FRIDAY,  JANUARY 15,  2010

SILENCE ON THE LEFT – AT 8:28 P.M. ET:  Reader Dennis Carson alerts us to a curious phenomenon occurring right now – the virtual absence of anything about Massachusetts on the CNN website.

It's true, it's true.  I looked in vain just a minute ago.  You go to their main page and there's nada.  You have to go to their POLITICS tab and there, in a little box, is a list of stories.  Third one from the bottom, through my magnifying glass, is "GOP Eyes Senate Upset in Massachusetts."

CNN – home, as they tell us, of the best political team on television.

Maybe it's lunch hour.

The CNN crowd is apparently very unhappy about Massachusetts.  Who are these little Paul Reveres, who want to vote against our Martha?  What are their College Board scores?

This is the most important special election in memory, and CNN.com hasn't noticed.

Their ratings are in the tank.  Maybe there's a reason.

January 15, 2010   Permalink

GREAT! – AT 6:25 P.M. ET:  Best headline of the Massachusetts Senate campaign, from Andrew Malcolm at the L.A. Times's Top of the Ticket blog:

Obama personally joins Massachusetts quake relief

Wonderful, wonderful, as Mr. Welk used to say.

January 15, 2010    Permalink

UNBELIEVABLE – AT 6:10 P.M. ET:  The incompetence of the Coakley campaign in Massachusetts is now a matter of legend, whether she wins or loses. 

Now that incompetence has spread to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.   Here is a frame from an ad attacking Republican candidate Scott Brown for supposedly favoring Wall Street greed:

The ad plainly shows the World Trade Center on the right, and the destroyed Marriott Hotel.

After an uproar, the Dems have now revised the ad.  But why was the mistake made in the first place?  Theser are the people in charge of national security.

January 15, 2010   Permalink

OVERLOOKED – AT 4:27 P.M. ET:  Apparently overlooked by most of the media, Marc Ambinder, a reporter considered very close to the White House, reports this in a blog for CBS:

Coakley's latest internals have her DOWN four points in the latest daily track.

COMMENT:  The race will be decided this weekend.  Watch carefully to see if Obama can animate minority voters to come out.  Fear is a weapon.

January 15, 2010    Permalink

BULLETIN:  OBAMA TO MASSACHUSETTS – AT 3:34 P.M. ET:  Reversing an earlier decision, President Obama has decided to fly to Massachusetts Sunday to campaign for Martha Coakley.

That isn't good news.  First, the president is effective, and you can be sure the race card will be played, if with some subtlety.  The Dems have run an unbelievable smear campaign against Scott Brown this week.  Bill Clinton will also be coming.

Second, internal polls might show Coakley gaining or holding her own, with a good chance of winning.  I can't imagine Obama humiliating himself (again) by campaigning for a lost cause.

Third, all the press attention by the liberal Massachusetts press will be drawn toward Obama and Coakley together.  Obama still has a 60-percent approval in the state.   From The Washington Post:

As we said earlier, the election is Tuesday, not today.  Brown has been surging, but he's surging in a heavily Democratic state.  This isn't won by any means.  While bringing in all the Dem firepower shows how close the election is in a heavily Democratic state, and shows the trouble the Democratic Party is in, a Coakley win will hold the Dem seat, securing the 60th vote needed to stop GOP filibusters.

January 15, 2010    Permalink

DOROTHY ON COAKLEY – AT 10:28 A.M. ET:  When I write "Dorothy," I'm referring to Dorothy Rabinowitz of The Wall Street Journal, one of the great investigative journalists of our day.

Dorothy is great because, unlike some "investigative" reporters, she doesn't follow the latest trendy cause, do a day of investigation, and then wait for the awards.  She goes where the truth takes her, even in the face of overwhelming opposition.  In the 1980s, it was Dorothy Rabinowitz (and some other brave reporters) who started to question the crazed "child abuse" convictions sweeping the country, convictions often based on "evidence" that appeared highly questionable, at best.  Dorothy was warned by colleagues not to take on the cause.  It was unpopular.  It might put her on the side of "molesters."  It was a career ender.

Being Dorothy, she would not listen, and she pioneered the probes that led to many, many innocent people being released from prison.  The "evidence" used to convict the wrongly accused "abusers" in the 1980s is not accepted in any American courtroom today, in large measure because of the work of Dorothy Rabinowitz. 

Dorothy was proposed for the Pulitzer Prize five times.  She was rejected on the first four tries, as powerful forces attempted to deny her.  Some were militant feminists, angered because she's a conservative, and furious that she would question "research" methods that were also used at the time to advance radical feminist "scholarship."  The child-abuse industry also weighed in.

Finally, on the fifth try, there was a revolt on the Pulitzer board, its members disgusted by the injustice.  Dorothy finally won the prize. 

One of the outrages that Dorothy covered was the Amirault case in Massachusetts, and one of the prosecutors involved was Martha Coakley, then a district attorney.  Three members of a family operating a day-care center had been sent to prison on child-abuse charges despite a scandalous lack of any credible evidence.  In the face of overwhelming proof of innocence, and judges who eventually saw the truth and expressed their outrage, and a state parole board that joined in the anger, and a host of newspaper editorial boards, Martha Coakley did her best to keep the innocent father of the family in prison, doing her bit to protect other prosecutors and members of the Massachusetts legal establishment.  This is the way one advances to become attorney general of the state.  Her predecessor was also involved in the disgraceful prosecution. 

Dorothy Rabinowitz revisits the Amirault case in this piece for The Wall Street Journal.  Please read it.  If you plan to read only one article today, this should be it.  It is illuminating, and the work of one of the most skilled journalists around.  Dorothy makes this observation about Martha Coakley:

Attorney General Martha Coakley—who had proven so dedicated a representative of the system that had brought the Amirault family to ruin, and who had fought so relentlessly to preserve their case—has recently expressed her view of this episode. Questioned about the Amiraults in the course of her current race for the U.S. Senate, she told reporters of her firm belief that the evidence against the Amiraults was "formidable" and that she was entirely convinced "those children were abused at day care center by the three defendants."

What does this say about her candidacy? (Ms. Coakley declined to be interviewed.) If the current attorney general of Massachusetts actually believes, as no serious citizen does, the preposterous charges that caused the Amiraults to be thrown into prison—the butcher knife rape with no blood, the public tree-tying episode, the mutilated squirrel and the rest—that is powerful testimony to the mind and capacities of this aspirant to a Senate seat. It is little short of wonderful to hear now of Ms. Coakley's concern for the rights of terror suspects at Guantanamo—her urgent call for the protection of the right to the presumption of innocence.

If the sound of ghostly laughter is heard in Massachusetts these days as this campaign rolls on, with Martha Coakley self-portrayed as the guardian of justice and civil liberties, there is good reason.

Read the whole thing.  Martha Coakley is a fraud.

January 15, 2010   Permalink

MADNESS – AT 9:34 A.M. ET:  It's hard to believe that the fanatics in the Obama administration haven't learned a thing, but fanatics rarely do:

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration is considering a criminal trial in Washington for the Guantanamo Bay detainee suspected of masterminding the bombing of a Bali nightclub that killed 202 people, a plan that would bring one of the world's most notorious terrorism suspects just steps from the U.S. Capitol, The Associated Press has learned.

Hey, welcome to Washington.  I'm sure they'll give him the 20-dollar tour also, the one that lets you climb the Washington Monument.

Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, was allegedly Osama bin Laden's point man in Indonesia and, until his capture in August 2003, was believed to be the main link between al-Qaida and Jemaah Islamiyah, the terror group blamed for the 2002 bombing on the island of Bali.

Other terrorism trials also may occur in Washington and New York City under a proposal being discussed within the Obama administration, according to U.S. officials briefed on the plan, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private planning meetings.

Authorities already have begun discussing the intense security measures needed to bring Hambali and others before a Washington federal judge, the officials said.

And who do you think will be paying for these "intense" measures?  If the defendants were tried at a military base, a fortune could be saved.

Conducting a trial in the nation's capital would be a symbolic repudiation of the policies of former President George W. Bush, who portrayed Hambali as a success story in the Bush administration's program of interrogating terror suspects in secret CIA prisons overseas.

Of course, that's what it's all about.  Repudiate BUSH (!!), and, especially, CHENEY (!!!!+)

COMMENT:  This is really nuts.  A Washington trial is, by definition, a show trial.  Every crackpot group in the country will be outside that courtroom, and CNN cameras will accommodate them. 

And what if, despite overwhelming evidence, there's an acquittal, or a hung jury, or a crazy decision by a liberal judge that hampers the prosecution?  What would the Obamans do then?  Send Janet Napolitano out to say that the system worked?

And another note:  Washington is overwhelmingly African-American.  That brings up the very awkward question of who will serve on the jury.  In a way, it is unfair to the African-American community. 

But when the only objective is to show a contrast with Bush, who cares about those things?

January 15, 2010   Permalink

FINALLY,  SOME ACTION – AT 9:10 A.M. ET:  Apparently, the Army is taking very seriously the negligence that led up to the Fort Hood massacre - at 9:12 A.M. ET:  From Fox News: 

As many as eight Army officers may be punished for failing to heed warning signs and take action against suspected Fort Hood gunman Maj. Nidal Hasan, a U.S. official said Thursday.

First reported in the Los Angeles Times, an official familiar with a Pentagon review of the case, which will be discussed at a briefing Friday, said the officers who face discipline hold ranks of colonel and below.

Not good enough.  What about general officers who set the tone that made this possible?  What about Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff, who said after the terror attack that his greatest concern was that it would hurt diversity in the Army?  What about the civilian leadership, with its obsessive political correctness?

The review reportedly found that superiors allowed Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, to advance within the ranks despite his failings to meet physical and professional standards. Hasan avoided physical training, was overweight and frequently late, but was seen by superiors as a rare medical officer and thus avoided corrective action.

"Had those failings been properly adjudicated, he wouldn't have progressed," the official told the Times.

Additionally, the Pentagon review into the deadly rampage that killed 13 found that the Defense Department does not do an adequate job of sharing information about internal personnel, and it focuses more on hunting spies than ferreting out extremists.

COMMENT:  We'll follow this.  There are pervasive problems throughout the United States Government that are hampering the war on terror.  These problems have not been solved, and extend beyond the military into the CIA and the FBI, especially the latter.

January 15, 2010   Permalink

OH DEAR, OH DEAR, WHAT CAN THE MATTER BE? – AT 8:52 A.M. ET:  If ever two politicians deserved each other, it's this dynamic duo, representing two of the most liberal Democratic constituencies in the nation.  Fight on, gentlemen, but wear fashionable boxing gloves.  From The Politico:

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is heading for a collision with Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) over whose pet issue will get top billing in the Senate later this year.

The heart bleeds immediately.

Schumer is taking a lead role in immigration — and is pushing Democrats to prioritize a potentially toxic issue leading up to the November elections. Kerry is a lead negotiator on climate change and is demanding that a climate bill get pushed to the front of the line.

I can't wait.  Liberal Democratic bills on immigration and climate change.  What winners at the polls!  Well, we know which way Aspen and Beverly Hills will vote.

Kerry and Schumer — who have a history of competitive tensions — are maneuvering behind the scenes to get White House and Senate leadership to promise to give their respective issues time this spring.

But the reality is that there is room for only one more big issue on the 2010 agenda: the so-called third thing, after health care and financial reform. And accomplishing even one will be a serious stretch for lawmakers unwilling to take on another politically explosive fight after the bruising health care battle.

Leave it to the Dems.  They love martyrdom.  They will get what they love.

“If it’s a competition, then it’s a good competition,” said Jim Kessler, a former policy and legislative director for Schumer. “Each one independently has its own challenges.”

Isn't that precious?

Schumer is quietly spreading the word within the immigration community that he has the White House’s support to pass a bill by April. At the same time, Kerry has been mounting his own campaign to pass a climate bill — telling environmentalists, business groups and fellow senators that his bill will pass this spring, ideally by June.

COMMENT:  And the voters will surely be cheering them on.  Well, six voters.

January 15, 2010   Permalink

MASSACHUSETTS – AT 8:15 A.M. ET:  The Senate race in Massachusetts, ending with the election this Tuesday, is the hottest special election in memory.  It shouldn't even be close in this bluest of blue states, but it's more than close.

We reported, in our final item last night, that the respected Norfolk University poll now shows GOP fireball Scott Brown four points ahead of Democratic disaster Martha Coakley.  Coakley, who apparently believes that she owns the seat and should not have to stoop to campaigning among the peasantry, has stepped up her efforts and is running a relentless series of attack ads.

Byron York reports for the Washington Examiner:

Here in Massachusetts, as well as in Washington, a growing sense of gloom is setting in among Democrats about the fortunes of Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley. "I have heard that in the last two days the bottom has fallen out of her poll numbers," says one well-connected Democratic strategist. In her own polling, Coakley is said to be around five points behind Republican Scott Brown. "If she's not six or eight ahead going into the election, all the intensity is on the other side in terms of turnout," the Democrat says. "So right now, she is destined to lose."

Brown's trajectory has been spectacular.  Already the Dem spin machine is operating:

Given those numbers, some Democrats, eager to distance Obama from any electoral failure, are beginning to compare Coakley to Creigh Deeds, the losing Democratic candidate in the Virginia governor's race last year. Deeds ran such a lackluster campaign, Democrats say, that his defeat could be solely attributed to his own shortcomings, and should not be seen as a referendum on President Obama's policies or those of the national Democratic party.

Of course not.  Next, they'll be blaming BUSH (!!).  And didn't Dick Cheney once spend a night in Massachusetts?

With the election still four days away, Democrats are still hoping that "something could happen" to change the dynamics of the race. But until that thing happens, the situation as it exists today explains Barack Obama's decision not to travel to Massachusetts to campaign for Coakley.

Coakley has already been assigned her place under the bus.

COMMENT:  A word of caution.  The election is Tuesday, not today.  Elections are not public opinion polls.  There is no margin of error.  This is far from being in the bag, and we don't know the impact of some last-minute smear.  This is not a time for overconfidence, as President Dewey might tell us from the grave. 

In fact, a new poll by a Democratic firm shows Coakley comfortably ahead, but apparently is not being taken that seriously.

We'll await Rasmussen's final word, and, most important, the word of the voters on Tuesday.  The Rothenberg Political Report rates the race a toss-up, and so should we.

January 15,  2010   Permalink

THURSDAY,  JANUARY 14,  2010

BULLETIN – AT 11:30 P.M. ET:  Brown surges ahead in newest Massachusetts poll:

BOSTON -- Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown has surged ahead of his Democratic opponent Martha Coakley, according to a new poll released Thursday night.

Brown leads Coakley by a margin of 50 percent to 46 percent, the Suffolk University/WHDH-TV poll found. It is the first poll to show Brown, who had been thought a long-shot underdog, leading the race.

It raises the possibility of an historic political upset in Massachusetts.

“It’s a massive change in the political landscape,” David Paleologos, director of Suffolk’s Political Research Center, told The Boston Herald.

Paleologos told the newspaper that the poll shows high numbers of independent voters turning out on election day, which benefits Brown, who has 65 percent of independents compared to Coakley’s 30 percent.

More to come.

January 14, 2010   Permalink

MAJOR NEWS - U.S. WANTS MORE SECURITY FOR AIRLINERS - READ ALL ABOUT IT AT 7:56 P.M. ET:  Some ten years after terrorists attacked the USS Cole while it was anchored in Yemen, security minds-at-work in Washington have concluded that there is a terrorist threat from...Yemen.  Now we're talking:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- All airlines flying to the United States or within the country were told Thursday to prepare for even tighter security because of the al-Qaida threat from Yemen, a law enforcement official said.

The U.S. increased the number of air marshals on international flights and pressed for more random screening at airports as intelligence officials warned that al-Qaida's branch in Yemen was continuing to plot attacks on the United States.

Boy, I'm glad they found out, aren't you?

A U.S. counterterrorism official said American intelligence agencies were intensely examining all information about threats from the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arab Peninsula, including potential plots and specific individuals. Counterterrorism agencies have serious concerns about al-Qaida plots emanating from Yemen, the official said.

The officials did not pinpoint any specific evidence of new plots since the Christmas Day bombing attempt by a Nigerian national on a Detroit-bound flight. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss intelligence publicly.

COMMENT:  Well, I'm certainly relieved.  Now we can go back to calling terrorist attacks "man-made disasters."  So much more civilized.  Not like BUSH (!!).

January 14, 2010   Permalink

OBAMA RESISTING MASSACHUSETTS – AT 7:33 P.M. ET:  We reported this morning that rumors were flying that President Obama would go to Massachusetts to try to boost Dem Senate candidate Martha Coakley.  Now, the White House is denying it:

Coming off stinging election losses in Virginia and New Jersey -- not to mention Copenhagen, where he failed to win the 2018 Olympics for his hometown of Chicago -- President Obama is staying away from what could become another painful loss.

Even though the campaign of Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has been making quiet entreaties, the president has no plans to visit her in the last week of the special election to fill the Senate seat once held by the late Edward M. Kennedy.

"It's not on our schedule to go to next week," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said matter-of-factly.

With Mrs. Coakley flagging in the polls and Republican Scott Brown closing fast -- one recent polls puts him 2 points ahead -- Mr. Obama has decided to keep his fingerprints off a race that would be an embarrassment for Democrats should they lose, given that Mr. Obama won the state in 2008 by a 27 point margin.

COMMENT:  It would be an embarrassment even if Coakley won, but barely.  We'll be watching this weekend's polls.  If Brown's advance continues, he may pull this off.  It's a big "if."  Reports tell us that the Dems are really turning on the money machine in Massachusetts, running one ad after another. 

We'll be blogging this live Tuesday night.

January 14, 2010   Permalink

FROM THE WONDERFUL FOLKS WHO BROUGHT YOU LAST SEASON'S FLOPS – AT 7:14 P.M. ET:  The Tonight Show is an important political institution, so what happens to it is of political interest.

The latest from the world of high-stakes programming is that Conan will soon be gone and Jay will soon be back:

Welcome back, Jay - and goodbye, Conan?

Conan O'Brien's last show could come as soon as next week - and Jay Leno may be retaking the helm of the "Tonight Show," two new reports say.

NBC's late-night woes may have been solved Thursday with a deal to restore Jay Leno to his old 11:35 p.m. slot host.

And with Leno's less-than-triumphant return, current "Tonight" host Conan O'Brien is wrapping up his seven-month stint behind the desk of the venerable talk show.

The Leno deal was reported by TMZ.com, while People reported O'Brien's last show was set for next Friday. Neither report could be immediately confirmed.

An NBC spokesman told TVGuide.com that there was no Leno deal - but did not address People's reporting on Conan.

"Conan does not currently plan on doing any more new shows after next week," a source told People.

COMMENT:  Well, anything could theoretically work, but I have real doubts about this.  First, Americans root for the underdog, and Conan is the underdog.  Second, Jay – who nurtured an image as a nice guy – comes off as the heavy, the already successful guy who's had his turn at "Tonight," cutting off the young kid.  Early in his tenure at The Tonight Show, Jay had an agent/manger from hell who was abusive to any and all.  Although she had been instrumental in his career, he had to fire her to preserve his image.  Now he risks real damage. 

Third, it may fail.  Comebacks are very, very difficult.  Jack Paar, who was the king of late night before Johnny, tried to come back with his own late-night show on ABC in the early 70s, and flopped badly.  Jay recently flopped at 10 p.m. on NBC, and the thinkers of Hollywood – that's a joke – calculate that he'll do just fine back in his old time slot.  Maybe yes, maybe no.  People tire of a personality, and the circumstances here are sour.  Where, after all, is the wanting of Leno?  Is there a popular uprising?

This is the time when programming executives bet everything.  Don't worry for them financially.  But their ability to get the best table at a Hollywood restaurant, and to have their names painted on their parking spaces – these priceless things (Hollywood priceless) are on the line.

January 14, 2010   Permalink

BULLETIN!  ROTHENBERG REPORT RATES MASSACHUSETTS A TOSS-UP – AT 4:55 P.M. ET:  From the highly respected Rothenberg Political Report:

Democratic desperation and other compelling evidence strongly suggest that Democrats may well lose the late Senator Edward Kennedy’s Senate seat in Tuesday’s special election. Because of this, we are moving our rating of the race from Narrow Advantage for the Incumbent Party to Toss-Up.

Whatever the shortcomings of the Coakley campaign (and they certainly exist), this race has become about change, President Obama and Democratic control of all of the levers of power in Washington, D.C. Brown has “won” the “free media” over the past few days, and if he continues to do so, he will win the election.

Late Democratic efforts to demonize Republican Scott Brown, to make the race into a partisan battle and to use the Kennedy name to drive Democratic voters to the polls could still work. But the advertising clutter in the race works against them, and voters often tune out late messages, which can seem desperate.

COMMENT:  Pray to the deity of your choice.

January 14, 2010   Permalink

POLLS GET STILL WORSE FOR OBAMA – AT 10:58 A.M. ET:  The message is certainly being sent, as the National Journal's Hotline reports:

A year into his tenure, a majority of Americans would already vote against Pres. Obama if the '12 elections were held today, according to a new survey.

The Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll shows 50% say they would probably or definitely vote for someone else. Fully 37% say they would definitely cast a ballot against Obama. Meanwhile, just 39% would vote to re-elect the pres. to a 2nd term, and only 23% say they definitely would do so.

Obama's first year in office has been marked by an unemployment rate that surged to 10%, an increased commitment of troops to Afghanistan and a health care battle that has taken a serious political toll on the WH.

Obama's approval rating is down to 47%, the poll showed, a 14-point drop since the April survey. 45% disapprove, up 17 points from April. Only 41% say they trust Obama more than Congressional GOPers, while 33% pick the GOP over the WH. That 8-point gap is down from a 21-point edge Obama sported as recently as Sept.

Just 34% say the country is moving in the right direction, down 13 points since April, and 55% say it is off on the wrong track, up 13 points over the same period.

COMMENT:  The White House would do itself, and the country, a big favor by pulling the health-care plan, which is in trouble in Congress anyway.  It gets more and more unpopular, and is bringing down the administration.  The president should simply say that he is not satisfied with the result, and ask Congress to start over, with much more modest goals.

That might salvage some of the president's political capital, which is being used up rapidly.  It would also serve the country.  However, I doubt if it will happen.  The left wing of the Democratic Party believes that this is their moment.  They will not give up their chance to return to the 1960s, which was really their moment. 

Ah youth.

January 14, 2010   Permalink

ECONOMIC GRIMNESS – AT 9:20 A.M. ET:  New economic news is grim, contradicting the optimism oozing from a president who hasn't had a press conference since July.  First report:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Retail sales fell in December as demand for autos, clothing and appliances all slipped, a disappointing finish to a year in which sales had the largest drop on record.

The weakness in consumer demand highlighted the formidable hurdles facing the economy as it struggles to recover from the deepest recession in seven decades.

The Commerce Department said Thursday that retail sales declined 0.3 percent in December compared with November, much weaker than the 0.5 percent rise that economists had been expecting. Excluding autos, sales dropped by 0.2 percent, also weaker than the 0.3 percent rise analyst had forecast.

For the year, sales fell 6.2 percent, the biggest decline on records that go back to 1992. The only other year that annual sales fell was in 2008, when they slipped by 0.5 percent.

The 0.3 percent decline in December was the first setback since September, when sales had fallen 2 percent. Sales posted strong gains of 1.2 percent in October and 1.8 percent in November, raising hopes that the consumer is starting to mount a comeback.

Second report:

MIAMI (AP) - A record 2.8 million households were threatened with foreclosure last year, and that number is expected to rise this year as more unemployed and cash-strapped homeowners fall behind on their mortgages.

The number of households that received a foreclosure-related notice rose 21 percent from 2008, RealtyTrac Inc. reported Thursday. One in 45 homes were sent a filing, which includes default notices, scheduled foreclosure auctions and bank repossessions.

In December, more than 349,000 households, or one in 366 homes, were hit with a foreclosure-related notice. That represents a 14 percent spike from November and a 15 percent jump from December 2008.

Third report:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of newly laid-off workers requesting unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week as jobs remain scarce amid a sluggish economic recovery.

The Labor Department said Thursday new claims for unemployment insurance rose by 11,000 to a seasonally adjusted 444,000. Wall Street economists polled by Thomson Reuters expected an increase of only 3,000.

COMMENT:  If this continues, the political fallout can be profound.  Unless the president can show an economic turnaround by the November elections, he'll be hosting a huge going-away party for many Democrats in Congress.  I don't know if they can take their health care with them.

And something else:  In the midst of all this, Wall Street firms are about to announce mammoth bonuses, some in the tens of millions of dollars.  Even pro-business writers are beginning to register their disgust at this obnoxious display by men who seem to live in an amoral alternative universe.  There may simply come a point where we have to save capitalism from the capitalists.  It's happened before.  There's a small group that never seems to learn words like "decency," "fairness" and "proportion."  What's remarkable is that some of the firms involved are the same ones that the American people had to bail out last year.

The distinguished Felix Rohatyn, a statesman of Wall Street, once worried that the stock market was becoming nothing more than a casino.  He was right.  He'd be more right today.

January 14, 2010    Permalink

THE CHRISTMAS-DAY AIRLINE BOMBER – EVEN WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT – AT 9:02 A.M. ET:  Just when we thought the Keystone Kop mentality that allowed the bomber to board his flight had been fully aired, along comes this.  More Keystone.  More Kop:

WASHINGTON – The would-be Christmas Day bomber boarded his flight in Amsterdam to frigid Detroit with no coat — perhaps the final warning sign that went unnoticed leading up to what could have been a catastrophic terrorist attack, lawmakers were told.

Congress got its first behind-the-scenes look Wednesday at the botched airline bombing and officials said the security failures were even worse than President Barack Obama outlined last week. It remains unclear, however, how those failures will be fixed.

Very, very unclear.

"He was flying into Detroit without a coat. That's interesting if you've ever been in Detroit in December," New Jersey Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said after a briefing by presidential counterterrorism adviser John Brennan.

National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair and National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael Leiter briefed the House Intelligence Committee behind closed doors and Brennan took questions from the House in overlapping sessions Wednesday.

And...

"There were more dots crying out to be connected than I realized," Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview. "If any two of the dots were connected, it would have moved the organization to quickly connect the other dots. An improvement or good luck in any number of areas probably could have broken this wide open."

COMMENT:  We worry about the next bomber, who is certainly in the pipeline.  There were also plenty of unconnected dots in the Fort Hood case.  We need a better approach to dots in our intelligence services.

January 14, 2010   Permalink

BARONE ON COAKLEY – AT 8:24 A.M. ET:  The weirdness of Martha Coakley is examined by the great Michael Barone, who focuses on Coakley's behavior after a Washington fundraiser Tuesday night.  One of her aides pushed Weekly Standard reporter John McCormack to the ground, and a photo clearly shows Coakley staring at McCormack when he's down:

The photo makes it pretty clear that Martha Coakley, the Attorney General of Massachusetts, witnessed an assault and battery and didn’t lift a finger to stop it, as law professor William Jacobson notes. I tend to agree with Boston radio talk host Michael Graham, who sees this incident—and the photo—as a game-changer. Coakley, who took much of the month of December off and whose campaign didn’t even bother to run TV ads last week, seems to feel entitled to the Senate seat. After all, she’s the Democratic nominee, isn’t she? She’s going to vote whatever way the Democratic leadership tells her to, isn’t she? And if little people get in the way, like the mild-mannered John McCormack, well, they just have to be taken out of the picture.

Pretty devastating.  We'll see if the incident is a game changer.  It will depend on the way Scott Brown plays it.  Coakley denied that she saw what happened, yet photos show she plainly did.  She lied.

The thought occurs to me that if Republican Scott Brown wins this election—and every day his chances look better—Democrats might conclude that Martha Coakley was a Republican plant, a Manchurian candidate inserted into the race in order to deprive Democrats of their 60th vote in the Senate.

Seriously, Martha Coakley embodies the elitist sense of entitlement that seems to reign in today’s Democratic party. Scott Brown struck just the right chord when David Gergen asked him how he could vote against the Democrats’ health care bill from Ted Kennedy’s seat in the Senate. “It’s not the Kennedys’ seat, it’s not the Democrats’ seat, it’s the people’s seat.”

COMMENT:  It would be moving a mountain to elect a Republican to the Senate from Massachusetts.  Do I hear earth moving?

January 14, 2010   Permalink

MASSACHUSETTS SENATE – AT 8:06 A.M.. ET:  There are unconfirmed stories flying around that President Obama may plunge headlong into the Massachusetts Senate race this weekend and fly up to campaign for beleaguered Dem candidate Martha Coakley.

Republican candidate Scott Brown, now surging, alluded to that possibility in an interview on Fox News yesterday afternoon. 

The stakes are enormous.  If Brown should slip by Coakley and win, it would be a seismic event in politics.  The line, "The Democrats couldn't even hold on to the Kennedy seat," would be all over the media.  The Dems would lose their 60th seat in the Senate, meaning Republicans could block any piece of legislation through a filibuster.

On the other hand, Obama's putting himself on the line in the bluest of the blue states is almost humiliating.  And if Coakley should then lose, it would be doubly humiliating – much greater than flying to Copenhagen and coming home without the Olympics for Chicago. 

A presidential visit would appear to have one purpose – very frankly, to play the race card, to energize minorities who are lethargic about the veddy white, veddy feminist, veddy upscale Coakley.  Scare tactics work in politics, and if Obama can convince minorities in Boston that a win for Brown would reverse the gains of the Civil War, he might get Coakley through. 

There are no new Massachusetts polls this morning, but we will certainly have some over the weekend, maybe before. 

The Massachusetts drama shows how quickly trends can change in politics.  Who would have thought it, back a year ago, when the political fashionistas were groveling before the Obama deity?

My, how the flighty have fallen.

January 14,  2010   Permalink