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TO OUR READERS:  Please click on Urgent Agenda several times during the day.  We hope, in 2011, depending on the news, to put up at least one post during the afternoon hours, so there'll always be something new to read.  So visit us regularly.

JANUARY 5,  2011

PELOSI FLOPS ON LAST DAY AS SPEAKER – AT 9:24 P.M. ET:  Reviews are pouring in from theater critics all over the world, and it appears that Nancy Pelosi has a flop on her hands.   They haven't even been able to sell the movie rights.

Pelosi, in an act of extreme ungraciousness, made an overly partisan speech as she handed over the gavel to John Boehner.  By tradition, the incoming and outgoing speakers make restrained, patriotic speeches.

As often happens, a British columnist, Janet Daley of London's Telegraph, makes the sharpest observations on our latest embarrassment:

Watching Nancy Pelosi’s startlingly inappropriate farewell as House Speaker, in which she turned what should have been a gracious constitutional ceremony into a blatantly partisan defiance of the electorate’s judgement, I wondered whether her fingers were actually going to have to be peeled off the Speaker’s gavel. She really is a piece of work: unrepentant and self-congatulatory to the end, even in the face of overwhelming repudiation by the voters. It was left to John Boehner, the new Republican speaker, to make the generous, bipartisan speech that was fitting for the occasion. How long that bipartisanship can last in a Congress so bitterly divided remains to be seen – but at least he behaved well at the outset.

Brit Hume, on Fox News, said this:

It was perhaps fitting that it took Nancy Pelosi longer to say her piece in surrendering the House gavel to John Boehner than it took Boehner to say his.  It was as if the nation’s first woman speaker could not quite believe today was not about her. She used her remarks to list the wonders of her party’s record, never mind that that record had led to one of the most decisive electoral repudiations in modern history.

COMMENT:  At least she's gone now.  She is, isn't she?  Check under your beds, your desks.

January 5, 2011      Permalink

ABSOLUTELY AWFUL – AT 6:35 P.M. ET:  Is there any end to the awfulness, the mindlessness, of radical Islam?  This updates our first story today, about the praise being given in Pakistan to an extremist thug who murdered a moderate, modern regional governor.  It's hard to make this stuff up.  From the Washington Times:

LAHORE, Pakistan | Lawyers showered the suspected killer of a prominent Pakistani governor with rose petals when he arrived at court Wednesday, and an influential Muslim scholars group praised the assassination of the outspoken opponent of laws that order death for those who insult Islam.

Mumtaz Qadri, 26, made his first appearance in an Islamabad court, where a judge remanded him in custody. Mr. Qadri is accused of spraying automatic gunfire at the back of Punjab province Gov. Salmaan Taseer while he was supposed to be protecting him as a bodyguard.

A rowdy crowd slapped him on the back and kissed his cheek as he was escorted inside the court. The lawyers who tossed the rose petals were not involved in the case.

As he left the court, a crowd of about 200 sympathizers chanted slogans in his favor. The suspect stood at the back door of an armored police van with a flower necklace given to him by an admirer and repeatedly yelled, "God is great."

COMMENT:  And we're being told, by our leftist fringe in journalism and the academy, that it's all our fault.

January 5, 2011       Permalink

INSIGNIFICANT PERSON OF THE DAY AWARD – AT 3:36 P.M. ET:  We hereby establish a new award at Urgent Agenda – The Jimmah – named for Jimmah Carter and given to the most insignificant public figure of the day.  Like our Pompous Fool Award, the Jimmah will be given only after stringent standards are met.

Our first winner:

Former US Attorney-General Ramsey Clark is in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on a solidarity mission.

Clark met with Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Wednesday to kick off a three-day visit. He'll also meet with human rights activists and visit relatives of people killed during Operation Cast Lead two years ago.

Clark did not comment to reporters, but Haniyeh's office says the two discussed Israel's blockade of Gaza and recent escalations in Israeli-Palestinian fighting.

The visit places Clark at odds with American foreign policy, which shuns Hamas as a terrorist group. A longtime critic of US military policy in the Middle East, Clark served on Saddam Hussein's defense team.

COMMENT:  Congratulations, Ramsey Clark.  The rusted statuette of Jimmah is on its way.  I won't say anything more because I don't use that language with women present.

January 5, 2011      Permalink

OUR GREAT NATIONAL NIGHTMARE IS OVER – AT 3:28 P.M. ET:  It is done.  The symbolic gavel has been transferred.  Nancy will rap it no more:

Rep. John A. Boehner of Ohio was elected speaker of the House Wednesday in an historic vote that saw a significant portion of the Democratic caucus vote for someone other than outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Mr. Boehner received 241 votes, all Republicans, to capture the gavel and become third in the line of presidential succession, following only the vice president.

Mrs. Pelosi, meanwhile, received 173 votes, but watched as 19 Democrats from her caucus either opted for another candidate or merely voted "present."

The 19 will henceforth be known as "The Guantanamo 19." 

It was the most defections from a party caucus's candidate in at least the last two decades, and underscored the simmering tensions among House Democrats who suffered staggering losses in last year's midterm elections.

I'm glad something about them simmers.

Republicans gained more than five dozen seats, and will control the House 242-193 in the 112th Congress. In a show of just how much Republicans' numbers have grown, they spilled across the aisle into the traditional Democratic seats on the chamber's East side.

COMMENT:  We must arrange more spillage in 2012...if they do the job. 

January 5, 2011       Permalink

BRILLIANCE OF THE DAY – AT 10:19 A.M. ET:  From, no surprise, the great Tom Sowell, who has provided us with some of the most thoughtful columns of recent years.

Today, Mr. Sowell decries the tendency of "elites" to regard members of "third world" communities, in the U.S. and elsewhere, as mascots, playthings to be indulged, the better to make the elites think well of themselves.  I strongly recommend this column to all readers.  Mr. Sowell says:

What is going on? These and other groups, here and abroad, are treated as mascots of the self-congratulatory elites.

These elites are able to indulge themselves in non-judgmental permissiveness toward those selected as mascots, while cracking down with heavy-handed, nanny-state control on others.

The effect of all this on the mascots themselves is not a big concern of the elites. Mascots symbolize something for others. The actual fate of the mascots themselves seldom matters much to their supposed benefactors.

So long as the elites have control of the public purse, they can subsidize self-destructive behavior on the part of the mascots. And so long as the elites can send their own children to private schools, they needn't worry about what happens to the children of the mascots in the public schools.

Other people who cannot afford to send their children to private schools can simply be called "racists" for objecting to what the indulgence of the mascots is doing to the public schools or what the violence of the mascots is doing to other children trapped in the same schools with them.

A hundred years ago, groups who are now indulged as mascots were targets and scapegoats of Progressive era elites, treated like dirt and targeted for eradication in the name of "eugenics."

There are no permanent mascots. As fashions change, the mascots of today can become the scapegoats and targets of tomorrow. But who thinks ahead any more?

COMMENT:  Applause, and more applause.

January 5, 2011      Permalink

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 9:24 A.M. ET:

From The Hill:  President Obama’s strategy for dealing with the new Republican majority in the House is to stay above the fray and look presidential for the 2012 race.  The president gave a preview of that strategy during his trip home from his Christmas vacation in Hawaii, when he ventured back to Air Force One’s press cabin and suggested he would essentially take a spectator’s role while House Republicans beat their chests and howl.

Okay, just stop laughing.  I mean it.  It's not becoming.   After all, we're talking about the president here.  If he wants to be a spectator, who are we to judge?  And he really is working at being presidential.  After all, look at those regal vacations.  That's presidential relaxation.  Hail to the sleep.

January 5, 2011      Permalink

CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN – AT 8:47 A.M. ET:  I'm glad The New York Times was alert to this.  Apparently the Obamans are pulling back a new Medicare rule that they tried to sneak through without fanfare:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, reversing course, will revise a Medicare regulation to delete references to end-of-life planning as part of the annual physical examinations covered under the new health care law, administration officials said Tuesday.

The move is an abrupt shift, coming just days after the new policy took effect on Jan. 1.

Many doctors and providers of hospice care had praised the regulation, which listed “advance care planning” as one of the services that could be offered in the “annual wellness visit” for Medicare beneficiaries.

While administration officials cited procedural reasons for changing the rule, it was clear that political concerns were also a factor. The renewed debate over advance care planning threatened to become a distraction to administration officials who were gearing up to defend the health law against attack by the new Republican majority in the House.

Although the health care bill signed into law in March did not mention end-of-life planning, the topic was included in a huge Medicare regulation setting payment rates for thousands of physician services. The final regulation was published in the Federal Register in late November. The proposed rule, published for public comment in July, did not include advance care planning.

An administration official, authorized by the White House to explain the mix-up, said Tuesday, “We realize that this should have been included in the proposed rule, so more people could have commented on it specifically.”

“We will amend the regulation to take out voluntary advance care planning,” the official said. “This should not affect beneficiaries’ ability to have these voluntary conversations with their doctors.”

COMMENT:  The administration's move is correct, but typically cynical.  Most people aren't opposed to end-of-life discussions with physicians, as long as they are voluntary, private, and not shaped by government.  What they are concerned about is what these discussions might evolve into – the very "death panels" that Sarah Pal in was ridiculed for warning against. 

It is hardly a secret that this administration is filled with governmental control freaks, some of whom think the government should decide what care to give to the elderly, whose life expectancy is short.  They look with envy at European-style "planning."

But America isn't Europe.  We are based firmly in a Judeo-Christian ethic that teaches us to "choose life."  Many Americans rightly fear a government that might take over decisions that are normally made by families, in consultation with physicians and clergy. 

The very cynical manner in which the new regulation, now withdrawn, was introduced, gives credence to those who believe the administration would like to sneak in those "death panels" somewhere down the line.  When a government acts dishonestly, there are consequences.  A lesson, Mr. Obama.

January 5, 2011      Permalink

FREE AT LAST, FREE AT LAST, THANK GOD ALMIGHTY, I'M FREE AT LAST – AT 8:16 A.M. ET:  This is Nancy Pelosi's last day as speaker of the House.  Today she hands the gavel to John Opener of Ohio, freeing us of the wild, spendthrift 111th Congress.

Republicans are in control in the House, and far stronger in the Senate.  But, sadly, the defeat of many moderate Democrats in November means the Democratic Party is even more leftist today than it was before the election.  Please notice that I say "leftist," not "liberal."  Liberalism is an honorable tradition, and I deeply respect the national-defense liberals who were instrumental in organizing this nation to fight the Cold War against Communism. 

The left, however, is something else.  It grabs power, it regards the truth casually, and it shows a contempt for democracy.  Internationally, it abandons human rights, and is often intrigued, in a sickening way, with dictators like Fidel Castro and Hugo Have.

Despite attempts by some left-wing journalists to blur the two, there is a great difference between liberal and left.

Republicans will be off and running today, as Wa Po reports:

Almost as soon as they take control of the House at noon Wednesday, Republicans will embark on a 20-day plan aimed at undoing major aspects of President Obama's agenda as they seek to take advantage of the weeks before the Senate's return and the president's State of the Union address.

The first move will come Friday, when the House begins the process of repealing the new health-care law. House leaders will then quickly begin to identify tens of billions of dollars in proposed spending cuts and to ease regulations that businesses find burdensome.

Much of what Republicans do will be symbolic, given that Democrats still control the Senate and the White House. But the quick action will allow Rep. John A. Opener (R-Ohio), the incoming speaker, and House Republicans to follow through on campaign pledges and to try to establish their party as a bulwark against what they see as an out-of-control government.

COMMENT:  The key issue initially will be health care.  The GOP will not succeed in repealing Obama care, but the repeal vote, which will succeed in the House only, will be the first step in reshaping that abominable piece of legislation, and improving it.  That will be the test:  Can Republicans improve things, not just denounce them.

Test begins right now.

January 5, 2011      Permalink

HORROR IN PAKISTAN – AT 7:47 A.M. ET:   We begin this morning with a story that illustrates what we are up against in the war on terror.   Yesterday a decent Pakistani provincial governor, a Muslim, who had spoken up in defense of a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy, was assassinated.  And this is what followed, from AFP:

Hundreds of Facebook users welcomed the killing of liberal Pakistani politician Salman Taseer as a strike against reformers of the country's tight blasphemy laws. The Punjab governor was shot on Tuesday by one of his guards, 26-year-old Mumtaz Qadri, who confessed to the murder because of Taseer's vocal opposition to the law that was recently used to sentence a Christian woman to death.

Analysts say the assassination underscores how deeply religious extremism has penetrated Pakistan's conservative society, with even the Internet-literate elite resorting to Facebook to rally support for the killer.

Nearly 2,000 Facebook users joined one group on the social networking site praising Qadri, and dozens of "fans" joined other pages set up in Qadri's honour in the hours after the shooting.

All the pages had been removed by Wednesday. Facebook was not immediately reachable for comment. But other private account holders used their Facebook status updates to make comments such as: "We salute you Mumtaz Qadri," "thank God he (Taseer) is not alive (any) more" and praise for the attacker as "a soldier of Islam".

In a sign of mainstream media opposition, Pakistan's leading Urdu-language newspaper, Jang, ran a front-page story declaring: "There should be no funeral for Salman Taseer and no condemnation for his death."

"A supporter of a blasphemer is also a blasphemer," said a sub-heading, reporting that 500 religious scholars and clerics had paid tribute to Qadri.

COMMENT:  Nice, huh?  Remember, though, it's America's policies that are doing this, and those Israeli settlements.  That's all it is.  It couldn't be a corrupt, twisted ideology, could it?  Nah. 

Yes it is.   We, as Americans, have never been particularly good at understanding the way ideology can drive an entire people.  We are an idealistic, but not an ideological society.  Zealotry doesn't do too well here, we permit a variety of viewpoints, and the American people, in their practicality, tend ultimately to reject easy, ideological answers.

Not so elsewhere in the world.

We are fighting an ideology as dangerous as Nazism, yet many in our so-called "intellectual" establishment don't want to accept it.  It doesn't fit a party line that blames America for the world's ills, and it doesn't fit the simplistic teachings of an adolescent "multiculturalism," which holds that we must "respect" other cultures, and ask no questions.

We intend to ask questions, and we don't have to respect anything we don't find respectable in our moral universe.

January 5, 2011     Permalink

JANUARY 4,  2011

THE SILENT ISSUE – AT 9:36 P.M. ET:  We've been warning regularly at Urgent Agenda that the price of oil is the hidden, silent issue that may explode for the 2012 presidential campaign.  The situation is getting worse, and the administration responds only with more restrictions on offshore drilling.  From the Financial Times:

High oil prices threaten to derail the fragile economic recovery among developed nations this year, the leading energy watchdog has warned, putting pressure on the Opec oil cartel to increase production.

Over the past year the oil import costs for the 34 mostly rich countries that make up the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development have soared by $200bn to $790bn at the end of 2010, according to an analysis by the International Energy Agency.

The increase, due to high crude prices, is equal to a loss of income of about 0.5 per cent of OECD gross domestic product, according to the IEA.

“Oil prices are entering a dangerous zone for the global economy,” said Fatih Birol, the IEA’s chief economist. “The oil import bills are becoming a threat to the economic recovery. This is a wake-up call to the oil consuming countries and to the oil producers.”

Oil prices have edged closer to $100 a barrel in recent weeks and Brent crude hit $95 a barrel for the first time in 27 months on Monday as the economic recovery has gathered pace.

COMMENT:  There are now responsible predictions that the price of gas at the pump will soon reach four dollars a gallon, and could even reach five dollars a gallon during the 2012 campaign.  The fact is that some of the people in Obama's political base have no problem with this.  They like high gas prices, as they believe it will drive Americans to other fuels.  That's nice.  While we're being driven to fuels that don't exist and cars that haven't been developed, what happens to us and our economy? 

Don't ask radical environmentalists.  They're busy on the slopes of Aspen.

January 4, 2011     Permalink

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY NEWS – AT 8:36 P.M. ET:  There is an exciting success to report to you in international security.  We are constantly, endlessly, being told that Saudi Arabia is our great ally in the war against terror.  In fact, the Saudi royal family spends tens of millions on Washington lobbyists to tell us just that.

Well, we're happy to report that the Saudis have now shown their skill, their daring, their verve, their ability to compete with the best when civilization is on the line.  From London's Daily Mail:

A vulture tagged by scientists at Tel Aviv University has strayed into Saudi Arabian territory, where it was promptly arrested on suspicion of being a Mossad spy, Israeli and Saudi media reported Tuesday.

The bird was found in a rural area of the country wearing a transmitter and a leg bracelet bearing the words 'Tel Aviv University', according to the reports, which surfaced first in the Israeli daily Ma'ariv.

Although these tags indicate that the bird was part of a long-term research project into migration patters, residents and local reporters told Saudi Arabia's Al-Weeam newspaper that the matter seemed to be a 'Zionist plot.'

Nailed!  Absolutely nailed!  Those Saudis are on the ball.  Who needs women's rights when you've got gutsy residents and local reporters who know what's really important?

The accusations went viral, with hundreds of posts on Arabic-language websites and forums claiming that the 'Zionists' had trained these birds for espionage.

The Sinai regional governor last month suggested that a shark that killed and maimed tourists on its Red Sea port may have been intentionally released by Israeli agents in order to sabotage the country's tourist industry.

COMMENT:  I don't know about you, but I for one will sleep better tonight knowing the Saudi security services are out there, joined by their Sinai, Egypt, brothers.  When will Hollywood wake up and do the movie?

January 4, 2011       Permalink

NOT EXACTLY MR. HUMAN RIGHTS – AT 10:08 A.M. ET:  One of the great myths about Barack Obama is that he's a "human rights activist," that pile of boilerplate mush handed out freely by liberal journalists.  He is not, and neither is his sidekick in hypocrisy, Jimmah ("Ahm the best ex-president evah") Carter, a man whose interest in human rights never seems to extend to such beacons of freedom as Saudi Arabia. 

Now, in a piece that is getting a great deal of play around the internet, Jackson Diehl, of the improving Washington Post, really slams Obama for his abysmal human-rights record.  This is strong language from a friendly newspaper:

In a speech to the UN General Assembly last September, US President Barack Obama suggested that his administration’s notoriously weak defense of human rights around the world would be invigorated...

...Just over two months later, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Bahrain, an important Persian Gulf ally that hosts the US Fifth Fleet. The emirate was in the midst of a major crackdown on its opposition. Two dozen dissidents, including intellectuals, clerics and a prominent blogger, had been rounded up, charged under anti-terrorism laws and allegedly tortured...

...Clinton’s response? Extravagant and virtually unqualified praise for Bahrain’s ruling al-Khalifa family. “I am very impressed by the progress that Bahrain is making on all fronts – economically, politically, socially,” she declared as she opened a town hall meeting. Her paeans to Bahrain’s “commitment to democracy” continued until a member of parliament managed to gain access to the microphone and asked for a response to the fact that “many people are arrested, lawyers and human rights activists.” Clinton’s condescending reply was a pure apology for the regime. “It’s easy to be focused internally and see the glass as half empty. I see the glass as half full,” she said.

Great, huh?  And the reaction from the left wing "anti-war" faction of the Democratic Party?  Silence.  As usual.

SO MUCH for a fresh start on human rights. Clinton’s Bahrain visit reflected what seems to be an intractable piece of the Obama administration’s character: a deeply ingrained resistance to the notion that the United States should publicly shame authoritarian regimes or stand up for the dissidents they persecute.

And...

After Egypt’s terrible elections in November, in which ballot boxes were blatantly stuffed and the opposition brutally suppressed, the administration’s commentary was limited to bland statements issued by “the office of the press secretary” of State and the spokesman of the National Security Council. Three weeks earlier, at a widely watched joint press conference in Washington with Egypt’s foreign minister, Clinton made no mention of the elections, the crackdown or anything else related to human rights.

In Latin America, friends of the United States marvel at its passivity as Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega systematically crush civil society organizations and independent media. “I don’t see a clear policy,” Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez – a good example of the sort of dissident Obama promised to defend – told me.

COMMENT:  This is a stinging indictment, and well worth reading.  One of the tragedies of American liberalism is its abandonment of human rights as a prime issue.  It began to happen in the late 1960s, when the illiberal leftists began to take over the Democratic Party, partly in response to Vietnam.  They wept loudly for the "Vietnamese people," but remained silent when South Vietnam was conquered by the North and turned into a dictatorship.  They were silent again during the Cambodian genocide, and the pattern was clear.

George McGovern's mantra during his disastrous 1972 run for the presidency wasn't "freedom" or "democracy," but "Come home, America."

And many ultra-liberals today show a disturbing indulgence toward Chavez and Hamas. 

Will Obama change?  Only if he is forced to by political circumstance, and I don't see that happening. 

January 4, 2011       Permalink

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 8:47 A.M. ET: 

From The Politico:  With Republican leaders anxious to set an austere tone for their ascendance into the House majority this week, the lavish fundraiser scheduled for Tuesday night at a trendy Washington hotel to benefit a dozen GOP freshmen is not exactly the populist image leaders are anxious to project...“If incoming GOP freshmen were hoping to bring fiscal responsibility and ‘family values’ to Washington, they may have gotten off to an interesting start,” conservative blogger Matt Lewis noted, citing the event’s steep ticket prices, as well as Rimes’s confessed extra-marital affair and her recent appearance in a “Sexy Santa” outfit at a gay men’s chorus Christmas performance.

Smart.  Real smart.  Nothing like giving the Democrats a clipload of ammo right from the first day.  You'd think someone would have intervened to stop this embarrassment.  We'll hold our side to a high standard here.  It's a public service.

January 4, 2011      Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 8:20 A.M. ET:  A Christian church was blown up in Egypt over the weekend.  Of course, we just not be judgmental, not even suspect anyone.   Well, Ed Koch, outspoken former mayor of New York, and powerful mouth, tells it like it is.  It's about time someone did.  From NewsBusters:

Appearing as a guest on Thursday’s Your World with Neil Cavuto on FNC, former New York City Mayor Ed Koch – known for being a relatively centrist Democrat – chided President Obama for being reluctant to use terms like "war on terrorism" or "Islamic extremists," and, when host Cavuto pointed out that Obama had managed to improve attitudes toward America in the Muslim world, Koch sarcastically shot back: "Isn`t that nice? Did they stop trying to kill us?"

Even while declaring himself to be a supporter of the Obama administration, the former New York mayor still voiced his frustrations about the "attitude" of the White House – citing an article by right-leaning columnist Charles Krauthammer – and came out in support of profiling Muslims at airports:

What bothers me is that the attitude of the administration ... is not that of a war. Charles Krauthammer had a magnificent article, tough as nails, when he attacks the administration as thinking of it as a police action. This is not a police action. We`re going to be at war for the next 30 years. We are afraid to call them "Muslim Islamist terrorists." We’ll call them anything but because we don`t want to alienate Muslim countries. That`s ridiculous...

...And there are no other people who are out there trying to kill us, other than Muslim fanatics. There`s nothing illegal, immoral to say that is the case. And you can also say the vast majority of Muslims are decent, law-abiding people. But that doesn`t mean we shouldn`t pat down specially if there are Muslims in line and we know that to be the case, boarding a plane. I don`t see anything wrong with profiling. What, are we crazy?

COMMENT:  Yes, Ed, we're crazy.  We're crazy to have a president who refuses to acknowledge, by name, those who attack us.  We're crazy to have "journalists" who go right along with that madness.  And we're crazy to send our kids to colleges and universities where "scholars" teach them that we must "respect" cultural attitudes, no matter what those attitudes are. 

January 4, 2011       Permalink

IN THE IMMORTAL WORDS – AT 8:04 A.M. ...of philosopher Yogi Berra, "it's déjà vu all over again."  Our sophisticated, worldly president – vastly more intellectual and traveled than his Texas predecessor – explores far and wide for new talent, and does it all for us.  From Andrew Malcolm in the L.A. Times's Top of the Ticket blog:

In an obvious effort to broaden the representation of Chicagoans and former Clinton aides in his administration, President Obama has reportedly begun talks to bring William Daley into the White House as a top assistant, possibly even as chief of staff.

Obama's first chief of staff was Rahm Emanuel, a former House member from Chicago's North Side who has returned to Chicago to become mayor.

He can do this because Richard M. Daley, the brother of William Daley, has decided to retire this winter from his City Hall political throne where he's run the Windy City's vaunted Democratic machine for a generation, or about as long as Richard J. Daley, the father of Richard M. and William.

Neither of the Richard Daleys nor William Daley should be confused with Valerie Jarrett, who was City Hall chief of staff for Richard M. and once hired Michelle Robinson as an aide. She....

...went on to become Michelle Obama and then first lady of the United States and hired her Chicago friend and fundraiser Desiree Rogers as social secretary before leading Chicago's delegation to Copenhagen to not capture the 2016 Olympics.

Rogers, however, comes from a different faction of the Chicago party than Jarrett, so she eventually had to go. But everyone should know that it wasn't Rogers' screw-up over letting into the Obamas' first state dinner that annoying Salahi couple, who are luckily not from Chicago or they might have trouble with garbage collection, among other city services.

Another top Obama aide, David Axelrod, is also from Chicago.

COMMENT:  Oh come on, we all know that all the talent in the world is in Chicago, don't we?  And they're all named Daley.

It is remarkable that, two years into office, Mr. Obama doesn't understand the word "appearances."  To bring in the brother of the king of Chicago's political machine does not inspire confidence, no matter how competent the guy may be. 

All presidents bring in some local friends and allies at the start of their administration.  Most get over it.

January 4, 2011      Permalink

THIS IS WHY PEOPLE HATE POLITICIANS – AT 7:36 P.M. ET:  Arnold has left the governorship of California, turning the office over to Jerry Brown.  But one of his last acts is creating an uproar.  From The Los Angeles Times:

On his final night in office, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reduced the prison sentence of the son of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, Esteban Nuñez, who had pleaded guilty to participating in the killing of a college student.

The governor also granted several other commutations and pardons and gave plum government appointments to political allies and the spouse of his chief of staff. Schwarzenegger announced the moves in a batch of eleventh-hour press releases e-mailed to reporters.

Esteban Nuñez, now 21, was sentenced to 16 years in prison for his role in the stabbing death of Luis Santos. Schwarzenegger cut the prison term to seven years, noting in a statement that Nuñez, although involved in the fight that ended in Santos' death, did not inflict the fatal knife wound. Schwarzenegger cited a finding by the court that it was Esteban Nuñez's friend Ryan Jett who stabbed Santos, "severing his heart."

COMMENT:  I guess Schwarzenegger recalls that President Bill Clinton gave last-minute pardons to political allies, and got away with it.

But murder is something else.  And the blatancy of Arnold's favoritism toward a political ally is being blasted all over the state...especially by the victim's family.

This will make it harder for Arnold to get another public office, should he seek it.  It has been reported that he'd like an environmental job in the Obama administration.  It won't have any effect if Arnold wants to return to making movies.  In Hollywood, murder is an act of righteous sociological protest.

A judge is required to recuse himself from cases where he or she has a personal interest.  You'd think that, by now, some mechanism could be found wherein presidents and governors could have politically sensitive issues of law decided by an outside panel.  But there'd be no guarantee of payoffs that way, would there?

January 4, 2011     Permalink