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SUNDAY,  MAY 30,  2010

CORRECTION:  In a post earlier today, I wrote this:   "In the past, enemies have had sanctuaries in North Korea and China, during the Korean War, and North Vietnam and China during the Vietnam War. "  As reader Bruce Goldman points out, that is incorrect.  There was no sanctuary in North Korea during the Korean War.  The UN command, which essentially meant the United States, did decide against a new ground assault against North Korea once peace talks began, but North Korea did continue to receive regular air and naval bombardment.  Urgent Agenda regrets the error. 

THE TRUTH COMES OUT – AND WE'RE HAPPY TO BRING IT TO YOU – AT 11:18 P.M. ET:  Now we know, courtesy of Nancy Pelosi, who caused the disaster in the Gulf.  From the Washington Examiner:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., blamed the Bush administration for any lack of oversight leading up to the Gulf oil spill. The Obama administration, on the other hand, is blameless.

From Talk Radio News Service:

“Many of the people appointed in the Bush administration are still burrowed in the agencies that are supposed to oversee the [oil] industry,” Pelosi said when asked if Democrats could have prevented or mitigated the crisis by keeping a closer watch on the industry.

Added the Speaker, “the cozy relationships between the Bush administration’s agency leadership and the industry is clear…I’ve heard no complaints from my members about the way the president has handled it,” Pelosi stated.

COMMENT:  President Bush also caused global warming, unintended acceleration in Toyotas, and Oprah's ratings dip.  We're so relieved that he's gone.

May 30, 2010    Permalink 

IRANIAN MEDDLING – AMERICAN DEATHS – AT 4:15 P.M. ET:  Add one more reason, and an urgent one, for the United States to get serious about Iran, and end the party dancing going on now.  From AP:

KABUL, Afghanistan — The commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan said Sunday there was "clear evidence" that some Taliban fighters had trained in Iran.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal told reporters in the Afghan capital that Iran had generally assisted the Afghan government in fighting the insurgent group. "There is, however, clear evidence of Iranian activity — in some cases providing weaponry and training to the Taliban — that is inappropriate," he said, adding that NATO forces were working to stop both the training and the weapons trafficking.

Translated:  The Iranians are playing both ends, and American soldiers are caught in the crossfire – in this case a real crossfire. 

We are, in effect, giving the Taliban a sanctuary in Iran.  In the past, enemies have had sanctuaries in North Korea and China, during the Korean War, and North Vietnam and China during the Vietnam War.  It is an extra burden, and an extra cruelty, that American forces must contend with.

In the meantime, we continue to "engage" Iran.

May 30, 2010     Permalink

NO SALE IN THE ARAB WORLD – AT 11:37 A.M. ET:  You'd think, with all the outreach going on from this administration toward our misunderstood friends in the Arab world, that some impact would be evident. 

But Dan Pipes, in NRO, notes a recent poll that show some pretty disappointing results:

Gallup’s results show something of a wash: Obama does distinctly better than George W. Bush in Mauritania (going from 44 to 69 percent) and Egypt (6 to 19 percent). He improves on Bush just over the margin of error in Algeria (going from 25 to 30 percent). He improves on Bush within the margin of error in the Palestinian Territories (from 13 to 16 percent). The two are tied in Lebanon (at 25 percent). And Obama does worse than Bush in Iraq (going from 35 to 30 percent).

Also noteworthy is that Obama’s current standing has declined among all six of the populations from what it was in mid-2009. The smallest drop (3 percent) was in Iraq and the largest (18 percent) in Egypt.

Comments: (1) These polls register a highly unimpressive showing for someone who placed so much emphasis on improving U.S. standing among Muslims. (2) The graph of Arabic-speakers’ attitudes toward Obama differs from that of Americans’ views: The former went up and then down, while the latter went down and then flattened out. That said, both at present show a downward trend.

COMMENT:  Is anyone shocked?  The idea that this self-proclaimed new messiah could actually work miracles in the Arab world is ludicrous.  These cultures have their own point of view, and their own leaders and news media, feeding them the worst propaganda every day.

This reminds me of an isolationist senator who, after the Nazis invaded Poland in September of 1939, exclaimed how all this could have been prevented had he just had five minutes to talk with Adolf Hitler.

Grand illusions die hard, then get reborn.

May 30, 2010    Permalink

THE RELIGION OF PEACE SENDS ANOTHER AMBASSADOR – AT 11:17 A.M. ET:  Just as our malice in blunderland administration is making it clear that "Islamic extremism" is not in its dictionary, an incident in Britain illustrates why it should be, big time.  From The Times of London:

THE home secretary, Theresa May, is facing a stiff test of the Conservative party’s claims to oppose radical Islam after her officials chose to allow a misogynist Muslim preacher into Britain.

Zakir Naik, an Indian televangelist described as a “hate-monger” by moderate Muslims and one Tory MP, says western women make themselves “more susceptible to rape” by wearing revealing clothing.

Naik, who proselytises on Peace TV, a satellite television channel, is reported to have called for the execution of Muslims who change their faith, described Americans as “pigs” and said that “every Muslim should be a terrorist”.

In a recent lecture, he said he was “with” Osama Bin Laden over the attacks on “terrorist America”, adding that the 9/11 hijackings were an inside job by President George W Bush.

In opposition, David Cameron and other senior Tories led criticism of the Labour government for allowing radical preachers into Britain to stir up hatred on lecture tours. While in opposition, Cameron also campaigned to get Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian radical, banned from Britain.

Cameron and May now face a political test over Naik, whose inflammatory comments have led some moderate Muslims to call him a “truth-twister”.

One well-placed insider said: “Zakir Naik is a nasty man who makes al-Qaradawi look like a participant at a teddy bears’ picnic. He shouldn’t be allowed into the country to stir up hatred.”

COMMENT:  Nice, huh?  Look for him to be invited soon to American universities, as an expression of "multiculturalism."

I wonder where the "women's" groups are in all this.  We know where they are.  They are playing their proudest role, as backups for the leftist movements they truly represent.  Women's rights?  Oh yeah, that's on their list, too.  Just look pretty far down the page.

May 30, 2010     Permalink

ISRAEL PUTS FORCES IN PLACE RE IRAN – AT 10:51 A.M. ET:  There is a growing feeling that Field Marshal Obama has no intention of doing anything serious to stop the Iranian nuclear and missile programs, and that Israel may have to act alone.  Israel apparently agrees.  From The Times of London:

Three German-built Israeli submarines equipped with nuclear cruise missiles are to be deployed in the Gulf near the Iranian coastline.

The first has been sent in response to Israeli fears that ballistic missiles developed by Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, a political and military organisation in Lebanon, could hit sites in Israel, including air bases and missile launchers.

The submarines of Flotilla 7 — Dolphin, Tekuma and Leviathan — have visited the Gulf before. But the decision has now been taken to ensure a permanent presence of at least one of the vessels.

The flotilla’s commander, identified only as “Colonel O”, told an Israeli newspaper: “We are an underwater assault force. We’re operating deep and far, very far, from our borders.”

Each of the submarines has a crew of 35 to 50, commanded by a colonel capable of launching a nuclear cruise missile.

The vessels can remain at sea for about 50 days and stay submerged up to 1,150ft below the surface for at least a week. Some of the cruise missiles are equipped with the most advanced nuclear warheads in the Israeli arsenal.

The deployment is designed to act as a deterrent, gather intelligence and potentially to land Mossad agents. “We’re a solid base for collecting sensitive information, as we can stay for a long time in one place,” said a flotilla officer.

COMMENT:  We tend to push Iran off the front pages, but the Iranian crisis is building day by day.  Despite all the yapping about "sanctions," there really has been no action taken with any effect at all.  This is not getting better, and the Israeli action underlines the danger.

May 30, 2010    Permalink

PLAYING BY THE RULES – AT 10:29 A.M. ET:  We try to teach our children to play by the rules.  Unfortunately, some people who play by the rules wind up being thrown out of the country, while those who didn't play by the rules portray themselves as victims of "fascist" Arizona.  From The New York Times:

WELLS, Me. — It was an unusual sign, even for a restaurant here along the Maine coast, where seasonal home-grown businesses are a way of life.

“Closed. Gone to try and get a new visa,” read the hand-scrawled message taped inside the window of Laura’s Kitchen, a cozy eatery that specialized in corned beef hash and omelets and where the tiny tables were still set with brightly colored napkins. “Hope to see you in the spring. Dean & Laura.”

The sign turned out to be overly optimistic. Dean and Laura Franks, a British couple who opened the restaurant in 2000, found that after nine years of running their business, they could not renew their visa, forcing them to shutter the restaurant and leave the country.

And...

...immigration advocates say they are hearing more and more accounts of renewal applications being turned down. It has been an enigmatic process for the Franks, uprooting their lives even though they have paid all their taxes, own the restaurant and its adjacent rental house, and have no debts except a mortgage on their home in Arundel, about 35 miles away.

COMMENT:  The authorities will give all kinds of reasons for these denials, such as claiming that the businesses run by visa holders like the Franks don't generate sufficient income to meet some subjective standard.

But, bottom line, people like the Franks don't have any political clout.  There is no "visa vote" for the Democrats to grovel after.  They cannot be portrayed as ethnic victims.  They don't have a President Calderon coming to the United States to lecture us on their behalf.  They work hard and live clean, and so the political left considers them uninteresting. 

When we start throwing out hard-working people, and figuring out ways to "legalize" the illegal, we are in trouble.  But we've known that for years, haven't we?

May 30, 2010    Permalink

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