MONDAY,  AUGUST 31,  2009

IRAN PUT ON NOTICE - AT 5:37 P.M. ET:  There is a crunch coming with Iran.  President Obama has said that Iran must respond positively to Western overtures over its nuclear program by mid-September, or face the possibility of greater sanctions.  Problem is, Obama is widely seen as weak.

Now, however, the sanctions threat is being given more substance by the leaders of France and Germany:

BERLIN (AP) -- Germany and France on Monday reinforced a call for Iran to respond to concerns about its nuclear program in September or face tougher sanctions, and said they wanted wide international agreement on those measures.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel pointed to a Group of Eight leaders' agreement in July to reevaluate their position on Iran at a G-20 summit in late September. President Barack Obama has set a Sept. 15 deadline for Iran to respond to U.S. overtures about negotiating over its nuclear program.

''Initiatives must be taken during the month of September which take account of Iran's will or otherwise to cooperate,'' French President Nicolas Sarkozy said after meeting Merkel. If it does not, he said, ''Germany and France will be united in calling for a strengthening of sanctions.''

COMMENT:  Okay, nice words, well put.  But sanctions will require the cooperation of Russia and China, and that's very much in doubt.  Add to that a new, left-wing Japanese government eager to show how it can distance itself from the United States.  And, add to that, an American president who is seriously adrift and is obsessed with some abstract "outreach" to the Muslim world that is going nowhere.

So, the sanctions threat still has plenty of leaks.  This will be a major issue within a month.  Stand by, and observe how Obama handles it, or if he even chooses to do much at all.

August 31, 2009   Permalink

GRIM PROSPECTS FOR DEMOCRATS - AT 4:56 P.M. ET:  The midterm elections are still 14 months away, but the handicapping has already begun.  Given the date, this can best be described as gaming, but it's fun, and illuminates where we are politically.  From The Politico:

After an August recess marked by raucous town halls, troubling polling data and widespread anecdotal evidence of a volatile electorate, the small universe of political analysts who closely follow House races is predicting moderate to heavy Democratic losses in 2010.

Some of the most prominent and respected handicappers can now envision an election in which Democrats suffer double-digit losses in the House — not enough to provide the 40 seats necessary to return the GOP to power but enough to put them within striking distance.

Top political analyst Charlie Cook, in a special August 20 update to subscribers, wrote that “the situation this summer has slipped completely out of control for President Obama and congressional Democrats.”

The sad fact, though, is that the Democratic losses will probably be among moderate Dems, the thoughtful Democrats the country needs to balance the fringe crowd.  They will be running in swing districts that could easily go Republican.

Look, a great deal can happen between now and the 2010 election day.  We haven't even had the 2009 election, where the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia are up for grabs.  And Republicans cannot just sit around and wait to be elected.  They have a history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and they've usually deserved it.  They must have an affirmative program that outlines how they will solve the real problems the nation faces.  And it wouldn't be a bad idea to have some attractive candidates whose closets are free of skeletons.

August 31, 2009   Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY - AT 9:55 A.M. ET:  From George Will, appearing in Newsweek:

In August our ubiquitous president became the nation's elevator music, always out and about, heard but not really listened to, like audible wallpaper. And now, as Congress returns to resume wrestling with health care reform, we shall see if he continues his August project of proving that the idea of an Ivy League Huey Long is not oxymoronic.

Barack Obama in August became a Huey for today, a rabble rouser with a better tailor, an unrumpled and modulated tribune of downtrodden Americans, telling them that opponents of his reform plan—which actually does not yet exist—are fearmongers employing scare tactics.

Will goes on to say, in this worthwhile column, that Washington is seriously unserious.  Projected numbers make no sense.  Key legislation isn't doing what it's supposed to. 

The Rasmussen poll, which we've published just below, shows the size of public discontent.  The president's plunge in the polls is not simply a reaction to his health plan, or lack of it.  It's something, in my view, much deeper.  In electing an inexperienced Chicago politician with a silver tongue, Americans knew they were taking a risk.  But many saw in Mr. Obama a kind of redeemer, a man who would cleanse things.  They also saw a symbol of American tolerance and diversity, a thoroughly noble idea.  In one election we could show the world that we are not, at heart, a racist nation.

When expectations are great, and ideals high, the disappointment can be shattering.  No one expected Mr. Obama to solve all the problems of the country in six or eight months, but they did expect him to perform far better than he has.  I get the feeling that many people now doubt Obama's ability to do the job - not to get the job, but to do it.  We know how good he is at getting.

And the racial uniqueness has worn off.  Yes, there are still some Americans who cannot accept a black president or first lady.  And, yes, there are some people who want Mr. Obama to fail simply because of his race.  But I think the number of these misguided souls is smaller than we had a right to expect.  The disillusionment now is among people who have no problem with a very ethnic president, but do have a problem with a man who cannot govern well.

The real test will come in foreign policy.  We used to say that we can take four years of a bad domestic policy, but four years of a bad foreign policy can be fatal. 

That crunch is coming with Iran, Afghanistan and the Mideast in the fall.  Everything up to now has been prelude.

August 31, 2009   Permalink

ANOTHER POLL STUNNER - AT 9:44 A.M. ET:  Rasmussen this morning is reporting the worst approval numbers for Obama since inauguration.  Incredibly, only 46% of likely voters approve of Mr. Obama's performance, whereas 53% disapprove. 

Ras's presidential approval index, measuring the gap between those who strongly approve and strongly disapprove, shows Mr. Obama at minus 11, 30% to 41%.

We always stress that a poll is a snapshot in time, but the trend downward in recent weeks is unmistakable. 

August 31, 2009   Permalink

AND HERE'S THE GOOD NEWS - AT 8:19 A.M. ET:  We are fair here, and look for opportunities to praise President Obama.  We never take the useless, unimaginative position that everything he does must be bad.

And we've found something to like.  The president, it seems, is starting to drive the left crazy.  Oh joy, oh joy:

It is as inevitable in Washington as sweltering summers and steamy sex scandals.

A president is going to be smacked around from the moment he takes office and the uplifting rhetoric of campaign rallies meets the gritty reality of governing.

But the criticism of Barack Obama has turned strikingly personal as some of his liberal media allies have gone wobbly on him. After playing a cheerleading role during the campaign, some are bluntly questioning whether he's up to the job.

If Obama is losing Paul Krugman, can the rest of the left be far behind?

Barack Obama?  Not left enough?  Yeah, that's what some of his supporters are saying. 

"I'm concerned as to whether, in trying to reach out to the middle, he is selling out his base," says Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page. "I find myself saying, 'Where's that well-oiled Obama machine we saw last year?' . . . Maybe he's being a little too cool at this point."

And a startling admission in this Washington Post story:

It was liberal commentators, of course, who formed the leading edge of the most favorable coverage that any White House contender has drawn in a generation. Having swooned as they did, some were probably more susceptible to having their hearts broken.

Well, I'm glad someone in a liberal paper admitted that the in-the-tank-for-Obama complaints were accurate.  "The most favorable coverage" indeed.

In today's hyperpartisan atmosphere, liberal pundits are likely to remain in Obama's corner. But for those who once felt a thrill up their leg, the sensation may be wearing off.

COMMENT:  If Obama actually did move toward the center, and I don't think he has done so, he'd be a more effective leader.  The left wing of the Democratic Party represents a small part of the electorate, and makes more noise than policy.  Its foreign policy stands are truly frightening, and sometimes remind us of Republican isolationism during the 1930s.

The liberals regularly turn on their own.  They turned on Hubert Humphrey, "Mr. Liberal," in 1968 and helped elect their nemesis, Richard Nixon.  They never looked back.  Eating your young is an old ultra-liberal tradition.  The complicating factor with Obama is, of course, race.  I doubt if liberals will, in the end, abandon him.

August 31, 2009   Permalink

NO TORT REFORM IN DEM HEALTH BILL, BUT WHY? - AT 8:05 A.M. ET:  The standard reason given for the lack of medical malpractice reform - tort reform - in the Democrats' health bill is the power of the trial lawyers in the Democratic Party.  Even Howard Dean conceded that. 

But just how powerful are they?  The Washington Examiner reports the extent of that clout, and it is truly staggering:

In the ranking by OpenSecrets.org of campaign contributions by the top 100 special interests during the past 20 years, the American Association for Justice (AAJ) – formerly the Association of Trial Lawyers of America – ranks sixth overall. The AAJ is the trial lawyers’ Washington lobbying group, and 90 percent of its $30.7 million in contributions since 1989 went to Democrats. At the other end of this pay-to-play process in the nation’s capitol, AAJ has spent nearly $14 million lobbying Congress just since Democrats won control of both chambers, including $2.3 million thus far this year.

The Democratic focus of the plaintiffs bar is even more obvious from campaign contributions of National Journal’s top 15 class-action trial attorney firms. As the Examiner’s David Freddoso and Kevin Mooney reported last week, those firms have contributed in 2009 more than $636,000, 99 percent of which went to Democrats. And employees of those firms have given more than $236,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee this year. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid faces an uphill re-election battle, but the top trial lawyers firms are right there for him, with contributions totaling some $54,000 to date.

COMMENT:  Now you know.  We hasten to add, by the way, that trial lawyers also do some very fine and critically important work in this country.  Let's not paint with a broad brush.  But on the issue of tort reform they're self-interested, and doing harm.  As the Examiner points out:

As governors like Texas’ Rick Perry and Mississippi’s Haley Barbour have demonstrated in recent years, capping medical malpractice suits can save billions of dollars by lowering the cost of insurance for providers and increasing access to quality care for patients. Without such caps, trial lawyers stand to continue raking in millions of dollars in fees by bringing suspect suits.

The absence of of tort reform in the Democratic health bill makes a mockery of the claim that it's a piece of "reform" legislation.

August 31, 2009   Permalink

MAJOR CHANGE IN JAPAN - AT 7:48 A.M. ET:  As we reported yesterday, Japanese voters have thrown out the long-standing ruling party and elected a party made up of, well, "beginners" might be the best word, as The New York Times reports:

The party is made up of an inexperienced group of left-wing activists and LDP defectors. It is just 11 years old, and only a handful have served in top government positions.

Just what we need as we confront nearby North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs.  Japanese voters are reportedly frustrated over the weak economy, and the vote is seen more as a "throw the rascals out" action than an endorsement of the new boys, known as the Democratic Party of Japan - as if we required another one.

But there are implications for the United States.  The new party, led by Yukio Hatoyama, who will be prime minister, is far less pro-American than the one it replaces:

Hatoyama has been vocal about distancing Japan from Washington and forging closer ties with its Asian neighbors.

He has said he will end a refueling mission in the Indian Ocean in support of U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, and wants to review the role of the 50,000 U.S. troops stationed across Japan under a post-World War II mutual security treaty.

But we are given "reassurance":

He is not expected to make any radical departures that would harm relations with Washington, however, and the new U.S. ambassador to Japan said President Barack Obama is looking forward to working with the administration in Tokyo.

Given Hatoyama's leftism, I'm sure Obama is very much looking forward to working with him.  Soulmates.

August 31, 2009   Permalink

SUNDAY,  AUGUST 30,  2009

QUOTE OF THE DAY - AT 9:16 P.M. ET:  From Cal Thomas, lamenting the new Justice Department probe into tactics used after the 9-11 attacks:

The Justice Department wants to apply new interrogation rules to methods that were used and approved during the George W. Bush administration. This is like lowering the highway speed limit to 55 mph and giving speeding tickets to people who drove 65 mph when the higher speed was legal.

What is to be gained from going after CIA interrogators who thought they were operating within the law and defending the country? Doesn't the white-wine-and-Brie set understand that a terrorist won't discriminate between people with jelly for a backbone and those with backbones of steel? Do they really think they will escape death by being nice to killers who use our laws against us in order to replace those laws with theirs? Islamic terrorists repeatedly say this is their goal, and they have demonstrated it enough by their actions that only a fool would doubt them.

COMMENT:  Problem is, there are a lot of fools on the left.  But invitations to those white-wine-and-Brie parties are cherished, and we have to understand that it is the social structure of the left that often fuels some of these crazy crusades. 

August 30, 2009   Permalink

THE "ANTI-WAR" MOVEMENT STIRS AGAIN - AT 8:15 P.M. ET:  Isn't this where we came in?  The usual suspects are stirring again.  Protesting Iraq?  No, protesting Afghanistan, as The New York Times reports:

A restive antiwar movement, largely dormant since the election of Barack Obama, is preparing a nationwide campaign this fall to challenge the administration’s policies on Afghanistan.

Anticipating a Pentagon request for more troops there, antiwar leaders have engaged in a flurry of meetings to discuss a month of demonstrations, lobbying, teach-ins and memorials in October to publicize the casualty count, raise concerns about the cost of the war and pressure Congress to demand an exit strategy.

And...

“We’re coming out of a low period,” said Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the antiwar group Code Pink. “But as progressives feel more comfortable protesting against the Obama administration and challenging Democrats as well as Republicans in Congress, then we’ll be back on track.”

COMMENT:  What is infuriating is the continued insistence by the mainstream media that groups like Code Pink be called "anti-war."  As Christopher Hitchens has written, they're not anti-war.  They're anti any war America has a chance of winning.  Many are hard left groups that oppose all American military action.  Many are descended from the "anti-war" groups of the Vietnam era, many of which openly sided with the enemy and took Jane Fonda as their heroine. 

I have yet to see, in the mainstream media, any detailed reporting on what some of these groups actually stand for, and against.  If we did get that kind of reporting, the reporters would undoubtedly be labeled McCarthyites, which is the standard charge by which the left shuts down all questions about its activities.

President Obama has called Afghanistan a war of necessity.  Let's see how long his stamina lasts when he's confronted by the fringe left of his party, with its "anti-war" agenda. 

We should remember that opposition to any military action in response to 9-11 surfaced soon after the attacks, in 2001, when a group called Not in My Name circulated petitions among the faithful, including such hard-left activists as Gloria Steinem.  These are the same people, of course, who remain silent in the face of the most unspeakable atrocities and genocides when committed by others.  The free ride given them by the media has kept them going for decades.

August 30, 2009   Permalink 

HOLD THAT HOLDER - AT 7:07 P.M. ET:  Former Vice President Cheney remains unrelenting in his opposition to the CIA probes announced last week by Attorney General Eric Holder.  We should point out that these are sometimes called "investigations" in the media.  They are not.  They are re-investigations.  The same issues were reviewed years ago by career prosecutors in the Justice Department and found, with one exception, not ripe for prosecution.  From Fox News:

Calling it a "terrible decision" that undermines national security and devastates CIA morale, former Vice President Dick Cheney slammed the Obama administration's probe of aggressive interrogation of terrorists.

"It's an outrageous political act that will do great damage, long-term, to our capacity to be able to have people take on difficult jobs, make difficult decisions, without having to worry about what the next administration is going to say," Cheney told "FOX News Sunday" in a no-holds-barred interview.

In blunt, unsparing language, Cheney accused President Obama of setting a "terrible precedent" by allowing an "intensely partisan, politicized look back at the prior administration."

Even a Democratic senator, Diane Feinstein of California, raised objection:

“I think the timing of this is not very good,” Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” She said her panel is studying interrogation techniques, and suggested Holder should allow that work to continue without appointing a special prosecutor. “Candidly, I wish the attorney general had waited,” she said.

COMMENT:  But he won't wait because Eric Holder is the administration's chief enforcer of leftist doctrine.  He has stuffed the Justice Department with liberal activists.  We were told that President Obama left the decision on whether to open the probe to Holder.  That, of course, is nonsense.  The president could have ordered Holder not to probe further because of the very damage that former Vice President Cheney speaks about. 

Of course this is political.  Obviously.  How else can Holder explain a decision to reinvestigate what has already been investigated.  How would you like to be a CIA agent in the field right now?

And remember, the zealots behind this new probe also want to investigate the lawyers who gave the Bush administration their best advice on the subject of interrogations, with a possible eye toward disbarring them.  This is a politicization of law that is utterly chilling in a democracy.  You can practice law, the inquisitors seem to be saying, as long as we agree with you.

August 30, 2009   Permalink

HE TRAVELS IN THE BEST CIRCLES - AT 10:55 A.M. ET:  From NewsBusters:

Former CBS anchor Dan Rather will speak at a $200-a-person fundraising event for the hard-left Nation magazine in New York on September 23. The Nation’s website advertises: "Meet Dan Rather, Jane Mayer, Marcy Wheeler, and Katrina Vanden Heuvel and Help Save The Nation." The panel’s discussion topic? "What Will Become of the News?...A conversation on the future of news."

Let's guess the verdict will be it's too corporate and conservative.

COMMENT:  The Nation is often wrongly described as "liberal."  It's not.  It's hard left.  The New Republic is liberal.  After 9-11 The Nation went into action against the war on terror, with one of its star leftist writers, Katha Pollitt, writing how horrified she was that her own son wanted to display an American flag.

It was in The Nation that Marxist professor Eric Foner wondered which was worse, the attacks of 9-11 or the defiant rhetoric coming out of the White House.  Maybe someone should have explained it to him.

The other names mentioned, besides Rather, are dependable leftists.  It's sad to see Rather lend his name to this event.  But maybe we shouldn't be too surprised.

August 30, 2009   Permalink

THE RECOVERY - AT 10:05 A.M. ET:  We all know that California, whose economy is larger than that of many countries, is in desperate economic trouble.  It's currently holding a garage sale, hoping to sell items owned by the state government to help pay debts.

But what about the other golden state, Florida?  Well, actually they call this one the sunshine state.  It seems there's not much sunshine:

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — The smiling couple barreling ahead on the cover of Liberty magazine in 1926 knew exactly where to go. “Florida or Bust,” said the white paint on the car doors. “Four wheels, no brakes.”

So it has been for a century, as Florida welcomed thousands of newcomers every week, year after year, becoming the nation’s fourth-most-populous state with about 16 million people in 2000.

Imagine the shock, then, to discover that traffic is now heading the other way. That’s right, the Sunshine State is shrinking.

And...

“It’s dramatic,” said Stanley K. Smith, an economics professor at the University of Florida who compiled the report. “You have a state that was booming and has been a leader in population growth for the last 100 years that suddenly has seen a substantial shift.”

Florida is losing population, a rarity for a state that depends on population growth for its businesses and state government to survive.  It has become a political powerhouse entirely because of in-migration.  It ranks fourth in population, with more than 18 million people.

When California and Florida are in trouble, the nation is in trouble, no matter what happens in the fantasy world of Wall Street.

Florida is a state filled with retirees.  If Obamacare passes, that can be another blow to the elderly.  Not a happy time down there.

Welcome to the recovery.

August 30, 2009   Permalink

POLL STUNNER - AT 9:51 A.M. ET:  After four days of some stabilizing and slight improvement, the president's poll numbers are slipping again in the Rasmussen survey.

Only 47% approve of Mr. Obama's performance, whereas 52% disapprove. 

And in Ras's presidential approval index, measuring the gap between those who strongly approve and those who strongly disapprove, Mr. Obama registers a minus 10, 32% to 42%.

The strong disapproval is the worst showing in that category for the president since inauguration.

August 30, 2009   Permalink

YES THEY CAN? - AT 9:45 A.M. ET:  In another story that's slipped in under the August radar, Japan has voted, and change is coming.  From The New York Times:

TOKYO — For only the second time in postwar history, Japanese voters appeared ready to cast out the long-governing Liberal Democratic Party in elections on Sunday, handing an apparent landslide victory to an untested opposition that must tackle severe economic problems and point Japan in a new direction.

In early counting on Sunday night, voters were flocking to the main opposition Democratic Party, a broad coalition of former socialists and ruling party defectors who promised to ease Japan’s growing social inequalities and reduce its traditional dependency on Washington.

COMMENT:  Same old, same old.  These old socialists come into power promising everything, and then they realize they have to govern.  As far as dependency on Washington goes, it's hard to see how a depression-wracked Japan can reduce that.  After all, what can North Korea do for them?

The White House will be pleased, as another untested group of amateurs is coming to power.  Misery loves company.

August 30, 2009   Permalink