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FRIDAY,  MARCH 5,  2010

WHY JOHNNY CAN'T READ, WRITE, OR FIGURE A GROCERY BILL – AT 11:01 P.M. ET:  Detroit is a legendary mess, and here is one reason why.  It's incredible.  From Fox:

As if Detroit doesn't have enough problems these days, the president of the city's school board offered the shocking admission that he can't pen a coherent sentence.

Otis Mathis, who oversees the academic future of 90,000 public school students, told the Detroit News that he's a "horrible writer" after reports surfaced that he sent a Feb. 29 e-mail to the financial manager of Detroit Public Schools that was rife with spelling, punctuation and usage errors.

"If you saw Sunday's Free Press that shown Robert Bobb the emergency financial manager for Detroit Public Schools, move Mark Twain to Boynton which have three times the number seats then students and was one of the reason's he gave for closing school to many empty seats," the e-mail read, according to the paper.

Mathis, 56, of Detroit, has had difficulties with language as early as fourth grade, when he was placed in special education classes. His college degree was also held up for more than a decade due to repeatedly failing English proficiency exams required for graduation from Wayne State University, the paper reported.

Some parents are now questioning whether Mathis is fit for his role.

COMMENT:  Certainly took the parents a bit of time to wake up, don't you think?

When I was very young I was privileged to attend a New York City public school system that had teachers who could diagram an English sentence.  Today New York has some teachers who can't even write one.  But Detroit puts New York to shame.  That's a city that really knows how to fail.

March 5, 2010   Permalink

OUR IRAN POLICY – AT 8:05 P.M. ET:  From Rick Richman at Contentions:

Asked today about the apparent lack of progress in convincing Brazil or China of the need for additional sanctions against Iran, Asst. Secretary P.J. Crowley said dialogue will continue and “at the end of the process we are going to present our proposals to the Security Council” for “consequences” for Iran. And what would those proposals be?

QUESTION: Speaking of the UN and a resolution, are you circulating a draft or is – are any of the P-5+1 circulating a draft at the moment?

MR. CROWLEY: There’s no draft resolution. We are working within the P-5+1 and with others on – sharing our ideas on possible steps. I think there’s a growing understanding that Iran should face consequences for its defiance of international obligations. We’ve having very serious and high-level conversations, but there is not, as of yet, a draft resolution text.

Well, is there at least a schedule for producing a draft resolution?

QUESTION: When do you think there will be [a draft text]?

MR. CROWLEY: We don’t have a timetable. We want to move as rapidly as possible, but at the end of this, we want to have action that is effective, sends the right signal, puts the right pressure on Iran, and we hope ultimately secures Iran’s compliance under the NPT and UN Security Council resolutions.

COMMENT:  So goes our Iran policy.  It's already failed, but the teacher hasn't yet sent home the failure notice.  The president seems to have no sense of urgency about Iran, even as the centrifuges keep spinning. 

The great failure here is the inability to understand that Barack Obama's coming to power had no chance of changing Iranian policy.  That policy was never based on antagonism toward George W. Bush.  It was, and is, based on an unchanging ideology that many on the political left refuse to confront, or even understand. 

March 5, 2010   Permalink

FAILING UPWARD – AT 7:37 P.M. ET:  From The Politico:

Still searching for a permanent host for “This Week,” ABC News is in talks with Christiane Amanpour, the CNN foreign correspondent known more for globe-trotting reporting than talking politics within the Beltway.

Amanpour, through a CNN spokesperson, declined to comment, but sources with knowledge of the hiring process say she’s now in the mix of internal and external candidates ABC is considering to replace George Stephanopoulos, who left for “Good Morning America” in December.

Since Stephanopoulos’s departure, the network has kept the Sunday show seat warm with a steady stream of ABC correspondents: Jake Tapper, Terry Moran, Barbara Walters, Jonathan Karl and Elizabeth Vargas.

COMMENT:  Well, CNN is really tanking, so maybe jumping ship wouldn't be a bad idea.  Amanpour is appropriately left wing, almost a requirement these days in the MSM.  On election day, 2008, she wrote about how she pedaled around New York just soaking up the feeling that a new, bright era was about to begin.

I've never thought she was particularly incisive, and I don't think she has the street sense to do an inside-the-beltway show.

March 5, 2010    Permalink

THIS IS A NEWS SOURCE? – AT 7:23 P.M. ET:  A professional Palin hater is making charges that are sweeping the internet.  They're trivial, but it's shocking to me that any clown like this would be taken seriously.  From the Washington Post:

A Maryland man who wrote a parody of Sarah Palin's autobiography and who says he and his wife flew to Los Angeles to attend the taping of Palin's appearance on NBC's "The Tonight Show" claims NBC sweetened the audience's laughter during her appearance to drown out the deafening silence, which he says was on occasion only broken by his own derisive guffawing.

Responding to Micheal Stinson's claims on the political Web site Daily Kos, NBC said Friday that "neither the audio nor the laughs were enhanced for Sarah Palin's segments on 'The Tonight Show' " this past Tuesday.

I'll take NBC's word on this.  I saw the performance.  I've worked on The Tonight Show.  When I was there we didn't employ "sweetening."  I got no feeling whatever that there was any sweetening during Sarah's appearance.  You can usually tell because, even if you have a very good "track man" (as in laying down a laugh track), the timing of the laughter is rarely precisely right.  It's like lip-synching a song.  Some words go well, and others don't. 

The idea of using this guy as a news source really annoys me.  Get this:

"We're artists and what we mostly need money for is to make more art," he said. He and his wife brought eight copies of their book and distributed six among audience members and show crew. The other two they kept. When some in the audience rose to greet Palin, Stinson says he and his wife danced in place and jumped up and down while waving copies of the book which, he says, were not confiscated by security "to their credit."

Security also did not ask them to leave when his wife continued to dance and wave the book after everyone else in the audience had sat back down, he added. They just asked her to please be seated.

Real class act.  This is what makes news.

March 5, 2010   Permalink

ANOTHER ONE GONE - AT 4:46 P.M. ET:  From The Politico: 

Democratic Rep. Eric Massa will resign from Congress on Monday, only days after reports first surfaced that the freshman New York lawmaker was under investigation by the House ethics committee for allegedly sexually harassing a male staffer.

Massa was preparing the news in the Corning Leader, his local newspaper, but several media outlets were already reporting the news Friday afternoon.

COMMENT:  He'll probably say that he wants to spend more time away from his family.

March 5, 2010    Permalink 

SOMEBODY NOTICED – AT 9:48 A.M. ET:  The Democratic Party is being overwhelmed with scandals.  Even The New York Times is noticing:

WASHINGTON — The ethical woes facing Democrats are piling up, with barely a day passing in recent weeks without headlines from Washington to New York and beyond filled with word of scandal or allegations of wrongdoing.

The troubles of Gov. David A. Paterson of New York, followed by those of two of the state’s congressmen, Charles B. Rangel and Eric J. Massa, have added to the ranks of episodes involving prominent Democrats like Eliot Spitzer, Rod R. Blagojevich and John Edwards.

And don't forget all those guys in the Obama administration, with all the questions about their backgrounds.  We have a secretary of the treasury who didn't pay some taxes; we had Van Jones, the 9-11 truther; we almost had Tom Daschle, whose tax problems derailed him; and we've got an attorney general who urged the pardon of Marc Rich to satisfy his boss at the time, Bill Clinton.

The National Dishonor Society.

Taken together, the cases have opened the party to the same lines of criticism that Democrats, led by Representatives Nancy Pelosi, now the House speaker, and Rahm Emanuel, now White House chief of staff, used effectively against Republicans in winning control of the House and Senate four years ago.

The mix of power and the temptations of corruption can be a compelling political narrative at any time. But with voters appearing to be in an angry mood and many already inclined to view all things Washington with mistrust, the risks for Democrats could be that much greater this year.

With Election Day still eight months away, there is time to avert a history-is-repeating-itself storyline. But Democrats, who are already on the defensive over the economy, health care and federal spending and are facing a re-energized conservative movement, suddenly have a set of ethical issues to deflect as well. “Speaker Pelosi famously promised the most open, honest and ethical Congress in history,” Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader, said Thursday. “Yet here we go again.”

COMMENT:  Look, you can be sure there are liberal journalists who are probing potential Republican scandals, and they're bound to find some.  Dems are especially vulnerable because they control the White House and Congress.  But the GOP has to be careful in exploiting the corruption issue.  Proposing a new, very public code of ethics, and demanding that the Dems sign onto it, would be one good idea.  The GOP has a tendency only to react to things rather than initiate ideas, and that has to stop.  Simply saying, "Here we go again," is far from enough.

March 5, 2010   Permalink

QUICK, SWEEP QUICKLY UNDER THE RUG – AT 9:07 A.M. ET:  There was a shooting last night in which two Pentagon guards were wounded, and the gunman killed.  The shooter has a curious past, as Fox reports:

Resentment of the U.S. government and suspicions over the 9/11 attacks have surfaced in writings by the Californian identified as the gunman who shot two Pentagon police officers before he was mortally wounded in a hail of return fire.

The shooter's death was confirmed early Friday, hours after the Thursday evening assault, as authorities searched for a motive behind the brazen attack. The two officers, grazed by bullets, were treated in a hospital.

Other news sources, with their usual knee-jerk reactions, are assuring us that there is no link to any group, that the guy acted alone, and that we should all move along.  But there are some disturbing issues emerging, as there were in the first hours after Fort Hood:

John Patrick Bedell, 36, of Hollister, Calif., was identified as the shooter. Officials said they'd found no immediate connection to terrorism but had not ruled it out.

Signs emerged that Bedell harbored ill feelings toward the government and the armed forces, and had questioned the circumstances behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

In an Internet posting, a user by the name JPatrickBedell wrote that he was "determined to see that justice is served" in the death of Marine Col. James Sabow, who was found dead in the backyard of his California home in 1991. The death was ruled a suicide but the case has long been the source of theories of a cover up.

The user named JPatrickBedell wrote the Sabow case was "a step toward establishing the truth of events such as the September 11 demolitions."

COMMENT:  This obviously requires further investigation, and not bland reassurance.  We've been down this road before.  The guy may simply turn out to be a nutjob, but we should not assume it.

March 5, 2010    Permalink

IS THIS SERIOUS? – AT 8:35 A.M. ET:  When you're a scientist, and your work is questioned, there are a number of ways to fight back.  Here is one, from Fox News:

Undaunted by a rash of scandals over the science underpinning climate change, top climate researchers are plotting to respond with what one scientist involved said needs to be "an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach" to gut the credibility of skeptics.

In private e-mails obtained by The Washington Times, climate scientists at the National Academy of Sciences say they are tired of "being treated like political pawns" and need to fight back in kind. Their strategy includes forming a nonprofit group to organize researchers and use their donations to challenge critics by running a back-page ad in the New York Times.

"Most of our colleagues don't seem to grasp that we're not in a gentlepersons' debate, we're in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules," Paul R. Ehrlich, a Stanford University researcher, said in one of the e-mails.

Wait, wait, wait.  Is that the same Paul Ehrlich...?  Yeah, I looked it up.  It's the same guy who became famous in the late sixties and early seventies – he even did the Tonight Show – for predicting the so-called "population bomb."  He predicted that there would be famines, awful things, terrible stuff, that the world could not feed itself, etc., etc.  His predictions fell well short, and have been largely relegated to the history of scare stories.  Ehrlich also suggested that chemicals that could render people sterile be temporarily added to food and water in some areas.

So now he's involved in global warming?  And he talks about the enemy – those who dare ask questions – as merciless?  Like he showed mercy when he wanted to add those chemicals to food and water? 

Some scientists question the tactic and say they should focus instead on perfecting their science, but the researchers who are organizing the effort say the political battle is eroding confidence in their work.

This second group, who want to perfect their science, is correct.  No one is looking for a political war.  The skeptics are looking for hard science.

If I were a global warmer, why would I not want Paul Ehrlich as my standard bearer?

March 5, 2010   Permalink

BE GONE WITH YOU – AT 8:11 A.M. ET:  Ultra-liberal Congressman William Delahunt of Massachusetts, a man known for his pomposity and deep passion for himself, will be departing Congress, leaving a vacancy in a Massachusetts district that went for Scott Brown in the recent senatorial election:

March 5 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Representative William Delahunt of Massachusetts won’t seek re-election when his term is up this year, becoming the second Democrat in two days to make that decision.

Delahunt’s move was confirmed last night by his spokesman Mark Forest, who said a statement would be posted today. The Boston Globe reported that Delahunt, first elected in 1996, had decided to give up his seat for personal rather than political reasons.

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, a fellow Democrat, issued a statement yesterday saying Delahunt’s departure from Congress would leave “a void” because the lawmaker “is an incredibly strong voice for Massachusetts in Washington.”

Kerry also said, “I hope this is not Bill Delahunt’s last chapter in public service.”

Delahunt, 68, was favored to win re-election in a district that includes Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.

And now the rest of the story:

Prior to being elected to his House seat, Delahunt was a county district attorney in Massachusetts. He faced questions recently about his tenure in that post because of the office’s handling of the 1986 shooting death of the brother of Amy Bishop, the University of Alabama college professor accused of killing three colleagues last month.

Bishop killed her brother in a shooting that was ruled accidental.

Delahunt has defended the actions his office took in that case.

The problem is, his actions were indefensible, and I suspect part of his decision was based on the likelihood that the 1986 case will be reinvestigated.  Since Bishop went on to kill again, it's difficult to see how Delahunt can defend his reckless decision not to prosecute her for the killing of her brother.  The record shows that she fired her shotgun three times within a short period, not exactly the picture of an accident.  She then went out and tried, at gunpoint, to steal a getaway car. 

Delahunt will have to defend his actions from his retirement community.

March 5,  2010   Permalink

IS LIGHT SHINING IN, OR ARE POLLS BEING READ? – AT 8:02 A.M. ET:  Apparently, common sense is starting to infiltrate the Obama administration, despite gallant efforts to keep it out.  From AP:

WASHINGTON – In a potential reversal, White House advisers are close to recommending that President Barack Obama opt for military tribunals for self-professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four of his alleged henchman, senior officials said.

The review of where and how to hold a Sept. 11 trial is not over, so no recommendation is yet before the president and Obama has not made a determination of his own, officials said. The review is not likely to be finished this week.

Officials spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss private deliberations.

Attorney General Eric Holder decided in November to transfer Mohammed and the four other accused terrorists from the prison at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to New York City for civilian trials. That was initially supported by city officials, but was later opposed because of costs, security and logistical concerns.

When opposition ballooned further into Congress and an attempted Christmas airline bombing brought massive scrutiny to Obama's terrorism policies, the administration said it would review Holder's trial decision and consider all options for a new location.

In addition to local opposition to a trial, the administration faces pressure on its goal of closing Guantanamo on another front. Republicans in Congress have proposed barring prosecutions of terrorism defendants in federal courts or in reformed military commissions located in the United States.

COMMENT:  Already the lines on the left are forming, with the usual suspects in the ACLU claiming that this reversal would be a rejection of "American values."  I love it, I love it.  Since when is trying an enemy combatant in a civilian court an American value? 

March 5,  2010   Permalink

THURSDAY,  MARCH 4,  2010

THE HARD PART IS AHEAD – AT 8:05 P.M. ET:  We keep warning here about Republican overconfidence.  The November elections are not in the bag. 

Proof comes in the form of a new poll in usually Republican Texas.  Incumbent Republican Governor Rick Perry won a smashing victory in the gubernatorial primary on Tuesday, but a Rasmussen survey warns that the general election will be much tougher.  Andrew Malcolm, at the L.A. Times's Top of the Ticket blog, reports:

Now Perry's bid for an unprecedented third term confronts Democrat Bill White, who also easily won his party's primary even in a crowded seven-candidate field.

But how is Perry gonna tag his opponent as a Washington outsider when White is the three-term mayor of Houston which, despite some suspicions up in Dallas, is still within Texas?

A new poll out Thursday afternoon indicates that's gonna be a tougher challenge for....

...Perry. A Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely November voters, finds Perry leading White by six points, 49-43. Back in January when White recalibrated his political ambitions from a Senate seat to a high-backed chair in Austin, Perry led him by 10 points in a hypothetical match-up.

And...

Republicans hope to pick up several governorships (i.e. Oklahoma), as they did last November in New Jersey and Virginia. But they also need to hold their own existing state capitols. Connecticut looks like a real problem now. What can you say about California? And, for the moment, Texas is close.

COMMENT:  The lesson is that each state is different.  Republicans must run a 50-state campaign.  If it's close in Texas, it's going to be close in other places.  And, despite the GOP lead nationally, the overall race will probably tighten as November approaches. 

March 4, 2010   Permalink

REINCARNATION BULLETIN – AT 7:20 P.M. ET:  "If we get some mattresses and plug up that hole, Captain Smith, the Titanic will arrive on time."  From The Washington Times:

The former John Edwards aide whose recent tell-all book chronicles the former Democratic presidential candidate's extramarital affair and then fall from grace said Thursday that Mr. Edwards still believes he has a political future.

"He still has a sense of being bulletproof," former aide Andrew Young told The Washington Times' "America's Morning News" radio show. "He thinks . . . he's going to come back and have something to offer the world."

Yeah, but the world doesn't want to get pregnant.

Mr. Young spoke the same day the National Enquirer reported a North Carolina grand jury will indict Mr. Edwards, 56, in connection with using campaign funds to pay mistress Rielle Hunter and cover up the affair.

COMMENT:  He was always a fake.  But he believes his golden voice will always save him.  Hmm.  Isn't there another politician like that?

The only place John Edwards could get elected is Hollywood, where his kind of talent is admired.

March 4, 2010   Permalink

IT HAPPENED IN RIO – AT 6:47 P.M. ET:  This morning we reported that Hillary Clinton has been rebuffed even by Brazil in trying to get stronger sanctions against Iraq.  The Christian Science Monitor reports on just how strongly rebuffed we were:

The visit by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Brazil Wednesday was billed as an effort to forge ties with a country that is increasingly emerging as a recognized global power.

But the rhetoric of partnership came easier than the reality. Brazil rebuffed Ms. Clinton's efforts to win support for more sanctions on Iran's nuclear program.

The Brazilian foreign minister, Celso Amorim, said it bluntly:

"We will not simply bow down to the evolving consensus if we do not agree."

Please note the tone.  We will not "bow down."  This isn't about Iran, it's about standing up to the United States.  That's been the trendy thing to do recently in Latin America, a style led by Hugo Chavez, with a hat tip to the Castro brothers in Cuba.  And it's a lot easier when a marshmallow inhabits the Oval Office.

Brazil is just one of several countries, such as China, that the US is lobbying. But getting Brazil on board would be particularly helpful to the US effort, as Iran has long held the position that only the US and some European nations support a tougher stance against Tehran.

Brazil knows that, and isn't coming on board.  There is no report of President Obama intervening with a phone call to Brazil.  Too busy, too busy.  Let Hillary hang out to dry.

Clinton also met with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who had earlier warned against "pushing" Iran into a corner.

He's a leftist, but acted responsibly toward the United States when Bush was in power.  Recently, despite the Obaman rhetoric, he's gotten more hostile.

But the most tensions have emerged over Iran, especially after Mr. Ahmadinejad was warmly welcomed in Brazil in November. Critics of da Silva, who is often referred to as Lula, in Brazil and the US, have called Brazil’s position an attempt to flex its muscle and show that it does not have to bow to US or European desires.

COMMENT: I guess this is more change we can believe in.  My, how the American people were taken for a ride in the 2008 elections.  Everyone was supposed to love us, and cooperate with us, once Barack Obama got the keys to the mansion.  Not so.

March 4, 2010   Permalink

SANITY PREVAILS – AT 11:04 A.M. ET:  We reported last night that Charlie Rangel's replacement as chairman of the ultra-powerful House Ways and Means Committee, which writes tax legislation, would be Pete Stark of California, a charter, gold-card member of the lunatic fringe. 

However, either Stark got a message from above, or above just shoved him out.  His chairmanship lasted less than 24 hours, as the Washington Times reports:

The fallout from the ethical troubles of Rep. Charles B. Rangel, New York Democrat, continued Thursday as his successor chairman on the Ways and Means Committee stepped down just a day after becoming acting chairman.

Rep. Pete Stark, California Democrat, resigned in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which was read on the chamber floor just after the House convened Thursday morning.

His move clears the way for the committee's No. 3 Democrat, Rep. Sander M. Levin of Michigan, to take over.

Some Democrats said Mr. Stark, among Congress's more liberal members, was too far to the left to run the panel, which is seen as one of the more business-friendly committees in Congress. Mr. Stark also has a history of making contentious comments.

Contentious comments?  The man is out of control.  Powerful medicines are required.  Want proof?  It's here.

The Dems did something sane, for a change.

March 4, 2010   Permalink

A CLINTON BLUNDER – AT 9:20 A.M. ET:  Talk-show host Mike Scully alerts us to a sharp column by Nile Gardiner, in Britain's Telegraph, on still one more foreign-policy blunder by the Obama administration.

Hillary Clinton was just in Argentina.  Argentina and Britain are feuding again over the Falklands, the small island chain just off Argentina's eastern coast, but owned by Britain.  The U.S. has, properly, taken a neutral position on the dispute.  But Clinton seemed to change that position in a way that downgraded Britain, which this administration does as a hobby:

The transcript of Hillary Clinton’s press conference in Buenos Aires with Argentine President Kristina Kirchner last night, has just been released by the State Department, and it is a real eye-opener. Her remarks represent an astonishing propaganda coup for the Peronist regime in its dispute with Britain over the Falklands, with Washington brazenly backing its position.

Argentina has been pressing for negotiations.  Britain has said, in effect, that there's nothing to negotiate.  The Falklands, Whitehall says, are British territory. 

But Clinton's comments in Argentina clearly put the U.S. in the Argentinian camp:

"...we want very much to encourage both countries to sit down. Now, we cannot make either one do so, but we think it is the right way to proceed. So we will be saying this publicly, as I have been, and we will continue to encourage exactly the kind of discussion across the table that needs to take place."

Gardiner comments:

The secretary of state, a highly skilled political operator, knows exactly what she is doing here. She is giving her full support for the official stance of Buenos Aires, despite the fact that Great Britain has made it clear that the sovereignty of the Falklands is non-negotiable. She makes no reference at all to the fact that Argentina recently threatened a blockade of the Falklands, or that its close ally Venezuela has been threatening war against Britain.

Hillary Clinton’s dire performance in Buenos Aires was not only an appalling display of appeasement towards a corrupt and authoritarian anti-American regime, which barely has the support of 20 percent of the Argentinian people. It was also an astonishing betrayal of the United Kingdom by her closest ally, and yet another slap in the face for Britain from the Obama administration.

COMMENT:  Let's face it.  Obama has no use for Britain, which he associates with past colonialism.  It's interesting that he doesn't seem to have the same hang-ups about some of the world's dictatorships, including those of Latin America.

We must, of course, be sensitive to the feelings of Latin Americans, but this heavy-handed, blundering approach was not the way to do it.

March 4, 2010   Permalink

AMERICANS TAKE IRAN MORE SERIOUSLY THAN DOES OBAMA – AT 8:58 A.M. ET:  From Fox:

A majority of American voters think military force will be necessary to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapons program, and many think it will be “a disaster” if Iran gains nuclear capabilities.

A Fox News poll released Tuesday finds that 60 percent of voters think force will be required to stop Iran, while 25 percent think diplomacy and sanctions alone will work.

Just over half of Democrats (51 percent) and independents (51 percent) think force will be necessary, as do three-quarters of Republicans (75 percent).

I'm stunned that more than half of Democrats take a hard line, and a bit disappointed that only 51% of independents do so.  Republicans, of course, are stalwart. 

If Iran were to obtain the capability to use nuclear weapons, 56 percent think that would be “a disaster,” while 37 percent call it “a problem that can be managed” and 3 percent say it wouldn’t be a problem at all.

I suspect Americans are following the news about Iran, and aren't happy with what they're seeing, and what their own country is doing.  For good reason.  Consider this, from AP:

China said Thursday it will continue to push for a diplomatic resolution to the Iranian nuclear standoff, rebuffing efforts by Western powers to introduce a new set of sanctions against Iran.

"We've been making diplomatic efforts and we believe they have not been exhausted, and we will continue to work with other parties to push for a settlement to this issue," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang.

As Sarah Palin might have asked, "How's that changey feeley stuff workin' out on Iran?"

Not well.

With China's firm rejection of new sanctions – China has a veto at the UN – our policy has just about collapsed.  The only alternative is to try to get nations independently to apply sanctions, outside the UN framework, which would mortify Obama's leftist supporters. 

Secretary of State Clinton has even been rebuffed on sanctions by Brazil, a non-permanent member of the Security Council.  Increasingly, nations do not take American requests seriously.

March 4, 2010   Permalink

ANNIVERSARY – AT 8:18 A.M. ET:  Today is the 77th anniversary of the first inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. 

Roosevelt shaped the Democratic Party that most of us knew growing up, although I think he'd be appalled by its ineptitude and arrogance today.  And I think he'd be especially appalled at the foreign policy attitudes that have crept into the party, starting in the late sixties.

It was Roosevelt, not a Republican, who was Ronald Reagan's political hero, and for good reason.  Reagan understood the need to speak directly to the American people, over the heads of the press, and in terms people can understand, and no one did that better than Roosevelt.  And Reagan also understood what Barack Obama doesn't, and that is that a certain warmth in the voice, a connection with the public, is critical to a modern president. 

Roosevelt was the first president to use radio effectively and extensively.  He gave a series of "fireside chats" in which he discussed the crises before the nation.  The first was given on March 12, 1933, barely a week after his inauguration.  Here are the first paragraphs:

I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking -- to talk with the comparatively few who understand the mechanics of banking, but more particularly with the overwhelming majority of you who use banks for the making of deposits and the drawing of checks.

I want to tell you what has been done in the last few days, and why it was done, and what the next steps are going to be. I recognize that the many proclamations from State capitols and from Washington, the legislation, the Treasury regulations, and so forth, couched for the most part in banking and legal terms, ought to be explained for the benefit of the average citizen. I owe this, in particular, because of the fortitude and the good temper with which everybody has accepted the inconvenience and hardships of the banking holiday. And I know that when you understand what we in Washington have been about, I shall continue to have your cooperation as fully as I have had your sympathy and your help during the past week.

The tone of that was just right.  Explanation, not condescension.  Disciplined delivery, not rambling.  And a thank you to the American people for their support in his first week in office.

And there was a respect for the nation in Roosevelt's voice. 

Whether you agree or disagree with FDR's policies, his relationship with the people was critical to forging the modern presidency.  Obama could learn from listening to his speeches.  So, might I add, could some Republican leaders.  After all, the greatest Republican leader of our time listened very carefully, and learned a great deal.

March 4, 2010   Permalink

WHAT A CONCEPT!  CREATIVE GENIUSES  – AT 7:53 A.M. ET:  There was the president of the United States.  The subject was health care.

And, clearly, the creative juices were flowing at the White House.  Behind the president – can you just conjure the originality – were people in lab coats.  Maybe they were doctors and nurses, or maybe they just played them on TV.  Never saw that before.  What a breakthrough.  This is Hollywood on the Potomac.   (The last time the president made a speech on health care at the White House, his staff actually had lab coats on hand to be given out.)

As for substance, Mr. Obama was tough.  No real compromises.  Full steam ahead, even in the face of public opposition.  There may have been a few boilerplate lines about bipartisanship, but that's all.  Health care has become the iconic issue for liberal Democrats, and they're going to slam it through, regardless of how flawed their plan is.

But there is danger here for Republicans.  No matter how unpopular Mr. Obama's plan may be, Republicans lose if they seem to be 1) simply opponents and 2) blind worshippers of "free enterprise," when applied to health insurance.  If the Republicans think they're going to become electoral heroes by championing insurance companies, they're delusional.  Every poll shows that Americans, across the board, Republicans included, believe the health- insurance system requires reform, and that insurance companies must adhere to certain standards. 

Republicans must come up with a comprehensive plan, widely and constantly presented to the American people, that fixes what's wrong, retains choice, and yet reduces costs.  Some excellent GOP ideas, like tort reform, have gotten lost in the political meat grinder. 

I have the sickly feeling that the Dems will get something passed.  Once passed, remember, Americans may change their attitude from opposition to, "Let's see how it works."  It's happened before.  This is a time for Republican creativity, not Dewey-like contentment.

March 4,  2010   Permalink