SUNDAY,  OCTOBER 18,  2009

REMARKABLE PIECE - AT 8:16 P.M. ET:  I've had some comments recently on the tragic state of the black family.  Now the Washington Post has published a remarkable article by a local teacher on the impact that family - or lack of family - has had on the performance of his students.  Please read this.  It is an antidote to the frauds and phonies in the education establishment and the once-respectable civil rights movement, who endlessly tell us that more cash is the answer:

"Why don't you guys study like the kids from Africa?"

In a moment of exasperation last spring, I asked that question to a virtually all-black class of 12th-graders who had done horribly on a test I had just given. A kid who seldom came to class -- and was constantly distracting other students when he did -- shot back: "It's because they have fathers who kick their butts and make them study."

Another student angrily challenged me: "You ask the class, just ask how many of us have our fathers living with us." When I did, not one hand went up.

COMMENT:  Read the rest. 

October 18, 2009   Permalink

GOOD-BYE GIFTS MAY BE IN ORDER - AT 7:56 P.M. ET:  Fox News reports, with fine photographic portraits, on seven major Dems who are in electoral trouble for 2010.  They are Harry Reid, Chris Dodd, John Murtha, David Obey, Barbara Boxer, and Blanche Lincoln.

Oh the tears, my sense of anguish.

Actually, Blanche Lincoln, the moderate senator from Arkansas (the story incorrectly says Nebraska), is pretty decent, and represents a wing of the Democratic party that we'd like to see strengthened.  As for the others?  Why do I think the country will survive without the wit and wisdom of Barbara Boxer, or the deep strategic sense of John Murtha?

But no celebrations yet, please.  As the story says, it is tough to beat incumbents.  And the Republic Party has developed a remarkable skill at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Hard work ahead, but it's always encouraging to see the opposition a bit uneasy.

October 18,  2009   Permalink

COMPLETELY RECKLESS - AT 6:35 P.M. ET:  The White House is out with a new party line on Afghanistan.  It sounds to me like a dodge, the start of a possible excuse to do nothing, or at least nothing effective, which this president has shown is his great talent.  From AP:

President Obama does not intend to decide about sending additional troops to Afghanistan until he is satisfied that the Kabul government can work effectively with the United States, a top White House aide said Sunday.

"It would be reckless to make a decision on U.S. troop levels if in fact you haven't done a thorough analysis of whether in fact there's an Afghan partner ready to fill that space that U.S. troops would create and become a true partner in governing," said Rahm Emanuel, the president's chief of staff.

Oh, come on.  We know they have problems, but we have interests.  This isn't student government.  We may have to work to develop the Afghan government, but we can lose the whole effort at the same time...if we don't have enough boots on the ground.

Mr. Emanuel gave no timetable for a presidential decision in Afghanistan.

No sense of urgency.  That's the message being sent to our enemies.

He said the White House plans to have additional strategy sessions this week and next, extending a review process that began after the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, reported that more U.S. troops are required.

The central question, Mr. Emanuel said, "is not how much troops you have, but whether in fact there's an Afghan partner."

No, the central question right now is numbers of troops.  I don't minimize the problems with the Afghan government, but they can't dominate.  Also, Emanuel didn't address the fact that Pakistan, right next door, must be stabilized.  Will more American troops in Afghanistan assist with that?  I don't know, but it's a key question to be asked, and actually answered.

Councils of war breed defeatism, Douglas MacArthur's father taught his son.  And business schools warn of "paralysis by analysis." 

Looks like we're cursed with both.

October 18, 2009   Permalink

OBAMA, SON OF CARTER - AT 11:36 A.M. ET:  The great John Bolton warns about Obama's dithering, and its dangers to America.  Apparently, when Obama got the job description, he didn't notice "decisiveness preferred."  From The Los Angeles Times:

Weakness in American foreign policy in one region often invites challenges elsewhere, because our adversaries carefully follow diminished American resolve. Similarly, presidential indecisiveness, whether because of uncertainty or internal political struggles, signals that the United States may not respond to international challenges in clear and coherent ways.

Taken together, weakness and indecisiveness have proved historically to be a toxic combination for America's global interests. That is exactly the combination we now see under President Obama.

Nothing like telling it like it is.

Obama is no Harry Truman. At best, he is reprising Jimmy Carter.

The unkindest cut.  No, wait.  This will be read in Los Angeles, in Hollywood.  That's probably a compliment.

Beyond the disquiet (or outrage for some) prompted by the president's propensity to apologize for his country's pre-Obama history, Americans increasingly sense that his administration is drifting from one foreign policy mistake to another. Worse, the current is growing swifter, and the threats more pronounced, even as the administration tries to turn its face away from the world and toward its domestic priorities. Foreign observers, friend and foe alike, sense the same aimlessness and drift. French President Nicolas Sarkozy had to remind Obama at a Sept. 24 U.N. Security Council meeting that "we live in the real world, not a virtual one."

When the French lecture us for being too soft, we're in trouble.

Canceling the Polish and Czech missile defense bases is understood in Moscow and Eastern European capitals as backing down in the face of Russian bluster and belligerence. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev threatened the day after our 2008 election to deploy missiles targeting these assets unless they were canceled, a threat duly noted by the Russian media when Obama canceled the sites.

And...

On nuclear nonproliferation, North Korea responded to the "open hand" of engagement by testing its second nuclear device, continuing an aggressive ballistic missile testing program, cooperating with other rogue states and kidnapping and holding hostage two American reporters. Obama's reaction is to press for more negotiations, which simply encourages Pyongyang to up the ante.

But we're engaging, we're engaging.  It's a dialogue - just like college!

Finally, Obama's agonizing, very public reappraisal of his own 7-month-old Afghanistan policy epitomizes indecisiveness. While there is no virtue in sustaining policy merely for continuity's sake, neither is credit due for too-quickly adopting policies without appreciating the risks entailed and then fleeing precipitously when the risks become manifest.

And...

Our international adversaries undoubtedly welcome all of these "resets" in U.S. foreign policy, but Americans should be appalled at how much of our posture in the world has already been given away. If Obama's first nine months indicate the direction of the next 39, we still have a long way to fall.

COMMENT:  Bolton's comments will be dismissed by the usual suspects as the "old belligerence," but they're on the money.  Obama's policies cannot lead to peace.  Surrender, maybe.  But not peace. 

It is surrender, though, that many of the intellectual leaders of the left crave.

October 18, 2009   Permalink

DUMB AND DUMBER - AT 10:41 A.M. ET:  The administration continues its war on Fox News, which seems increasingly foolish and desperate.  From The Politico:

White House senior adviser David Axelrod said Sunday that the Fox News Channel is "not really a news station" and that much of the programming is "not really news."

"I’m not concerned," Axelrod said on ABC's "This Week" when George Stephanopoulos asked about the back-and-forth between the White House and Fox News, founded by Rupert Murdoch.

"Mr. Murdoch has a talent for making money, and I understand that their programming is geared toward making money. The only argument [White House communications director] Anita [Dunn] was making is that they’re not really a news station if you watch even — it’s not just their commentators, but a lot of their news programming.

"It’s really not news — it’s pushing a point of view. And the bigger thing is that other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way, and we’re not going to treat them that way. We’re going to appear on their shows. We’re going to participate but understanding that they represent a point of view.”

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said on CNN's "State of the Union" that Fox "is not a news organization so much as it has a perspective."

COMMENT:  What is remarkable here is the childishness in attacking the most popular news channel now operating.  What's hypocritical is complaining that Fox has a point of view, implicitly denying that other news outlets do.

Fox does tilt right.  But other outlets tilt left.  The difference is that Fox's news shows - as opposed to commentary shows - generally play it straight, whereas the news operations of some other outlets lean to the left, and call it news.

Every independent survey shows that Fox gives ample, and fair, coverage to the liberal point of view.  And I don't recall any complaints about the fairness of their broadcast interviews with liberal personalities. 

One of the problems here is the narrowness of today's liberal elite.  If Bill O'Reilly does a segment on a judge going soft on violent offenders, the liberal elite considers that "right wing" or "conservative."  It's actually neither. 

How should Fox react?  By not changing at all.  The attacks on Fox News build the Fox audience.  People can judge for themselves, and vote with their remotes.

I'm not saying Fox is without flaws.  But there's probably more fair reporting from Fox than from any other broadcast news outlet.  For many in politics, though, Fox represents the first time they've actually seen the conservative view fully presented, and respectfully presented.  And it disturbs them.

October 18, 2009   Permalink

WELCOME TO THE 51ST STATE - AT 10:24 A.M. ET:  From some excellent reporting in the Washington Post:

In a city whose HIV/AIDS rates are ten times the national average, one in three of D.C.'s AIDS dollars earmarked for local groups in recent years went to organizations cited for falsified documentation, few or no clients, incomplete spending records or not running any AIDS programs whatsoever. Meanwhile, District residents living with HIV/AIDS have struggled to find care.

And...

While the sick languish in alleyways and on park benches in the city with the nation's highest AIDS rate, D.C. government has allowed widespread waste throughout its system of HIV/AIDS services.

COMMENT:  Repeat after me:  "We need more government involvement in health care."

Well, the fact is, some jurisdictions do a reasonable job, but D.C. doesn't.  And D.C. wants to be the 51st state. 

This is just another classic example of political correctness run amuck:  Don't hold people responsible for their failures, even when they're using government funds.  We must "understand" their cultural deprivation. 

Sure, understand cultural this and cultural that, but people are dying.  D.C. is a federal area.

Looks like another ACORN scandal.

October 18,  2009   Permalink 

SETTLING SCORES IN IRAN - AT 10:13 A.M. ET:  There's been a major blow to the ruling powers in Iran, as The New York Times reports:

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — At least five commanders of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps were killed and dozens of others left dead and injured in two terrorist bombings in the restive region of the nation’s southeastern frontier with Pakistan, according to multiple Iranian state news agencies.

The coordinated attacks appeared to mark an escalation in hostilities between Iran’s leadership and one of the nation’s many disgruntled ethnic and religious minorities, in this case the Baluchis. The southeast region, Sistan-Baluchistan, has been the scene of terrorist attacks in the past, and in April the government put the elite Guards Corps in control of security there to try to stop the escalating violence.

COMMENT:  A significant internal action, obviously.  The attacks were suicide bombings.  Naturally, the government in Tehran hinted that foreigners were involved, but it appears, at least this morning, that this was part of the internal conflict going on in Iran.

October 18,  2009   Permalink

SATURDAY,  OCTOBER 17,  2009

BRILLIANT IDEA OF THE DAY - AT 11:18 P.M. ET:  Well, I guess it does take one to know one.  We get the following advice from our secretary of the treasury, who, as I recall, had some difficulty figuring his taxes:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States must live within its means once its economy recovers if it is to preserve global confidence in the U.S. dollar's status, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Friday.

Wait a second.  Stop the music.  Aren't these the guys who are spending us into bankruptcy?  Doesn't Geithner get the bill?

The comments came as the Obama administration reported a record U.S. budget deficit for the fiscal year ended September of $1.4 trillion. At 10 percent of gross domestic product, it was the biggest U.S. fiscal shortfall since World War Two.

Rescuing the economy and some of the country's biggest banks from the worst recession since the Great Depression took a toll on U.S. finances, and the White House has forecast deficits of more than $1 trillion through fiscal 2011.

"Future deficits are too high, and the president is committed to working with Congress to bring them down to a sustainable level as the economy recovers," Geithner said in a statement accompanying the fiscal data.

COMMENT:  Future deficits are too high.  Bring them down to a sustainable level.  How about trying to balance the budget, fella?  Any deficit is passed on to our children.  How do we explain this to them?

October 17,  2009   Permalink

OH PLEASE - AT 6:42 P.M. ET:  Do we laugh, or do we cry?  From CNN:

WASHINGTON (CNN)– Reverend Al Sharpton and his lawyers say they are preparing to file a defamation lawsuit against conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh for an op-ed published Saturday, which Sharpton alleges "erroneously" characterizes his (Sharpton's) role in a string of violent incidents in New York in the early 90's.

Rev. Al filing a defamation suit?  Didn't he lose a libel suit filed against him by a law-enforcement officer in New York?  I don't think he ever paid up.

In the op-ed published in Saturday's Wall Street Journal Limbaugh writes Sharpton "played a leading role in the 1991 Crown Heights riot (he called neighborhood Jews ‘diamond merchants’) and 1995 Freddie's Fashion Mart riot."

I don't recall the exact facts, but Sharpton's comments were inflammatory. 

The Crown Heights riot began after a Hasidic Rabbi accidentally struck and killed an African American boy with his car. The boy died from the injuries–sparking four nights of riots. The Rabbi was not charged, but Sharpton played a large role in rallying on behalf of the young boy’s family and the African American community.

The story doesn't point out that a Hasidic man was murdered, and identified his killer before his death.  The killer was acquitted by a racially charged jury, but later admitted his guilt.  Nothing like leaving out a critical fact.

Sharpton, on an anniversary of the riots, said publicly that African-Americans should only mourn the black child accidentally killed, not the Hasidic man intentionally murdered.  Real good will there.

Sharpton was also at the center of the Tawana Brawley hoax, in which a black girl falsely claimed she'd been raped by white men. 

According to a statement put out by Sharpton’s media consultant, a study New York Governor Mario Cuomo commissioned showed Sharpton was not involved in the Crown Heights incident until after the rioting concluded.

Doesn't cut it.  Sharpton's inflammatory past is clear.  It's amazing he'd attempt a lawsuit against Rush, unless of course he could find an O.J. Simpson jury.  Maybe he could find those same jurors.

October 17, 2009   Permalink

AFGHAN MESS - AT 5:20 P.M. ET:  It's pretty clear that the Obamans would like to find a quick way out of Afghanistan, the better to pacify their pacifist base and further impress the deep intellectuals on the Nobel Peace Prize committee.  It would be sad if the Afghan president provided an excuse.  From The Washington Post:

KABUL, Oct. 17 -- There is a growing fear among western officials in Afghanistan that President Hamid Karzai and the nation's Independent Election Commission will not accept the findings of a United Nations-backed fraud investigation that is expected to call for a runoff to settle the disputed election.

Such a decision by Karzai would deepen Afghanistan's political crisis and leave no clear method for resolving the allegations of massive fraud that have undermined the credibility of the election nearly two months ago. It would also be a setback for the Obama administration, which has urged the candidates to follow the electoral process to yield a legitimate winner.

"That's the brick wall," said one western official in Kabul familiar with the process. "It's going to be quite chaotic and confusing."

COMMENT:  Meanwhile, the region is in flames.  There's a new offensive underway by Pakistani troops next door to Afghanistan, with Pakistani stability very much in doubt.

And the president dithers.  He was asked in August for more troops for the Afghan struggle, by General McChrystal.  It is now October, with no indication of when a decision will be made.

I'm sorry the decisions faced by the president are so tough, but he was elected to make them.  So make them.

October 17,  2009   Permalink

FASCINATING FOOD FIGHT - AT 11:20 A.M. ET:  You have to admire a man who fights on principle, even when he knows it will cost him party invitations and access even to the White House.  From The Politico:

The president of one of America’s largest labor unions, Gerry McEntee, has emerged as a major obstacle to the White House’s efforts to maintain a unified front in the health care debate.

One does not defy Dear Leader.

The veteran president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) has crossed lines that few labor leaders – even those who quietly agree with him – would go near.

McEntee led workers in chanting a barnyard epithet to describe Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus’s health care bill, which would levy a new tax on expensive health care plans. He published an op-ed in U.S.A. Today warning, in terms that could be used against Democrats in the midterms, that the plan could tax the middle class and cost workers their health care.

And he is probably right.

And he blew off a plea from White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and published an open letter promising to “oppose” legislation that contained the tax – published over the objections, several labor officials said, of other union presidents whose names appeared on the letter.

I hope he packs heat.

"We have had just about enough of his gratuitous slaps,” said a senior White House official Friday, calling the politically charged language “outrageous and unacceptable” from an ally — even from one that had, the official noted, devoted substantial resources to health care efforts.

They'll be angry...until they need union help again.  Then McEntee will become the greatest union leader they ever saw.

But it's gratifying to see some presidential allies willing to speak out about the mess that the White House calls health-care "reform."

October 17, 2009   Permalink

THE OBNOXIOUS CROWD MARCHES ON, AS WE PAY - AT 11:04 A.M. ET:  Something else that will, justifiably, be used by those who want to bring down the market system.  Who needs foreign enemies when we have these clowns?  From The New York Times:

Even as the economy continues to struggle, much of Wall Street is minting money — and looking forward again to hefty bonuses.

Many Americans wonder how this can possibly be. How can some banks be prospering so soon after a financial collapse, even as legions of people worry about losing their jobs and their homes?

It may come as a surprise that one of the most powerful forces driving the resurgence on Wall Street is not the banks but Washington. Many of the steps that policy makers took last year to stabilize the financial system — reducing interest rates to near zero, bolstering big banks with taxpayer money, guaranteeing billions of dollars of financial institutions’ debts — helped set the stage for this new era of Wall Street wealth.

Churchill said that democracy was the worst system in the world, except for all the others.  Well, capitalism is the worst economic system in the world, except for all the others.  This scheming on Wall Street, by the very people who helped create the economic crisis, is one of the things that can easily lead to a destruction of economic freedom.

Titans like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are making fortunes in hot areas like trading stocks and bonds, rather than in the ho-hum business of lending people money. They also are profiting by taking risks that weaker rivals are unable or unwilling to shoulder — a benefit of less competition after the failure of some investment firms last year.

So even as big banks fight efforts in Congress to subject their industry to greater regulation — and to impose some restrictions on executive pay — Wall Street has Washington to thank in part for its latest bonanza.

COMMENT:  Yup.  Washington has the solution to every problem, doesn't it?  Business is booming on Wall Street.  Just off Wall Street, where people struggle to keep retail stores open, business is awful.

The "Obama recovery" seems, thus far, to be limited to those who need it the least.  But those campaign contributions and thousand-dollar-a-plate dinners will keep flowing.

Not good for our American future.

October 17, 2009   Permalink

ANOTHER GREAT MOMENT IN EDUCATION - AT 10:20 A.M. ET:  From the Boston Globe:

Less than a year after speaking at a Harvard University student conference, the head of an anti-illegal immigration movement had his invitation to speak at a similar forum tomorrow rescinded following a student uproar over his aggressive position on immigration.

Gilchrist was slated to appear on a panel that discussed “Immigration and Its Future in America.’’

But student protests, emboldened since Gilchrist spoke at a Harvard Law School event in February, led to the cancellation of his invitation.

The Undergraduate Legal Committee released a statement that read, “Mr. Gilchrist’s participation in the conference on the behalf of the Minutemen Project was not compatible with providing an environment for civil, educational, and productive discourse on immigration, and we cannot host him at this time.’’

A representative from the group would not elaborate on the statement.

Gilchrist could not be reached for comment, but said in a statement on his website that the protests came from only a few and that “the minute they received threats from fellow students these pre-law students shied away from defending free speech.’’

COMMENT:  Whether you like Gilchrist or not, his charge is accurate - students are intimidated on America's college campuses, where free speech takes a back seat to political correctness and the leftist party line.

If someone had invited Ahmadinejad to Harvard, the invitation would have gone through. Reminds me of the 1930s, when Nazi leaders were feted regularly at Ivy League schools.  In fact, a lot of things today remind me of the 1930s, like a foreign policy based on appeasement and illusion.

The result will probably be the same as well.

October 17, 2009   Permalink

MORE WEAKNESS - AT 10:06 A.M. ET:  President Obama pledged during the campaign to get tough with Sudan's leaders, in order to end the slaughters in Darfur.  Apparently, someone forgot.  The New York Times reports:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has formulated a new policy for Sudan that proposes working with that country’s government, rather than isolating it as President Obama had pledged to do during his campaign.

In an interview on Friday, President Obama’s special envoy to Sudan, Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, retired, said the policy, to be announced Monday by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, would make use of a mix of “incentives and pressure” to seek an end to the human rights abuses that have left millions of people dead or displaced while burning Darfur into the American conscience.

COMMENT:  When you pledge to get tough with a bandit regime, then don't, it has profound effects.  Every thug around the world takes note, and takes pleasure, and takes action. 

Obama has been slow on Sudan, as he has been on Afghanistan.  Neither Sudan nor the United States are any better for the delay.

October 17,  2009   Permalink