SECOND EVENING UPDATE:  JUNE 9,  2008

Posted at 8:42 p.m. ET

THE PELOSI PREMIUM

Investor's Business Daily gets to the heart of the gasoline-price issue in exposing the "Pelosi premium."  We can solve this problem, but we're being stopped by environmentalism's fundamentalist fanatics:

The price of gasoline when the Democrats took control of Congress was around $2.25 per gallon.

The average price of regular gas crept over the $4-per-gallon barrier over the weekend, as measured by AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.

That represents a more than 75% increase in the retail price of a gallon of gasoline on Pelosi's watch. Call it the "Pelosi premium" we're all now paying.

It's a problem driven by domestic supply restrictions imposed by the Democratic Congress in the face of growing worldwide demand. The Democrats preach energy independence while they do everything in their power to prevent it. If the American people truly want change, this would be it.

And...

The U.S. Congress has voted consistently to keep 85% of America's offshore oil and gas off-limits, while China and Cuba drill 60 miles from Key West, Fla. The U.S. Minerals Management Service says that the restricted areas contain 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

There are 3,200 oil rigs off the coast of Louisiana. During Katrina, not a single drop was spilled. More than 7 billion barrels have been pumped from these wells over the past quarter-century, yet only one thousandth of one percent has been spilled.

Finally...

We would suggest that John McCain revisit his reservations about ANWR and run against the drill-nothing Congress. Energy development and the environment are not mutually exclusive.

In fact, we would suggest that the first joint town hall meeting with Barack Obama proposed by McCain be held on one of those offshore Louisiana rigs.

What is sickening here is that the very people who scream of their love for the poor are themselves gouging the poor, making them pay absurd prices for fuel in order to live their pure, aren't-I-wonderful, environmentally pure lives.  Ask the independent cabbie in Harlem what he thinks of five-dollar-a-gallon gasoline.  But, of course, these superior creatures in the environmental movement would never talk to a cabbie in Harlem unless he was hauling them to a fundraiser at the Waldorf-Astoria.

June 9, 2008.      Permalink          

FIRST EVENING UPDATE:  JUNE 9,  2008

Posted at 6:52 p.m. ET

IT IS HAPPENING HERE

I received a not-for-attribution briefing last week on radical Islam and its methods.  Then I saw this story.  It is happening here, and you can be sure an Obama administration won't care:

A textbook monitoring group said that Maryland middle and high school students will be required to read about Islamic teachings that have been dumbed down and are products of political correctness.

According to the New York Examiner, a new report issued by the American Textbook Council said that administrators who approved books for use in the Montgomery County school district caved into pressure by pro-Islamic groups seeking to present a less violent interpretation of Islam.

Gilbert Sewall, director of the council, stated that, for example, the definition of jihad has gone through "amazing cultural reorchestration" in textbooks, losing any connotation of violence, the Examiner wrote.

Other terms, such as sharia law, have been adjusted or removed from lessons to avoid what he called "inconvenient truths."

Montgomery County Public Schools defended the decision to use the books, saying in a statement that all texts used by teachers had been properly vetted and were appropriate for classroom uses.

Vetted by whom?  Are we permitted to know?  Many citizens don't realize that many of our teacher-training colleges are now controlled by hard leftists who openly state that they see teaching as a political act.  They are training the teachers who use these dumbed-down textbooks.

Sadly, the Nazis were right about education.  If you control the minds of youth, you control the future.  It took millions of deaths to put an end to that menace.  We may simply surrender to the new one.

June 9, 2008.      Permalink          

LATE AFTERNOON POST:  JUNE 9,  2008

Posted at 5:38 p.m. ET

WELCOME CHANGE

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced a new Air Force leadership team today - a new chief of staff and secretary. 

Urgent Agenda has private sources, and the following comes from "a former Pentagon official with knowledge of the people involved":

Defense Secretary Gates's nomination of Gen "Norty" Schwartz, present commander of TRANSCOM, to be the next chief of staff of the Air Force, can be seen as a slap at the "fighter Mafia," as the fighter pilots are known in the Air Force. The fighter pilots have dominated as chief of staff since the founding of the Air Force and have denigrated all other pilots and non-rated officers.

With this nomination of Schwartz, a C-130 pilot who has long experience in the special operations world, and who is also a fervent advocate of more airlift and a new tanker force, it would seem that the secretary is showing that he wants the Air Force to emphasize those parts of its mission. These non-sexy areas are historically ignored by the senior leaders of the Air Force, but are vital to the global war on terror and, indeed, to the continued projection of forces by all four services. Without new tankers, without the heavy lifters of the Air Force's Mobility Command, projection of American power and will rely on the Navy's aircraft carriers, which have their own vulnerabilities.

Gates is sending a strong signal with this nomination. He is also sending the same signal that Dick Cheney did in 1990 when he fired the Air Force chief of staff, Gen. Mike Dugan, over policy disputes in the run-up to Gulf War I:

Civilian control of the services.

With his nomination of Mike Donley to serve out the remainder of the Bush administration, he also chooses someone who knows how to get things done in the Pentagon. Donley served in the same stopgap position during the Clinton administration, and did a credible job.

Well put.

June 9, 2008.      Permalink          

AFTERNOON POST:  JUNE 9,  2008

Posted at 3:04 p.m. ET

TRACKERS:  THE BUMP

Barack Obama has gotten the predicted bump in the polls, following his victory in the Dem primary battle, according to two new trackers out today:

Both Rasmussen and Gallup report  Obama leading McCain by six points.  That's a pretty good boost, given that the two were essentially tied about a week or so ago.  But it is hardly a commanding lead, given that all the attention has been on Obama in the last week.

I've noticed that, in general, the more Obama is counterpunched by an opponent, the weaker he gets.  As analysts correctly noted, he limped across the finish line.  (Of course, he still won.)  Now is the moment for McCain to come out swinging, define Obama, and put him on the defensive.  He'd better do this through town meetings, ads, and press statements, because his speeches have all the spark of a country cemetery. 

June 9, 2008.      Permalink          

MONDAY:  JUNE 9,  2008

Posted at 5:38 a.m. ET

THE WILL TO WORDS

George Will has not been a favorite of mine in recent years, as his grouchiness got the best of him.   But occasionally he rises to the heights of the Will of old, and once again becomes God's Will. Consider:

Journalists consider themselves crusty, unsentimental creatures who, their battered fedoras shoved back on their heads, have slouched out of Ben Hecht's 1928 play "The Front Page," oozing skepticism from every pore. Actually, they are round-heeled romantics, such pushovers for a new swain that they did not laugh until their ribs squeaked when Barack Obama concluded his triumphal St. Paul, Minn., speech by proclaiming: "I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick …"

It is absolutely certain that generations from now someone will remember that even before that night in St. Paul, care was provided to the sick in America. Obama also asserted that future generations would say that "this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal …" The man and the moment have met.

And...

Commentators, too, use words in peculiar ways, as when they speak of Obama and Hillary Clinton needing to bring together "the two wings of the party." There is the left wing, and the other left wing. As one precise commentator has said, Clinton and Obama differ about as much as the Everly Brothers.

The rest of the piece is okay, but those are gems. 

Great rhetoric has its place, but it tends to wear out its welcome.  If you look at truly great speeches, like Lincoln's Second Inaugural, the memorable phrases are connected by paragraphs of substance, some of it unexciting.  Churchill's speeches were structured the same way.  Obama seems to want every sentence eligible for inclusion in Bartlett's.  It's not great speechwriting, but it does sound good at the time.

June 9, 2008.      Permalink          

PERSPECTIVE?  BOTTLE IT.

You sometimes wonder if most journalists ever took a course in history, or, if they did, if they ever went to class.  There is so little historical (or other) perspective in a journalism that increasingly tends toward entertainment, especially sketch comedy.  There is also a remarkable conformity, and an obvious fear of disagreeing with the ink-stained mob. 

And so it's refreshing to see Jon Ward's piece in today's Washington Times, with its perspective on why Europe might be disappointed in a President Obama.  The Europeans, who would be in the dustbin of history by now were it not for Uncle Sam's armies, are expecting miracles, and the laying on of hands and checkbooks.  But there is truth:

To many in Europe, President Bush is still a pariah, and Barack Obama is a phenom.

But as Mr. Bush heads to the continent Monday for a weeklong goodbye tour, the little known fact is that his administration has done much to repair the trans-Atlantic relationship in his second term. As for Mr. Obama, recent events indicate the Democrat from Illinois, if elected president, might not be the drastic contrast with Mr. Bush that many in Europe are wishing for.

"Once President Bush is out of the White House, there will be huge expectations in Europe that a new, rosy dawn of peace and love is appearing over the Atlantic," said Reginald Dale, a Europe scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"They're liable to be somewhat disappointed, because America is still going to look after its own interests, and then the fundamental interests may not have changed that much," he said.

And...

As for Iran, Mr. Obama sounded a far tougher note than ever before last week, which may have surprised some in Europe.

Speaking to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington, Mr. Obama said he would do "everything in [his] power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon" and that he will "always keep the threat of military action on the table."

"The Europeans may not be that relieved about what he says following Bush," said Stephen Flanagan, director of the international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

For the current president, his image in Europe has improved by leaps and bounds from the dark days surrounding the invasion of Iraq, which was strongly opposed throughout the continent.

The French and German leaders who opposed Mr. Bush on Iraq have been replaced by more pro-American conservatives - Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, respectively. Silvio Berlusconi, an old Bush friend, is once again Italy's prime minister. And in Britain, the Conservative Party is resurgent while Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has distanced himself from Mr. Bush, is fighting for his political life.

Ah, the facts are getting nasty again.  I can just see the leftist European press, after realizing that Obama will not surrender the United States to the European Union, starting to refer to Obama as Bush II.  I want that headline.  I'll save it.  I expect it.  Berkeley will weep.

June 9, 2008.      Permalink          

THE CIC

Frederick Kagan, in The Weekly Standard, proposes a clear test, for commander-in-chief, for each candidate, based on recent events in Iraq.  Guess who passes?  Guess who fails?

It would be hard to design a better test for the job of commander in chief than the real-life test senators John McCain and Barack Obama have undergone in the last two years. As the situation in Iraq deteriorated during 2006 and the war reached its most critical moment, both senators served on national security committees: McCain on Armed Services, Obama on Foreign Relations. From those positions, with access to classified situation reports as well as the public testimony and private advice of those who knew the situation in Iraq best, each man reached an understanding of the facts on the ground and the interests at stake. And each proposed a strategy. It was as close as a presidential candidate could get to showing how he would respond to a national security crisis without already being in the White House. 

Simply stated, McCain proposed a surge of troops in Iraq.  Obama opposed it.  More:

For any voter trying to choose between the two candidates for commander in chief, there is no better test than this: When American strategy in a critical theater was up for grabs, John McCain proposed a highly unpopular and risky path, which he accurately predicted could lead to success. Barack Obama proposed a popular and politically safe route that would have led to an unnecessary and debilitating American defeat at the hands of al Qaeda.

The two men brought different backgrounds to the test, of course. In January 2007, McCain had been a senator for 20 years and had served in the military for 23 years. Obama had been a senator for 2 years and before that was a state legislator, lawyer, and community organizer. But neither presidential candidates nor the commander in chief gets to choose the tests that history brings. Once in office, the one elected must perform.

Well stated.  The contrast is dramatic.  Which man would you trust to protect the national security?  Is this difficult?

June 9, 2008.      Permalink          

ET TU, AUSSIES?

Finally, there is deep concern in the Australian educational establishment over teachers who actually raise their voices in order to control their classrooms.  Those cruel, inhuman teachers:

TEACHERS are under scrutiny for shouting while trying to control students in the classroom and playground.

Education Department officials are investigating teachers for shouting at students to "put that down'', "leave him alone'', "sit down'' or "pick up those papers'' and demanding to know, "who told you that you could go there?''

The Sunday Telegraph has obtained letters sent from the department to teachers, asking them to explain their actions.

One letter stated: "It is alleged that while you were employed as a teacher you engaged in unreasonable conduct towards students, contrary to the Code of Conduct 2004, in that on unspecified occasions in class you unnecessarily yelled at students''.

Teachers have launched legal action against the department, claiming the investigations are eroding their authority and affecting discipline.

Watch.  Soon there'll be a Ministry of Unnecessary Shouts.  Its first minister will have a portrait of himself or herself hung in the lobby.  It will do important work.

Be back later, quietly and with respect.

June 9, 2008.      Permalink