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THURSDAY,  FEBRUARY 18,  2010

EARLY REPORT – AT 9:33 P.M. ET:  From Fox News:

The U.S. Army is investigating allegations that soldiers were attempting to poison the food supply at Fort Jackson in South Carolina.

The ongoing probe began two months ago, Chris Grey, a spokesman for the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, told Fox News.

The Army is taking the allegations “extremely seriously,” Grey said, but so far, "there is no credible information to support the allegations."

The suspects were part of a Arabic translation program called "09 Lima" and use Arabic as their first language, two sources told Fox News. Another military source said they were Muslim.

Grey would not confirm or deny the sources’ information.

Another news organization, CBN, reports that five Muslim soldiers were arrested, but cannot confirm that they are still being held. 

COMMENT:  We very strongly caution that this is preliminary information.  We're glad that the media is now involved.  We hope that at least some media outlets, throwing political correctness overboard, will watch this case carefully, and be on guard against a cover-up.  But no one has been charged and the allegations have not been proved.

February 18, 2010   Permalink

SCHOLARLY NEWS – AT 9:02 P.M. ET:  An important academic event, as reported in the Harvard Crimson:

The award-winning journalist Christiane Amanpour will address the Class of 2010 on Class Day, the Senior Class Committee announced in an e-mail this afternoon.

Amanpour, 52, is best known for her role as CNN's chief international correspondent, having interviewed world leaders ranging from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to former French President Jacques Chirac.

A winner of nine news and documentary Emmy Awards and host of her own daily series "Amanpour," the 26-year veteran reporter's coverage has included major conflicts including the Persian Gulf War, the Bosnian War, as well as Hurricane Katrina and the crises in Somalia and Rwanda.

COMMENT:  I have already ordered my DVD.  How often do you get a chance to hear a woman who rode a bicycle around New York on election day 2008, reporting on the wonderful feeling she had about the new age that was about to begin?

I feel for the students.

February 18, 2010   Permalink

MORE CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN – AT 8:01 P.M. ET:  The latest economic news, and it won't encourage you to go out and buy a buggy:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of U.S. workers filing new applications for unemployment insurance unexpectedly surged last week, while producer prices increased sharply in January, raising potential hurdles for the economy's recovery.

Initial claims for state jobless benefits increased 31,000 to 473,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Financial markets had expected them to fall slightly to 430,000.

Another report from the department showed prices paid at the farm and factory gate rose a faster-than-expected 1.4 percent from December as higher gasoline prices and unusually cold temperatures helped boost energy costs.

The rise in jobless insurance claims dealt a setback to hopes the economy was on the verge of job growth and could increase political pressure on President Barack Obama, who has made tackling unemployment his number one priority.

COMMENT:  And the president has tackled unemployment the best way he knows how – by going around the country making campaign speeches.  Notice the people rushing back to new jobs. 

February 18, 2010   Permalink

POSSIBLE NEW YORK SENATE RUN – AT 7:09 P.M. ET:  The Republican Party in New York is a model of nothingness.  By "party," the GOP in NY usually means whoever the highest ranking Republican official is, his staff, and maybe his sisters and his cousins and his aunts. 

That semi-party is looking for a Senate candidate to pull a Scott Brown in a usually Democratic state.  There are some intriguing developments:

Real estate and media mogul Mort Zuckerman has reached out to New York Republican Party Chairman Ed Cox about a possible Senate campaign this year, Cox told the Albany Times Union:

"I have talked with Mr. Zuckerman, and he has expressed an interest in running for the Senate," Cox told the paper. "He's very concerned about the direction this country is going and, as I think many Americans are, as the most recent elections have proven, whether Massachusetts or here in New York, Nassau County, Westchester County. He has always wanted to serve his country and thinks perhaps he can serve by running for the United State Senate."

The New York Times reported last Friday that Zuckerman was toying with the idea of challenging Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand as a Bloomberg-style centrist Republican, but Zuckerman avoided direct comment in an interview with POLITICO.

COMMENT:  Zuckerman could finance his own campaign, is fairly well known as a political commentator on TV, but has no political organization and has never run for office.  Those problems didn't stop Mike Bloomberg, but Bloomberg had a huge boost from his predecessor, Rudy Giuliani. 

The question is whether Zuckerman has the sparkle.  But he may be the best name the GOP has, now that Rudy has decided not to run.  At least he can pull off a full, well-financed effort.

February 18, 2010   Permalink

STIFF WARNING ON IRAN – AT 6:23 P.M. ET:  A breath of fresh air from the usually stale, and corrupt, United Nations.  It looks like the newly installed head of the International Atomic Energy Agency is taking his job seriously.  From The Wall Street Journal:

The United Nations' nuclear watchdog said it has information suggesting Iran may be working to build a nuclear warhead, an assessment that could escalate the U.S. and other Western governments' confrontation with Iran over its nuclear activities.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, a Vienna-based U.N. body, said in a confidential report Thursday that Iran has impeded agency efforts to establish the true purpose of Tehran's nuclear program.

"The information available to the agency...raises concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile," IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano wrote in the report.

The expression of concern over the "weaponization" of enriched uranium is a first for the agency.

The IAEA's first report under its new director general underscores what senior Obama administration officials see as a shift at the agency toward a tougher, factually based approach to Iran's nuclear program. One senior U.S. official said Mr. Amano is sticking strictly to the watchdog's responsibilities of ensuring that nuclear safeguards are obeyed.

Egyptian Mohamed ElBaradei, the last director general, saw the IAEA's role more broadly, asserting it in matters of war, peace and international stability.

Translated into English:  He saw his role as protecting the Muslim world, from which he came and to which he returned.  The man was a disgrace, which is probably why he was given the Nobel Peace Prize. 

We seem to be getting closer to the truth.  But there are no serious signs that nations are prepared to enact the kind of crippling sanctions that may actually work to change Iran's behavior. 

At least now, though, under its new leadership, the IAEA may have some teeth...until they're pulled by the powers that be at the UN.

February 18, 2010   Permalink

ANOTHER VIEW OF SARAH – AT 10:46 A.M. ET:  The subject that gets the greatest response from Urgent Agenda readers is Sarah Palin.  All I do is mention her name and the e-mail bell starts to ring.

Our readers are divided.  We have passionate supporters, serious doubters, with most in the middle somewhere.  I've stated my own opinion – that Sarah is a gifted political operator, attractive to audiences, with good instincts, but that she must sharpen her mastery of issues.

We present a variety of viewpoints on Sarah here.  We're not party line (on anything).  Dorothy Rabinowitz of The Wall Street Journal has now weighed in on the Palin question.  Anything Dorothy writes is worth reading.  She's one of the finest reporters in the country, absolutely fearless, with no regard for political correctness, right or left.  She has doubts about Sarah: 

From the day she turned heads at the 2008 Republican Convention—becoming at once an object of fevered controversy—one truth about Sarah Palin stood clear: She was fortunate in her antagonists.

Those in the media, especially, would stoke a mighty sympathy backlash on her behalf. That resentment would feed nicely into the candidate's role as a voice for the aggrieved: those regular citizens under the heel of the "elites"—that immense, tentacled power whose depredations she has been describing to audiences since her star turn on the McCain ticket.

And...

Mrs. Palin has, it's clear, enjoyed plenty of adulation, and displays even greater confidence than during that unexpected, bedazzling convention speech. Like Barack Obama, she is at home with adoring crowds.

There are, true, a few tonal changes: the jokes are jokier, the touches of malice heavier, and she revels more obviously than before in the playfulness she brings to her performances. It's hard to imagine a more assured, better-timed delivery than the one evident in that down-home thrust at Obama supporters—"How's that hopey-changey thing working out for ya?"—in her Tea Party address.

But the trouble begins:

Mrs. Palin now has, she reports, a team of Washington policy advisers who provide her with daily briefings on domestic and foreign affairs. None of them have, it appears, provided her with intelligence on the impact of certain of her central themes.

On, for instance, the unsavory echoes of her regular references to "the real America" as opposed to those shadowy "elites," now charged with threats to the life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness of all real Americans. Neither does she seem to have any idea of how that low soap-box oratory—embracing one kind of American as the real kind, those builders in the towns and cities across America—rings in the ear today. It is not new.

We know what Dorothy is talking about.  I think Sarah is a decent person.  But some of those references do, indeed, have an uncomfortable history.

And Dorothy is particularly concerned about Sarah's endorsement of the Senate candidacy of nutbag Rand Paul, son of super nutbag Ron Paul.  Ron Paul, the Texas "Republican" congressman, is not a conservative, but an extremist reactionary.  Ron Paul, among other things, has said that Osama bin Laden had good reason to attack the United States.  And Rand Paul?

Rand Paul, who offers no opinion on his father's touching faith in bin Laden's devotion to truth, says only that his father's statements have been misunderstood. On one or two things his own views are clear: He stands opposed to the Patriot Act and he wants to cut defense spending.

Dorothy is understandably dismayed that Sarah would endorse a man with those views.  And Sarah has an obligation to confront the issue.

Asked about her endorsement of this candidate, Mrs. Palin informed Mr. Wallace she was proud of her choice. She admired Rand Paul's domestic policies, not of course that she agreed with everything he stood for. It does not, apparently, occur to her that everything he stands for—and can vote on—is precisely what comes into play when, and if, he becomes a senator with her help.

Finally...

Mrs. Palin regularly invokes the name of the most revered of her heroes, Ronald Reagan—among the sunniest stars ever to mount the political stage, and a leader who spoke to all of America. He did not appeal to the aggrieved. Nor did he see in the oratory of grievance, or talk of real Americans and those who were not, a political platform.

Mrs. Palin would do well to look to his model, between study of those daily policy briefings. Her supporters will have to wait a while. At a time when Republican hopes are in the ascendancy, as now (and even when they are not), it's impossible to imagine the Sarah Palin known to the world today as their leader. It would be well for her to begin pondering the reasons.

COMMENT:  Obviously, you can agree or disagree with that, or a little of each.  But Dorothy, as usual, makes penetrating points.  Reagan was an optimist, and he was inclusive.  It was morning in America, not darkness at noon.

Very provocative column.  Please read the whole thing, and decide.

February 18, 2010   Permalink

LET'S NOT FORGET – AT 9:33 A.M. ET:  While we're comfortable in our homes, our very best are out there defending us:

MARJAH, Afghanistan (AP) -- U.S. Marines pummeled insurgents with mortars, sniper fire and missiles as fighting intensified Thursday in two areas of the Taliban southern stronghold of Marjah, where U.S. and Afghan forces are facing stubborn resistance in an operation now in its sixth day.

Marines traded machine-gun fire after coming under attack by insurgents with rocket-propelled grenades. One Marine company attacked Taliban positions surrounding them at dawn.

Marines and Afghan troops continued to battle "stiff resistance" in different parts of town, a Marine spokesman said Thursday

"We're seeing more fortified positions. They're standing their ground, essentially," Lt. Josh Diddams said. "You don't know where you're going to get a little pop up of insurgents who are going to stay and fight."

The fighting in Marjah has followed a similar pattern over the past few days: relatively light in the morning with sniper fire intensifying through midday before subsiding at nightfall.

Press reports overall tell us that the operation is going well.  But don't expect the enemy to lie down or just run away.  Our guys are facing determined people. 

There's been some good news from that theater.  From The New York Times:

KABUL, Afghanistan — Two senior Taliban leaders have been arrested in recent days inside Pakistan, officials said Thursday, as American and Pakistani intelligence agents continued to press their offensive against the group’s leadership after the capture of the insurgency’s military commander last month.

Afghan officials said the Taliban’s “shadow governors” for two provinces in northern Afghanistan had been detained in Pakistan by officials there. Mullah Abdul Salam, the Taliban’s leader in Kunduz, was detained in the Pakistani city of Faisalabad, and Mullah Mir Mohammed of Baghlan Province was also captured in an undisclosed Pakistani city, they said.

It appears, at least on the surface, that we're getting more cooperation from Pakistan.  If we are, let's give credit where it's due.  The administration can take a bow.  But I'd like to see some evidence over a period of months.

February 18, 2010   Permalink

NOT AGAIN – AT 8:37 A.M. ET:  We don't report this with any joy, but because it sheds light on a public issue:

DURHAM, N.C. — Durham police arrested Duke lacrosse accuser Crystal Gale Mangum, 33, late Wednesday after she allegedly assaulted her boyfriend, set his clothes on fire in a bathtub and threatened to stab him.

Authorities charged her with attempted first-degree murder, five counts of arson, assault and battery, communicating threats, three counts of misdemeanor child abuse, injury to personal property, identity theft and resisting a public officer.

COMMENT:  Caution:  It is a charge.  Nothing has been proved.  But we wish the trendies at Duke University, in the nation's media, in the Durham prosecutor's office, and in various chic precincts in the intellectual classes, had issued that same caution when Ms. Gale destroyed the lives of three innocent Duke boys in the now famous lacrosse case, when she accused them of rape. 

The boys were eventually cleared, but every time anyone Googles their names, for the rest of their lives, that false charge will come up.

We've learned once again, in the last week, how bungled cases can lead to tragedy.  Amy Bishop allegedly (we must say that) murdered three professors at the University of Alabama on Friday.  She has a sordid history, but the university never knew about it when it hired her because of bungling and a breathtakingly lax Massachusetts legal system, which let Bishop through a number of cracks.

And now the charge against the Duke accuser, who was apparently never punished for her false allegations.

What nightmares our fellow citizens must live every day when the legal system fails, or law enforcement breaks down, or others go along with a trendy charge, regardless of evidence.

February 18, 2010   Permalink

CALM DOWN, TOM – AT 8:10 A.M. ET:  Tom Friedman of The New York Times has done some good work, and some not-so-good work.   I've never thought of him as a crackpot.

But he's also a cheerleader for the "global-warming" religion.  Or a deacon.  Or a minister.  Or a rabbi.  Or whatever the cheerleaders should be called.

But Friedman realizes that recent scandals have not helped the faithful.  So he has a proposal, which is, hands down, one of the worst ideas I've seen recently:

Although there remains a mountain of research from multiple institutions about the reality of climate change, the public has grown uneasy. What’s real? In my view, the climate-science community should convene its top experts — from places like NASA, America’s national laboratories, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford, the California Institute of Technology and the U.K. Met Office Hadley Centre — and produce a simple 50-page report. They could call it “What We Know,” summarizing everything we already know about climate change in language that a sixth grader could understand, with unimpeachable peer-reviewed footnotes.

Oh, just great:  The very institutions that get huge grants will tell us what they know.  I guess this is called "independent analysis."  And we will have "unimpeachable" peer-reviewed footnotes.

Applause, applause.

Doesn't Tom realize that the very peer-review process is under serious question?  Who's doing the peer-reviewing?  What do these "peers" actually know, especially about the software programs that have been used in making the stark predictions that we constantly hear?

I don't think Tom is up to speed on this.

And get this gem:

At the same time, they should add a summary of all the errors and wild exaggerations made by the climate skeptics — and where they get their funding. It is time the climate scientists stopped just playing defense. The physicist Joseph Romm, a leading climate writer, is posting on his Web site, climateprogress.org, his own listing of the best scientific papers on every aspect of climate change for anyone who wants a quick summary now.

Same old story.  The skeptics can't be right because their funding is suspect.  Everyone is a crook but the guys Friedman believes.  Who cares that one of the key "warming" scientists now concedes that we haven't had warming for 15 years? 

Look, some skeptics have had connections to oil companies.  That does not automatically prove them wrong.  You have to look at their actual research. 

Friedman is in the "consensus" camp.  A "consensus" of scientists says something, so it must be believed.  But science isn't about consensus.  It's about proof and observation.  It took one little guy working in a German patent office to revolutionize physics.  Albert somebody or other.  It took one Australian nurse, Elizabeth Kenny (Sister Kenny) to disprove a century of medical "science" about polio.

Friedman takes the ludicrous position that the warmers have been playing defense.  Seriously?  They've been on the offense, with Al Gore as quarterback, for about two decades.

We need better science here, not better political science.

February 18, 2010   Permalink

WANTS TO SPEND MORE TIME WITH HIS MONEY – AT 7:59 A.M. ET:  From Canada's National Post:

Yvo de Boer, head of the UN's climate change convention, will resign as of July 1, his office announced on Thursday.

Mr. de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, will join the consultancy group KPMG as global advisor on climate and sustainability and work with a number of universities, the UNFCCC secretariat said.

I love it, I love it.  They always wind up cashing out.

The announcement came nearly two months after the Copenhagen summit on climate change, seen even by its supporters as a disappointment and by its critics as a chaotic failure.

The UNFCCC, an offshoot of the 1992 Rio summit, gathers 194 nations in the search for combating the causes of man-made climate change and easing its effects.

COMMENT:  Well, he's the first major member of the "it's too darned hot" international bureaucracy to run for the exits, where a pot of gold awaits.  Expect more.  If the media starts doing the job, we can expect some real truths to come out about the intersection of "global warming" and money, with some  universities playing a less than noble role.

February 18,  2010   Permalink

WEDNESDAY,  FEBRUARY 17,  2010

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 8:12 P.M. ET:  Victor Davis Hanson points out that, a year ago, the media thought we were on the verge of a New Utopia, led by demigod Barack Obama. 

But Obama raised up his hands, blessed us...and nothing happened.  There's rarely been a meltdown quite like this.

Hanson notes the liberal response to the melting.  It's not too thoughtful:

The implosion of the Obama administration is newsworthy, but not as astonishing as this petulant liberal reappraisal of both popular political participation and the structure of American government.

Given that the people apparently don't want bigger deficits, more stimulus, statist health care, cap and trade, or "comprehensive" immigration reform, and given that the most influential members of the Obama administration think the people either do or should want those things, we are apparently left with blaming George Bush, or self-righteously blaming the people for their stupidity, selfishness, brainwashing, or racism. Yet all of those assumptions only exacerbate the problem, and if continually voiced will turn a mid-term correction into an abject disaster for Democrats.

COMMENT:  During my lifetime there's been a role reversal in American politics.  At one time the real liberals acted like real people, and the Republican establishment acted like members of the Royal court.

Now it's the reverse.  Republicans are much closer to the people – Reagan proved that – and the Dems believe they're part of the royal class.  If they're Manhattan, Beverly Hills, or Georgetown Dems, they believe they're above the royal class, and well into the Divine group.

The mighty have fallen, and aren't getting up.

February 17, 2010    Permalink

TROUBLE IN IRAQ – AT 7:33 P.M. ET:  The United States is slowly withdrawing from Iraq.  We now have fewer than 95,000 troops in that country.

Iraq is about to hold an election.  That itself is a success story.  But there are things about the election that are troubling to American commanders.  We should take notice.  The Obama administration just wants out, but it would be a tragedy not to work with the Iraqis to correct mistakes that can reverse the years of progress.  From The Washington Times:

The Iraqi official in charge of a commission that blocked more than 300 politicians from running in next month's elections is working closely with Iran's Quds Force, prompting the top U.S. general in Iraq to voice concerns about Tehran's meddling in Iraq's fragile democracy.

Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, in a speech, accused Ali Faisal al-Lami, the executive director of the Accountability and Justice Commission along with Ahmad Chalabi, the panel's chairman, of being "clearly influenced by Iran."

Chalabi used to be an American ally, or at least claimed to be.

Gen. Odierno said both men, according to intelligence reports, were in close contact with Abu-Mahdi al-Muhandis, the top Iraqi adviser to Iran's Quds Force commander. The Quds Force comprises Iran's unconventional military units, which have orchestrated anti-U.S. paramilitary and political operations in Iraq.

In July, the Treasury Department issued a notice to designate Mr. al-Muhandisas an insurgent leader, saying he "facilitated the entry of trucks — containing mortars, Katyusha rockets, [explosively formed penetrators] and other explosive devices — from Iran to Iraq that were then delivered to JAM Special Groups in Sadr City, Baghdad."

U.S. officials in the past have quietly criticized the decisions of the Accountability and Justice Commission to disqualify a little more than 350 candidates from the election based on suspected ties to Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party, but Gen. Odierno's remarks represent a rhetorical escalation.

COMMENT:  Speeches like Odierno's aren't normally given without clearance from above.  If Iraq falls into the Iranian orbit after we leave, clearly that would negate most of our effort in freeing Iraq from Saddam Hussein. 

We have to watch the Obama administration carefully, in the months ahead, as we draw down our troop level.  Obama opposed the Iraq War, but has a responsibility to protect our gains.  Will he?  Odierno's speech is a warning we have to heed.

February 17, 2010   Permalink

MORE SARAH SHREWDNESS – AT 7:05 P.M. ET:  We reported this morning on Sarah Palin's rise in American politics, and how even some crusty commentators have started to notice. 

That doesn't mean Sarah is free of her baggage.  She is not.  She has a distance to travel.  But she a savvy lady, as demonstrated by her gutsy comment today to the tea party movement, reported by The Politico:

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin urged tea party activists on Tuesday night to “start picking a party.”

In remarks to a fundraising dinner for the Arkansas Republican Party reported by CBS News, Palin praised the anti-tax tea party activists for their independence, but urged the “grand movement” to start thinking about joining one of the two political parties.

“Now the smart thing will be for independents who are such a part of this tea party movement to, I guess, kind of start picking a party,” she said.

Palin suggested the grass-roots activists consider “Which party reflects how that smaller, smarter government steps to be taken? Which party will best fit you?”

“And then because the tea party movement is not a party, and we have a two-party system, they’re going to have to pick a party and run one or the other: ‘R’ or ‘D,’” she said.

COMMENT:  Smart move.  Palin understands that we have a two-party system, and that her future lies, not with a movement, but with a party.  She also understands that her followers in the tea party movement can only help her cause if they get within the Republican tent.  She further understands that tea partiers who get swelled heads, and try to run third-party candidates in some states, can only hurt the overall cause.

Palin has a great gift – she knows how to build loyalty, a following.  Now she is guiding that following to work in ways that are most effective.

Criticize her in any way you wish, but no one else does this quite as well.

February 17, 2010   Permalink

MAYBE CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR CAN SING, OR DANCE, OR DO SOMETHING – AT 5:56 P.M. ET:

CNN is having a terrible time in the ratings.  All cable systems are being hurt by the Olympic coverage at NBC, but CNN is being tortured.  From TV Newser:

CNN hit new low viewership totals during prime time Friday night (8-11pm) in both Total Viewers and A25-54 viewers.

Up against NBC's Olympic Opening Ceremony coverage, CNN averaged just 85,000 A25-54 viewers during Campbell Brown (8p), Larry King (9p) and Anderson Cooper (10p). An average that low has not been seen since May, 23, 2001. And the Total Viewer average of 382,000 was the lowest since Dec. 23, 2005.

And while all the cable news channels saw reduced viewing levels due to the massive audience that flocked to NBC -- only CNN saw its audience cut in half from Thursday night in both younger viewers and Total Viewers.

COMMENT:  CNN has just become unappealing.  Wolf Blitzer still runs a pretty good show, but the rest of the operation seems very routine and even lazy at times.  Criticize Fox all you want, but the place is alive, and its news broadcasts, as opposed to its commentary shows, play it straight.

CNN is in desperate need of ideological diversity.  There's a stultifying atmosphere about its operations.  Like a dull novel, you can put it down.

February 17, 2010   Permalink

UNINFORMED, MISERABLE, NON-IVY PEASANT CLASS SAYS TO START OVER ON HEALTH REFORM – AT 9:48 A.M. ET:  From The Washington Times:

The American public wants Congress to start the health care debate over from scratch - just as Republicans have been pushing - amid growing talk among Democrats about the need to use a procedural end run to ram through a revised overhaul bill.

A Zogby International poll released Tuesday shows that 57 percent of Americans do not like either of the competing health care bills produced by the Senate and House and say Congress should start over, as a group of bipartisan lawmakers head to a health care summit with President Obama next week.

White House officials say they plan to unveil their revised proposal ahead of the summit, prompting Republicans to question whether the meeting is an attempt at real negotiation or just strong-arming.

Neither Republicans nor Democrats seem to seriously think the event will produce a meaningful negotiation. In fact, four Democrats asked Majority Leader Harry Reid on Tuesday to pursue reconciliation - a complicated procedural move that would allow the Senate to pass a bill with 51 votes and bypass the chance for Republicans to filibuster.

COMMENT:   What are we going to do with those miserable citizens out there?  What right do they have to criticize what the better people of Washington have decided for them?

Aren't those the same people who have doubts about the settled science of global warming?  Why do we even let these people speak?  Can't the First Amendment be restricted to people who have proper educations?

February 17, 2010   Permalink

THE NATURE OF THE ENEMY – AT 9:09 A.M. ET:  There has been much talk recently about bringing the Taliban into the Afghan government.  Before we issue invitations, maybe we'd better consider who we're dealing with.  From Fox:

MARJAH, Afghanistan — Taliban insurgents are increasingly using civilians as human shields as they fight allied troops trying to take the militants' southern stronghold of Marjah, an Afghan official said Wednesday as military squads resumed painstaking house-to-house searches.

About 15,000 NATO and Afghan troops are taking part in the offensive around Marjah, which has an estimated 80,000 inhabitants and was the largest town in southern Helmand province under Taliban control. NATO hopes to rush in aid and public services as soon as the town is secured to try to win the loyalty of the population.

With the assault in its fifth day, insurgents are firing at Afghan troops from inside or next to compounds where women and children appear to have been ordered to stand on a roof or in a window, said Gen. Mohiudin Ghori, the brigade commander for Afghan troops in Marjah.

COMMENT:  Let's see the reaction of "human rights" organizations.  Let's see the reaction of trendy American journalists who were so anguished over a comparatively minor scandal at an American prison in Iraq. 

And, of course, let's see the reaction of "feminist" organizations, whose interest in women's rights seems a thing of the past.

The Taliban is a very bad crew.  They gave shelter to Al Qaeda.  Can we seriously trust them with any kind of power?

February 17, 2010   Permalink

SARAH'S RISE – AT 8:42 A.M. ET:  Sarah Palin has taken her political lumps, including some skepticism from this website – but not only is she undeterred, she is winning new respect. 

True, a recent poll reported that 71% of Americans think that she's unqualified to be president.  But Andrew Malcolm of the L.A. Times's excellent Top of the Ticket blog points out that Sarah's rise is occurring a bit under the kind of radar equipment employed by the mainstream media.  But it is occurring:

What base does anyone see coalescing around other potential GOP competitors?

While vocal Palin-haters reveled in her awful recent national poll numbers about presidential qualifications, they missed a fact: if she decides to run for anything, the first goal is to become the GOP nominee. And the voters Palin needs to convince about that are state-by-state Republicans, 69% of whom still see her favorably.

Anyone who's talked to her GOP supporters in recent weeks or watched her work a crowd comes away with a powerful sense of the Palin fervor. The more she's derided by others or in the media, the more convinced her fans are that she is like them -- a regular person derided by so-called elites, often unfairly. Translating such energy ultimately into votes is the key.

And as Malcolm reports, some discerning columnists have started to take note:

And by an impressive coincidence two political experts with wise eyes and decades of experience studying and observing American politics and its transient characters have recently tapped out favorable reviews of this self-defined political rogue who unexpectedly overthrew the entrenched GOP establishment in Alaska when none of the regulars gave her a chance.

The veteran Jules Whitcover of the Baltimore Sun wrote a column this week headlined: "Sarah Palin as GOP nominee in 2012? Don't laugh it off."

"Sarah Palin may come off as a bit ditzy," he said, "but stupid she is not."

Whitcover noted that polls show the highest voter anger or dissatisfaction with the federal government in a decade (about two-thirds).

Then, he recalled another political outsider who followed a one-term Democrat, Ronald Reagan, once also derided as a mere entertainer, who "30 years ago successfully rode a similar dissatisfaction with Washington by promising to 'clean out the swamp' there."

The other columnist, whose observations we reported last week, is David Broder, who, after observing Palin carefully, gave his verdict:

The lady is good.

Malcolm concludes:

We'll see exactly how good she is in coming months. What is certain right now is that as good as Obama was at ultimately reaping $750 million and winning the White House, no one was paying this kind of attention -- positive or negative -- to him this far ahead of his 2008 nomination or election.

COMMENT:  One of Palin's strongest points, of course, is that she continues to intrigue.  Anyone who thought she'd fade away, or be laughed off the stage, has been proved wrong.

February 17, 2010   Permalink

THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE – BUMPS FOR DEMS – AT 8:04 A.M. ET:  Michael Barone, one of the very best political analysts around, surveys the current political scene, and finds it incredible.  From the Washington Examiner:

The political numbers tell a grim story. In five decades of closely following American politics, I have never seen the Democratic Party in worse shape. Democrats trail in polls in 11 of the 18 Democratic-held Senate seats up this fall and lead in polls in none of the 18 Republican-held seats.

And they sit around and talk about the good old days – 2008.

Republicans currently lead Democrats in most generic polls — which party’s candidate will you support for the House of Representatives? — even though Democrats have almost always held the lead since Gallup began asking the question in 1950. Incumbents usually lead in individual House race polls. But polls have shown Democratic incumbents trailing Republican challengers in Arkansas, Indiana, Massachusetts and North Dakota.

Of course opinion can change, and the balance of enthusiasm, which currently favors Republicans, could shift. But if the election were held today, the numbers tell me that Democrats would fare worse than they have in any election since 1946.

I guess they didn't bring change we can believe in.

But Barone also has a warning.  If Republicans win in November, they'll have to come up with a legislative plan, and that could be hazardous to their political health.  Barone's advice?

Americans have rejected the Europeanizing policies of the Obama Democrats. Republicans may get a chance to put us on a better American path. They need to be prepared to do so.

If they win and fail, we'll be writing about the new Democratic majority in 2012.

February 17, 2010   Permalink

ANOTHER SHOCK IN ALABAMA MURDER CASE – AT 7:50 A.M. ET:  I wrote a few days ago that we'd follow closely the case of the murder of three University of Alabama professors, allegedly by another faculty member, on Friday.

We don't normally do murder here, but let me remind readers that this case is important for its public-policy implications.  We learned on Friday that Amy Bishop, a Harvard-trained biologist, shot and killed three faculty members, and wounded another three, at a meeting of her department at the University of Alabama, Huntsville.  We later were stunned to learn that, in 1986, she shot and killed her brother in Braintree, Massachusetts.  Although she fired the weapon three times, the killing was ruled "accidental."  And we later learned that she was a suspect in the attempted pipe bombing of a Harvard professor, whom she feared would give her a bad report card.

And now there's more, according to a well-reported story in The New York Times:

Also Tuesday, The Boston Globe reported that Dr. Bishop was charged with assault in 2002 after punching a woman in the head at an International House of Pancakes in Peabody, Mass. According to a police report, Dr. Bishop was angry that the woman had taken the last booster seat in the restaurant, which Dr. Bishop wanted for one of her children, The Globe said. It added that Dr. Bishop was sentenced to probation and that prosecutors recommended she take anger management classes, though it is not clear whether she did.

What is disturbing is that the University of Alabama, when it hired Bishop, knew nothing of her violent history.  Call it Massachusetts justice.  She did no time for shooting her brother at point-blank range, nor, as it's now reported, for trying to commandeer a car at gunpoint after that shooting:

In the hours after the shooting death of her brother, Dr. Bishop tried to use the shotgun to steal a car from a nearby Ford dealership, said Tom Pettigrew, an employee of Dave Dinger Ford at the time. In an interview on Tuesday, Mr. Pettigrew said a woman who he soon realized was Amy Bishop approached him with a shotgun and told him to put his hands up.

“She was distraught,” Mr. Pettigrew said. “She was hyperaware of everything that was going on. She said: ‘I need a car, I just got into a fight with my husband. He’s looking for me, and he’s going to kill me.’ ”

She was cleared of the Harvard bombing, but there are doubts about that investigation.  And she did no time for punching a woman in the head in 2002.

Ray Garner, a spokesman for the university in Huntsville, said that the university knew nothing of Dr. Bishop’s violent past when she was hired, and that there were no indications of trouble in her personnel file.

“We did the normal academic background checks,” Mr. Garner said, adding that Dr. Bishop had letters of recommendation from Harvard and elsewhere. “She seemed pretty impeccable.”

COMMENT:  Three professors are dead, allegedly at the hand of Ms. Impeccable.  As The Times points out:

Had Dr. Bishop been charged with the serious crimes listed by the district attorney on Tuesday, their presence on her record might have changed the course of her career, even if she were eventually acquitted.

The district attorney in the case of her brother's death was William Delahunt, now a very leftish Democratic congressman from Massachusetts.  The investigation into that shooting will now probably be reopened.  Congressman Delahunt was recently spoken of retiring. 

Scratch him.

February 17,  2010   Permalink