Please note that you can leave a comment on any of our posts at our Facebook page.  Subscribers can also comment at length at our Angel's Corner Forum.

OUR DAILY SNIPPETS ARE HERE.

SATURDAY,  MAY 29,  2010

OH, NO, NO – AT 10:51 P.M. ET:  A major setback for the Republican Party.  No question about it.  From the Washington Post:

The Republican candidate for President Obama's old Senate seat has admitted to inaccurately claiming he received the U.S. Navy's Intelligence Officer of the Year award for his service during NATO's conflict with Serbia in the late 1990s.

Rep. Mark Kirk, a Navy reservist who was elected to Congress in 2001, acknowledged the error in his official biography after The Washington Post began looking into whether he had received the prestigious award, which is given by top Navy officials to a single individual annually.

The Post's inquiries were sparked by complaints from a representative of state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, Kirk's Democratic opponent in the Illinois Senate race.

Cmdr. Danny Hernandez, the Navy's assistant chief of information, said for several days last week that he was having trouble finding records to clarify the matter. Then on Friday, he said Kirk, an Appropriations Committee member who co-chairs an electronic warfare working group, had changed his Web site to incorporate a different account of the award.

COMMENT:  This is sickening and devastating, and calls for complete integrity and consistency on the part of the Republican Party.  Recently, as readers know, we learned that Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, the Democratic candidate for the Senate seat being vacated by Chris Dodd, had lied about his service record, claiming he'd been in Vietnam during the war, when in fact he had not.

Now this.   Republicans have been rough on Blumenthal, and must be equally rough on Kirk.  Kirk has been a GOP golden boy, a candidate seen as having a good shot at defeating the ethically challenged Alexi Giannoulias, in a normally Democratic state.  This revelation essentially neutralizes any claim Kirk has had to ethical purity.

Let's see if the two men – Kirk and Blumenthal – are treated equally by the mainstream media.  Blumenthal refuses to withdraw, and appears to believe, along with his party, that he can ride out the ethical storm.  Now the focus turns to Kirk.

My own sense is that Kirk must withdraw.  Otherwise, GOP claims of high ethical standards dissolve into thin air.  But without the attractive Kirk, the Republicans have almost no chance in Illinois. 

So, once again, we warn that all the glib predictions of an easy Republican victory this November are of no significance.  Each day brings political developments, and possible disasters.

We'll follow this closely.  Unless Kirk can come up with some satisfactory explanation for his false claim, and I don't think there is one, he is, if not toast, at least bread being quickly brought to room temperature and above.

May 29, 2010      Permalink

YEAH, THIS IS KIND OF THE PROBLEM – AT 8:30 A.M. ET:  The Clinton name, associated with the Sestak issue, is not doing President Obama any good.  People remember the Clinton scandals, too numerous to review.  From The Politico:

Bill Clinton’s picture is again a fixture on cable news.

Republicans are sternly demanding a special prosecutor.

And legal commentators are bickering over the finer points of federal criminal statutes on bribery and graft.

It feels like 1997—but it’s 2010. And Barack Obama can’t be happy.

The White House’s confirmation Friday that it enlisted former President Bill Clinton in an effort to get Rep. Joe Sestak out of the Pennsylvania Senate primary has sent the regular players in Washington’s scandal industry to their battle stations – to pick over the very sort of insider special dealing that Obama had promised to make a thing of the past.

“That’s not the image he wants to project right now with all the things that are going on,” said Mark Rozell, a George Mason University professor who has written at length on the Clinton-era scandals.

The use of Clinton as the conduit to offer Sestak an advisory board position is like catnip for cable television and for Republicans who have plenty of experience painting the former president as ethically challenged.

COMMENT:  You lie down with Clintons, you get up with pleas. 

As we said yesterday, this story requires further investigation.  The statements and excuses offered by the White House and Joe Sestak are entirely inadequate. 

Of course, the White House issued its explanation late Friday, just before a holiday weekend, to try to bury the whole mess.  It will be up to the GOP to use political artistry to keep it alive.

May 29, 2010     Permalink

OBAMA VS. ARIZONA – AT 8:23 A.M. ET:  The Justice Department, in what Eric Holder will probably see as his finest hour, has gone to war against Arizona, the evil empire in the southwest.  It wants to strike down the Arizona law...wait a minute, there's something wrong here.  Read on, from The Politico:

The Justice Department is asking the Supreme Court to strike down a state immigration-enforcement law Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano signed as governor of Arizona.

In a filing Friday afternoon, Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal asked the court to hear a challenge brought by employers and immigrant-rights groups to the employer-sanctions statute Napolitano signed in 2007.

"Those provisions disrupt a careful balance that Congress struck nearly 25 years ago between two interests of the highest importance: ensuring that employers do not undermine enforcement of immigration laws by hiring unauthorized workers, while also ensuring that employers not discriminate against racial and ethnic minorities legally in the country," Katyal and other government attorneys wrote. "There is no reason to believe that Congress intended a result that would subvert the purpose and operation of its general prohibition on state sanctions."

COMMENT:  Now wait a minute.  They were getting all hot and bothered about the new Arizona anti-illegal-immgration law.  But they're not going after that one, at least not this week.  Holder is going after one signed by a fellow Cabinet member. 

This may be a first.  What do they say to each other at Cabinet meetings?  "Hi, Janet, you're a lawbreaker."  "Hi, Eric, you're a fascist." 

I can't wait.  This is fun.  The Department of Justice monster is out of control.  They're eating their own.

May 29, 2010     Permalink

BUT WILL OBAMA GO ALONG? – AT 8:14 A.M. ET:  The United States is apparently preparing for a strike into Pakistan in response to a future terror attack here.  From WaPo:

The U.S. military is reviewing options for a unilateral strike in Pakistan in the event that a successful attack on American soil is traced to the country's tribal areas, according to senior military officials.

I'm somewhat amused by the term "unilateral," as if a unilateral attack is some kind of historical crime.  If there's an attack on the American homeland, the United States has a perfect right to strike back unilaterally, and doesn't need the blessings of an international coalition, or the UN Security Council.

Ties between the alleged Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, and elements of the Pakistani Taliban have sharpened the Obama administration's need for retaliatory options, the officials said. They stressed that a U.S. reprisal would be contemplated only under extreme circumstances, such as a catastrophic attack that leaves President Obama convinced that the ongoing campaign of CIA drone strikes is insufficient.

Well, if there's a catastrophic attack that would certainly hint that the drone campaign hasn't entirely done the job. 

"Planning has been reinvigorated in the wake of Times Square," one of the officials said.

At the same time, the administration is trying to deepen ties to Pakistan's intelligence officials in a bid to head off any attack by militant groups. The United States and Pakistan have recently established a joint military intelligence center on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar, and are in negotiations to set up another one near Quetta, the Pakistani city where the Afghan Taliban is based, according to the U.S. military officials. They and other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity surrounding U.S. military and intelligence activities in Pakistan.

The problem is that the Pakistani intelligence services are shot through with extremist agents and sympathizers.  This is not necessarily a reliable ally. 

I suspect this story was intentionally leaked as a warning to Pakistan that we take activities on its soil very seriously, and that any alliance would not preclude an American retaliatory attack.  That is sound thinking, although I have doubts about how effectively the Obama administration would carry out a toughened policy.

May 29, 2010    Permalink

FOR THOSE WHO THINK EUROPE HAS FOUND THE WAY – AT 8:04 A.M. ET:  The European economy is starting to sink us over here.  The problem with European nanny states is that they often have very irresponsible nannies:

U.S. stocks slid, capping the worst May for the Dow Jones Industrial Average since 1940, while the euro slumped and Treasuries rose as a downgrade of Spain’s debt rating and escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula triggered a flight from riskier assets.

The Dow tumbled 122.36 points, or 1.2 percent, to 10,136.63 at 4 p.m. in New York and lost 7.9 percent this month. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index sank 1.2 percent to 1,089.41, led by financial shares on the Spanish downgrade and energy companies after U.S. President Barack Obama extended a moratorium on new deep-water drilling. Oil erased gains after rallying as much as 1.6 percent to more than $75 a barrel. Ten-year Treasury yields decreased 7 basis points to 3.3 percent. The euro slipped 0.7 percent to $1.2273.

COMMENT:  First it was Greece, now it's Spain.  And this is only the start.  Other European countries, and Britain, are in serious trouble.  Our own "recovery" seems entirely jobless.  And we are five months from a major election.

It's hard to see anything on the horizon that will help the Democratic Party's cause.  But remember that the Republican Party often works hard at losing, so we shouldn't underestimate its efforts.  And we certainly shouldn't underestimate the ability of this White House to pull something at the last minute.

May 29, 2010    Permalink

FRIDAY,  MAY 28,  2010

BULLETIN – AT 7:53 P.M. ET:  The president of the United States formally informed residents of the Gulf coast today that they're not alone.  This changes history.  From The New York Times:

GRAND ISLE, La. (AP) -- President Barack Obama has promised Gulf Coast residents that they are not alone and will not be abandoned or left behind.

Oh, that's so good to know.  The president won't leave a good chunk of the country behind.  You know, for a minute there...

Obama made the pledge as he visited Louisiana on Friday to tour areas threatened by the disastrous oil spill and get an update on response efforts.

Took him a few weeks to get there.  Could've come in a covered wagon. 

Speaking outside a Coast Guard station on a barrier island, Obama said he had a message for residents. He said: ''I'm here to tell you that you are not alone, you will not be abandoned, you will not be left behind. The media may get tired of the story but we will not. We will be on your side and we will see this through.''

Whaa..?  It's because the media didn't get tired of the story that the president was forced to delay one more vacation and go down to the Gulf Coast, which is not his idea of a playland.

Naturally, The Times had to get this in:

The promise might sound familiar to Gulf Coast residents who heard previous presidents -- such as former President George W. Bush after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

And yet, maybe that's a journalistic breakthrough.  The Times is comparing Obama with Bush, and Obama doesn't come out ahead. 

Progress.  Progress.

May 28, 2010    Permalink

OH, SO THAT'S IT – AT 7:25 P.M. ET:  Ah, finally, we know the truth about the Sestak affair.  Our great national nightmare is over.

You may remember (organ music, please) that Congressman Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania said that he was offered a job by the Obama White House, essentially a bribe, if he would drop out of the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate.  The White House hotly denied that anything improper had taken place.  Sestak did not drop out, has now won the primary against incumbent Arlen Specter, and is the Dem candidate, suddenly supported by Barack Obama.

So the White House comes clean, or at least as clean as this White House can come.  It now says that, yes, a guy had been recruited to talk to Sestak about his political future.  That guy was former President Bill Clinton.  And Clinton, yes, discussed in general terms, the possibility of other service for Sestak, like service on an unpaid government board.  And that's all there was to it.

Yeah?  Oh, yes, Sestak now says, that's all there was to it. 

Are we serious here?  Is the White House asking us to believe that it recruited a former president to have a general discussion with a candidate for the U.S. Senate about the glowing possibilities of unpaid service on a federal board, where the biggest perk is a better filing cabinet?  Are we really serious?

And if that's all there was, why has Sestak said, over and over, that he'd been offered a job, which implies a paycheck?  Was he lying?  If he's lying, why should anyone vote for him for senator?

This requires further inquiry.  Will we get it?  I doubt that the mainstream media, still cherishing its Obama buttons from the last election, will get too excited.  But the whole story doesn't hold water.  Fox News to the rescue, please.

May 28, 2010    Permalink

IT'S A GOVERNMENT MIRACLE! – AT 9:45 A.M. ET:  Have you noticed the absence of something?  Have you noticed that there hasn't been a single story about unintended acceleration in Toyotas in many weeks?

Now, if there was something really wrong with all those millions of Toyotas out there, don't you think there'd be more incidents?  Don't you think the industry-skeptical press would be right on them?  So how come they stopped on a dime?

I know.  The cars themselves decided to stop accelerating unintentionally when they heard of the government's approach to the problem.  As the Washington Examiner editorializes...

Members of the House will soon vote on the Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 2010, which is essentially the response by the House Democratic leadership to the Toyota sudden acceleration scandal.

The measure includes a $9 per car tax to fund a lengthy list of actions to be taken by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to make sure your car doesn't suddenly accelerate without your permision in the future. The tax will be disguised as a "Vehicle Safety Fund" fee to be collected by the manufacturers.

That's the spirit!  Have a problem?  Impose a new tax.  That'll solve it.

Only in Washington would the solution to sudden acceleration be a $9 tax hike. By the way, the bill also includes a provision authorizing the Secretary of Transportation under whom NHTSA labors to increase the tax with nothing more than a notice in the Federal Register.

COMMENT:  Meanwhile, some enterprising journalist might go back and check the unintended acceleration "scandal," and find out why we haven't heard of more cases.  It won't happen.

May 28, 2010     Permalink

NOONAN NAILS IT – AT 9:12 A.M. ET:  Peggy Noonan has been pretty sharp recently, and today she writes one of her best columns on Obama, zeroing in on this president's bizarre notion of governing.  From The Wall Street Journal:

I don't see how the president's position and popularity can survive the oil spill. This is his third political disaster in his first 18 months in office. And they were all, as they say, unforced errors, meaning they were shaped by the president's political judgment and instincts.

There was the tearing and unnecessary war over his health-care proposal and its cost. There was his day-to-day indifference to the views and hopes of the majority of voters regarding illegal immigration. And now the past almost 40 days of dodging and dithering in the face of an environmental calamity. I don't see how you politically survive this.

The president, in my view, continues to govern in a way that suggests he is chronically detached from the central and immediate concerns of his countrymen. This is a terrible thing to see in a political figure, and a startling thing in one who won so handily and shrewdly in 2008. But he has not, almost from the day he was inaugurated, been in sync with the center. The heart of the country is thinking each day about A, B and C, and he is thinking about X, Y and Z. They're in one reality, he's in another.

Wonderfully stated, and entirely accurate. 

And...

What continues to fascinate me is Mr. Obama's standing with Democrats. They don't love him. Half the party voted for Hillary Clinton, and her people have never fully reconciled themselves to him. But he is what they have. They are invested in him. In time—after the 2010 elections go badly—they are going to start to peel off.

But word of caution:

But Republicans should beware, and even mute their mischief. We're in the middle of an actual disaster. When they win back the presidency, they'll probably get the big California earthquake. And they'll probably blow it. Because, ironically enough, of a hard core of truth within their own philosophy: when you ask a government far away in Washington to handle everything, it will handle nothing well.

COMMENT:  A column worth reading. 

The president is indeed out of touch.  Just as important, he seems bored by the job.  He seems to get no joy out of it.  He seems not to like his own country or its people.  He's president of us, but he's not of us.  His role model seems to be Jimmy Carter, who lectured us about our "inordinate fear of Communism" just before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.  Obama lectures us on the evils of Arizona, and on our inordinate fear of terrorism, just as a bomber tries to blow up Times Square.

Jimmy Carter lives in retirement, and, like Obama, adorns himself with the Nobel Peace Prize.

Retirement.  Now there's a role model for the current president.

May 28, 2010     Permalink 

BAIT AND SWITCH – AT 8:26 A.M. ET:  He ran as a moderate, he governs as a doctrinaire leftist.  His greatest concern is that some foreign government might be upset with us.  Obama's latest border policy provides more proof of who we've really got in the White House.  From AFP:

US National Guard troops being sent to the Mexican border will be used to stem the flow of guns and drugs across the frontier and not to enforce US immigration laws, the State Department said Wednesday.

The clarification came after the Mexican government urged Washington not to use the additional troops to go after illegal immigrants.

And, after all, we must serve the Mexican government first, not the people of the United States.  Didn't Obama take some kind of oath, or somethin', when he was inaugurated?  I think I saw that on TV. 

President Barack Obama on Tuesday authorized the deployment of up to 1,200 additional troops to border areas but State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters, "It's not about immigration."

Do you get a sense of weirdness?  Why does Crowley think those troops were requested?

He said the move was "fully consistent with our efforts to do our part to stem, you know, violence, to interdict the flow of dangerous people and dangerous goods -- drugs, guns, people."

So who are the "people"?  Legal immigrants just strolling across the border?

He said the extra troops would be used to free up civilians engaged in support functions so that law enforcement personnel can be increased along the 2,000-mile-long (3,200 kilometer) border.

In other words, the troops will have desk jobs.  And the law enforcement people will be doing..?

Nearly 13 million Mexicans live in the United States, more than half of them illegally.

"We have explained the president's announcement to the government of Mexico, and they fully understand the rationale behind it," Crowley said.

Well, that's a relief.  We wouldn't want President Calderon to be running back here lecturing us again.  You know, our self-esteem is involved.

How many days to the next presidential election?  In this country, I mean.

May 28, 2010     Permalink

THIS JUST IN – SOMEONE TOLD THE TRUTH – AT 8:08 A.M. ET:  From CNN, where Christiane Amanpour used to work:

BP's top official, who had previously said the environmental impact on Gulf of Mexico would be modest, upgraded his assessment Friday to an "environmental catastrophe."

Hey, guy, thanks for noticing.  Your company's irresponsibility has messed up American energy policy for decades. 

At the same time, Washington talking heads are buzzing about Obama's painfully slow response to the crisis.  He has done nothing to answer Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's plea for help to contain the spill and prevent it from reaching shore.  It's as if, excuse me, the administration wants maximum environmental damage.

Now, I say that with no real evidence that it's true, and this site is hardly known for conspiracy theories.  But there are some people suggesting that, the greater the damage, the greater the victory for environmental extremists.  Sacrifice Louisiana for the greater environmental good.  Again, I stress that I have no evidence, but there seem to have been some awfully convenient things that have advanced the agenda of the political left – like the 2008 economic collapse that occurred right in the middle of the presidential campaign, and now this, occurring just before Congress takes up energy legislation.

Maybe Obama, in a perverse sense, is just lucky.  We haven't been.

May 28, 2010     Permalink

HOUSE REJECTS "DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL" – AT 7:58 A.M. ET:  The House voted to permit the military to abolish the "don't ask, don't tell" rule regarding gays in the service:

 WASHINGTON — The House voted Thursday to let the Defense Department repeal the ban on gay and bisexual people from serving openly in the military, a major step toward dismantling the 1993 law widely known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

The provision would allow military commanders to repeal the ban. The repeal would permit gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military for the first time.

It was adopted as an amendment to the annual Pentagon policy bill, which the House is expected to vote on Friday. The repeal would be allowed 60 days after a Pentagon report is completed on the ramifications of allowing openly gay service members, and military leaders certify that it would not be disruptive. The report is due by Dec. 1.

The full Senate is expected to take up the measure soon.

At the same time, the Senate rejected a demand from Sen. John McCain that more troops be sent to secure the southern border:

Senate Democrats managed Thursday to block deployment of 6,000 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, but the proposal still garnered a majority of senators, showing widespread support for a border-security-first strategy and underscoring why President Obama is having difficulty trying to win an immigration-legalization bill.

Ah, yes, abolish "don't ask, don't tell," but refuse to send more troops to the border.  Our soldiers may not be sent on too many useful missions by the Obama administration, but at least we know they'll be fabulous.

May 28, 2010    Permalink