him questions about that assessment so that we can get the right strategy."

Nice of the president to recognize that McChrystal understands how it works.  The question is whether the president understands how it works.

October 3, 2009   Permalink

RASMUSSEN - AT 9:34 A.M. ET:  The daily Rasmussen tracking poll shows the president's overall approval today at 48%, with disapproval at 51%.  In Ras's presidential approval index, measuring the gap between those who strongly approve and strongly disapprove, Mr. Obama stands at minus 9, 29-38%. 

The poll is taken among likely voters and today's result reflects the last polling before the president's great leap backward in Copenhagen, where his bid for the 2016 Olympics for Chicago got the rust medal.

We'll be watching this to see if the Copenhagen fiasco pushes Obama's numbers down further.

October 3,  2009   Permalink