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MARCH 25,  2011

THE DARK AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL – AT 11:09 P.M. ET:  We reported earlier about a rise in power of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, not exactly a cheerful development.  We're also hearing stories, from CNN in particular, of brutality by the current governing power in Egypt that seems reminiscent of practices that the "revolution" was supposed to crush.   As one journalist said, old practices die hard.

And now a disturbing report from Libya, on Al Qaeda influence in the rebel camp.  Remember, the rebels, who are fighting the regime, are supposed to be the good guys.  Of course, as Bill Clinton might put it, that depends on what "good" is.  From London's Telegraph:

Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi's regime.

In an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he had recruited "around 25" men from the Derna area in eastern Libya to fight against coalition troops in Iraq. Some of them, he said, are "today are on the front lines in Adjabiya".

Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighters "are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists," but added that the "members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader".

His revelations came even as Idriss Deby Itno, Chad's president, said al-Qaeda had managed to pillage military arsenals in the Libyan rebel zone and acquired arms, "including surface-to-air missiles, which were then smuggled into their sanctuaries".

Mr al-Hasidi admitted he had earlier fought against "the foreign invasion" in Afghanistan, before being "captured in 2002 in Peshwar, in Pakistan". He was later handed over to the US, and then held in Libya before being released in 2008.

US and British government sources said Mr al-Hasidi was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, or LIFG, which killed dozens of Libyan troops in guerrilla attacks around Derna and Benghazi in 1995 and 1996.

COMMENT:  I don't think I'd want this guy at a family wedding.  You know, they bring guns and shoot in the air.

And once again we're reminded that we don't know exactly who the rebels are.  We don't want to repeat the mistake that we made in the late seventies, helping to force the Shah of Iran out, and not understanding the people who came in to replace him. 

It's the Mideast.  Nothing is as it seems.  And we have very few legitimate experts here to sort it out.  Please notice the obscene silence of "Mideast Studies" departments of American universities during this "Arab spring."  One smug "scholar" said of these departments after the 9/11 attacks, "We don't do terrorism."  They apparently don't do revolution or democracy either.  But anti-Americanism?  Just wind them up and watch them go.

March 25, 2011      Permalink

LATE TRAVEL NEWS – AT 10:55 P.M. ET:  Aren't you moved by Jimmy Carter's vacation choices?  The man has such exotic, unusual taste.  Just earlier this week he announced he was going to North Korea.  (We hear the Disney theme park is spectacular.)  Now he's announced another trip, which will make us envious:

(Reuters) - Former President Jimmy Carter and wife Rosalynn will visit Cuba next week to meet with President Raul Castro and discuss ways to improve U.S.-Cuba relations, a Carter spokeswoman said on Friday.

The visit, made at the invitation of the Cuban government, raised the possibility that Carter would get involved in the case of U.S. aid contractor Alan Gross, recently sentenced to 15 years in prison for providing illegal Internet access to Cuban groups.

The case has strained U.S.-Cuba relations after a brief warming under President Barack Obama.

Yes, we all noticed the warming.  Didn't you sense the warming from the Castro Brothers?

Carter, 86, was to arrive in Havana on Monday for a three-day trip "to learn about new economic policies and the upcoming (Communist) Party congress and to discuss ways to improve U.S.-Cuba relations," said a statement from Carter spokeswoman Deanna Congileo.

The upcoming Party congress?  Is that what Carter is interested in?  What does he expect from said congress, something new?  Maybe a new way to jail dissidents.  That must be it.

I guess that, like chicken soup, the trip can't hurt.  Carter is roundly ignored in Washington, which is all to the better.  But occasionally he might take a trip to, say, Australia, to thank the Aussies for all the friendship and help they've given us over the years.  He does know about Australia, doesn't he?  If you go west from Georgia...  Oh, never mind.

March 25,  2011     Permalink

PATH TO THE NOMINATION – AT 10:43 A.M. ET:  Think of it this way:  We're nine months away from an election year.  Judging by the downhill slide of Obama, the movie, it will be one of the most important election years in our recent history.  What he have now is Carter lite.  Or Carter diluted.  Or non-fat, or something. 

But the Republicans struggle to come up with a candidate who can beat the Obama political machine, with its precinct captains from mainstream journalism.  It will not be easy.  The Republican bench, as currently constituted, does not exactly drip with charisma.

Take Mitt Romney...please.  (Okay, that's an old Henny Youngman line.  I apologize for my sins.)  He's a fine man, I'm sure.  But he still reminds me too much of the guy in the Brooks Brothers light jacket ads.   Here, from The Politico, is his apparent strategy to get the GOP nomination:

Much will depend on the still-unsettled primary calendar and the eventual field of candidates. But the former Massachusetts governor’s aim, according to multiple aides and advisers, is to exceed expectations his team is working feverishly to lower in Iowa, to come back strong with a win in New Hampshire, to survive South Carolina in part by picking up an off-setting victory in Nevada and then to settle in for what many described as “a slog” that they’ll emerge from thanks to superior money and organization.

Boy, can you sense the excitement?  What a vision! 

At this stage, I just don't think Romney has the electricity to beat Obama.  I could be wrong, and I'd want to be wrong if he gets the nomination.  But if Republicans were politically smart – there's a first time for everything – they'd start looking toward their young bench.  We can't afford four more years of Obama.

March 25, 2011      Permalink

THE AMATEUR AT WORK – AT 9:33 A.M. ET:  President Obama's amateurism in foreign policy has now been so firmly established, and underlined by his handling of Libya, that little more proof is needed.  One sign of that amateurism is Obama's refusal to speak directly to the American people about what he is doing, and why he is doing it.  This administration is completely out of touch with the requirements of the American presidency.  The Politico, always a friend to Obama, reports:

President Barack Obama is resisting pressure to deliver an Oval Office speech explaining his policy on Libya — in part, because he doesn’t want to equate what he regards as a smaller, time-limited mission with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Administration officials haven’t ruled out a big speech, but Obama is reluctant to make a major address on Libya until the United States hands over most command and combat duties to its allies.

Such a prissy, so-called "intellectual" approach.  And so completely contemptuous of the American people.

Whatever happens, Obama is intent on putting the U.S. in the back seat. As part of an effort to downplay the scope of U.S. involvement, administration officials have flatly refused to call the enforcement of the Libyan no-fly, no-drive zone — which has included the launch of more than hundred cruise missiles and dozens of U.S. aircraft sorties — a “war.”

It is “a time-limited, scope-limited military action,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said Thursday.

Still, the lack of a clearly articulated endgame — or even a rationale for quickly committing U.S. naval and air assets in a third Muslim nation — is making House and Senate members in both parties increasingly uneasy.

When Democrats say they're uneasy about Obama, you know there's a problem.

Charles Krauthammer, the brilliant columnist, and Harvard-trained psychiatrist, analyzes Obama and writes him off in a devastating Washington Post column:

President Obama is proud of how he put together the Libyan operation. A model of international cooperation. All the necessary paperwork. Arab League backing. A Security Council resolution. (Everything but a resolution from the Congress of the United States, a minor inconvenience for a citizen of the world.) It’s war as designed by an Ivy League professor.

And...

Never modest about himself, Obama is supremely modest about his country. America should be merely “one of the partners among many,” he said Monday. No primus inter pares for him. Even the Clinton administration spoke of America as the indispensable nation. And it remains so. Yet at a time when the world is hungry for America to lead — no one has anything near our capabilities, experience and resources — America is led by a man determined that it should not.

A man who dithers over parchment. Who starts a war from which he wants out right away. Good God. If you go to take Vienna, take Vienna. If you’re not prepared to do so, better then to stay home and do nothing.

COMMENT:  And yet, Obama still has his protectors in the media, determined to cover up their absysmal lack of questions about this man during the 2008 campaign.  They're not going to allow themselves to be proved wrong.  Stand by for a remaking of Obama's image in time for 2012.

March 25, 2011      Permalink

AND NOW SYRIA – AT 8:46 A.M. ET:  Syria, the Arab country that is most linked to Iran, is also erupting.  If it should become destabilized, the story would be much larger than Libya.  Syria is one of the most militant, and important of Arab countries. 

(CNN) -- Tensions boiled in a volatile Syrian community Thursday as thousands turned up for the funerals of people killed in unrest. Meanwhile, Syria's government blamed the instability on outsiders and announced plans to study popular demands, including the lifting of the country's decades-old emergency law.

Syria is the latest in a string of Arabic-speaking nations beset with discontent over economic and human rights issues. Syrian discontent centers on Daraa, a southern city in the impoverished country's agricultural region, where violence has been escalating between security forces and anti-government protesters since late last week.
Wissam Tarif, executive director of the human rights organization Insan, said at least 34 people have been killed in Daraa in the past two days. Other activists believe many more have been killed.

Tarif said as many as 20,000 people followed the funeral procession for those who died in the violence, including a conscripted soldier who was reportedly shot and wounded because he refused to fire on demonstrators.

COMMENT:  What is remarkable about all these revolutions and mini-revolutions in the Arab world is how surprised and shocked many journalists are.  For years the mainstream media, and its enablers in the universities, have been telling us that the only important issue in the Mideast was the "plight of the Palestinians."  Strange, but they haven't been mentioned recently.  You don't think we've been misled, do you?  Yes I do. 

But there is no guarantee that any of these revolts will result in better societies or governments.  Lebanon, which was also in revolt not long ago, is now completely dominated by Hezbollah.  And we saw what happened to Hungary and Czechoslovakia, in Eastern Europe, when they tried to break free of the Soviet Union.  It took the USSR's collapse to free them.

We are going to have an interesting year, and it leads right into the 2012 American elections.

March 25, 2011      Permalink

JUST WHAT WE FEARED – AT 8:23 A.M. ET:  Remember Egypt?  There was a revolution there some weeks back, and we were assured by the fashion plates of the Western press that a new, secular Egypt would emerge.  Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times practically anointed the democracy demonstrators as the greatest humans ever to have lived.  It reminded me of the "journalists" during the Vietnam war who assured us that the North Vietnamese really weren't Communists, but nationalists.  A slight error.

Now some of our worst concerns about the "new" Egypt may be realized, at least in part.  We will, of course, be called "bigots" and "Islamophobes" for pointing this out, but it does come, to its credit, from that fashionably liberal New York Times:

CAIRO — In post-revolutionary Egypt, where hope and confusion collide in the daily struggle to build a new nation, religion has emerged as a powerful political force, following an uprising that was based on secular ideals. The Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group once banned by the state, is at the forefront, transformed into a tacit partner with the military government that many fear will thwart fundamental changes.

I think they call this hijacking a revolution.

It is also clear that the young, educated secular activists who initially propelled the nonideological revolution are no longer the driving political force — at least not at the moment.

As the best organized and most extensive opposition movement in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood was expected to have an edge in the contest for influence. But what surprises many is its link to a military that vilified it.

“There is evidence the Brotherhood struck some kind of a deal with the military early on,” said Elijah Zarwan, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group. “It makes sense if you are the military — you want stability and people off the street. The Brotherhood is one address where you can go to get 100,000 people off the street.”

And...

...in these early stages, there is growing evidence of the Brotherhood’s rise and the overpowering force of Islam.

When the new prime minister, Essam Sharaf, addressed the crowd in Tahrir Square this month, Mohamed el-Beltagi, a prominent Brotherhood member, stood by his side. A Brotherhood member was also appointed to the committee that drafted amendments to the Constitution.

A recent referendum, approved overwhelmingly by the Egyptian voters, speeds up the election process.  Observers see this as strongly favoring the Brotherhood, the best organized group in Egypt.  A longer process would have allowed more time for more secular forces to organize.

I fear that we will have in Egypt what we've seen so often in the Arab world – one person, one vote, one time.  The early signs are not good, and we may wind up wishing for the return of Hosni Mubarak. 

March 25, 2011     Permalink

MARCH 24,  2011

ARE YOU FEELING POORER?  JOIN THE CROWD – AT 8:58 P.M. ET:  A new report shows a dramatic drop in the net worth of the American family.  What a legacy to leave our children.  From Money:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The average American family's household net worth declined 23% between 2007 and 2009, the Federal Reserve said Thursday.

A rare survey of U.S. households, first performed in 2007 but repeated in 2009 in order to gauge the effects of the recession, reveals the median net worth of households fell from $125,000 in 2007 to $96,000 in 2009.

Titled "Surveying the Aftermath of the Storm," the report offers a broad look at how the financial crisis impacted individual households.

It is widely known that the 2008 financial crisis resulted in the vaporization of trillions of dollars in household wealth. But Federal Reserve officials said Thursday the new report offers a look at exactly how hard the recession hit families, and how they reacted.

The numbers paint a stark picture.

Families that owned stock saw their portfolios drop by more than a third to $12,000 from $18,500, on average. The value of primary real estate holdings decreased by an average of $18,700.

And families took on more debt, pushing median total debt levels to $75,600 from $70,300. They also made less money. Media household income dropped from to $49,800 from $50,100.

COMMENT:  We are not in good shape.  This not only affects families, it affects our national strength, and, ultimately, our national morale.   I don't see much thought coming from Washington about how we get out of this.  I don't think the solution will come from Washington anyway. 

March 24, 2011      Permalink

NO CONFUSION WITH REAGAN – AT 8:46 P.M. ET:  A poll out shows it's unlikely that Barack Obama will ever be confused with Ronald Reagan...or Douglas MacArthur:

(Reuters) - Only 17 percent of Americans see President Barack Obama as a strong and  decisive military leader, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken after the United States and its allies began bombing Libya.

I'd love to talk to a few of that 17 percent.  I want to understand their reasoning.  It may be important for the future of psychiatry.

Nearly half of those polled view Obama as a cautious and consultative commander-in-chief and more than a third see him as indecisive in military matters.

Obama was widely criticized in 2009 for his months-long consultations with senior aides and military chiefs on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan. Critics called it dithering, but he said such a big decision required careful deliberation. He eventually dispatched 30,000 more troops.

But Obama is facing mounting discontent among opposition Republicans and from within his own Democratic Party over the fuzzy aims of the U.S.-led mission in Libya and the lack of a clearly spelled-out exit strategy for U.S. forces.

COMMENT:  This is a classic case of an inexperienced president who believes that all problems can be approached academically.  He has no gut instinct for conflict, does not believe in the word "victory," and doesn't understand his own country.  Other than that, he's terrific.

March 24, 2011       Permalink

ONCE A GREAT CITY – AT 9:58 A.M. ET:  When most of us were growing up, Detroit was associated with muscle – industrial muscle.  It was motor city, producing the vehicles of a teenager's dreams. 

Today, Detroit is a city in the shadows, a mess, place no one wants to be.  Michael Barone, who comes from Michigan, details the collapse of a once-great metropolis known around the world.   From the Washington Examiner:

The Census Bureau has released the county and major city population figures for my home state of Michigan, and the big news is the stunning loss of population in Detroit, as this Wall Street Journal article indicates.

The April 1, 2010 figure for Detroit was 713,777 -- down from 951,270 in 2000. That’s a population loss of 25% in a single decade, substantially greater than for any other city in this period except hurricane-devastated New Orleans, whose percentage population loss of 29% was not all that much greater.

Fully one-fifth of the housing units in Detroit are vacant, and of course many more have simply disappeared. I was in kindergarten in Detroit in April 1950, when the Census Bureau count for the city was 1,849,568. In the intervening 60 years the city’s population has declined by 1,135,791 people. The city’s population is down 61% in those years. When people ask me why I moved from being a liberal to being a conservative, my single-word answer is Detroit. The liberal policies which I hoped would make Detroit something like heaven have made it instead something more like hell.

And...

Some historic perspective: in the redistricting following the 1960 Census, four congressional districts were wholly or almost entirely within the city of Detroit. Now Detroit has just slightly more people than a single congressional district.

How pathetic.  And, of course, this all has been accompanied by the decline of the American automobile industry.  Can you imagine if GM, Ford and Chrysler had developed executives with the imagination of an Apple Computer? 

And, as Barone indicates, liberal policies destroyed Detroit.  That and high crime. 

Can Detroit come back?  I doubt it.  Where is the incentive?  Where is the vision?

There is no guarantee that cities survive.  New York City, which once was a vibrant, creative metropolis, is now so expensive that it's driving out its most productive young people.  New York State loses more people each year than any other state.

The future of America, I suspect, lies outside the traditional centers.  Much will depend on how well cities and states are run, an enormous opportunity for sane governors like Mitch Daniels in Indiana and Chris Christie in New Jersey.  The question is whether sanity will prevail, or old-style liberalism, where productive people write the checks, and unproductive people cash them.

March 24, 2011       Permalink

ANOTHER OUTRAGE – AT 9:09 A.M. ET:  If any further proof were needed that Eric Holder's Justice Department has been reduced to a political operation favoring only certain groups, it's here.  The department has entered a religious-discrimination case...on the wrong side.  PC trumped common sense.  From the Washington Post:

BERKELEY, Ill. — Safoorah Khan had taught middle school math for only nine months in this tiny Chicago suburb when she made an unusual request. She wanted three weeks off for a pilgrimage to Mecca.

The school district, faced with losing its only math lab instructor during the critical end-of-semester marking period, said no. Khan, a devout Muslim, resigned and made the trip anyway.

Justice Department lawyers examined the same set of facts and reached a different conclusion: that the school district’s decision amounted to outright discrimination against Khan. They filed an unusual lawsuit, accusing the district of violating her civil rights by forcing her to choose between her job and her faith.

As the case moves forward in federal court in Chicago, it has triggered debate over whether the Justice Department was following a purely legal path or whether suing on Khan’s behalf was part of a broader Obama administration campaign to reach out to Muslims.

I think it goes well beyond even outreach.  It is an action based on the belief of the hard left that some groups are a bit more equal than others.   Clearly, we want to protect freedom of religion, for Muslims as well as anyone else, and employers are asked to make reasonable accommodations toward that end.  But this woman's demands go far beyond reasonable.

The lawsuit, filed in December, may well test the boundaries of how far employers must go to accommodate workers’ religious practices — a key issue as the nation grows more multicultural and the Muslim population increases. But it is also raising legal questions. Experts say the government might have difficulty prevailing because the 19-day leave Khan requested goes beyond what courts have considered.

“It sounds like a very dubious judgment and a real legal reach,” said Michael B. Mukasey, who was attorney general in the George W. Bush administration. “The upper reaches of the Justice Department should be calling people to account for this.”

The plot thickens:

“This was a profoundly personal request by a person of faith,” said Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for civil rights, who compared the case to protecting “the religious liberty that our forefathers came to this country for.”

Nice words from a man who doesn't mean them.  Tom Perez is well known as one of the most left-leaning major officials in the history of the United States Government.  He's way out there. 

This case is a disgrace. 

March 24, 2011       Permalink

LIBYA ON THURSDAY – AT 8:58 A.M. ET:  While the coalition air attacks have degraded some of the Libyan government's capability, they are far from destroying it.  In the meantime, there are increasing demands, including many issuing from the U.S. Congress, for some clarity, some vision of the objective...and some explanation of who will be running things:

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- Coalition forces hit Libya for a sixth day early Thursday amid questions over the future of the international involvement in the effort to halt civilian attacks by the nation's forces.

So far, the coalition has crippled the Libyan air force and established a no-fly zone along the nation's coastline, U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Gerard Hueber said.

Allied forces gave no indication that ruler Moammar Gadhafi was complying with a United Nations mandate to stop attacks against civilians.

But a U.S. official said though the rebels are in a better position, the ruler's forces still have the upper edge.
They remain capable of carrying out attacks on the opposition, are relatively well-organized and continue to fight effectively, the official said.

And from The New York Times:

TRIPOLI, Libya — Despite ferocious allied airstrikes on Libyan ground forces, tanks and artillery, France, one of the principle western partners in the campaign against forces loyal to Muammar el-Qaddafi, said on Thursday that the effort could still take “days or weeks.”

Wait, wait.  Didn't Obama say we're handing over leadership of the effort within a few days?  Who's in charge?  After weeks of dithering, you'd think the president would have had the time to figure out a coherent war plan, with command-and-control firmly in place.

Of course, we hope we win this and that Qaddafi departs, one way or another.   But the whole effort seems like a blurred lens.

March 24, 2011     Permalink

LOOK AT THIS WITH TWO EYES – AT 8:21 A.M. ET:  A new Pew Research poll appears to have some limited good news for President Obama, but note the details.  From The Politico:

A challenger might have room to unseat President Barack Obama’s reelection bid, but no dominant Republican candidate has emerged so far, a new poll suggests.

Reinforcing what other state-by-state and national surveys have found, a Pew Research Center poll released Wednesday has Obama polling strongly but not overwhelmingly well, with 47 percent of registered voters saying they’d like to see him reelected to a second term. Thirty-seven percent of those surveyed said they’d prefer to see a Republican candidate win in 2012, while 16 percent said they were undecided.

And get this:

The poll surveyed 1,525 adults, including 1,251 registered voters, March 8-14. For registered voters, the error margin for the poll is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

COMMENT:  I have no idea why they surveyed adults, only a percentage of whom are registered voters.  In fact, I have no idea why they did this poll at all, as it demonstrates nothing.

Polls of "adults" or "registered voters" tend to favor Democrats.  When the poll is limited to "likely voters," the only people who actually count in an election, Republican numbers go up. 

I'd imagine – this is informed speculation – that you could lop five points or so off Obama's rating if the poll had been taken among "likely voters," and add about the same number to Republicans, making the result about even.  And that would be lesser news for the president.

But all polls I've seen thus far reinforce the main point we've been making here:  The Republicans need a strong, attractive candidate, not just the next guy in line.  They may have to go to their young bench.  The "big names" don't look that big.

March 24, 2011     Permalink