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DECEMBER 10, 2010

WAPO TRIUMPHS – AT 10:29 A.M. ET:  I'm glad to see that Ronald Kessler, at the conservative NewsMax site, is giving the Washington Post the credit it deserves for improving its product.  (We give credit where it's due here.) 

For years the Post was in steady decline, acting as a junior partner to The New York Times in trying to be a liberal mouthpiece, and not only on its editorial pages.  But, under a refreshingly new management, it is returning to its earlier tradition as a fair and balanced newspaper.  There is still a way to go – a culture dies hard – but the progress is clear.  There is no similar progress at The Times, and there probably won't be until the current publisher is forced to walk the plank or goes through a religious conversion.

Kessler praises WaPo for a stinging editorial debunking a new, leftist Hollywood movie (Is there any other kind?) on the Valerie Plame affair:

Saying the movie is “full of distortions — not to mention outright inventions,” the Dec. 3 editorial refutes the claim by former State Department diplomat Joe Wilson, Plame’s husband, that he “debunked a Bush administration claim that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from the African country of Niger.”

In fact, the editorial says, an investigation by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found that Wilson’s reporting “did not affect the intelligence community’s view on the matter, and an official British investigation found that President George W. Bush’s statement in a State of the Union address that Britain believed that Iraq had sought uranium in Niger was well-founded.”

The editorial slams the couple’s story that Plame’s exposure as a CIA operative was the result of a White House conspiracy.

“A lengthy and wasteful investigation by a special prosecutor found no such conspiracy — but it did confirm that the prime source of a newspaper column identifying Ms. Plame was a State Department official, not a White House political operative,” the editorial says.

The editorial notes that the film’s reception illustrates a troubling trend in political debates in Washington, where “established facts are willfully ignored.”

COMMENT:  One reason they're ignored is that too many journalists attended colleges where they were taught that "there's no such thing as truth," that it's just a "cultural construct."  Lies are too often called "alternative narratives."  It is an Orwellian universe. 

The Washington Post is, today, a better paper than The Times, and its editorial page is vastly superior.  Changes in leadership, like changes of command in the military, can produce dramatic results.  And sometimes the results are heartening.

December 10, 2010      Permalink

WITH EYES ON 2012 – AT 9:27 A.M. ET:  You can be sure that every initiative taken by this president will be launched with an eye on 2012.  That's pretty normal politics for any president.  And there is a chance that Obama will maneuver to the center, making clear to his leftist base that a new day has dawned, and that he must do what a politician must do.

Obama has a major meeting with Bill Clinton coming up, and they won't simply be comparing Christmas recipes.  Clinton maneuvered to starboard after he took an Obama-style shellacking in the 1994 congressional midterms.  He went on to win easy reelection in 1996. 

Obama is already moving to make taxes his issue, rather than ceding it to the GOP, as The Wall Street Journal reports:

President Barack Obama has instructed his economic team to draft options to close loopholes and lower income-tax rates ahead of what would be a multi-year effort to overhaul and simplify the U.S. tax code, administration officials said Thursday.

Lowering corporate tax rates could give the administration the opportunity to build an alliance with business leaders, though it would likely depend on which tax breaks officials propose to eliminate.

White House aides cautioned that the effort was in its infancy. But in the wake of last week's report from his presidential deficit commission, a broad tax overhaul has been pushed toward the front of the discussion as members of both parties try to find a way to bring down the $1.3 trillion budget deficit with minimal pain.

"The president has long said that reforming the tax system is a priority, and the bipartisan fiscal commission recently made recommendations that he will consider as part of the budget process," said White House Deputy Communications Director Jen Psaki. "But he is not considering specific policy proposals, and no decisions have been made about whether this is a priority he will push for in the near future."

The debt commission proposed ending certain tax breaks, known as tax expenditures, that allow many corporations and individuals to minimize their tax burdens. By attacking such loopholes, the commission concluded tax rates could be lowered while still bringing in more revenue to the Treasury.

COMMENT:  There are disturbing reports that some incoming Republican congressmen are rushing to abandon their campaign pledges and returning to the old earmark system of filling money bills with special-interest favors.  And Republicans, if only temporarily, blocked federal aid to 9-11 workers sickened by conditions at the attack sites as they worked to clear the rubble.  While these funds will probably be released, the headlines did the GOP's image no good as it worked to insure continuation of the Bush tax cuts for the very comfortable.

Obama's move toward possible reform of the tax system may be very shrewd.  Historically, Republicans have been monumentally inept in explaining some of their domestic positions, especially as regards taxes and assisting people in need.  It is one of the reasons why polls showed that, while the Democrats were defeated last month, the Republicans were hardly embraced.  The party has a poor image, a greedy image, whether deserved or not.  If Obama can exploit that image by proposing popular changes in the tax system, he can pin the GOP to the wall. 

Do not count Obama out in 2012.  His fight with his own base over the tax compromise with Republicans will probably help him with the broad center of American politics.  And where would his base go for a presidential candidate on election day, 2012?  Lenin is dead and the head of Wikileaks is in prison.  Both are unavailable and poorly funded.

And blacks, for understandable reasons of group solidarity, will back Obama in 2012 even if he tries to switch the national anthem to "Dixie."  Although I doubt if he will. 

Charles Krauthammer believes that Obama won a great victory in his tax negotiations with Republicans, because what emerged is really a new stimulus plan that he couldn't get through the newly elected Congress if he called it that.  While the blurry-brained left may not realize that Obama did quite well in his talks with the GOP, the president himself will know how to claim the credit.

No, don't count him out.

December 10, 2010       Permalink

NUTBAG PROVES IT ONCE AGAIN – AT 8:48 A.M. ET:  Ron Paul, the "Republican" (not really) congressman from Texas, and father of newly elected senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul, demonstrates once again why we have a right to worry about issues of sanity in some elected officials.  From John Hinderaker at Power Line:

Attentive readers may have noticed that I am no admirer of Ron Paul. In fact, I once dubbed him the Pee-Wee Herman of the Republican Party. Paul illustrates, in my view, the dark side of libertarianism. The Achilles heel of Paul's brand of libertarianism is foreign policy. You could describe him as an isolationist, but I think he is worse than that: during the Bush administration, his antiwar rhetoric took on a vicious quality.

Today Paul showed once again why he is outside of the conservative mainstream. The House of Representatives voted 402-1 to congratulate Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo on her Nobel peace prize. The one congressman who voted no was Ron Paul.

Was the vote purely symbolic? Of course; which makes Paul's no vote even worse. For an American politician not to favor freedom and democracy abroad, even in principle, is simply perverse.

COMMENT:  It certainly is.  Ron Paul is a true RINO (Republican in name only).  While the term is normally applied to Republicans who tilt too far to the left, in Paul's case the tilt is too far to the nutbag regions of the delusional right.

Because of seniority, Paul will chair a subcommittee in the new House dealing with the Federal Reserve, whose existence he opposes.  But Paul's potential for damage lies mostly in foreign policy, where he has been an extreme isolationist, and has defended terrorism against the United States, claiming it's our fault.  There is an old notion in political science that the extreme left and the extreme right meet at some point, and Paul's foreign-policy positions are uncomfortably close to those we find on the Marxist left.

And all that makes us wonder about the true views of his son, just elected to the Senate from Kentucky.  Under pressure, Rand Paul made some responsible noises on foreign policy during his campaign, but I have the gut feeling that he's a chip off the old blockhead.  There is still an isolationist fringe in the Republican Party that apparently learned nothing from the isolationist disaster of the 1930s.  I'm afraid we'll be hearing from this crowd again.  There may not be enough straitjackets to go around.

December 10, 2010     Permalink

STRAIGHTEN UP AND FLY RIGHT – AT 8:34 A.M. ET:  More reassuring reports from your federal government, from Fox News:

The Federal Aviation Administration is missing key information on who owns one-third of the 357,000 private and commercial aircraft in the U.S. — a gap the agency fears could be exploited by terrorists and drug traffickers.

The records are in such disarray that the FAA says it is worried that criminals could buy planes without the government's knowledge, or use the registration numbers of other aircraft to evade new computer systems designed to track suspicious flights. It has ordered all aircraft owners to re-register their planes in an effort to clean up its files.

About 119,000 of the aircraft on the U.S. registry have "questionable registration" because of missing forms, invalid addresses, unreported sales or other paperwork problems, according to the FAA. In many cases, the FAA cannot say who owns a plane or even whether it is still flying or has been junked.

Already there have been cases of drug traffickers using phony U.S. registration numbers, as well as instances of mistaken identity in which police raided the wrong plane because of faulty record-keeping.

COMMENT:  President Kennedy once called the State Department "a bowl of jelly."  The FAA is a bowl of mush.  The agency has a legendarily poor reputation, especially for installing and using new technology.  This new report will not fill us with confidence.  The skies may be friendly, but they're not as safe as they can be with the FAA in charge of aircraft record keeping.

And what will be done about it?  Very little, over a long period of time.

December 10, 2010     Permalink

DECEMBER 9,  2010

BRINGS BACK MEMORIES, AND NOT GOOD ONES – AT 9:45 P.M. ET:   Hudson New York publishes a thorough article warning of a possible Iranian military move...in this hemisphere:

Iran is planning to place medium-range missiles on Venezuelan soil, based on western information sources, according to an article in the German daily, Die Welt, of November 25, 2010. According to the article, an agreement between the two countries was signed during the last visit of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Tehran on October19, 2010. The previously undisclosed contract provides for the establishment of a jointly operated military base in Venezuela, and the joint development of ground-to-ground missiles.

At a moment when NATO members found an agreement, in the recent Lisbon summit (19-20 November 2010), to develop a Missile Defence capability to protect NATO's populations and territories in Europe against ballistic missile attacks from the East (namely, Iran), Iran's counter-move consists in establishing a strategic base in the South American continent - in the United States's soft underbelly.

According to Die Welt, Venezuela has agreed to allow Iran to establish a military base manned by Iranian missile officers, soldiers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Venezuelan missile officers. In addition, Iran has given permission for the missiles to be used in case of an "emergency."

And...

The situation that is unfolding in Venezuela has some resemblance to the Cuba crisis of 1962. At that time, Cuba was acting on behalf of the USSR; now Venezuela is acting on behalf of Iran. At present, the geopolitical situation is very different: the world is no longer ruled by two superpowers; new nations, often with questionable leaders and the ambition of acquiring global status, are appearing on the international scene. Their danger to the free world will be greater if the process of nuclear proliferation is not stopped. Among the nations that aspire to become world powers, Iran has certainly the best capabilities of posing a challenge to the West.

Back in the 1962, thanks to the stern stance adopted by the then Kennedy administration, the crisis was defused

Nowadays, however, we do not see the same firmness from the present administration.

COMMENT:  No, I guess we don't.  The missiles scheduled to be placed in Venezuela, or upgrades of those missiles, are capable of reaching the United States.  Iran is developing the capacity to tip those missiles with nuclear weapons. 

So, the Iranian nuclear program may not be the only Iranian threat we have to worry about.  Iranian missiles, based in a hostile Latin American state, would be a grave danger to us. 

We have yet to hear an Obama administration response. 

December 9, 2010      Permalink

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 8:20 P.M. ET:

From U.K.'s Guardian:  Russia has suggested that Julian Assange should be awarded the Nobel peace prize, in an unexpected show of support from Moscow for the jailed WikiLeaks founder.  In what appears to be a calculated dig at the US, the Kremlin urged non-governmental organisations to think seriously about "nominating Assange as a Nobel Prize laureate."

I happen to agree with the Kremlin.  Give Assange the Nobel Peace Prize, formerly awarded to such giants as Jimmah Carter, Al Gore, Barack Obama, and Yasir Arafat.  Giving it to Assange will kill the Nobel farce once and for all.

December 9, 2010      Permalink

CYBER-WAR – AT 9:34 A.M. ET:  Computer experts have predicted cyber-wars for years – conflicts in which major websites are hacked, or flooded, by competitors or aggressors.  The time has come.

In retaliation for the arrest of Wikileaks leader Julian Assange, his allies are assaulting "enemy" websites across the web.  The Wall Street Journal reports:

A growing list of organizations and individuals that have tangled with WikiLeaks and its detained founder, Julian Assange, have suffered online attacks, in what appears to be an effort by hackers bent on exacting revenge for the document-leaking website.

The attacks stepped up Wednesday, a day after Mr. Assange was arrested and denied bail in London in connection with sexual-misconduct accusations in Sweden. A range of organizations, including MasterCard Inc., Visa Inc., and the Swedish prosecutor's office, reported technical difficulties with their websites that appear to stem from so-called denial of service attacks, in which computers flood a server to prevent it from displaying a Web page.

The attacks in recent days have hit eBay Inc.'s PayPal as well as MasterCard, both of which have pulled services from WikiLeaks in recent days. Also affected: Swiss bank PostFinance. The unit of Swiss Post recently closed Mr. Assange's account, saying he provided a false address in Geneva, failing to meet the bank's requirement of Swiss residency for account holders. While the attacks caused some business disruption, they were mostly annoying rather than crippling.

And...

"http://www.mastercard.com/ is DOWN! #ddos #wikileaks Operation:Payback," said one post under the name "Anon_Operation," whose Twitter page is identified as part of Operation Payback, a campaign against "anti-piracy & anti-freedom entities."

Social network Facebook Inc. removed the "Operation Payback" page on its site late Wednesday after the group used the page to urge hackers to launch an unlawful denial of service attack.

COMMENT:  What is disturbing here is that an operation like WikiLeaks, which itself is small, can have sympathizers all over the world willing to use their computers to hurt "the enemy."  That makes every knowledgeable computer owner a potential soldier in a cyber war.  I'm afraid what Wiki and its friends are doing is just the beginning.  Computer security firms will probably get very rich on this. 

It makes us wonder, and worry, about how secure the U.S. Government's computer systems are.  The Pentagon is run by computers.  But how good are our systems, especially if confronted with an attack by another nation, not just a group?

Warfare always reinvents itself.

December 9, 2010      Permalink

ECONOMIC GRIMNESS – AT 9:01 A.M. ET:  There have been some very serious rumblings in the international economy over the last few days, and the media's concentration on events in Washington and in Wikiland have tended to downplay them.  But this is serious.  From London's Telegraph:

Agreement in Washington on a fresh fiscal package has set off dramatic rise in yields of US Treasuries and bonds across the world, threatening to short-circuit any benefits of stimulus. The bond rout raises concerns that the US authorities may be losing control over events...

...The Treasury sell-off has ricocheted through the global system, triggering bond sell-offs in Asia, Europe and Latin America. Japan's finance ministry braced as borrowing costs on seven-year debt jumped by a sixth in one trading session, while German Bunds punched through 3pc.

And...

David Bloom, currency chief at HSBC, said it is hard to disentangle whether investors are shunning bonds because they expect US stimulus to boost growth next year, or whether they are losing patience with profligacy in Washington.

"If this is all about growth, that's brilliant. But if yields are rising because people think America's fiscal situation is unsustainable, then its armaggedon," he said.

"The US can get away with this only because it is the world's reserve currency. This would be totally unacceptable in any other country. We think these problems will start to crystallise for the US in the second half of 2011, once the European debt crisis has stabilised," he said.

And...

Both Moody's and Fitch warned that the US must map out a credible strategy to control spending. "We have long-term concerns about the US rating outlook and they're not yet being addressed," said Stephen Hess, chief US analyst for Moody's.

COMMENT:  Money bills originate in the House of Representatives, which will soon be controlled, heavily, by the Republicans.  It's up to them to come up with a spending plan that will move domestic and foreign markets.  If the GOP goes back to business as usual, and that has often been its history, it will fail, and Obama will use that failure to win reelection in 2012. 

The loss of confidence in Washington is palpable throughout the world.  We have never been in quite this situation, and it's starting to affect our influence in foreign policy.  Other nations and blocs are increasingly ignoring us, and going their own way.  And President Obama seems little inclined to do much about it.

December 9, 2010      Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 8:49 A.M. ET:  From a well-reported and remarkably fair (surprise) portrait of Sarah Palin and her political operation, in TIME:

...Palin thinks Obama is vulnerable, and she implies that she is the one to take him on. "In battleground states, he's polling at 40% or below," she notes. "The country is rejecting his agenda ... My vision of America is diametrically opposed to his. He sees America as the problem. I see America as the solution." Asked what she makes of Obama's presidency thus far, Palin quipped, "Two words: Jimmy Carter." Asked who can beat him, she needed seven more: "Someone who can draw a sharp contrast."

COMMENT:  The Republican establishment is terrified of Sarah, terrified that she could enter the race and win the presidential nomination because of her powerful base, only to lose the general election.  In this case, the establishment has a strong argument.  Sarah's negatives are still staggeringly high, and the mainstream media does not take her seriously.  Her TV series about Alaska is declining in the ratings, and has apparently alienated as many people as it has attracted.

And yet, she is the most fascinating person in American politics.  Her future may well depend less on herself than on the state of the American economy in 2012.  If the economy is recovering, and Obama hasn't entirely surrendered the country overseas, I can't imagine Palin winning the general election.  But if the economy sinks further, and we are further humiliated in foreign policy, a daily occurrence now, she might actually have a shot.  Angry voters will always surprise us.

In the meantime, enjoy the show.  And she certainly knows how to put one on.

December 9, 2010      Permalink 

PRESIDENT MIKE? – AT 8:21 A.M. ET:  There is considerable speculation that three-term Mayor Mike Bloomberg of New York is readying a presidential run for 2012.  He could probably finance it himself.  From the New York Post:

Sounding more like a presidential candidate than the leader of the nation's biggest city, Mayor Bloomberg yesterday fired a political salvo at Washington politicians -- of both parties -- for making "a mess of our country."

In his most strident tone yet, Bloomberg delivered what could have been confused with a campaign stump speech before the city's business leaders by blasting federal lawmakers for letting political squabbles stifle economic growth -- in contrast to what's happened in New York City...

...The mayor invoked many of the themes he had sounded while testing the presidential waters in 2007: that "common-sense solutions" trump ideology; that both major political parties "follow the mood of the moment -- instead of leading from the front"; and that the American people are getting fed up with "political pandering," "legislative influence peddling" and constant infighting...

...The mayor took an indirect swipe at the White House by saying that very little of the federal stimulus spending or the health-care reform package promoted innovation.

"And the Obama administration will have to be very careful to make sure that the financial-services bill this year doesn't hinder innovation," the mayor added.

For many in the audience, there was only one take-away: Bloomberg is running for president, seriously considering running, or trying to make it look like he's running.

COMMENT:  With his vast resources, Bloomberg can have an impact.  I doubt if he could be elected.  The main question might turn out to be:  Which other candidate, Democrat or Republican, will he hurt the most?

In 1992, the eccentric Ross Perot, running as a third-party candidate, denied George H.W. Bush a second term.  Clinton was elected, but didn't come close to 50 percent of the vote.

Bloomberg is an unexciting candidate, and often comes off as not quite in tune with actual humans – as when he said that those who opposed the mosque at Ground Zero should be ashamed of themselves.

Like Obama, Bloomberg believes he walks on water.  And he, too, sinks.

December 9, 2010    Permalink