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THURSDAY,  JANUARY 28,  2010

BULLETIN – AT 8:30 P.M. ET:  Maybe the message got through.  The New York Daily News is reporting this on its website:

White House officials have told the Justice Department to consider other venues for the 9/11 terror trial that was to be held in lower Manhattan, the Daily News has learned.

The decision came after Mayor Bloomberg and other politicians across the state railed against President Obama's plan to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Manhattan Federal Court.

Attorney General Eric Holder now has to think of other places where the trial could take place, officials said.

It was not immediately clear if the reassessment means the trial will definitely be moved out of the city.

COMMENT:  If the story is true, the trial is out of the city.  Congress won't appropriate the funds.

UPDATE AT 9:55 P.M. ET:  Fox reports White House confirmation that the administration is looking for venues other than New York City for the trial of the mastermind of 9-11.

January 28, 2010   Permalink

OBIT – AT 7:36 P.M. ET:  Howard Zinn has died.  He was left-wing royalty.  Presumably a "historian," Zinn was more a propagandist, yet his "history" is taken seriously by the gullible, especially the gullible who reside in Hollywood mansions.  There was recently a History Channel documentary based on his work.  He influenced Oliver Stone.  Zinn taught at Boston University, whose former president accused him of "poisoning" the academic environment.  Sadly, many people ignored that warning.

The New York Times runs an AP obit, which plays it relatively straight:

Howard Zinn, an author, teacher and political activist whose book “A People’s History of the United States” became a million-selling leftist alternative to mainstream texts, died Wednesday in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 87 and lived in Auburndale, Mass...

...“A People’s History” told an openly left-wing story. Professor Zinn accused Christopher Columbus and other explorers of committing genocide, picked apart presidents from Andrew Jackson to Franklin D. Roosevelt and celebrated workers, feminists and war resisters.

He was one of the founders of the modern "America is terrible" movement.

Even liberal historians were uneasy with Professor Zinn, who taught for many years at Boston University. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. once said: “I know he regards me as a dangerous reactionary. And I don’t take him very seriously. He’s a polemicist, not a historian.”

In a 1998 interview with The Associated Press, Professor Zinn acknowledged that he was not trying to write an objective history, or a complete one. He called his book a response to traditional works, the first chapter, not the last, of a new kind of history.

A response?  Is this a game?  If it's a response, and written by a man teaching in a history department, shouldn't it adhere to high standards of accuracy?  Apparently not, for this is a "new" kind of history.  From what I've seen, a number of people writing for the mainstream media bought that line.

Say nothing bad about the dead.  I was not an admirer.  I certainly think there's a place in universities for alternative points of view, well argued.  That's what the Great Conversation is about.  But some carried it too far, and their influence was not helpful to the expansion of democracy.

January 28, 2010   Permalink

THE DANGER WE FACE – AT 7:08 P.M. ET:  Anne Bayefsky, one of the best reporters around today – the UN recently tried to lift her credentials because some delegates griped that she wasn't following the party line – expands on the foreign-policy disgrace in last night's presidential address.  From NRO:

President Obama’s message in the State of the Union address confirmed that he is tone-deaf to the grievous threats that exist to American national security and incapable of changing course before those dangers become a terrible reality.

The catastrophe of nuclear proliferation had finally made it to the top of the agenda by the time he took office. But over the past year, this president added disarmament to the same platform. He put the retention of U.S. nuclear weaponry on the U.N. negotiating table alongside Iranian acquisition of such arms. In this State of the Union address he wasn’t shy about reasserting this world view: “We are also confronting perhaps the greatest danger to the American people — the threat of nuclear weapons.” By which he meant, in American hands too. The president did not first and foremost promise never to let the genocidal Iranian regime acquire these weapons of mass destruction. Instead, the first national-security priority he articulated was to seek “to reduce our stockpiles and launchers.”

According to President Obama, only by weakening America can we hope to convince our enemies to stand down.

Ouch.  Big ouch.  Anne is right.  This president follows the standard leftist line that we are all to blame.  That's why he went around the world apologizing for us early in his term. 

President Obama announced that in April he will hold another hand-shaking, hot-air-generating “nuclear security summit” — to control American and Russian arms. As for dealing with Iran, he could not manage to muster a single concrete move, just an empty “they too will face growing consequences.”

From whom?  From the UN, where China has a veto?  The president doesn't say.

This is an administration that has turned its back on inconvenient victims from Tehran to Tibet to Israel. An administration that has climbed on board the U.N. Human Rights Council, despite its being a tool of Islamic states for defeating rights. And yet the president disingenuously lectured: “America must always stand on the side of freedom and human dignity.”

We have asked regularly at Urgent Agenda whether Obama wants to be Kennedy or Carter.  I'm afraid we got our answer last night.  Welcome to the peanut farm.  Jumbos available at slight extra cost.

January 28, 2010   Permalink

A TALE OF TWO PRESIDENTS – AT 6:35 P.M. ET:  There's a great deal of comment across the internet on the way foreign and defense policy was almost ignored in the president's speech last night.  It's really quite startling, considering the challenges we face.  Compare please with a past president:

(CNSNews.com) – President Obama dedicated considerably less of his State of the Union address to foreign policy issues than did five previous presidents in their speeches of similar or shorter length.

About 850 words of Obama’s 7,080-word address – around 12 percent of the total – dealt with foreign affairs.

In contrast, President George W. Bush in his last SOTU devoted some 2,200 words (38 percent of the total) to foreign policy issues. That 2008 speech, Bush’s longest, was more than 1,300 words shorter than Obama’s Wednesday night address.

A comparison of the two speeches reflects the two presidents’ differing priorities.

Obama made one reference to “freedom” (“America must always stand on the side of freedom and human dignity”) compared to 10 references by Bush in 2008.

“Liberty” did not make an appearance in Wednesday’s speech; Bush used the word eight times.

Obama mentioned “terrorists/terrorism” three times and “al-Qaeda” twice; Bush in 2008 used “terror,” “terrorism” or “terrorists” 23 times and “al-Qaeda” 11 times. Bush additionally used the words “extremists” or “extremism” nine times.

COMMENT:  Wasn't Obama the president who was supposed to put America on a higher moral plane?  Make us more respected?

Respected among whom?  Given his choice of language, we must be doing awfully well among despots, dictators and Iranian mullahs.  For them, Obama is change they can believe in.

January 28, 2010   Permalink

WEIRD – AT 6:18 P.M. ET:  There is a certain weirdness to the Obama administration.  Either they think they can fool us all the time, or they actually believe what they're saying. 

Earlier today we reported that Mayor Bloomberg of New York has joined the army of dissenters who believe that it is wrong to try the mastermind of 9-11 right in the heart of Manhattan, in a target-rich (for terrorists) environment.  Senator Dianne Feinstein of California and Charles Schumer of New York also joined that army today.  Feinstein is a senior Democrat regarded as one of the grown-ups of the Senate.

And what is the White House reaction?  From The New York Times:

MacDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. – President Obama has not changed his view on whether the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks should face trial in New York City, a White House spokesman said today, despite fresh criticism from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg that the proceedings should be moved from Manhattan.

“Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is a murderous thug who has admitted to some of the most heinous crimes ever committed against our country,” Bill Burton, the White House deputy press secretary, told reporters. “The president is committed to seeing that he’s brought to justice.”

Mr. Burton was responding to criticism from Mr. Bloomberg and other New York City officials that holding the terrorism trial at the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan would be too expensive and disruptive for the city. In addition, Democratic senators like James Webb of Virginia and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas joined with the Republican Senators Lindsey Graham, John McCain and Susan Collins in writing a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. urging that the trials not be held in New York.

COMMENT:  As I said, weird.  This issue is not whether KSM should be brought to justice.  The issue is the risk to New Yorkers and the vast cost of trying him in Manhattan.  He can be tried at a secured military base.

The arrogance of the White House response is telling.  There is no real acknowledgment of the risks, or of the huge public and Congressional outcry.  The attitude is, "We're right, everyone else is wrong."  And you wonder what is so important about trying KSM in New York?  The symbolism?  We can do without it.  The 9-11 plot also involved the Pentagon, so trying the culprits at a military base would also be symbolic.

We're not conspiracy theorists here, but we wonder there's some hidden motive.  Is it possible that some in the Justice Department want KSM to have a huge media platform, the better to show the "root cause" of terrorism?  Is it possible that some in the administration would like a hung jury, or even an acquittal, based on rejection of Bush administration tactics?

There has to be some explanation here other than the official one.  There are too many thoughtful opponents, and the reasons given for the Justice Department decision are too flimsy.  This requires a Congressional probe, which Democrats will probably block.

January 28, 2010    Permalink

EXPERT WITNESS – AT 10:58 A.M. ET:  Urgent Agenda regularly receives information from special sources who cannot be identified.  Here is a report from a very knowledgeable American of impeccable credentials about the situation we're now facing in Afghanistan:

The situation in Afghanistan is in steady decline: casualties are up as is the amount of territory under de facto Taliban control.   As expected, Obama's delay in providing McChrystal the resources he needs to do authentic counterinsurgency operations is allowing the Taliban to get a little stronger every day.  The troops originally requested under Bush/McKiernan are just now arriving and having an impact.  It is too little too late, for all the obvious reasons.  In a country as remote and compartmented as Afghanistan, the enemy is extremely fungible.  With limited assets, a little good done here is undone there because we cannot in be in enough places at once.   A couple of observations:

*   McChrystal startled me with his extremely blunt embrace of at least some portion of the Taliban in some sort of power-sharing arrangement.  This possibility was always tacitly understood, but I was surprised to see it stated so starkly.  The Taliban, I think, will read this as a sign that they are winning and they will be reluctant to go to the bargaining table when they think they can win in the field.   

*   Pakistan's recent "success" against their own Taliban was extremely limited and simply returns things to the status quo:  Punjabs are left to rule in Islamabad if the FATA Pashtuns are left to their semi-autonomous territories.  This does Afghanistan little good.   Pakistan was also recently blunt in outlining their real security interests, interests that do not necessarily align with our own. In a recent Financial Times article, Pakistan’s security establishment, which wields influence over the Afghan Taliban, says it is ready to facilitate talks to end the Afghanistan conflict in return for greater US backing in its competition with India for regional influence.

 Counterinsurgency is successful when its civil and military components are complementary and reinforcing.  The Petraeus/Crocker model is credited for much of the success we enjoyed in Iraq. So it was interesting to see US Ambassador (to Afghanistan) Eikenberry's cables in the papers stating such pronounced opposition to McChrystal's strategy.  The problem may be that while McCrystal is clearly the top dog among the military players in Afghanistan, Eikenberry is just one of many civilian voices who have influence.  In any event, it was dismaying to see his position "leaked" to The New York Times, as it must certainly encourage those who wish us ill.

In sum, things have not significantly changed in Afghanistan.  Pakistan remains a sanctuary, we do not have enough troops, and the chain of command remains fundamentally dysfunctional, hampered by a NATO structure that is more designed to provide the appearance of solidarity than the actual unity  of effort required for military operations.  

In fact, the only real change seems to be increasing strictures on our troops' latitude to defend themselves with overwhelming firepower.  Though well-intentioned (collateral damage, real or manufactured, is a good Taliban recruiting tool), it will inevitably lead to more coalition casualties as small unit leaders and pilots hesitate at critical moments.

I remain pessimistic.  The London Conference is likely to be what such gatherings regarding Afghanistan always are – a good forum for strong postures and forceful words – but it will produce little that commits or binds.

COMMENT:  An authoritative, but grim picture.  The question is whether we have the leadership in the United States that is committed to overcoming the problems and moving toward victory, or something approximating victory.

Well, Mr. Obama boasted in last night's speech that we're on track to have American forces start leaving Afghanistan in 2011, a pledge he's made to appease his political left.  Our enemies undoubtedly noted this, and will plan accordingly.  It's hard to be optimistic with the kind of leadership we have in Washington, with no great prospect for change until 2012.

January 28, 2010   Permalink

TOUGHNESS ON IRAN, OR JUST WORDS? – AT 9:50 A.M. ET:  President Obama made a (very) brief reference last night to increased pressure on Iran because the Tehran regime has shown no give on its nuclear program.

Problem is, we've heard that line before, and nothing much has actually happened.  The president's policy has been to speak loudly and carry a little stick. 

Some moves appear to be coming, according to AP, but you have to read between the lines, and on all sides of them:

LONDON -- The Obama administration is preparing to circulate proposed tough new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program as early as this week at the United Nations, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

The proposed measures, which would target elements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps under fresh penalties as well financial institutions under existing U.N. sanctions resolutions, are being finalized and prepared for debate in the U.N. Security Council, the officials said.

Yeah.  Been there, done that.  Both Russia and China have veto power in the Council, and China has said bluntly that it is opposed to new sanctions.

The officials would not predict when a vote might take place, but said negotiations on a proposed fourth round of U.S. Security Council sanctions could begin within weeks.

Obama's deadline for Iran to show progress in the nuclear talks was December 31st.  Oh, he'd had a previous deadline in September.  Those deadlines have come and gone, and now we're told that "negotiations" on sanctions might begin "within weeks."  Or is that months?

They must be shivering in Tehran as they watch the Obama administration swing into action, uh, well, within weeks.

With Russia, and in particular China, skeptical of any new sanctions efforts, the Americans have to tread carefully to maintain six-power unity on how to deal with Iran.

Wait a second.  Just what does that sentence mean?  Russia and China oppose new sanctions so we have to tread carefully to maintain "unity"?  What kind of unity could that be?  What are we unified about?

Do you get the feeling that this "get tough on Iran" policy will wind up in the same place as all previous "get tough on Iran" policies?

Our skepticism overflows.  The will seems to be missing.  The teeth seem to be missing.  The Russians and Chinese are definitely missing.

What precisely is our policy, as Iran gets closer and closer to a nuclear bomb?

January 28, 2010   Permalink

THE TRIALS, NOT – AT 9:12 A.M. ET:  This is a building story.  There is now a groundswell growing in Congress, and just about everywhere else, against the Justice Department's decision to try the mastermind of 9-11, and some of his bedfellows, in a civilian courtroom in New York City.

Senator Lindsey Graham said he is only one vote short of the number needed to cut off funding for the trial decision, which is intensely unpopular.  Obama missed a golden opportunity last night to reverse the Justice Department's boneheaded move, but did not do so.  The same Justice Department that decided on the Manhattan trial spectacular also intervened to read the Christmas-day airline bomber his Miranda rights, long before a reasonable interrogation of the dude was completed.  Apparently, Obama's Justice team doesn't understand which country it serves.   

The only people who seem in favor of the New York trials are Attorney General Eric Holder, the leftist lawyers he brought to his department, and the usual assembly of "progressives" in Congress and around the country who never met a jihadist they didn't "understand."

Now New York's Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who approved the trials originally, has decided that the preservation of his political neck requires a change of opinion:

Responding to growing pressure from downtown residents and business leaders, Mayor Bloomberg yesterday said the trial for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his fellow terrorists should be moved out of the city.

"It would be great if the federal government could find a site that didn't cost $1 billion, which using downtown will, and it will also impact traffic and commerce and people's lifestyles," Bloomberg said.

"And it would be great if we didn't do it."

Earth to Mayor Mike:  It isn't just lifestyles we're concerned about.  It's deathstyles.  Holding that trial in Manhattan puts a bulls-eye right on the back of every New Yorker.

Bloomberg agrees with a resolution from Community Board 1 this week calling on US Attorney General Eric Holder to move the trial out of the city.

If Eric Holder can't get the lower Manhattan ultra-libs on his side, who else is left?

The board suggested another federal site, possibly West Point, an Air National Guard base at Stewart Airport, the federal prison in upstate Otisville, or White Plains federal court.

Uh, now just wait one little moment.  The White Plains federal courthouse is right around the corner from where Urgent Agenda is written.  Maybe the fellas could pick a more appropriate location.  We get enough sirens here as they bring in the "accusees" every day.

Sen. Charles Schumer yesterday also joined the growing list of lawmakers hoping to move the trial out of the city.

COMMENT:  I doubt if these trials will ever be held in New York.  Too much opposition.  This is an issue where a number of Dems in Congress will probably bow to public opinion and refuse to back the Obamans. 

Holding the trials in New York is not only dangerous and disruptive, it gives the terror defendants the world's greatest media stage to make their case.  Why do I think some of the radicals in the Obama administration thought that would be a fine idea?

January 28, 2010   Permalink

PENNSYLVANIA –  AT 8:47 A.M. ET:  Poll results for Pennsylvania's upcoming Senate race are dramatic, for a state that usually goes blue.  Arlen Specter, formerly a Republican, but now running as a Democrat, is in major trouble.

A new Franklin & Marshall College poll shows conservative Republican Pat Toomey, who will be the GOP candidate, beating Specter, 45% to 31%, a 14-point spread.  A recent Rasmussen poll shows Toomey up by nine.

That is considered a Democratic seat because of Specter's switch, and now seems ripe for a GOP takeover in November.  With Scott Brown's election in Massachusetts, the Dems lost their 60-vote supermajority, the number needed to block a Republican filibuster.  It appears there may be further erosion, if current trends continue.

COMMENT:  By the way, Obama made an unseemly attack on the Senate in his speech last night, apparently frustrated by Senate rules.  We recall no such concern when he was in that body, although he didn't show up enough to notice the rules.  He started running for president almost as soon as he became a senator.

January 28, 2010   Permalink

THE SPEECH – AT 8:32 A.M. ET:  President Obama gave his State of the Union speech last night.  Remember?  No, neither do I.  No speech fades faster than the SOTU.  And there were no great quotes, a characteristic of Obama's eloquent but unmemorable efforts.

Victor Davis Hanson gives us his take on Mr. Obama's address:

After Obama spent 2009 ignoring jobs in order to focus on health care, he tells us that 2010 will be the year of jobs. So after a year of promiscuously talking about higher income, payroll, health-care, and inheritance taxes on “them,” Obama suddenly believes that small business is the engine of growth, and will therefore get new tax cuts and credits.

Likewise, after ignoring or negating his campaign promises about coal, gas, and nuclear power in his first year, suddenly Obama announces that we’re going to develop them!

Some choice Obama tactics, now getting tiresome:

He trotted out the usual straw men: “I was told by some,” “Washington has been telling us,” etc. And once these awful straw men are set up, our hero Obama answers defiantly, “I don’t settle for second place!” The straw-man ploy is now stale.

The “I didn’t ask for” trope: Obama acts as if he bravely endures persecution on our behalf, rejects the easy path, and presses ahead on the difficult path.

The “they did it” trope: So when Obama talks of “lobbying” and “horse trading” on health care, apparently some right-wing nut in the Senate started buying votes at $300 million a clip? The Washington insider who has the White House and Congress blames . . . Washington!

The “Bush did it” trope: So Obama’s deficits are the result of Bush’s spending and weak economy — but is a relatively quiet Iraq due to Bush’s successful surge? No. Obama himself will bring the war in Iraq to a close. He did not offer one word of praise for Bush in a speech calling for unity.

And a few others:

The above-it-all lecturing: After blaming Bush for 30 minutes and castigating the Republicans for “just saying no to everything,” Obama lectures on Washington’s partisan bickering.

The meaningless deadlines and promises: No speechwriter should invoke Iran and a deadline to comply on nonproliferation; no one believes Obama after the past four failed deadlines, and he should give it all a break.

COMMENT:  By the way, most of the comment on Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell's GOP response has been favorable.  McDonnell once again showed that he knows how to strike exactly the right tone, one of the things that got him elected governor by a landslide recently, in a state that at times seemed to be drifting toward blue.  He also invoked Scott Brown, a gracious thing from a guy who may see Brown as competition for a presidential or vice presidential nod down the line.

January 28,  2010   Permalink

WEDNESDAY,  JANUARY 27,  2010

11:20 P.M. ET:  As with most State of the Union speeches, it's already being forgotten.  My own sense is that the president did very well rhetorically – it was a good, old-fashioned Obama delivery.  But on substance, the speech, in retrospect, was heavily partisan, and was stunningly short on national security and foreign policy.  Foreign policy is usually the one area where a president can shine because it's his preserve.  This president showed little interest, a reflection of the indifferent, often lax foreign policy of his first year in office.

We've asked at Urgent Agenda whether Mr. Obama wants to be a Kennedy or a Carter.  Kennedy learned from his mistakes, and tried to correct them in his second year.  Carter never learned a thing.  I had the feeling tonight that Obama still leans toward the Jimmah jamboree – he's going to tough it out.  My policies, right or wrong.

Mr. Obama suffers from a common malady of the left.  Very often his criticisms are accurate.  There are things wrong in America – from greedy, irresponsible bankers, to a leaky health-insurance system.  It's the prescriptions that the left usually gets wrong, or administers incompetently.  Liberals, historically, have often had trouble governing, even though the public may cheer on their goals.

Republicans must now respond to the president by offering creative solutions to serious problems.  The Republican Party remains unpopular, and will continue to be so until it starts showing that it's the creative opposition, not just the loyal opposition. 

10:52 P.M. ET:  The pundits are now in charge.  By the way, one thing that's already come up several times, both in TV punditry and in some initial e-mails from our readers, is Obama's unprecedented attack on a Supreme Court decision – the decision last week striking down part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law.  Some observers felt the president was out of line in attacking that decision during a State of the Union message, and in the presence of the justices.  I agree.  Bad taste.  Sometimes he just can't control that instinct. 

10:36 P.M. ET:  McDonnell is speaking.  He is an appealing, effective speaker.  He is cool rather than hot.  He is wise to show agreement with President Obama in some areas, but he clearly defines differences, as in the treatment of terrorists.  I would say, though, that McDonnell needs a bit more energy in his delivery, a bit more sizzle.  But, by and large, this is a good, respectful reply to the president.  The most important thing about a reply to the State of the Union is to avoid being obnoxious. 

McDonnell finishes.  Solid job. 

10:28 P.M. ET:  The Republican response is about to be delivered by newly elected Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia.  This will be interesting.  Last year the response to Obama's first speech to Congress was delivered by Governor Bobby Jindal of Lousiana, who blew the opportunity with a weak, ineffective delivery. 

10:20 P.M. ET:  Mr. Obama concludes the speech with an inspirational ending.  Perfectly fine, and very well delivered.  The president was at his rhetorical best tonight. 

10:18 P.M. ET:  The president is back to talking about the need for change.  He is speaking reasonably about some challenges and problems – we don't deny that – but once again we wonder if the performance can equal the words.

10:16 P.M. ET:  Did I miss something?  The national security part of the speech went by in record time.  It was barely a footnote.  I'm not encouraged.  The president would have been well advised to reverse the absurd decision to try the mastermind of 9-11 in a civilian court in New York.  Tin ear again. 

10:14 P.M. ET:  The president says we must always be on the side of freedom and democracy.  Well, that's nice to know, but his first year in office is no ornament to that ideal.  To put it mildly.  Mr. Obama calls for an end to "don't ask, don't tell."  Wild applause from his side, appealing to a Democratic constituency. 

10:11 P.M. ET:  Now the president is slipping.  He talks about North Korea being more "isolated," but that hasn't stopped the North Koreans from advancing its nuclear program.  He also promises, one more time, toughness toward Iran.  But the record is poor.  Nothing new here, and nothing to give us confidence that there will be more effective policies.  This is a poorly written, poorly thought out section of the speech.  Get me my pills.

10:08 P.M. ET:  Obama commits again to removing American troops from Afghanistan, starting in 2011.  He reaffirms his plan to have American combat troops out of Iraq this year.  Both are bad moves.  Why give an enemy such a timetable?  The president is appealing to his political left.  He can't seem to help it. 

10:05 P.M. ET:  Obama moves on to national security.  His opening lines are not encouraging – denouncing the politics of "fear," as if reasonable fear of terrorism is something bad.

10:02 P.M. ET:  The president, in a bad moment, just attacked the Republican Party for being a party of "no."  Not a good line.  Should have been left out.

9:54 P.M. ET:  The president proposes a spending freeze, and says he cannot support tax cuts for some corporations and high earners.

9:52 P.M. ET:  Well, the president is back to blaming BUSH (!!) again for problems he inherited.  There may be some truth in this – no one denies there were serious problems – but it gets tiresome. 

9:48 P.M. ET:  Mr. Obama delivered one line that I'd like to note – the importance of colleges and universities lowering their costs.  I believe this will be a growing issue, as more and more families wonder about where all this "education" money is going.  For too long we have treated higher education as a sacred cow.  Send money, don't ask questions.  That attitude must stop, and I think it will.

9:44 P.M. ET:  The president just came out, once again, for health-care reform.  Thank goodness, even the Republicans applauded.  Most people are in favor of reform.  It's the kind of reform we're concerned about.  If the president would open his ears to GOP ideas, he'd get some results.

9:38 P.M. ET:  A word about style:  Whether we agree or disagree with the president, I must say that he's in very good form tonight.  He's using the same rhetorical style that got him elected – which is why I caution regularly about underestimating him when he meets the voters again.

9:34 P.M. ET:  Mr. Obama has just endorsed a new generation of nuclear power plants.  Good.  We agree on that.  He's also hinted at a new approach to offshore drilling, but there are no specifics.

9:28 P.M. ET:  The president is making a series of economic proposals, some of which sound reasonable.  It's impossible, though, to evaluate them now.  The devil will be in the details, how these proposals actually work.

9:24 P.M. ET:  Obama says jobs must be the focus.  It has taken him a year to realize this.  He calls for a new jobs bill.

9:20 P.M. ET:  The president gets big applause from his side by proposing a fee on banks that received bailouts.   Republicans are silent.  One can debate this issue, but I hate to see the GOP, once more, pictured as the party of the big bankers.  Big bankers aren't winning popularity contests.

9:17 P.M. ET:   The president informs us that he's never been more hopeful about America's future.  Nice to know that. 

9:14 P.M. ET:  Well, here we go.  Obama is telling us how much woe there was when he took office a year ago. 

9:08 P.M. ET:  Nancy Pelosi, a legislative official, has just presented the president.  There is sustained applause.  On State of the Union night, there'd be sustained applause for an empty chair.  Or suit.

9:04 P.M. ET:  The president has just been introduced.  He's marching down the aisle, although not in the John Edwards sense.  Everyone smiles.  This is the show biz part.

9:01 P.M. ET:  There is no mention of Scott Brown, the newly elected senator from Massachusetts.  I don't think he's been sworn in yet.  The camera just focused on Attorney General Eric Holder, emerging as the most controversial member of the Obama administration, and a perfect candidate for early departure should sanity prevail.

8:59 P.M. ET:  Most of the big shots are in the House chamber, waiting for the president.  Just think about it:  All these people have government health plans, and we're paying for them.

8:57 P.M. ET:  We now begin our live blogging of the Second Gettysburg Address, which we're about to hear.  Just kidding.

BULLETIN - AT 6:38 P.M. ET:  Obama to seek repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" in State of the Union:

Washington (CNN) -- President Obama will ask Congress Wednesday night to repeal the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that bars gays and lesbians from openly serving, White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod told CNN.

The request will be included in the president's State of the Union address, Axelrod said.

Oh dear Lawdy.  The guy's in big trouble, and this is the move he wants to highlight?  This is the first issue that Clinton tackled on his first day in office, and it almost sank him immediately.

The president's ears may be big, but they're still tin.  I cannot believe that he'll put this into the speech tonight, at a time when he must prove himself to the American people.  Looks like he's staying hard left.

Oh, by the way, Hillary Clinton is skipping the speech.  She's going to London for a conference.  They're telling us this has White House approval.  I don't know.  Maybe Hillary feels the vibes.

January 27, 2010   Permalink

OBAMA CRUSHES SPACE DREAMS – AT 6:01 P.M. ET:  Great presidents understand that this is a dreaming society.  Americans love to shoot for the stars.  Less than great presidents intellectualize things to death, including dreams.  What do you think we have today?  From the Orlando Sentinel:

NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon are dead. So are the rockets being designed to take them there — that is, if President Barack Obama gets his way.

When the White House releases his budget proposal Monday, there will be no money for the Constellation program that was supposed to return humans to the moon by 2020. The troubled and expensive Ares I rocket that was to replace the space shuttle to ferry humans to space will be gone, along with money for its bigger brother, the Ares V cargo rocket that was to launch the fuel and supplies needed to take humans back to the moon.

There will be no lunar landers, no moon bases, no Constellation program at all.

President Kennedy must be spinning in his grave at Arlington.

And get this:

In the meantime, the White House will direct NASA to concentrate on Earth-science projects — principally, researching and monitoring climate change — and on a new technology research and development program that will one day make human exploration of asteroids and the inner solar system possible.

COMMENT:  When this nation stops dreaming, it stops being the United States.  So the White House wants NASA to roll up the dreams and concentrate on...climate change.

How veddy intellectual.  Young kids around America, who draw pictures of spacecraft in their notebooks, must be thrilled.

January 27, 2010   Permalink

A BLUNT ALERT ABOUT THE GLOBAL-WARMING INDUSTRY – AT 5:44 P.M. ET:  Polls show that the American people put global warming near the bottom of their list of priorities, and for good reason:  They've caught on, even if the American press hasn't.

Once again The Times of London, which leads the media in exposing the "science" behind global warming, reports an important story.  This time a major figure in British science is confronting the global warmers:

The impact of global warming has been exaggerated by some scientists and there is an urgent need for more honest disclosure of the uncertainty of predictions about the rate of climate change, according to the Government’s chief scientific adviser.

Finally, some major figure whose career intersects science and government has said it.

John Beddington was speaking to The Times in the wake of an admission by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that it grossly overstated the rate at which Himalayan glaciers were receding.

Professor Beddington said that climate scientists should be less hostile to sceptics who questioned man-made global warming. He condemned scientists who refused to publish the data underpinning their reports.

Many people are not aware that such "scientists" exist.  They say to the world, "Trust us.  We have doctorates."  But thoughtful reviewers want to see the evidence.

This refusal to publish, by the way, extends into other fields as well, especially fields that are politically fashionable.

He said that public confidence in climate science would be improved if there were more openness about its uncertainties, even if that meant admitting that sceptics had been right on some hotly-disputed issues.

Common sense there, I think.

He said: “I don’t think it’s healthy to dismiss proper scepticism. Science grows and improves in the light of criticism. There is a fundamental uncertainty about climate change prediction that can’t be changed.”

COMMENT:  We are making some progress, thanks to the London Times and a few other sources, in bringing some sanity to the global-warming "debate," a debate the global warmers in the land of Al Gore refuse to have. 

We should make them have it, and force them to show up.

January 27, 2010   Permalink

THIS JUST IN – IT ISN'T BUSH'S FAULT - AT 5:21 P.M. ET:  History was made in American journalism today as a mainstream publication printed an article saying something wasn't the fault of George W. Bush.  Some are suggesting that this should now be a national holiday.

From, ahem, Newsweek:

The first increase in teen pregnancy in more than a decade has, unsurprisingly, led many to place blame on Bush’s heavy funding of abstinence-only education. The Guttmacher Institute report that identified the teen-pregnancy increase suggests that it has to do with "the growth of abstinence-only sex education programs at the expense of comprehensive programs." Katie Couric made a similar link on last night’s CBS News, and, over at Feminste, one of the most-read feminist blogs, they're putting it even more bluntly...

...Abstinence-only education is a polarizing issue, and its critics have an easy bandwagon to jump on. But if we take a step back and look at the relationship between funding for abstinence-only education and the teen-pregnancy rate, it’s a difficult conclusion to stand by...

...If abstinence-only education is indeed to blame for the new rise in the teen-pregnancy rate, then it would have made sense to see gains much earlier than 2005. Particularly between 1997 and 1998, when the funding of abstinence-only education increased tenfold, there should have been some indication of an uptick. But there wasn’t: in that year, the teen-pregnancy rate dropped by about 3 percent, pretty similar to drops in other years. Despite a consistent increase in abstinence-only education funds, we did not start seeing an increase in teen-pregnancy rates (or even a slowdown in the rate at which they were decreasing) until the mid-2000s.

COMMENT:  You mean, you mean we can't blame BUSH (!!)?  Apparently not.

Is something changing in American journalism?  Well, one little article is no indicator, but maybe, just maybe, some journalists will start coming to their senses, forced by sheer facts and the declining bottom lines of their once-formidable publications.  George W. Bush and Richard Cheney were not villains.  Disagree with them on specific policies if you wish, but they were officeholders who performed honorably and effectively, and did a great deal of good for their country.

January 27, 2010   Permalink

ANOTHER VOTE OF CONFIDENCE – AT 5:04 P.M. ET:  From the Washington Examiner:

Just when it appeared that the numbers for the Democratic health care proposals passed by the House and Senate couldn't get any worse -- they have. A new poll by CNN and Opinion Research, taken from January 22 to January 24, shows that 69 percent of respondents say Congress should dump the current Democratic health care proposals and either write an entirely new health bill or stop working on the subject altogether.

"What do you think Congress should do on health care?" CNN asked. "Pass a health care bill similar to the legislation that Congress has been working on for the past year, start work on an entirely new bill, or stop working on any bills that would change the country's health care system?" Thirty percent said pass a bill similar to the current ones, while 48 percent said start work on a new bill and 21 percent said stop working on health care. Add it up, and 69 percent say Congress should either write a new bill or stop working on health care altogether. (When CNN asked only about the existing bills, 58 percent said they oppose the bills, while 38 percent say they support them.)

The numbers make it easier to understand why many Democratic lawmakers who voted for the bills in the House and Senate are now running away from the issue. Despite those numbers, however, Democrats remain under pressure from the left to use their last remaining maneuver -- House passage of the Senate bill, followed by revisions passed by the Senate using the 51-vote reconciliation process -- to pass the existing bill.

COMMENT:  The left has the potential to sink the Democratic Party. 

Periodically, our parties have had to be saved by leaders who understood the need for correction.  Dwight Eisenhower saved the Republican Party from itself in 1952, as that party was having difficulty entering the 20th century, and maybe even the 19th.

Bill Clinton, with all his faults, saved the Democratic Party from irrelevance in 1992, although his election was made much easier by Ross Perot's egomaniacal campaign, which took votes from Bush 41.

Who will save the Dems now?  Who will save them from a Congressional faction that actually looks to Fidel Castro for lessons on health care, and which believes 9-11 was just a cultural dust-up?  There's only one current guy who can save them, and he'll be speaking tonight.  The trouble is, the bulb over his head hasn't gone on yet.  No bulb, no salvation.  That's a political rule.

January 27, 2010   Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 10:41 A.M. ET:  From columnist Kathleen Parker:

We're not a nation of red states or blue states, he told us. We are the United States of America. Except we're not -- and that's the problem Obama faces Wednesday night. The emergence of Obama's heretofore-absent pugilist merely adds another layer to the real challenge before him. Is he trustworthy?

For a year now, Obama's visionary, unifying words haven't matched the results. It isn't entirely his fault, but his leftward agenda took him far from center field where he was when optimistic Americans watched his pregame warmup. Since last January, watching him has been like watching a movie where the soundtrack hasn't been synchronized with the actors' lips.

Meanwhile, we have become not a purple, but a Brown nation. As in Scott. Like Obama himself, Brown -- an imperfect candidate under any other circumstances -- was the right man in the right place at the right time.

COMMENT:  Well stated, although I think Brown was more solid as a candidate than Obama ever was.  Brown didn't, for example, have the baggage of Rev. Wright, a bunch of Marxists, and some strange history, trailing him around.  But Obama did have the media picking up after him.

We will look for hints tonight as to whether Obama wants to be Kennedy or Carter.  Kennedy had a sense of history, knew he had failed his first year, and worked to correct the problems.  Carter, the only self-proclaimed deity we had in the White House before Obama, had no sense of history, or even common sense, never recognized a failure that wasn't caused by the sinfulness, sloth and malaise of the American people, and did nothing to change.  He wound up being thrown out of office, with a bunch of hostages in Iran still waiting to be released.

January 27, 2010   Permalink

RASMUSSEN ON OBAMA'S APPROVAL – AT 10:17 A.M. ET:  As we await the State of the Union message, where does President Obama stand with the American public?

Our favorite pollster, Scott Rasmussen, reports his findings this morning:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 27% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -15 (see trends)...

...Overall, 46% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. Fifty-three percent (53%) disapprove.

COMMENT:  Rasmussen polls among likely voters.  So, 42% of likely voters strongly disapprove of the president's performance.  That is a startling figure, only one year after inauguration. 

But remember that Bill Clinton turned a similar situation around, and was reelected in 1996, thanks in part to an absysmal GOP campaign, something that can happen again. 

Recent polling shows, by the way, that the president's foreign policy continues to enjoy reasonable public support, in part because the public backs the sending of more troops to Afghanistan.  That support can easily be eroded, of course, of Obama collapses on Iran and continues to treat terrorists as shoplifters.

January 27, 2010   Permalink

A STORY OF VICTORY – AT 9:01 A.M. ET:  This is terrific, just terrific.  It is wonderful to be able to report a story of victory by the good guys.  Consider this, from the great website, Planet Iran, edited by our friend Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi:

MUNICH, Germany – German engineering conglomerate Siemens (SIEGn.DE) said on Tuesday it would reject any further orders from Iran as world powers consider imposing wider sanctions on Tehran over its disputed nuclear activity.

Germany, one of six countries seeking to persuade Iran to suspend its atomic work, is one of the biggest exporters to Iran despite three rounds of modest United Nations sanctions prompted by past Iranian evasions of U.N. nuclear monitoring.

Western nations suspect the Islamic Republic of trying to develop nuclear weapons capability, a charge Tehran denies. It says that its uranium enrichment programme is designed solely for electricity generation, not atomic bombs.

Iran ignored a U.S. end-2009 deadline to respond to an offer from world powers of economic and political incentives in exchange for halting enrichment or face more sanctions.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday Iran was running out of time if it wanted to avoid further sanctions.

Siemens, which is Europe’s biggest engineering conglomerate, was aware of the sensitivities attached to doing business in Iran, Chief Executive Peter Loescher said.

“Some time ago, we reduced our business activities with customers in Iran,” Loescher said, responding to questions at a shareholders meeting.

COMMENT:  Siemens has been one of the great villains in the sale of sensitive equipment to Iran.  Now, if the firm keeps its word, that will stop.

The untold story here is the fine work of a group called STOP THE BOMB, which has a terrific logo:

Represenatives from STOP THE BOMB go to shareholder meetings of offending European companies, and speak out against their corrupt trade with Iran.  And they get results.

I've met one of the leaders of the group, Dinah Simone Hartmann, who operates out of Vienna – a gutsy lady who puts herself at risk for a good cause.  I wish we had a group like that in America.

Congratulations to Dinah and her entire organization.

January 27, 2010   Permalink

AND THEY'RE FIGHTING AMONG EACH OTHER – THE SCOTT BROWN EFFECT – AT 8:48 A.M. ET:  The Democrats are an unhappy bunch today.

Look, I don't know if Scott Brown will be sworn in quickly enough to be at the State of the Union speech tonight.  But, if you're a Democrat, you know that Brown would be a bigger attraction than President Obama.  As the song "America," from "West Side Story," put it, "Smoke on your pipe and put that in."

The Politico notes that the troops are fighting amongst themselves:

President Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will be all smiles as the president arrives at the Capitol for his State of the Union speech Wednesday night, but the happy faces can’t hide relationships that are fraying and fraught.

The anger is most palpable in the House, where Pelosi and her allies believe Obama’s reluctance to stake his political capital on health care reform in mid-2009 contributed to the near collapse of negotiations now.

But sources say there are also signs of strain between Reid and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, and relations between Democrats in the House and Democrats in the Senate are hovering between thinly veiled disdain and outright hostility.

In a display of contempt unfathomable in the feel-good days after Obama’s Inauguration, freshman Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) stood up at a meeting with Pelosi last week to declare: “Reid is done; he’s going to lose” in November, according to three people who were in the room.

Titus denied Tuesday evening that she had singled out Reid, but she acknowledged that she said Democrats would be “f—-ed” if they failed to heed the lessons of Massachusetts, where Republican Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat last week.

COMMENT:  Such language.  Ah, how the party of George McGovern and Jimmah Carter has fallen. 

The last time the president addressed Congress, a Republican inappropriately shouted at him, "You lie."  You know, I wouldn't be that shocked if Rep. Titus jumped up and said something along those lines tonight.  I just hope she keeps it clean.

January 27, 2010   Permalink

THE SPEECH – AT 8:21 A.M. ET:  The president delivers his State of the Union address tonight.   We will be covering it.

Don't expect much, unless the president claims that he, not John Edwards, is the father of that illegitimate child.  I'm not betting on that. 

State of the Union messages are usually forgotten rather fast, and they often, as Karl Rove pointed out last night, result in a president's approval ratings going down rather than up.

The president is failing.  He is failing as a policymaker and as a leader.  He is not in control of his own party.  Indeed, as The Politico reports, his party is deeply divided:

President Barack Obama will deliver his State of the Union address Wednesday night to a deeply divided country — and a deeply divided party.

Amid plummeting polls, a wave of retirements and a sobering loss in Massachusetts, Democrats say they’re looking for leadership from the president.

But they want him to lead them in different directions.

Some want him to go down fighting on health care reform. Others say he should try one last time and then move on. Some applaud his plan for a partial freeze on federal spending. Others say it will kill the social safety net. Some say it’s time for Obama to reach across the aisle. Others want him fired up and ready to go all over again, but some wonder whether he’s lost his 2008 campaign magic.

The president's leadership skills are minimal.  Before becoming president, he'd never led anything other than a self-admiration society.

Attention tonight will probably focus on domestic policy.  But it's foreign policy that I worry about most.  A poor domestic policy can do damage, but that can be repaired.  A blind foreign policy can kill us.

What a difference a year makes.  One year ago, this president was being portrayed as a new deity, come to save us from our wicked ways.  Now he is seen as ready for the dustbin of history.

Only he can save himself, but that requires the realization that he must be saved.  I don't think it's dawned on him yet.  Maybe an e-mail from the kids would help.

January 27,  2010   Permalink