FRIDAY,  SEPTEMBER 25,  2009

HERE WE GO, THE T-WORD - AT 11:22 P.M. ET:  Another Obama adviser weighs in with deep, philosophical economic advice.   Get the calmness pills:

Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- John Podesta compared the nation’s current budget crisis to the situation former President Bill Clinton faced in 1993 and said some form of a value-added tax is “more plausible today than it ever has been.”

“There’s going to have to be revenue in this budget,” said Podesta, Clinton’s former chief of staff and co-chairman of President Barack Obama’s transition team, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing today.

A so-called consumption tax would “create a balance” with European and Japanese economies and “could potentially have a substantial effect on competitiveness,” said Podesta. Value- added taxes in Europe and Japan encourage savings by taxing consumption.

COMMENT:  Is this brilliant, or what?  Does Podesta understand that, at this moment, we don't want to encourage savings, we want to encourage consumption, to get out of this recession? 

These are the taxers.  And they're coming after us.  And they will wreck any recovery.  And there are plenty of people in Congress who will go along with them, as long as their group gets a few federal bucks.

September 25, 2009   Permalink

THE CARS ARE PROBABLY WELL MADE AND FAST - AT 7:16 P.M. ET:  A German village has been found in Pakistan.  It isn't friendly.  And we thought the Nazis would have a hideout after the war.  From London's Telegraph: 

Investigators have discovered a "Jihadi village" of white German al-Qaeda insurgents, including Muslim converts, in Pakistan's tribal areas close to the Afghan border.

I wonder if they're allowed to have beer parties.

The village, in Taliban-controlled Waziristan, is run by the notorious al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which plots raids on Nato forces in Afghanistan.

A recruitment video presents life in the village as a desirable lifestyle choice with schools, hospitals, pharmacies and day care centres, all at a safe distance from the front.

In the video, the presenter, "Abu Adam", the public face of the group in Germany, points his finger and asks: "Doesn't it appeal to you? We warmly invite you to join us!"

According to German foreign ministry officials a growing number of German families, many of North African descent, have taken up the offer and travelled to Waziristan where supporters say converts make up some of the insurgents' most dedicated fighters.

COMMENT:  Very dangerous, of course.  These fighters can be infiltrated back into German society, and mix with the population. 

We are having the same problem here.  The guy arrested for terror-related activities this week in Illinois was an American.  This is a new phase in terror operations.  Eternal vigilance is required.

September 25, 2009   Permalink

SCHOOL INDOCTRINATION FOLLOW-UP - AT 6:25 P.M. ET:  Most readers are aware by now of the outrageous attempt by a New Jersey elementary school to force students to sing songs, Red China style, that extolled the virtues of Barack Obama.  The school caught caught when, and only when, someone put a video of the singing students on YouTube.  Parents had never been told about it.

Now the principal of the school speaks.  Is she apologetic?  Hell no!  From Fox News:

The principal of a New Jersey elementary school where young students were videotaped singing the praises of President Obama is making no apologies for the videotape and says she would allow the performance again if she could, according to parents who spoke with her Thursday night.

Three parents told FOXNews.com that Dr. Denise King, principal of B. Bernice Young Elementary School in Burlington, N.J., defended the controversial performance, which was videotaped and posted on YouTube, when they approached her during a "Back to School" event.

Parent Jim Angelillo said King told him the lesson was merely part of Black History month, and not an attempt to indoctrinate students, as critics have charged. He said he believes teachers have the freedom to express their political views, but not in the classroom.

"Freedom of speech, not freedom to teach," Angelillo told FOXNews.com.

King has long been a fan of Obama, hanging pictures of the president in her school's hallways and touting her trip to his inauguration in the school yearbook.

Included in the full-page yearbook spread were Obama campaign slogans ("Yes we can! Yes we did!") and photos King took in Washington on Jan. 20, when she attended the inauguration.

COMMENT:  Look, I can understand the pride that African Americans like Denise King have in Obama's election, but this is dead wrong.  We don't sing songs of praise to sitting office holders - not while we have our democracy, anyway. 

Will anything be done about this?  No indication yet.  It will require parents to remain active and demand a halt to indoctrination.  It's obvious that Denise King doesn't know what the word means, or doesn't care.

September 25,  2009   Permalink

TERROR FOLLOW-UP - AT 5:46 P.M. ET:  From the New York Post:

DENVER -- An Afghan immigrant wanted to carry out a New York City terror attack involving hydrogen peroxide bombs to coincide with the Sept. 11 anniversary before federal authorities foiled the plan, a U.S. prosecutor said Friday.

Tim Neff told a federal judge that Najibullah Zazi “was in the throes of making a bomb and attempting to perfect his formulation.”

“The evidence suggests a chilling, disturbing sequence of events showing the defendant was intent on making a bomb and being in New York on 9/11, for purposes of perhaps using such items,” Neff declared in arguing for Zazi’s transfer to New York.

Ken Deal, the chief deputy U.S. marshal in Denver, said Zazi was put on a U.S. government plane and flown out of southern Denver’s Centennial Airport at 12:15 p.m. MDT — little more than an hour after U.S. Magistrate Judge Craig Shaffer ordered Zazi transferred to New York City to face charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction.

COMMENT:  It appears that all those warnings we got, that terrorists might want to "honor" the 9/11 attacks, may well have been valid.

This story has received escalating TV coverage, at least on the cable outlets, since it first broke, which is good.  Whether the American people will wake up remains to be seen.  The president has not commented on this week's terror arrests, in Colorado, Illinois, and Texas, at all.

September 25, 2009   Permalink

THE UNDER THE BUS BEAT - AT 9:45 A.M. ET:  Stories are circulating in Washington that the Obama administration is buying a second bus to throw some of its appointees under.  There's just not enough room under the first one, where one can find the Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers, Grandma, Van Jones and assorted other inconveniences.

And, indeed, another candidate is ready to be thrown under the rear axle.  From The Politico:

The National Endowment for the Arts said Thursday that its communications director, Yosi Sergant, has resigned...

...Sergant, who helped make artist Shepard Fairey's "Hope" image ubiquitous as an organizer of Obama campaign support from artists, had seemed to mix the NEA's work -- essentially non-partisan politics -- with the administration's legislative agenda on a conference call reported on by Andrew Breitbart's new conservative site, Big Government.

"I would encourage you to pick something, whether it’s health care, education, the environment, you know, there’s four key areas that the corporation has identified as the areas of service," Sergant told artists on the call, which he reportedly invited some of them to attend. "My ask would be to apply artistic, you know, your artistic creative communities utilities and bring them to the table," he said.

A job in some Latin American dictatorship might be appropriate for Sergant. 

But wait - there's still one more candidate for the bus throw.  From Fox News:

President Obama's "safe schools czar" is a former schoolteacher who has advocated promoting homosexuality in schools, written about his past drug abuse, expressed his contempt for religion and detailed an incident in which he did not report an underage student who told him he was having sex with older men.

Conservatives are up in arms about the appointment of Kevin Jennings, Obama's director of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, saying he is too radical for the job.

COMMENT:  Yeah, I would think so.  I wouldn't want this guy hanging around my kids. 

We are a nation of 305 million people.  You'd think, in a country that size, the Obamans could have found someone else.  The number of strange appointments to this administration should cause us to worry about the people doing the appointing, and the administrative abilities of the man at the top.

September 25, 2009   Permalink

GUINNESS BOOK, TAKE NOTE - AT 9:25 A.M. ET:  In light of all that's happening this morning, I nominate the following for the worst timing of the year:

As many as 50,000 American Muslims are expected to gather on Capitol Hill Friday for the religion's first-ever national prayer rally, organizers of the event say.

Maybe a postponement is in order.  Considering the news, most Americans won't be hugging a Muslim this afternoon.  It's unfair, but it's the reality.

The rally is intended to be all about prayer, and no political speeches or signs will be allowed, said the event's organizer, Hassen Abdellah, president of the Dar-ul-Islam mosque in Elizabeth, N.J.

If it isn't about politics, why is it being held on Capitol Hill?  And then there are the complications:

But at least one of the prominent speakers who will read from the Koran has drawn criticism in the past for statements he's made about the Sept. 11 terror attacks, as well as for saying that the American media are largely under "Zionist control."

In 2005, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, Sheik Ahmed Dewidar said the "suspicion towards anything Islamic" remained a burden on Muslim Americans and that "the media — most of which is under Zionist control — has helped to spread this perception.

And...

During another interview by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's Web site, Dewidar hinted at an American government conspiracy in relation to the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Just another nice chap, as American as apple pie.  Great choice of a speaker for the Capitol. 

September 25, 2009   Permalink

TERROR IN THE U.S. - AT 9:11 A.M. ET:  The second big story today is terror within the U.S.  CNN actually got hold of a surveillance tape showing one of the suspects in the Colorado/New York case buying large quantities of hydrogen peroxide from a beauty-supply store.  That is a main ingredient of a powerful type of bomb.  (No doubt his lawyer will argue that he wanted to be well stocked for years of hair coloring.)  Even The New York Times is conceding that this appears to be the most serious domestic terror case in years:

WASHINGTON — Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, senior government officials have announced dozens of terrorism cases that on closer examination seemed to diminish as legitimate threats. The accumulating evidence against a Denver airport shuttle driver suggests he may be different, with some investigators calling his case the most serious in years.

Documents filed in Brooklyn against the driver, Najibullah Zazi, contend he bought chemicals needed to build a bomb — hydrogen peroxide, acetone and hydrochloric acid — and in doing so, Mr. Zazi took a critical step made by few other terrorism suspects.

If government allegations are to be believed, Mr. Zazi, a legal immigrant from Afghanistan, had carefully prepared for a terrorist attack. He attended a Qaeda training camp in Pakistan, received training in explosives and stored in his laptop computer nine pages of instructions for making bombs from the same kind of chemicals he had bought.

COMMENT:  And remember, there were arrests in unrelated cases in Illinois and Texas.

Combined with the Iran story, national security is back on the front page.  And Barack Obama must deal with issues in which he has never shown passionate interest, and in which he has largely been a mess.

September 25, 2009   Permalink

8:54 A.M. ET:  Prime Minister Brown is now speaking.  He is also tougher in tone than Obama.  Brief statement.  Very strong.

The statements are over.  Obama's was the weakest, which is disappointing, but it was still a reasonably strong statement.  But he still came off as something of an amateur, compared to the other two.

8:52 A.M. ET:  French President Sarkozy is now speaking.  Wow.  Much tougher than Obama, much more vigorous.  Much more...Bushian.  (I like that.)  "We cannot let the Iranian leaders gain time." 

Sarkozy gives Iran a clear deadline of December. 

8:50 A.M. ET:  Obama says Iran must demonstrate its peaceful intent or face consequences.  Unspecified.

8:45 A.M. ET:  Obama charges that the size of Iranian nuclear facilities is inconsistent with a peaceful program.  (Obviously.)  Says there's a new sense of urgency over upcoming talks with Iran. 

8:43 A.M. ET:  The president is now speaking.  Being carried on all networks, broadcast and cable.

ADVANCE OBAMA - AT 8:38 A.M. ET:  We're still awaiting the president.  AP is moving this story:

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- President Barack Obama and the leaders of France and Britain will demand Friday that Iran open to international inspectors a secret nuclear facility it has tried to hide from the world for years, a senior White House official told The Associated Press.

COMMENT:  It had better be a lot tougher than that.  Inspection is a tiny first step.  We haven't caught a student writing notes on his palm before a test here.  We've caught a nation cheating on nuclear enrichment. 

There must be a stiff tone of resolve. 

September 25, 2009   Permalink

We are awaiting the president's statement on Iran.  We will live blog.  This has got to be, for Obama, a moment of strength.  There is already very heavy press coverage of the revelation, overnight, that Iran has been operating a secret nuclear facility.

The president will speak with British Prime Minister Brown and French President Sarkozy at his side.  It's now being reported (8:28 a.m. ET) that Sarkozy may also speak.

IRAN, IRAN, IRAN - AT 7:45 A.M. ET:  It's the big story this morning.  You'll see it all over the networks and the internet.  It has dramatic implications.

President Obama will charge this morning that Iran has been operating a secret nuclear facility.  The Iranians, apparently aware that the charge would be made, have now essentially admitted it.  This comes after years of Iran assuring the world that it has disclosed everything about its nuclear program.  It gives the lie to the liars.

The implications are grave.  The Iranians have been caught red-handed.  If they have one secret facility, we must logically ask how many others they have.  If the purpose of their nuclear program is peaceful, why was it necessary to hide part of it? 

This is a moment of testing for Barack Obama, who has failed one foreign-policy test after another.  He will speak on live TV this morning to this very issue.  Reports say that he will "demand" an accounting from Iran, and will possibly threaten greater sanctions.  That's nice. 

But what will be the ultimate result?  This morning's uproar - and it is huge - over the secret facility will fade in time.  The flacks for the mullahs who operate in the United States, and assorted "scholars," will put the issue "in perspective," and we'll be told to relax and just "negotiate."  Will Obama fall into that trap again?

And what about the Israelis, who have now been proved right in their repeated charge that Iran cannot be trusted?  Will they leave their fate up to Barack Hussein Obama Jr., or will they take the necessary action?

The broadcast coverage of the issue this morning has been reasonable on Fox, CNN, and even MSNBC, although, for a brief period, MSNBC's coverage became a valentine to Obama, as we were told how much more credibility he has than George W. Bush.  (On the basis of what?) 

It is crunch time.  For Iran.  For health-care reform.  For the economy.  For a president whose popularity is declining.  We've said for months that we'd have a very interesting political autumn.  Welcome.

September 25,  2009   Permalink

THURSDAY,  SEPTEMBER 24,  2009

THE TERROR BEAT - CONT'D - AT 8:18 P.M. ET:  We've been following the major terror investigation centered in New York and Colorado, but there are new developments in other apparent conspiracies:

Federal authorities arrested a 19-year-old Jordanian citizen whom they said placed an inactive car bomb today at Fountain Place, a 60-story skyscraper in downtown Dallas.

Hosam Maher Husein Smadi has repeatedly voiced his intent to serve Osama bin Laden and al-Qa’ida and commit “violent Jihad,” authorities said in a prepared statement...

...Authorities said that Smadi was under continuous FBI surveillance. Federal agents posed as members of an al-Qa’ida sleeper cell. Smadi, who was in the U.S. illegally, allegedly told them that he came to the country specifically to commit “Jihad for the sake of God.”

And there's this, in Illinois:

WASHINGTON, Sept 24 (Reuters) - An Illinois man was ordered held on Thursday on charges he tried to blow up a federal building in the state capital, a case unrelated to the New York terrorism plot.

Michael Finton, also known as Talib Islam, was arrested in Springfield, Illinois, and charged with attempted murder of federal officers or employees and trying to use a weapon of mass destruction, charges that carry a life sentence.

"Fortunately, a coordinated undercover law enforcement effort was able to thwart his efforts and ensure no one was harmed," David Kris, assistant Attorney General for National Security, said in a statement.

Finton was arrested on Wednesday in Springfield as he used a cell phone to try to detonate the bomb he believed was inside a van he had just parked outside the federal building.

COMMENT:  That's three plots broken up within a week.  But we are fighting the law of averages.  We should be grateful that we have excellence in law enforcement, and that some of our enemies are incompetent.  But sooner or later, luck runs out. 

We cannot, with integrity, link these plots directly to the appeasement policies of the president.  But certainly Mr. Obama's lack of resolve and focus increases the morale of those who would harm us.

September 24, 2009   Permalink

PARENTS FIGHT BACK - AT 7:54 P.M. ET:  Did you ever think you'd see this in our country?  An elementary school in New Jersey has been indoctrinating kids to accept a "love Obama" mindset.  Fortunately, parents detected what was going on, and are fighting back.  You really must read this:

Parents of students at a New Jersey elementary school are up in arms after a class of young kids was videotaped being "brainwashed" into singing the praises of President Obama...

...Video of the students at the Burlington, N.J., school shows them singing songs overflowing with campaign slogans and praise for "Barack Hussein Obama," repeatedly chanting the president's name and celebrating his accomplishments, including his "great plans" to "make this country's economy No. 1 again."

One song that the children were taught quotes directly from the spiritual "Jesus Loves the Little Children," though Jesus' name is replaced with Obama's: "He said red, yellow, black or white/All are equal in his sight. Barack Hussein Obama."

For the actual lyrics to these "educational" songs, go here.

For the exciting video, go here.

The video has set off families in Burlington who said they were horrified that their children at the Kindergarten through Second Grade school were being "indoctrinated" to view the president like a cult figure.

"I'm stunned -- I can't believe it's our school," said Jim Pronchik, who told FOXNews.com his 8-year-old son Jimmy was one of the 18 students in the video. "We don't want to praise this guy like he's a god or an idol or a king or anything like that. That's the wrong message to be sending."

COMMENT:  The sad reality is that there are many teachers who see no problem with this.  They are taught in many teachers' colleges to have, as the current educational jargon goes, the right "inclinations."  In other words, they're taught a leftist party line vaguely defined as "social justice."  To people like this, it's entirely logical to sing songs of praise for dear leader.  Democratic traditions mean nothing.  These traditions, including the idea that leaders report to the people, not the other way around, are seen as the deceptions of the "oppressor."

We'll follow this.  And those of you who are parents of young children should exercise your citizenship rights and ask what is being taught at school.  You own those schools.

September 24, 2009   Permalink

POOR TASTE IN MEN - AT 6:22 P.M. ET:  What is it with Hillary?  She's already demonstrated her poor taste in men, big time, but it continues.  When will they ever learn?  When will they ever learn?

She's been championing the cause of the former president of Honduras, legally and constitutionally ousted by his country, and expelled.  He slipped back into Honduras some days ago, and is now holed up in the Brazilian embassy.  Here he speaks to us, revealing just who Hillary is loving now:

TEGUCIGALPA -- It's been 89 days since Manuel Zelaya was booted from power. He's sleeping on chairs, and he claims his throat is sore from toxic gases and "Israeli mercenaries'' are torturing him with high-frequency radiation.

"We are being threatened with death,'' he said in an interview with The Miami Herald, adding that mercenaries were likely to storm the embassy where he has been holed up since Monday and assassinate him.

"I prefer to march on my feet than to live on my knees before a military dictatorship,'' Zelaya said in a series of back-to-back interviews.

It's those Israeli mercenaries.  They're the ones!  Don't you want this man, an ally of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, back in power?  Hillary does, and has threatened the new government of Honduras if Zelaya is not invited back on the throne.

Oh, it gets worse.  Now Hillary apparently gets a Chris Matthews tingle up her leg when she dreams of another worthy, the king of Saudi arabia, the very king whom Obama bowed down to in his first month in office:

Amid all the coverage of President Obama’s address to the United Nations, we should also note the obsequious “salute” that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave yesterday to Saudi King Abdullah. Using the occasion of Saudi Arabia’s national day, Clinton heaped unqualified and unrelenting praise on the monarch for, among other things, enhancing our security, showing friendship to other religions, helping liberate women, reforming education, and supporting peace with Israel.

Wha..? 

No mention was made of the fact that Saudi Arabia remains the only country in the world without a public church, or that is has been singled out by the State Department as one of the world’s worst religious persecutors. In Saudi Arabia today, women still cannot leave home without the permission of their male guardians, and even then are banned by the state from driving. Meanwhile, the Saudi Ministry of Education continues to post online its curriculum of hatred and violence toward Jews, apostates, polytheists, and (generally speaking) the religious “other,” which even Saudi journalists and editors themselves acknowledge has led to easy recruitment of suicide terrorists from among Saudi youth. Those Saudis who dissent from such of the monarchy’s repressive policies are often charged with “blasphemy” and similar offenses and thrown into the Kingdom’s deplorable prisons.

King Abdullah has, however, done at least one thing that warrants a tribute from Clinton: He was one of the largest donors to her husband’s foundation.

COMMENT:  Or maybe the guy is just rugged and good-looking, in a Saudi king kind of way. 

But I suspect that it's the money that talked.  Hillary has always understood the meaning of green.

September 24, 2009   Permalink

ESCALATION - AT 6:14 P.M. ET:  We've been following the ongoing terror investigation in the United States, apparently the largest in years.  Now there's a major arrest, one that reminds us how close we often come to disaster:

A Denver airport shuttle bus driver who was arrested there last weekend was charged in Brooklyn on Thursday morning with conspiring with others to make and use bombs.

The driver, Najibullah Zazi, 24, had been arrested with his father in Denver and accused of making false statements. But his indictment in Brooklyn on Thursday was far more serious. Mr. Zazi was charged with one count of conspiring with others, who are not named, to use one or more weapons of mass destruction, including bombs or other explosives.

The authorities said Mr. Zazi bought chemicals that could be used to make bombs from Denver-area beauty supply stores and had bomb-making instructions on his laptop computer. They said he had mixed chemicals in a suburban Denver hotel room in the weeks before his arrest. Attorney General Eric Holder released a statement saying that the government believed that “any imminent threat” from the case had “been disrupted.”

And...

“We are investigating a wide range of leads related to this alleged conspiracy,” Mr. Holder said. “We believe any imminent threat arising from this case has been disrupted, but as always, we remind the American public to be vigilant.”

COMMENT:  Good to see the attorney general involved.  I would have liked to have seen, amidst all the appeasement at the UN, a statement from the president himself.  After all, the city where he's been hanging out, New York, was the target of the plot. 

September 24, 2009   Permalink

NEW BOUNCE FOR OBAMA - AT 9:47 A.M. ET:  Rasmussen is reporting a small bounce for the president, possibly due to his active international week at the UN, where he's a star attraction.

In overall approval, the president is ahead, 51% to 48%, his best showing in about ten days.  In Ras's presidential approval index, measuring the gap between those who strongly approve of Mr. Obama's performance, and those who strongly disapprove, the president is behind by five points, 33% to 38%, his best performance in about eight days.

If past trends continue, this slight bounce will disappear within a week or so.  Even with the bounce, the president's numbers are not the kind you post on the refrigerator.  He is struggling to stay above the 50% mark, with many difficult decisions confronting him.

September 24, 2009   Permalink

OBAMA'S SPEECH - AT 9:01 A.M. ET:  Like most Obama speeches, his address to the UN General Assembly yesterday is now forgotten.  The Gettysburg Address it was not.

Some conservatives were much harsher on the speech than I was, and they may well be right.  But, as I told a reader, I set a low rhetorical standard for this president, who never fails to disappoint.  He always sounds more than the president of the world, or some other planet, than president of the United States.  I don't think, by the way, that the public is buying this.  You see absolutely no excitement about the Obama foreign policy, except perhaps, at the editorial offices of exotic journals.

The mainstream media is doing its best to present Mr. Obama's very physical presence at the UN as some kind of transforming experience.  He has come, he has waved his hand over the assemblage, there is peace on Earth and good will toward men...and it's cooler, too.

The Russians have indicated they may go along with further sanctions against Iran.  The Israelis and Palestinians may get back to what passes for the peace table in the Mideast.  There are all kinds of mays coming out of this high-profile week at the UN, but no definites.

The president chairs the Security Council today.  It's being promoted as a groundbreaking event:  No American president has ever chaired the Security Council before, probably because they all had enough common sense to stay away.  But we'll wait for the photo op, see if Khadafy shows up to sit near Mr. Obama - whom he described yesterday as "my son" - and watch to see if the president of the United States displays any backbone, a rarity.

Then Mr. Obama goes on to a meeting of the G20 in Pittsburgh.  Are you asleep already?

September 24, 2009   Permalink

THE OBAMA MENTALITY - AT 8:51 A.M. ET:  Victor Davis Hanson, one of the great essayists of our time, has looked at the Obama persona, and finds it heavily influenced by the halls of ivy, poison and otherwise. 

Now, I happen to love academic people, but I'm not starry eyed.  The president has hung out with a class of academic who would gladly flunk me, and probably most of our readers as well.  Hanson explains:

If you are confused by the first nine months of the Obama administration, take solace that there is at least a pattern. The president, you see, thinks America is a university and that he is our campus president. Keep that in mind, and almost everything else makes sense.

Yeah, that's right.  He makes the rules and we pay the bills.

In his limited experience, those who went to Yale or Harvard are special people, and the Ivy League environment has been replicated in the culture of the White House.

Note how baffled the administration is by sinking polls, tea parties, town halls, and, in general, “them” — the vast middle class, which, as we learned during the campaign, clings to guns and Bibles, and which has now been written off as blinkered, racist, and xenophobic. The earlier characterization of rural Pennsylvania has been expanded to include all of Middle America.

For many in the academic community who have not worked with their hands, run businesses, or ventured far off campus, Middle America is an exotic place inhabited by aborigines who bowl, don’t eat arugula, and need to be reminded to inflate their tires. They are an emotional lot, of some value on campus for their ability to “fix” broken things like pipes and windows, but otherwise wisely ignored.

Ignore them at your peril, as the polls are showing.

The tragic burden of an academic is to help the oppressed, but blind, majority.

In the world of the university, a Van Jones — fake name, fake accent, fake underclass pedigree, fake almost everything — is a dime a dozen. Ward Churchill fabricated everything from his degree to his ancestry, and was given tenure, high pay, and awards for his beads, buckskin, and Native American–like locks. The “authentic” outbursts of Van Jones about white polluters and white mass-murderers are standard campus fare.

Professor Hanson's disillusionment continues:

Some wonder where Obama got the idea that constant exposure results in persuasion. But that too comes from the talk-is-everything mindset of a university president. Faculties are swamped with memos from deans, provosts, and presidents, reiterating their own “commitment to diversity,” reminding how they would not “tolerate hate speech,” and in general blathering about the “campus community.”

And...

University administrators worship private money, and then among themselves scoff at the capitalism that created it. Campus elites, looking at a benefactor, are fascinated how someone — no brighter than they are — made so much money, even as they are repelled by a system that allows those other than themselves to have pulled it off.

I've noticed that liberals, especially on campus, are impressed by two things - style and money.  Substance is well behind.  Thus we see (a standard academic phrase) that it's common practice at Columbia University in New York to bash Dwight Eisenhower, who was Columbia's president briefly, in the late forties, because he didn't have an academic style.  His wisdom and experience didn't count for much.  And his wife's hairdo was inappropriate.

Many of the former Professor Obama’s problems so far hinge on his administration’s inability to judge public opinion, its own self-righteous sense of self, its non-stop sermonizing, and its suspicion of sincere dissent. In other words, the United States is now a campus, we are the students, and Obama is our university president.

COMMENT:  I just wish some of the Obama team could play football.  Or badminton or hopscotch.

But remember, there are wonderful college professors as well, even at decidedly liberal institutions.  They slip in somehow.

September 24, 2009   Permalink

CAN THE MIRACLE HAPPEN? - AT 8:17 A.M. ET:  Can Republicans win back the House next year?  Michael Barone, who probably knows more about American politics than any other mortal, looks at the evidence so far:

There’s starting to be some speculation that Republicans might recapture a majority in the House in 2010. That would require them to gain 40 seats—the exact number they needed to gain in 1994, the last time they recaptured a majority from the Democrats.

And...

Currently Real Clear Politics reports that Democrats lead Republicans by only 41%-39% in the generic ballot. But there’s a clear difference between the results shown by pollster Scott Rasmussen, who limits his surveys to those he determines to be likely voters, and other pollsters. Rasmussen currently shows Republicans leading 42%-38% and has had them ahead every week since the results he reported June 28—just about the time the House was passing the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill by a 219-212 margin.

Interpreting the numbers:

Now comes political scientist Andrew Gelman, on the 538.com blog run by the Obama enthusiast and gifted numbers cruncher Nate Silver, saying that the generic polls suggest that Republicans could recapture a House majority in 2010. I have noticed that over the years generic vote questions have tended to understate the ultimate Republican percentage of the popular vote for the House.

But still, Barone is extremely cautious.  He notes that the anti-Obama trend we've seen could be reversed.  Also, most polls still show the Democrats ahead.  And, very critically, the Republican Party is, on its own, not popular.

Having said all that, I think the chances of the Republicans recapturing the House have to be rated now at well below 50%. But I think they’re not as negligible as I thought even a few weeks ago.

COMMENT:  Even if the GOP doesn't take back the House, the Dems could be so badly dented that the liberal wing of their party would find it impossible to govern.  The power could shift decisively to a coalition of Republicans and moderate Democrats, a combination that had a controlling interest from 1939 onward, for a number of decades.

September 24, 2009   Permalink

OBAMA LOSING THE INDIES - AT 7:55 A.M. ET:  President Obama and his party are losing the most crucial voting bloc of all - the independents.   From the Washington Examiner:

Independents gave Obama the White House last year with a vote for pragmatic competence. They have been repaid with partisanship and dithering. And unlike liberals who Obama has quickly re-energized after their summer doldrums, independents are devilishly hard to win back once they lose faith.

The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, the Rolls-Royce of public surveys, showed that for the first time, independents disapproved of the president's performance, 46 percent to 41 percent.

For the first few months of the Obama administration, independents, who make up about 43 percent of the electorate, reflected overall public opinion in giving the president consistent approval ratings of about 60 percent. But now, unaffiliated voters are less positive than the overall electorate, which is holding steady at 51 percent job approval for Obama.

It gets more grim, if you're living in the White House:

More shocking is that independent voters now favor a Republican-controlled Congress by a four-point margin and would overwhelmingly like to see their own member of the House replaced.

Those are the kinds of numbers you see before electoral hurricanes like 1966 or 1994.

What is particularly striking is the reason for the independent defection:

The cause of the drop is foreign policy, where the approval for the president's performance dropped 7 points since July to 50 percent.

This is the first time we've seen foreign policy produce such bad polling news for the White House.  And why?  Americans hold the military in very high esteem.  Obama seems to be in conflict with his own military leaders:

We hear that Obama is waiting to see what happens next before deciding to continue with his own strategy of an Afghan surge. His team is reading a book about how the Kennedy administration was led astray by the military and holding a series of meetings about the way forward.

A flip-flop on what Obama called a "war of necessity" just last might well send the independents to the exits for good.

And we'd be so, so sad.

September 24, 2009   Permalink