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JANUARY 24,  2011

STATE OF OUR COLLEGES – AT 9:43 P.M. ET:  Reader Jean Spik alerts us to an excellent column in the Washington Post by former Republican member of congress Heather Wilson, a Rhodes Scholar, and the first Air Force Academy graduate to be elected to Congress.  She worries about some of the things going on in our colleges:

For most of the past 20 years I have served on selection committees for the Rhodes Scholarship. In general, the experience is an annual reminder of the tremendous promise of America's next generation...

...I have, however, become increasingly concerned in recent years - not about the talent of the applicants but about the education American universities are providing. Even from America's great liberal arts colleges, transcripts reflect an undergraduate specialization that would have been unthinkably narrow just a generation ago.

As a result, high-achieving students seem less able to grapple with issues that require them to think across disciplines or reflect on difficult questions about what matters and why.

And...

An outstanding biochemistry major wants to be a doctor and supports the president's health-care bill but doesn't really know why. A student who started a chapter of Global Zero at his university hasn't really thought about whether a world in which great powers have divested themselves of nuclear weapons would be more stable or less so, or whether nuclear deterrence can ever be moral.

Yes, we've noticed.

Our great universities seem to have redefined what it means to be an exceptional student. They are producing top students who have given very little thought to matters beyond their impressive grasp of an intense area of study.

This narrowing has resulted in a curiously unprepared and superficial pre-professionalism.

And...

I detect no lack of seriousness or ambition in these students. They believe they are exceptionally well-educated. They have jumped expertly through every hoop put in front of them to be the top of their classes in our country's best universities, and they have been lavishly praised for doing so. They seem so surprised when asked simple direct questions that they have never considered.

Why shouldn't they be surprised?  They've been told how wonderful they are, how perfect they are, and they are endlessly protected by their colleges from being "offended."

Many of our young people spend four years getting very expensive college degrees. But our universities fail them and the nation if they continue to graduate students with expertise in biochemistry, mathematics or history without teaching them to think about what problems are important and why.

COMMENT:  One of the great myths about colleges and universities is that they are deeply intellectual places.  Most are not.  Indeed, non-intellectualism, or even anti-intellectualism, have often been mainstays of American higher education.   There is more trendiness than thought going on. 

Excellent column, highly recommended.

Oh, by the way, Heather Wilson is both a Republican and a Rhodes Scholar.  But I've been told that Republicans are dumb?  How did she happen?

January 24, 2011       Permalink

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 9:20 P.M. ET:

DETROIT (AP) -- General Motors Co. sold more cars and trucks in China last year than it did in the U.S., for the first time in the company's 102-year history.

That's only because American buyers rejected the model whose CD player ejects fortune cookies.

January 24, 2011      Permalink

POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE – AT 4:52 P.M. ET:  An Illinois court has ruled that former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel does meet the residency requirements to run for mayor.  The mayoral vote is February 22nd.  From the Chicago Tribune:

Rahm Emanuel should not appear on the Feb. 22 mayoral ballot because he does not meet the residency standard, according to a ruling issued by a state appellate court today.

Emanuel told a news conference he would appeal the decision to the Illinois Supreme Court and would ask for an injunction so his name will appear on the mayoral ballot.

"I have no doubt at the end we'll prevail in this effort," Emanuel said. “We’ll now go to the next level to get clarity."

“I still own a home here, (I) look forward to moving into it one day, vote from here, pay property taxes here. I do believe the people of the city of Chicago deserve a right to make a decision about who they want to be their next mayor," Emanuel said.

In a 2-1 ruling, the appellate panel said Emanuel does not meet the residency requirement of having lived in Chicago for a year prior to the election. The judges reversed a decision by the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, which had unanimously agreed that Emanuel was eligible to run for mayor. (Read the appeals court's ruling here.)

"We conclude that the candidate neither meets the Municipal Code's requirement that he have 'resided in' Chicago for the year preceding the election in which he seeks to participate nor falls within any exception to the requirement," the majority judges wrote.

COMMENT:  Emanuel is well ahead in the polls.  His closest challenger, corrupt former Senator Carol Moseley Braun, is something of the order of 20 points behind. 

I'm not a lawyer, and so cannot comment on the legal aspects here.  But from a public-policy viewpoint, this decision is awful, whether you like Rahm Emanuel or not.  I think there's always been an assumption that when you're called to federal service by the president, that 1) you go, and 2) that you aren't stripped of your local residency. 

Emanuel grew up in Chicago.  He was a congressman from Chicago.  To deny him the right to run for mayor simply because he has been living temporarily in Washington seems extreme to me.  As he correctly points out, the people of Chicago have a right to decide who they want to be their mayor.  I would feel, as a citizen, that the case against him would have to be overwhelming to take him off the ballot. 

We look forward to the decision by the Illinois Supreme Court.

Politics is always fun in Illinois.

January 24, 2011      Permalink

TERROR UPDATE – AT 4:35 P.M. ET:  Russian authorities have confirmed that the explosion at a major Moscow airport today was the work of terrorists:

Moscow (CNN) -- Terrorists detonated a bomb at Moscow's busiest airport on Monday, killing 35 people and wounding 152, Russian authorities said.

President Dmitry Medvedev, who called the bombing a terrorist attack, ordered additional security at airports and transportation hubs around the country, and Moscow police went on high alert in case of additional bombs.

The explosion occurred about 4:30 p.m. at the entrance of the international arrivals section of Domodedovo Airport, Itar-Tass said, citing a spokeswoman for the Russian Investigative Committee, Tatyana Morozova.
State TV aired video of the smoke-filled terminal, including what appeared to be bodies and luggage on the ground.

Then there's this:

State TV, citing Russian authorities, said the bombing was the act of a suicide bomber who stuffed a homemade bomb with small metal objects to make it more deadly, then activated it in a crowded area where many people were waiting for arriving passengers. CNN could not independently verify those claims.

COMMENT:  No, CNN could not independently verify those claims, and, of course, CNN doesn't want us to jump to any conclusions.  Compare please with CNN's behavior after the Arizona shootings several weeks ago, when the network rushed to quote any nutbag with something to say about the "political atmosphere" and "heated rhetoric," especially the rhetoric of the sinister revolutionary, Sarah Palin. 

The hypocrisy flows, and the ratings continue to plummet.

January 24, 2011      Permalink

BULLETIN – AT 9:48 A.M. ET:  These are preliminary reports of a possible suicide bombing in Moscow:

MOSCOW -- The Russian state RIA Novosti news agency says an explosion at Moscow's busiest airport has killed 23 people and wounded 130.

The news report cites the Health Ministry.

RIA Novosti says Monday's explosion in the arrivals hall at Domodedovo Airport may have been caused by a suicide bomber.

COMMENT:  Other reports state definitively that it was a suicide bomber.  CNN is now reporting that 31 have been killed.

If indeed it was a suicide bomber, there might be an immediate ripple effect in stepped-up security at American airports and train stations.

Obviously, we'll follow this.

January 24, 2011      Permalink

WHERE THERE'S "CLIMATE-CHANGE" TALK, THERE'S MONEY – AT 9:23 A.M. ET:  Many climate-change skeptics have pointed out that a great deal of money is involved in the subject.  There is grant money, there are new technological gimmicks (workable or not), there are new companies that offer climate-change "services" (like carbon credits), and now there is the entry of the learned ladies and gentlemen of the bar.  From AFP:

PARIS — From being a marginal and even mocked issue, climate-change litigation is fast emerging as a new frontier of law where some believe hundreds of billions of dollars are at stake.

Compensation for losses inflicted by man-made global warming would be jaw-dropping, a payout that would make tobacco and asbestos damages look like pocket money.

Imagine: a country or an individual could get redress for a drought that destroyed farmland, for floods and storms that created an army of refugees, for rising seas that wiped a small island state off the map.

In the past three years, the number of climate-related lawsuits has ballooned, filling the void of political efforts in tackling greenhouse-gas emissions.

Eyeing the money-spinning potential, some major commercial law firms now place climate-change litigation in their Internet shop window.

Seminars on climate law are often thickly attended by corporations that could be in the firing line -- and by the companies that insure them.

However, there is also a bit of good news here.  Courts aren't genuflecting before the new legal wizardry:

But legal experts sound a note of caution, warning that this is a new and mist-shrouded area of justice.

Many obstacles lie ahead before a Western court awards a cent in climate damages and even more before the award is upheld on appeal.

"There's a large number of entrepreneurial lawyers and NGOs who are hunting around for a way to gain leverage on the climate problem," said David Victor, director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation at the University of California at San Diego.

"The number of suits filed has increased radically. But the number of suits claiming damages from climate change that have been successful remains zero."

COMMENT:  This is a well-reported story, worth reading.  The implications go beyond lawsuits, and into the possibilities that corporations and entrpreneurs will have to practice extreme caution, which can stifle creativity, to avoid future legal problems.

How big is this?  Consider:  Columbia University's law school has established a Center for Climate Change Law. 

Everybody duck.

January 24, 2011      Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 8:56 A.M. ET:  Reader Bart Rogers alerts us to a superb column by Victor Davis Hanson in which Hanson examines the ease with which President Obama has used "edged rhetoric," some openly inflammatory, to advance his own causes, making his Tucson speech seem like utter hypocrisy:

Edged rhetoric surely worked against Hillary Clinton when the wife of the first “black” president was reduced to a veritable racist. And it worked in 2007-8 against an incumbent Bush whose sober post-9/11 implementation of tribunals, renditions, Guantanamo, Predators, preventative detention, wiretaps, and intercepts was reduced by Obama to a near fascist takeover of the country — until they were all adapted by a President Obama himself. To this day, stung Bushites still offer up massive aid to Africa, prescription drug benefits, No Child Left Behind, and deficit spending on social programs to prove they were not the bloodthirsty Draculas who set up the gulag at Guantanamo and unleashed the children-destroying Predator drones.

We all know what is coming in 2012 — the most well-financed, Wall Street-subsidized, vitriolic camping in modern memory, in which Obama’s rivals will be metaphorically reduced to caricatures of racist, selfish, and cruel nativists.

Hanson notes that Obama gave a "let us all come together" speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, thrusting himself onto the national stage:

The 2011 Tucson speech will have about as much resonance with Obama’s impending campaign style as the 2004 oration affected his 2004-9 political behavior.

COMMENT:  Republicans must not be lulled to sleep by their political success in November.  Already the president's poll numbers are rising, as we noted here last night.  And any idea that the liberal attack machine will become more civilized should be laid to rest. "Civilized" isn't what they're about.

I've seen, in recent weeks, an attempt by liberal writers to begin to paint an Obama 2012 victory as almost inevitable.  That, combined with an uninspiring GOP presidential field, can truly create a real Obama inevitability.

As Hanson points out, Obama has lulled us to sleep before.  Attacking a sleeping enemy is an old, and successful, military technique.

January 24, 2011       Permalink

EVERY CITIZEN A MEDICAL DOCTOR – AT 8:35 A.M. ET:   We joyously bring you new developments in the inspiring progress of Britain's National Health Service, the role model for many who believe Obamacare will truly mean the end of both death and wasteful practices.  From Britain's Daily Mail:

Patients are to be told to examine themselves at home and email their GP with the results rather than meeting face to face.

They would send in a short message describing symptoms which would be answered by a doctor between appointments or at the end of the working day.

Those with long-term conditions such as heart failure, diabetes or lung disease could even be asked to measure their own blood pressure, glucose levels and temperature, sending the results to the surgery.

Ministers want to cut ‘unnecessary’ appointments in the hope of saving up to £1billion a year while at the same time allowing GPs to devote their attention to the most seriously ill.

Nothing like allowing government ministers the power to decide even how people are seen at a doctor's office.

Thousands of patients in England have already been issued with handheld devices and asked to send in their own measurements to their surgeries. But leading doctors are worried about the ‘remote’ diagnosis plans and fear life-threatening illnesses will be missed.

The British Medical Association has warned that standards of care will be jeopardised and GPs will be forced to spend much of their day answering emails rather seeing patients.

COMMENT:  If adopted here, we truly will become the iPhone society.

Now, it is true that handheld devices might prove very useful in transmitting data, especially in an emergency.  But I wonder how much of the doctor's time will actually be saved in Britain by this scheme.  The doctor still has to analyze the data, examine the patient's records, and, in all probability, flash back some questions for the patient.  You know, I think I'd rather be sitting in the doctor's office.

Welcome to our brave new world.

January 24, 2011      Permalink

SOTU TOMORROW NIGHT – AT 8:21 A.M. ET:  President Obama delivers the State of the Union speech tomorrow night.  Can you sense the excitement?  No, either can I. 

Journalists like to say that the speech is "anticipated" or even "highly anticipated."  Well, of course.  It's anticipated the way a dental bill is anticipated.  You know it's coming, and it's going to happen whether you like it or not, so anticipate it.

The Politico purports to tell us what will be in the speech:

When President Barack Obama steps into the House chamber Tuesday to deliver his second State of the Union address, ambience will trump substance.

In his speech, the president will talk about jobs, the deficit and the future of the nation’s troubled economy, but most of the attention is going to be on the theatrics in the room. It will be a night defined by the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and murder of six bystanders in Tucson less than a month ago and the highly public soul-searching that has played out since then on the need for greater civility in political debate.

Oh come on.  The "soul-searching" lasted just long enough for the hysterical left to make a collective fool of itself.  People will be expecting substance tomorrow night.

Obama will honor Giffords and other victims of the shootings, their families and the heroic first responders. His aides believe he’ll reach a broader audience with an emotional and patriotic appeal — one without the faintest whiff of partisan politics.

Hey, I've got an idea.  How about a speech with some intelligent proposals?  Isn't that radical? 

But the president’s triumphant speech in Tucson, itself a hard act to follow, takes some of the pressure off, easing expectations that he will deliver a soaring speech, which State of the Union addresses rarely are.

Do you get the feeling that this reporter is back in 2008?  Obama worship seems to be making a return to the establishment media.  Now we are told that the president's "triumphant" speech in Tucson is a hard act to follow.  Really?  How many viewers will remember much about that speech?  The Gettysburg Address it was not.

We'll wait and see, but this is the time for Mr. Obama to recognize the results of the November election and propose an agenda that can attract support across the aisle.  If he simply resorts to an emotional, flag-waving appeal, he may find disappointment in the public, rather than renewed respect.  We expect him to be president, not just run for the office, which is his tendency.

January 24, 2011     Permalink

JANUARY 23,  2011

ALLEN WRENCH – AT 7:07 P.M. ET:  George Allen, former governor and senator, is reportedly about to get back into Virginia electoral politics, and could shake things up.  From The Politico:

Former Sen. George Allen will end weeks of speculation and formally declare his candidacy for U.S. Senate in Virginia on Monday, two Republican advisers tell POLITICO.

Allen, who has been making all the moves of a candidate in recent weeks, is expected to blast an e-mail to supporters with a video message before alerting the media.

The announcement comes as no surprise. The former governor and senator has been making all the moves of a candidate in recent weeks, touring the state to champion a repeal of the health care law, quietly reaching out to state lawmakers and seeking advice from those who guided his earliest campaigns.

In another sign an announcement is imminent, on Sunday evening, the homepage of Allen’s website read simply: “Stay Tuned.”

The incumbent Democrat, whose term is up next year, has not indicated if he'll run for a second term:

Allen’s Monday announcement comes before Democratic Sen. Jim Webb’s own decision about running for a second term. Webb, who bested Allen by fewer than 10,000 votes in 2006, has been silent about a reelection campaign, leaving even some of his closest supporters wondering what he’ll do.

Allen was seen as a sure thing for releection in 2006, and a potential Republican presidential candidate, until his Senate campaign was derailed when he used what some called an ethnic slur.  He handled the incident poorly, and often was off message for the rest of the campaign.

Webb is a moderate Democrat who seems out of place in his own party.  Virginia, which was drifting Democratic a few years ago, returned decidedly to the GOP column in the most recent election.

It is expected that Allen will have primary competition from a Tea Party supporter, and that should not be underestimated.  Should Webb decline to seek a second term, political observers expect that former Governor Tim Kaine will run for the Democratic nomination.

January 23, 2011      Permalink

YAWN NOW – AT 11:53 A.M. ET:  Colin Powell speaks:

WASHINGTON — Former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday ruled out a return to government service but said he still supports President Barack Obama even though he hasn't yet decided who to vote for in 2012.

The highly respected retired general and moderate Republican made waves when he endorsed Democrat Obama in 2008.

Strange.  Colin Powell is "highly respected," but knifed his own party to support Obama.  Joe Lieberman was knifed by his party, and endorsed John McCain in 2008, and is called a turncoat.  We have an odd vocabulary.

He told CNN's "State of the Union" that he thought Obama's presidency remains a work in progress and that tough issues such as the economy and unemployment need to be addressed. Powell said he hoped the president would tackle these matters in his State of the Union address Tuesday night.

COMMENT:  Are you still awake?  I've always thought of Powell as an overrated officeholder with an inflated ego.  I will never forget his bizarre behavior after the 9-11 attacks.  Although a New Yorker, he never visited Ground Zero, and kept referring to the "events of September 11th," as if they were a series of ping-pong matches.

Powell's political opinions are of no interest and will have no effect.

January 23, 2011      Permalink

BARONE EXPLAINS IT – AT 10:46 A.M. ET:  There are political analysts, and there are political analysts who know what they're taking about.  Michael Barone is firmly in the second category.  This past week marked the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy's inaugural, and Barone examines the reality of the fading JFK legacy.  From the Washington Examiner:

Last Thursday was the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's inaugural speech and, while the anniversary did not go unmentioned, it got less attention than I expected. I suspect that those of us who can remember that snowy day...are inclined to overestimate the hold that Kennedy has on Americans five decades after he took the oath of office.

Two events just before that anniversary fortify that conclusion and snap the links between us and President Kennedy. On Tuesday, Sargent Shriver died at age 95. This Kennedy in-law never attained elective office as the three Kennedy brothers and assorted offspring did, but he achieved something as important, or more so.

As the first director of the Peace Corps and working with his wife, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, as head of Special Olympics, he created the cultures of two quintessentially American institutions, both with international reach.

And...

The other event delinking us from the Kennedy years was the announcement on Wednesday by Sen. Joseph Lieberman that he would not run for re-election in 2012. Lieberman's political career began in his freshman year at Yale, the year during which John Kennedy was elected president and inaugurated...

...Evidently he could see no way forward in 2012. As he said, "The politics of President Kennedy -- service to country, support of civil rights and social justice, pro-growth economic and tax policies, and a strong national defense -- are still my politics, and they don't fit neatly into today's partisan political boxes anymore."

That analysis stands up to scrutiny. "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill," Kennedy said 50 years and three days ago, "that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

Finally...

John Kennedy's inaugural, like Sargent Shriver's institution building, does not fit the partisan template of today's Democratic Party. Kennedy's words come closer to resembling those uttered by another American president, who delivered his first inaugural from the West Front of the Capitol 30 years ago last Thursday, Ronald Reagan. As Shriver's death and Lieberman's retirement suggest, Kennedy's heritage is now national and historic, not contemporary and partisan.

COMMENT:  Very well said.  I grew up in the Democratic Party and worked in Kennedy's '60 campaign.  And I pressed the Republican lever for the first time in my life in 1980, when I voted for Ronald Reagan, himself a former Democrat.  As we said at the time, we didn't leave the Democratic Party, it left us. 

Kennedy's foreign-policy and defense ideals are today found in the GOP, not his own party.  JFK couldn't get anywhere near the nomination for president in the party of Barack Obama. 

What a sad spectacle.

January 23, 2011      Permalink

OBAMA RALLIES IN RASMUSSEN POLL – AT 10:30 A.M. ET:  More evidence that Mr. Obama is getting a bump in the polls, possibly as a result of his Tucson speech and his seeming move to the center.  Rasmussen reports:

he Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 28% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Thirty-six percent (36%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -8.

Still negative territory, but far less negative than it's generally been in recent months.

Overall, 50% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president's performance. Forty-nine percent (49%) disapprove. This is the first time in nearly a year that the president’s overall rating has reached 50% on back to back days. The last time it happened was February 2 and 3, 2010.

COMMENT:  This trend is pretty much in line with what we've seen elsewhere.  There's no guarantee it will continue.  There's also no guarantee that it represents anything real about the president.  Remember, he ran as a "moderate" in 2008, even though he had the most liberal record in the U.S. Senate.  He was able to project a "moderate" image becuse of the powerful collusion of the mainstream media.  Again, I stress that the power of the media could put Obama over again in 2012.

The president's tilt to the center may be illusory.  If the tilt gets him a second term, he'll be barred from running again and will be free to do what he wishes, especially through administrative regulation.  We could be in for a distinctly unpleasant surprise.

Polls are snapshots in time.  These numbers are likely to change, especially if the economy fails to take off.

January 23, 2011       Permalink

THE STORY THAT WON'T GO AWAY – AT 10:17 A.M. ET: 

HONOLULU (AP) -- A privacy law that shields birth certificates has prompted Democratic Gov. Neil Abercrombie to abandon efforts to dispel claims that President Barack Obama was born outside Hawaii, his office says.

State Attorney General David Louie told the governor that privacy laws bar him from disclosing an individual's birth documentation without the person's consent, Abercrombie spokeswoman Donalyn Dela Cruz said Friday

COMMENT:  Ah, the key phrase:  "without the person's consent."  Now, I am not, nor have I ever been, a birther.  I haven't seen any compelling evidence to suggest that the president was born anywhere but Hawaii.  However, strangely, Mr. Obama will not permit his "long form" birth certificate to be released.

Why is that?

It's pretty clear there's something on that certificate that is potentially embarrassing, if nothing more.  What could it be?  I'm engaging in pure speculation here, but it may be that Mr. Obama's father declared him a Kenyan citizen.  But that would be irrelevant under American law.  Under American law the president would be an American citizen.

Or, the father could have declared young Barack a Muslim.  Again, that would be a father's declaration.  Obama states that he later declared his religion to be Christian (although the church he attended seems to have some very un-Christian ideals.) 

Either situation could produce some political embarrassment, but I believe it would pass rather quickly.  Americans are remarkably tolerant, and I don't think that, if my speculative situations existed, that many would hold either one against Mr. Obama.  There's always a fringe that would, but all politicians live with fringes.

Mr. Obama should release the long form birth certificate, and clear things up.

January 23, 2011     Permalink