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TUESDAY, AUGUST 17, 2010

HE IS FORGIVEN – AT 7:43 P.M. ET:  Bobby Thomson has died.  You never heard of him?  Then you're unfit to be an American and must move right now to someplace outside the country, like Nancy Pelosi's congressional district.

Bobby Thomson was the greatest heartbreaker in the history of sport...well, in the history of Brooklyn, New York.  It was an October day in 1951 when Thomson, of the New York Giants, facing Brooklyn Dodger pitcher Ralph Branca, fired "the shot heard 'round the world" – a home run in the decisive National League playoff game, winning the pennant for the Giants and throwing us Dodger fans into permanent depression.

I heard it live.  Our school allowed us to listen to championship baseball games involving New York teams, suspending classes if need be.  Because of our devotion to the Dodgers, we considered it a religious holiday.

And we could barely believe it when we heard the crack of the bat, a screaming announcer, and the foul words, "The Giants win the pennant!  The Giants win the pennant!"  It was Pearl Harbor all over. 

I had gym the next period.  Our coach was one of those fatherly types out of central casting – gray hair, in his fifties, a bit of a belly, with a John Wayne walk.  (You never heard of John Wayne?  Then you're...oh, forget it.)  And Coach gave us one of those philosophical homilies, weighing the profound question of whether Thomson's hit was luck or skill. 

It was luck.  Trust me on that.  All Dodger fans knew it was luck.

It was because there was no "p" in Thomson.  It brought him luck.  That's all it was. 

Ralph Branca, the pitcher, fell into disgrace.  If this were Russia, he would have been airbrushed out of all team pictures.  Thomson became a folk hero to those spirtually void New Yorkers who rooted for the Giants.  And yet, the two became the best of friends, united in the memory of what many consider the most exciting moment in the history of baseball...if you were a Giants fan, and willing to admit it. 

We forgive you, Bobby Thomson.  RIP.

August 17, 2010     Permalink

BLOOMIN' IDIOT – AT 7:07 P.M. ET:  What has happened to Mayor Mike Bloomberg of New York?  In his first two terms he was a competent, if boring mayor.  Now, in his third – made possible by a waiver of the two-term limit – he acts like his imperial majesty.

First, he endorses the mosque at Ground Zero and declares from on high that anyone who opposes it should be "ashamed" of himself, alienating most of the country and even his own city.  Now he travels to Pennsylvania to endorse Democrat Joe Sestak, a supreme nonentity, against Republican Pat Toomey, in the race for a U.S. Senate seat.  Sestak, of course, also endorses the mosque.  Sestak is a former Navy vice admiral who says that he fought for "constitutional rights" during his service career.

I'm sure that a mosque at Ground Zero was one of the "rights" that caused Navy men to rally 'round the flag.  Yeah, right.

Sestak's Navy career ended under a cloud, but he refuses to release records that would illuminate the problem.

Sestak has had some odd associations with Arab groups since becoming a U.S. congressman representing a district in eastern Pennsylvania.  He is not considered a friend by pro-Israel forces.  We don't know if he's ever brought up religious tolerance to his Middle Eastern pals.

What strikes me is the utter arrogance of those who favor the mosque.  There are, in the United States, disputes about the placement of houses of worship all the time, but I've never heard one of these worthies get involved to defend "religious freedom."  There was a hot dispute involving a church just two months ago in Princeton, New Jersey, inside the New York City region.  Did we see Mike Bloomberg all agitated?

And we learned today that the only church actually destroyed in the 9-11 attacks was a Greek Orthodox church, which wants to rebuild.  Thus far it hasn't gotten permission from the Port Authority of New York, and negotiations are deadlocked.  Where is the support from anguished lovers of the First Amendment?  (We would like to see some help from this crowd when other First Amendment rights, like freedom of speech, are threatened, especially on college campuses that enact "speech codes" to be sure students are trained in political correctness.)

There are no actual "rights" involved in the Ground Zero dispute.  The right of Muslims to practice their religion is not being threatened.  There are mosques all over New York.  However, religious freedom has never included the automatic right to build a physical structure in a particular place. 

This dispute is about culture.  It's a conflict between cultural elites who believe they're being very "intellectual and multicultural" to favor the mosque, and "ordinary" American citizens, who know raw insensitivity when they see it.  The elites may get the mosque.  The citizens will get the elites.

August 17, 2010      Permalink

AND NOW FOR THE GROWN-UP WORLD – AT 9:21 A.M. ET:  Just thought you'd like to be kept up to date on land-use plans in Iran:

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran said Monday it has decided where to build 10 new uranium enrichment sites inside protected mountain strongholds and will start construction on the first in March, defying international efforts to curb its nuclear program.

Enriching uranium creates fuel for nuclear power plants but can also, if taken to higher levels, produce the material for weapons and Iran's growing capacity in this process is at the center of its dispute with the international community.

The U.N. Security Council has already passed four sets of sanctions against Iran to try and force it to stop enriching uranium.

Last year, Iran flouted international concerns by claiming it would build 10 new enrichment plants and Monday's announcement revealed that the sites had been chosen and would be inside mountains, without revealing any other details.

"Construction of a new uranium enrichment site will begin by the end of the (Iranian) year (March) or early next year," Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi said. "The new enrichment facilities will be built inside mountains."

COMMENT:  Iran is moving toward the bomb, and that will dwarf all other issues.  While some economic reports suggest that the new round of sanctions is being felt in Tehran, there has been no indication that they have given the mullahs any second thoughts about pursuing their nuclear dreams. 

We learned in the last few days that Russia will begin loading uranium fuel rods into the Iranian plant at Bushehr on August 21st.  Once the fuel is in, an attack on the plant becomes extremely problematical because radioactive material will be spewed into the air.  America's former ambassador to the UN, the great John Bolton, says, "Iran will achieve something that no other opponent of Israel, no other enemy of the United States in the Middle East really has and that is a functioning nuclear reactor."

One more famous victory for the reach out-and-go-touchy-feely foreign policy of the Obama administration.

August 17, 2010      Permalink

DAMAGE ASSESSMENT – AT 8:35 A.M. ET:  In diving into the Ground Zero mosque controversy, President Obama handed the Republicans an unexpected gift.  Democratic strategists are reportedly floored, dismayed, that the president would commit such an obvious political blunder.  Damage assessment is underway, as reported by Byron York in the Washington Examiner:

Now, we are beginning to see the extent of the damage Obama's stand has done to a Democratic Party already anxious about its prospects this November. When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid -- normally one of the president's most reliable allies -- announces that he "thinks that the mosque should be built someplace else," then there is a problem.

Other Democrats will surely follow. While Obama's position is "defensible," former Democratic Rep. Martin Frost wrote recently in Politico, "it will not play well in the parts of the country where Democrats need the most help." According to RealClearPolitics, there are 27 House Democrats in races that now lean Republican, and there are another 30 Democrats in races that are judged toss-ups. (There are just four Republicans in races that lean Democratic or are toss-ups.) Do most of those endangered Democrats really want to spend their time defending the president's position on the Ground Zero mosque?...

...To Republican strategists, the mosque fits into a pattern of issues in which Obama is not just disconnected from the mainstream but actually opposed to the positions of a majority of Americans. Most people don't want the mosque; Obama favors it. Most people support the Arizona immigration law; Obama opposes it. Most people opposed the Democratic health care bill; Obama pushed it through. In each case, Obama and his Democratic allies knew what the majority of Americans wanted and ignored it.

COMMENT:  York points out that, while the president's mosque stand may be spun as a case of "standing on principle," Americans eventually become weary of a national leader who consistently defies them.  Americans gave Obama the benefit of many doubts in the 2008 election, and now those doubts, especially the ones involving Obama's feelings about his own country, are surfacing once more. 

At the same time, Republican Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, who's doing a terrific job, warned his party yesterday not to carry the mosque issue too far.  He's right.  There's an old line in politics:  "When your opponent is committing suicide, don't interfere."  Republicans have stated their cased, based on sensitivity toward the victims of 9-11, and the president's apparent coldness toward those victims.  The point has been made, and we must avoid the spectacle of some Republicans beating the issue or making coarse comments, risking a public backlash.

August 17, 2010      Permalink

MORE GOOD POLLING NEWS – AT 8:02 A.M. ET:  The election is two and a half months away, and Republicans seem, at this stage at least, to be consolidating their strength.  This morning's Gallup report confirms the trend:

PRINCETON, NJ -- Gallup's latest update on 2010 congressional voting preferences finds 50% of registered voters saying they would vote for the Republican candidate in their district, and 43% for the Democratic candidate, if the elections were held today. Republicans have led in each of the past three weeks, and their current 50% vote share and seven percentage-point lead represent their best showings thus far in 2010.

And...

Republicans typically turn out to vote in greater numbers than Democrats do. So their current seven-point advantage among all registered voters could represent the lower bound of the margin they could expect to win by (in the national two-party vote) if the elections were held today.

And...

A strong Republican showing this fall would be consistent with Gallup's recent research indicating that the party of a president with approval ratings below 50% tends to suffer heavy seat losses in midterm elections. The Republicans' larger lead on the latest generic ballot coincides with a new low weekly job approval average of 44% for President Obama.

Finally...

Also, in August to date, the vote among independent registered voters has averaged 47% Republican to 34% Democratic, a 13-point GOP advantage. That compares with an average 10-point Republican advantage prior to this month.

Now that's the way to start a day.

Of course, we all know that the only poll that counts is the one on a certain Tuesday in November.  Republicans should be concentrating on, among other things, a spectacular get-out-the-vote drive, an area where Democrats have traditionally excelled.  (Look, in Chicago the Dems get some of their voters from cemeteries.  How hard is that?) 

And I still maintain that press bias, which cannot be measured in polls, will play a role in this midterm, although perhaps not as decisively as in 2008.  This election isn't in the bag for the GOP.  The campaign is really just starting.

August 17, 2010     Permalink

THE BOXER REBELLION – AT 7:50 A.M. ET:  In the critical California Senate race, Republican Carly Fiorina is pulling ahead of incumbent Barbara Boxer.  Boxer's problems stem largely from the fact that California is in awful shape, and it's hard to think of anything Boxer has accomplished that might help the situation.  One of the great intellects of the Senate she is not.  From the Christian Science Monitor:

Los Angeles – Sen. Barbara Boxer is losing ground to challenger Carly Fiorina in the race for California's Senate seat, which is considered key to both political parties.

Fiorina showed a five-point lead (47 percent to 42 percent) in a SurveyUSA poll released Aug. 12. The poll surveyed 602 likely California voters between Aug. 9 and Aug. 11 and had a margin of error of 4.1 percent.

“The 2010 California Senate race is very important nationally,” says Carleton College political scientist Steven Schier. “If the GOP is to gain control of the Senate, they must win the California Senate race.”

Because economic concerns lead the list of voter issues, Senator Boxer and Ms. Fiorina have been parrying over their plans to create jobs in the struggling state. Fiorina has accused Boxer of supporting “job killing” taxes and regulations by allowing Bush tax cuts to expire. And she has said recent small business legislation co-sponsored by Boxer “has done nothing to make it easier for small businesses or family owned businesses.”

Boxer counters that she has introduced legislation that would establish the Working Capital Express program – a new lending initiative that would encourage banks to extend more credit to small businesses. The US Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday endorsed Fiorina last week.

“Fiorina’s message may be resonating with voters,” says Jessica Levinson, an analyst with the Center for Governmental Studies. “She has styled herself as a savvy businesswoman with real-world experience who can help improve the economy and create jobs,” she says, noting that a July poll by the same organization showed her lead at two percent.

COMMENT:  California is a blue state, and has, in recent years, grown even more blue.  It is not the state that Ronald Reagan governed 40 years ago.  But there may well be an awakening in the golden state, a recognition that it cannot continue its profligate ways, with a social program for every group consisting of two people or more.  Republicans have a real shot at Boxer's seat, but expect Dems, backed by funds from the vast army of Hollywood adolescents, to pour everything they have into saving her.

August 17, 2010     Permalink

MONDAY, AUGUST 16, 2010

GATES TO GO? – AT 7:09 P.M. ET:  Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, a holdover from the Bush administration, and one of the few Obama cabinet members to enjoy bipartisan support, is suggesting that he will be gone next year.  From The Politico:

When will Robert Gates go — one of Washington’s favorite parlor games — swung back in action Monday, when the defense secretary was quoted saying he plans to quit sometime next year.

Gates has cultivated the mystery by playing up just how much he wants to retire, but he told Foreign Policy this week he wants to leave office in 2011. “I think that it would be a mistake to wait until January 2012,” he said...

...Aides said he has long wanted to leave D.C. and return to Washington state, where he will most likely write a book and plan his next move, but he also enjoys the influence and respect he commands in Congress and inside the executive branch.

The Foreign Policy article is accurate, said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon’s press secretary, but he said it doesn’t necessarily mean the secretary is leaving next year.

“This is not Bob Gates announcing his retirement,” Morrell told POLITICO. In fact, he said, every time Gates has planned his own retirement; he’s been called back into service.

COMMENT:  Stay, Bobby, stay! 

No, Gates is not indispensable.  In fact, there's a French saying, wrongly attributed to DeGaulle and maybe even wrongly attributed to Clemenceu, that the graveyards of the world are filled with indispensable men.  But Gates's presence is important because it prevents Obama from appointing a new secretary of defense, with the real possibility that he'd go with a major-league clunker like former Republican Senator (and turncoat Republican) Chuck Hagel.  It was recently reported, without attribution, that Hagel had been offered the post of national intelligence director, but had turned it down.  Maybe Chuck is looking for bigger fish.

Maintaining Gates guards against another Obama nutbag appointment.  And at least we know Gates is on the American side.

August 16, 2010      Permalink

REID OPPOSES MOSQUE – AT 6:18 P.M. ET:  In a serious blow to President Obama, his own Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, has come out against the mosque at Ground Zero.

In a statement issued by his spokesman, Jim Manley, Reid came out against the building of the Islamic center.

"The First Amendment protects freedom of religion," Manley wrote in an e-mail. "Senator Reid respects that, but thinks that the mosque should be built someplace else."

According to Fox News, other Democrats privately fear that this can lead to a wave of defections on the issue.  Obama's support is coming primarily from the chattering classes, who know that opposing the mosque may affect party invitations in Manhattan and Georgetown. 

The president's support of the mosque obviously did not go down well with the great majority of Americans.  And his arrogant, self-righteous tone didn't help. 

By the way, there is a new story out from Haaretz, a leftist Israeli newspaper, saying that the mosque project will soon be history:

Sources in New York said on Monday that Muslim religious and business leaders will announce plans to abandon the project in the next few days.

New York Governor David Patterson said last weekend that Muslim leaders had rejected outright his proposal to swap the site in for another in Manhattan.

But several people familiar with the debate among New York's Islamic activists now claim that the leaders are convinced abandoning the site is preferable to unleashing a wave of bitterness towards Muslims.

They also hope the move will be seen as a show of sensitivity to families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks, and to the American public generally.

Sensitivity?  A little late, don't you think?

I can't confirm the accuracy of the Haaretz story, and there are no named sources cited.  If the story is true, we'll be relieved, but we'll also watch as the mosque planners are turned into martyrs by our own political left.

August 16, 2010      Permalink

REMEMBER WHEN THE JAPANESE WERE NINE FEET TALL? – AT 9:28 A.M. ET:  My, how the Emperor's subjects have fallen.  Japan has just lost its place as the second largest economy, yielding the distinction to China. 

TOKYO -- Japan lost its place as the world's No. 2 economy to China in the second quarter as receding global growth sapped momentum and stunted a shaky recovery.

Gross domestic product grew at an annualized rate of just 0.4 percent, the government said Monday, far below the annualized 4.4 percent expansion in the first quarter and adding to evidence the global recovery is facing strong headwinds.

The figures underscore China's emergence as an economic power that is changing everything from the global balance of military and financial power to how cars are designed. It is already the biggest exporter, auto buyer and steel producer, and its global influence is expanding.

China has been a major force behind the world's emergence from deep recession, delivering much-needed juice to the U.S., Japan and Europe. Tokyo's latest numbers, however, suggest that Chinese demand alone may not be enough for Japan or other economic giants.

"Japan is the canary in the goldmine because it depends very much on demand in Asia and China, and this demand is cooling quite a bit," said Martin Schulz, senior economist at Fujitsu Research Institute in Tokyo. "This is a warning sign for all major economies that just focusing on overseas demand won't be sufficient."

COMMENT:  For some reason, we just don't take the challenge of China seriously enough.  Its military is growing rapidly, and is a clear threat to American dominance of the Western Pacific.  It manufacturing sends huge numbers of electronic devices and other products to the U.S. each year.  And, bottom line, it holds much of the American national debt. 

At the same time, China is plagued with internal problems, including, as my friend Gordon Chang points out, a discontented population.  So China becomes one of those "on the one hand, on the other hand" cases.  On the one hand, it is growing in power.  On the other hand, that power can be compromised by internal rot. 

But the decline of Japan is remarkable.  How many books were on bestseller lists in the last few decades describing the Japanese economic miracle? 

There are no final winners.  There are only temporary gainers.  The U.S. is going through hard times right now, but don't underestimate the ingenuity of the American people.  The question is whether a statist administration will allow those people to breathe and dream.

August 16, 2010      Permalink

CORNYN PREDICTS – AT 8:49 A.M. ET:  Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas is one of the shrewdest political minds on the Hill, so his assessment of the GOP future in congressional races is worth considering:

Texas Sen. John Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, predicted on Sunday that the GOP will make gains in November’s midterm elections but efforts to overtake Democrats may take two election cycles.

“If everything goes our way, I can see a pathway there,” Cornyn said on "Fox News Sunday." “Realistically, I think it’ll be a two-cycle effort.”

But Cornyn said Republican gains in the House and Senate will push President Barack Obama to take more centrist positions on issues after the election. He drew connections between this election and GOP gains in the 1990s during President Bill Clinton's administration.

“It can force President Obama to the middle as it did with President Clinton,” Cornyn said.

COMMENT:  Cornyn is probably right.  We can see a scenario where the GOP takes the House this November, but the Senate would require that almost everything go the Republicans' way.  Also, despite GOP leads at the moment, races tend to tighten as election day approaches.  And the Dems will be waging a fierce campaign.

But will Obama take a more centrist position if his party does poorly?  As Cornyn points out, that's what Clinton did after the Dems' 1994 debacle, and it helped him get reelected in 1996.  Obama, though, is a different personality – far more ideological and with a much stronger leftist pedigree.   In addition, the Democrats likely to get knocked off in November aren't the liberals, who often have safe seats in large urban areas, but the moderates, who are barely clinging to their seats in swing districts.  Liberals are not interested in compromise, and they may actually wind up stronger in the Democratic Party than they are now. 

There's also the intriguing question of whether Obama wants to run again in 2012.  People assume that he does, but he strikes me as a man who really doesn't like the job of president, although he enjoys the perks.  Big plane.  Great eats.  Nice trips.  If faced with an uphill struggle in 2012, he may well opt for early retirement.

It will be a battle for us all the way.  This year is an important way station.  It's 2012 that's the Emerald City.

August 16, 2010     Permalink

RUBIO RISING – AT 8:22 A.M. ET:  It has been tough recently for Marco Rubio, Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Florida, and a terrific guy.  First, he ran for the GOP nomination against incumbent Republican Governor Charlie Crist.

When Crist realized he was far behind, he bolted the Republican Party and entered the race as an independent, turning the general election into a three-way contest between Rubio, Crist, and a Dem candidate as yet unchosen.  Some recent surveys have shown Crist, the poster boy for political opportunists, ahead, in part because he's picked up some Democratic support.  Crist is milking that support by going into high grovel, even supporting the Ground Zero mosque in New York.  Apparently, that will win him some liberal votes in south Florida.

But the tide may be turning.  Results of a recent poll are encouraging:

TAMPA - A new poll shows Marco Rubio slipping ahead of Gov. Charlie Crist in the U.S. Senate race for the first time.

It also suggests that Rep. Kendrick Meek of Miami is turning around his race against Palm Beach real estate investor Jeff Geene in the Democratic Senate primary, moving to a double-digit lead after trailing Greene by substantial margins for the last several weeks.

Meek is African-American, which plays a role here.

The poll also indicates that Crist, a no-party candidate, is heavily dependent on support from Democrats, and if Democratic voters move toward a nominee of their own party, Crist's support will erode.

Crist has long been unusually popular among Democratic voters -- black voters in particular -- for a lifelong Republican.

But the new poll results show he may have trouble hanging onto enough Democratic voters to make up for the loss of GOP support caused by his move away from the Republican Party.

The numbers:

• With Meek as the Democratic nominee, the poll shows Rubio, a Republican, leading a three-way race against Meek and Crist by a statistically significant margin -- Rubio 38 percent, Crist 33 percent, Meek 18 percent and 11 percent undecided.

• With Greene as the Democratic nominee, Crist remains in first place, but by a margin so narrow it's a statistical tie -- Crist 39 percent, Rubio 38 percent, Greene 12 percent and 11 percent undecided.

COMMENT:   With Meek as the Dem candidate, African-Americans will flood toward him.  If the whitish Greene gets the nod, blacks will give heavy support to Crist.

My hunch is that our guy Rubio will pull it out anyway.

August 16, 2010      Permalink

BULLETIN:  HAMAS ENDORSES MOSQUE AT GROUND ZERO – AT 7:56 A.M. ET:  Hamas has brought its huge moral authority down on the issue:

A leader of the Hamas terror group yesterday jumped into the emotional debate on the plan to construct a mosque near Ground Zero -- insisting Muslims "have to build" it there.

"We have to build everywhere," said Mahmoud al-Zahar, a co-founder of Hamas and the organization's chief on the Gaza Strip.

"In every area we have, [as] Muslim[s], we have to pray, and this mosque is the only site of prayer," he said on "Aaron Klein Investigative Radio" on WABC.

"We have to build the mosque, as you are allowed to build the church and Israelis are building their holy places."

Hamas, he added, "is representing the vast majority of the Arabic and Islamic world -- especially the Islamic side."

Well, I guess that settles it, doesn't it?  Oh, and get this:

Zahar said Muslims around the world, including those who live in this country, are united in a common cause.

"First of all, we have to address that we are different as people, as a nation, totally different," he said.

"We already are living under the tradition of Islam.

"Islam is controlling every source of our life as regard to marriage, divorce, our commercial relationships," Zahar said.

Let us state immediately our awareness that not all Muslims think that way, but that is a very chilling statement.  Next time Jimmah Carter tells us that we must treat Hamas with respect, remember those words.  Plenty of people, in the 1930s, thought we should treat Hitler with respect.  The outcome speaks for itself.

August 16, 2010     Permalink