SUBSCRIPTION DRIVE - WARNING LIGHTS!

HELP.

After several promising days, our critical subscription drive has gone quiet.  Subscriptions are the lifeblood of URGENT AGENDA. 

Our regular subscribers have come through.  Their devotion is deeply appreciated.  But we need more NEW subscribers.  If we don't double our subscription base, we'll be in trouble, and service may have to be cut back.

We want to keep Urgent Agenda as a daily, high-quality site. 

So, if you intend to subscribe, please do so today.  If you're on the fence, give it a shot.  The weekly cost is less than a candy bar.   Pro-rated money-back guarantee. 

By subscribing or donating, you keep Urgent Agenda alive, and you get our twice-weekly e-mailed publication, The Angel's Corner, where you can participate in our great forum, and learn of our latest Pompous Fool Award, almost as coveted as the Nobel Peace Prize, and with the same low standards.

Please subscribe or donate in the right-hand column.  You're not really getting Urgent Agenda unless you do.  A credit card works.  Or, we can send you a mail address.

And a special thanks to readers who are sending holiday gift subscriptions.  It's a great gift, and it spreads the word.

WEDNESDAY,  NOVEMBER 11,  2009

OBAMA REALLY NEEDS THIS - AT 11:46 P.M. ET:  Looks like Barney Frank feels "empowered," and his empowerment can give the White House another headache:

Repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” will likely be included as part of next year’s Department of Defense authorization bill in both chambers of Congress, Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said Wednesday.

“Military issues are always done as part of the overall authorization bill,” Frank said, insisting that this has been the strategy for overturning the policy all along. “'Don’t ask, don’t tell' was always going to be part of the military authorization.”

Frank said he has been in direct communication with the White House, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, and other Congressional leaders about the strategy for ending the 1993 ban on gays serving openly in the military.

Though some moderate Democrats have recently expressed concern about repealing the policy during a midterm election year, Frank said resolve at the White House has never wavered. “The Administration is totally committed to this and has been from the beginning,” he said.

COMMENT:   Right in the middle of an election year?  I won't get into the merits or lack of merits of the policy here.  It's part of a complex discussion regarding rights versus privileges. 

But there is an image here of liberal Democrats, most from the California and Massachusetts delegations, who want to ram through every personal wish.  We saw it in the health "reform" bill.  An issue like this should first be sent to a blue-ribbon commission for study.  To Frank, it's just another notch in the pistol.

November 11, 2009   Permalink

WELL, THIS IS WEIRD - AT 10:40 P.M. ET:  Fox News is reporting a strange twist in President Obama's Afghan adventures:

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

That stance comes in the midst of forceful reservations about a possible troop buildup from the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, according to a second top administration official.

In strongly worded classified cables to Washington, Eikenberry said he had misgivings about sending in new troops while there are still so many questions about the leadership of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Obama is still close to announcing his revamped war strategy — most likely shortly after he returns from a trip to Asia that ends on Nov. 19.

But the president raised questions at a war council meeting Wednesday that could alter the dynamic of both how many additional troops are sent to Afghanistan and what the timeline would be for their presence in the war zone, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Obama's thinking.

COMMENT:  It's impossible to judge a story like this because we can't verify the details.  If true, it reflects a looseness in the decision-making structure that is more than alarming.  These elements, like the effectiveness of the Afghan regime, are not new.  They are not headlines.  They should have been cranked into our strategy, what there is of it, months ago.

Put yourself in the position of an American soldier in the field.  What would you be thinking right now?  Put yourself in the position of the regime in Tehran.  How tough do you think the American enemy is?

November 11, 2009   Permalink

THE GREAT MINDS DECIDE - AT 6:02 P.M. ET:  Reader Greg Koster alerts us to a new list provided by Newsweek - the worst tactical blunders of the last ten years.

I guess this took about ten minutes to compile, sometime after a meeting in which Newsweek contemplated its grim future.  Among the brilliant choices are President Bush's Katrina flyover; John Kerry allowing himself to be "swiftboated"; the debaathification of Iraq; President Bush's "mission accomplished" statement; the SEC not detecting the crimes of Bernie Madoff; Alan Greenspan's interest-rate policy; Israel's 2006 invasion of Lebanon; the Time-Warner/AOL merger; GM's SUV mistake; McCain suspending his campaign after the financial collapse of 2008.

Notice a trend there?  Kind of a left-wing list, isn't it?

Missing are such minor items as the 2007 intelligence estimate saying Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program; the Democratic opposition to the surge in Iraq, which turned out spectacularly well; Obama's misreading the 2008 election results and plunging in popularity; Obama's failure to vet radicals who then were offered posts in his administration; and the blunders by most news outlets in not learning why they're losing readers and viewers, and why Fox is gaining.

Newsweek is in sharp decline.  Now you see why.

November 11, 2009   Permalink

THE TRUTH ABOUT HATE CRIMES - AT 5:59 P.M. ET:  Reader Jacqueline Reckseit refers us to a collection of excellent material disproving the myth that Muslims in America face an onslaught.

The FBI compiles hate-crime statistics each year.  The latest year for which there are numbers is 2007.  Here is the FBI report.  Doesn't exactly paint a picture of a country drowning in anti-Muslim hysteria:

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias decreased overall in 2007 but still accounted for roughly 18 percent of total hate crimes, according to new statistics from the FBI.

In its 2007 Hate Crime Statistics report, the Federal Bureau of Investigation documented 1,477 offenses that were directed against a person's religion, down from 1,597 offenses in 2006.

More than a third of all hate crimes in 2007 were categorized as vandalism or property destruction.

Of all religious hate crimes in 2007, hate crimes directed at Catholics constituted 4 percent, down from 5 percent in 2006. The report also showed religiously based hate crime statistics for Protestants (4 percent), other religions (9.5 percent), followers of multiple religions (4.3 percent), and Atheists/Agnostics (0.4 percent).

Hate crimes against Jews were up with Jews accounting for 68.4 percent of religiously based hate crimes in 2007, more than four points higher than the 64.3 in 2006.

Hate crimes for Muslims, meanwhile, declined. Muslims accounted for 9 percent of all hate crimes motivated by religious bias in 2007, down from 12 to percent the previous year.  (Emphasis added by Urgent Agenda.)

COMMENT:  No nation, facing the attacks we faced on 9-11, has ever responded with such sanity.  There was no mob rule.  There were no mass attacks against Muslims, even Muslims associated with radical mosques.  We did not round up anyone who read the Koran.

In 2007, nine percent of hate crimes were directed against Muslims.  And nine percent of hate crimes were directed against Protestants and Catholics combined. 

And yet, some in the American elite tell us we're a hate-filled country and warn that we must control ourselves after Fort Hood.  They don't know America.  They don't want to.

November 11, 2009   Permalink

GOP SOARS IN GALLUP POLL - AT 5:25 P.M. ET:  Voters are apparently delivering their verdict on the Democratic performance in Congress, as Gallup reports:

PRINCETON, NJ -- Republicans have moved ahead of Democrats by 48% to 44% among registered voters in the latest update on Gallup's generic congressional ballot for the 2010 House elections, after trailing by six points in July and two points last month.

The Nov. 5-8 update comes just after Republican victories in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial elections, which saw Republicans replace Democrats as governors of those states.

As was the case in last Tuesday's gubernatorial elections, independents are helping the Republicans' cause. In the latest poll, independent registered voters favor the Republican candidate by 52% to 30%. Both parties maintain similar loyalty from their bases, with 91% of Democratic registered voters preferring the Democratic candidate and 93% of Republican voters preferring the Republican.

COMMENT:  Once again the independents make the difference.  Republicans must concentrate their firepower on these independents, who clearly do not like what they see in Democratic rule.  That means that the GOP cannot appeal only to its base.  A base never wins an election unless it is reinforced by an army of independents.  The road map is clear.

November 11, 2009   Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY - AT 9:27 A.M. ET:  From Michael Barone, commenting on the Obama administration's reaction to Fort Hood:

Islamist terrorists despise our tolerance and freedom and work to inflict as much damage as they can on Western society.

But Barack Obama and his administration, eager to placate our enemies and ever ready to disrespect our friends, tend to downplay this threat. The president has been mulling his course on Afghanistan and declaring his slavish respect for the mullah regime in Iran.

In response to Major Nidal Hassan's mass murders at Fort Hood, Obama and top officials -- General George Casey and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano -- seem less worried about whether military and civilian officials ignored clear signs that this man was an Islamist terrorist and more worried about whether ordinary Americans might indiscriminately stage mass attacks on Muslims.

This carries our virtue of tolerance to a ridiculous extreme and makes our system of laws, in Justice Robert Jackson's words, “a suicide pact.” If our enemies today seem less formidable than our enemies before 1989, they are nonetheless dangerous. If the process of distinguishing Islamist terrorists from ordinary Muslims is difficult, so was the process of distinguishing Communists from social democrats.

Our earlier leaders had faith in the ability of ordinary Americans to make such distinctions and to behave tolerantly even while aggressively fighting evildoers. And they had confidence, even in that Short Twentieth Century, of the basic goodness of our system. Does Obama have that faith and that confidence?

COMMENT:  The answer, I think, is that Obama and his crowd have little faith in the American people because the American people scare them.  They're frightened of any American who does not share their special background, or have equivalent College Board scores.  That fear, of course, does not extend to foreign peoples, who enjoy special status because of their exotic "cultures."

Barone nails it.

November 11, 2009    Permalink

 
A COMMENT ON THE WORTH OF THINGS - AT 9:07 A.M. ET:   Our friend, Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, sent along this gem, which I had to pass on to you.  Ah, yes, some things decline in value:

I don't know where the sign is, but it isn't Oslo.

November 11, 2009   Permalink

BITING OFF MORE... - AT 8:52 A.M. ET:  Reader John McDaniel alerts us to this piece by the invaluable John Stossel, analyzing the health-care monstrosity now before Congress.  It's incredible to realize that it got this far: 

As an American, I am embarrassed that the U.S. House of Representatives has 220 members who actually believe the government can successfully centrally plan the medical and insurance industries.

I'm embarrassed that my representatives think that government can subsidize the consumption of medical care without increasing the budget deficit or interfering with free choice.

It's a triumph of mindless wishful thinking over logic and experience.

And...

Competition is a "discovery procedure," Nobel-prize-winning economist F. A. Hayek taught. Through the competitive market process, we producers and consumers constantly learn things that force us to adjust our behavior if we are to succeed. Central planners fail for two reasons:

First, knowledge about supply, demand, individual preferences and resource availability is scattered -- much of it never articulated -- throughout society. It is not concentrated in a database where a group of planners can access it.

Second, this "data" is dynamic: It changes without notice.

And...

Proponents of so-called reform -- it's not really reform unless it makes things better -- have shamefully avoided criticism of their proposals. Often they just dismiss their opponents as greedy corporate apologists or paranoid right-wing loonies. That's easier than answering questions like these:  How can the government subsidize the purchase of medical services without driving up prices?  How can the government promise lower medical costs without restricting choices?  How does government "create choice" by imposing uniformity on insurers? Uniformity limits choice. How does it "create choice" by making insurance companies compete against a privileged government-sponsored program?

These questions will not be answered, not only because those in power don't want to answer them, but because they don't care about the answers.  Their goal is single-payer socialized medicine, the same kind of system they saw during their junior year abroad - and which treated their sniffles and writer's cramp.

Finally:

Many people are priced out of the medical and insurance markets for one reason: the politicians' refusal to give up power. Allowing them to seize another 16 percent of the economy won't solve our problems.

Freedom will.

Tell that to Nancy Pelosi, who represents the People's Republic of San Francisco.

November 11, 2009   Permalink

TODAY - AT 8:20 A.M. ET:  Today is Veterans Day.  Those of us of a certain age understand what it means.  Young people, given our educational system, may not have heard of it at all.

The day has special poignancy because of the events at Fort Hood.  And the day has been dishonored, even by some within the military, in attempts to cover up what happened there, or twist it to avoid truths that violate the sacred rules of political correctness.

In recent days the Obama administration has done its usual honoring of the military by starting rumors about military attempts to influence White House policy.  Britain's Telegraph, with one of the best ears to the ground in Washington, reports: 

Aides to Barack Obama have complained that the Pentagon is trying to force the president into committing large numbers of reinforcements to Afghanistan through leaks to the media.

This administration is the most thin-skinned I've ever seen.

Tensions between the White House and senior members of the US armed forces are rising over the toughest decision the president has faced in his first year. Senior military officials and Republicans have accused him of dithering over the troop request from Gen Stanley McChrystal, the US and NATO commander in Afghanistan.

McClatchy Newspapers and CBS News have reported that the president is set to announce between 34,000 and 40,000 extra US soldiers, numbers that would be at the upper end of Gen McChrystal's expectations.

The reports said he would commit three combat brigades as part of the buildup over the next 12 months, as well support troops, and an additional contingent for training Afghan security forces to combat the Taliban.

Two senior administration officials told CNN that they believed the information was being leaked by Pentagon sources trying to box in the president.

"People at the Pentagon are trying to force a certain outcome," said one official.

Boy, is that ever unusual - the Pentagon having an opinion.  Happens every week.  Politicians from the Chicago machine may not understand.

Our troops have been hung out to dry for months while the president "makes a decision" on what he's called the necessary war.

But there will be the usual platitudes on Veterans Day. 

November 11, 2009   Permalink

OBAMA SLIPS IN AP POLL - AT 8:12 A.M. ET:  The AP poll just out shows Obama declining.  AP polls still tend to show higher numbers for the president than the Rasmussen survey, but the trend is clear.  From The Politico:

A new AP-GfK poll shows that Americans are more pessimistic about the direction of the country than they were just a month ago, with President Obama’s approval ratings dropping.

Obama’s approval rating was at 54 percent in the poll, about the same as in October but down from a high of 74 percent last January. Fifty-six percent say the country is heading in the wrong direction, up from 51 percent who said so last month.

Forty-six percent said they approve of the way Obama is handling the economy, the number one issue on people’s minds according to the poll, down from 50 percent who approved in the previous poll.

On Iraq, 45 percent now say they disapprove of his handling of that war while 48 percent say they disapprove of the way he’s handling Afghanistan – both increases from a month ago. And 54 percent now say they oppose sending more troops to Afghanistan, compared to 50 percent who said that in October.

COMMENT:  There is nothing on the horizon to improve these numbers.  The passage of a health reform bill may well do more damage than good to Mr. Obama's standing, because the public, in other polls, has rejected the legislation currently before Congress.

A little leadership on foreign and defense policy would help.  But that's not where Obama's instincts are.

November 11,  2009   Permalink

TUESDAY,  NOVEMBER 10,  2009

DISGRACEFUL, EMBARRASSING - AT 7:22 P.M. ET:  We noted that President Obama didn't see fit to attend yesterday's ceremonies marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  He did send a tape, apparently, unlike the DVDs he gave British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, playable in European machines.  They played it.

What was shocking though, was the absence of any reference to President Reagan.  And..there were no references to John Paul II or Margaret Thatcher, who were instrumental in bringing freedom to Eastern Europe.  From what I see on the internet, there was only a brief mention of President Kennedy, who made defense of Berlin a hallmark of American policy.  And there was no mention of Harry Truman, who ordered the Berlin Airlift, which kept West Berlin free in 1948. 

Who got the highest honors yesterday?

Incredibly, it was Mikhail Gorbachev. 

It was the finale to a day of memorial services, speeches and events that attracted leaders from around the world, including former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Merkel and 78-year-old Gorbachev stood shoulder to shoulder as they crossed a former fortified border crossing point between East and West Berlin to cheers of "Gorby! Gorby!"

In the twisted logic of Europe, he was responsible for the wall coming down because he didn't order his forces to resist.  Gee, what a concept.  I guess the Japanese were responsible for ending World War II because they didn't shoot at MacArthur when his four-engine transport landed on their soil.

It was up to the United States Government to be sure that three former presidents, instrumental in saving Berlin, were properly honored.  The job wasn't done.

Scott Johnson, at Power Line, comments:

Both Secretary Clinton and President Obama emphasized Obama's world-historic story. Clinton likens Obama's election to the fall of the Wall. Obama draws the moral of the story. "Few would have foreseen ... that a united Germany would be led by a woman from Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent. But human destiny is what human beings make of it."

Obama's brief remarks are an exercise in bowdlerization, circumlocution, evasion. Omitted from the remarks, among other things, is any mention of the Soviet Union or Communism, Harry Truman or Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher or Pope John Paul. Obama neither decries the villains nor salutes the heroes of the story. Rather, Obama celebrates himself. He is an agent of destiny. He is the fulfillment of history.

COMMENT:  Class shows, as does the lack of it.

November 10, 2009   Permalink

SECOND QUOTE OF THE DAY - AT 6:18 P.M. ET:  This one from Cal Thomas, again reflecting the murders at Fort Hood, and what self-deception is costing us:

It’s one thing to be suckered by others. It’s quite another to sucker yourself.

How much longer will we tolerate fighting this war as if it were a minor crime wave? Our enemies are fighting to win and they are fighting everywhere, including within our borders. People trained to appear nonthreatening, until the threat becomes obvious and it is too late to do anything about it, are infiltrating our government and society at every level.

It is irrelevant that some have put the number of radicalized Muslims worldwide at 10 percent. Even if that figure is accurate, one hundred million jihadists can cause a lot of damage, as they plot the destruction of Western democracies. Other wars have been won with far fewer soldiers and far fewer dupes.

COMMENT:  One of my mentors, the late Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois - the oldest man (at 50) ever to go through Marine basic training at Parris Island - loved the familiar quote, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."'

Shame on us for allowing political correctness to paralyze so many of our institutions.

November 10, 2009   Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY - AT 6:04 P.M. ET:  From Wesley Pruden of the Washington Times, commenting on the political correctness that infects the United States Government:

The intimidation of so much of the government becomes total, so great is the fear of being accused of hurting the feelings of evildoers. Winston Churchill got it right in the run-up to World War II, when good people couldn't bear to look evil in the face. "The malice of the wicked," he said, "is reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous."

Indeed.

November 10, 2009   Permalink

ABORTION A KEY ISSUE IN SENATE HEALTH-CARE DEBATE - AT 5:53 P.M. ET:   The upcoming debate over health-care "reform" in the Senate promises to be bitter, with no result guaranteed.  You need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster in the Senate, and the Dems may not have the votes, now or at any time.

Abortion is shaping up to be a key issue for some senators:

A key Democratic senator said Tuesday that he won't vote for an overhaul of the health care system if the bill does not clearly restrict federal funding for ending pregnancies.

The comments from Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska were a sign that the abortion dispute that nearly derailed the House health care bill will play a critical role in the Senate.

Nelson told Fox News that he's "very pleased that the Stupak amendment passed in the House," a reference to a proposal by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., that would toughen restrictions on federal funding for abortions.

COMMENT:  And there are some Democrats in the House who are threatening to vote against the final version of the bill, if it ever emerges from a Senate-House conference, unless funding for abortion is included.

We were given the impression, last weekend, that socialized medicine was just around the corner, and some members of the intellectual establishment were walking on air and waving their little red books.  It may have been hot air.  This bill has a long way to go.

November 10, 2009   Permalink

DEFINITIVE ANSWER - AT 5:32 P.M. ET:  We now have a definitive answer as to what caused the Fort Hood massacre.  The answer comes from that well-known philosopher and expert in violence prevention, Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago.  We appreciate the mayor coming forward and finally settling this.  His answer - please takes notes - is that it was all caused by guns.  From Big Government:

“Unfortunately, America loves Guns. We love guns to a point where that uh we see devastation on a daily basis. You don’t blame a group.” 

The Mayor is using a straw-man argument that conveniently provides him with an opportunity to politicize the terrorist attack as part and parcel with America’s love of guns.

Mayor Daley, and other politicians, like to blame gun violence on the guns themselves because that is so much easier than admitting any inconvenient (politically incorrect) truths which might be revealed if they were to place blame where it belongs.

There are many, many people who'd like to sweep Fort Hood under a big rug, the way they have swept the whole idea of global jihad under the rug.  It doesn't fit the party line, it doesn't fit the trendiness of multiculturalism.  It doesn't fit the world of the sixties crowd that now runs many of our institutions.  It's just too much of a pain.

November 10, 2009   Permalink

MOST STILL OPPOSE HEALTH PLAN - AT 10:05 A.M. ET:  Despite House passage of the health-reform bill, with its promise of eternal life and free Alka-Seltzer, most Americans still oppose the plan, according to Scott Rasmussen:

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 45% now favor the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. Most (52%) remain opposed.

Only 25% Strongly Support the plan while 42% are Strongly Opposed.

Support for the plan has remained essentially unchanged for months. Last week, it was supported by 42% and two weeks ago support was at 45%. It has generally stayed between 41% and 46% since July, and support has bounced above that level only in the wake of nationally televised appeals by the president.

As has been the case for months, Democrats favor the plan while Republicans and voters not affiliated with either major party are opposed. The latest numbers show support from 81% of those in the president’s party. The plan is opposed by 90% of Republicans and 58% of unaffiliated voters.

COMMENT:  The key figure, as it was in last week's gubernatorial races, is the number of independents who stand opposed - 58%.  Obama and the Dems are losing the independents.  Without them, Democrats face disaster in next year's midterms.  Oh, how I weep.

November 10, 2009   Permalink

GLOBAL WARMING WATCH - WE ARE MELTING, WE ARE MELTING - AT 9:39 A.M. ET:  Well, maybe not.  Apparently, October was the third coldest October on record.  From NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: 

The average October temperature of 50.8°F was 4.0°F below the 20th Century average and ranked as the 3rd coolest based on preliminary data.

For the nation as a whole, it was the third coolest October on record. The month was marked by an active weather pattern that reinforced unseasonably cold air behind a series of cold fronts. Temperatures were below normal in eight of the nation's nine climate regions, and of the nine, five were much below normal. Only the Southeast climate region had near normal temperatures for October.

COMMENT:  Al Gore is rushing to Washington to challenge the statistics.  He has learned that one of the scientists compiling the data is known to frequent a service station that sells gasoline from a major oil company.  Corruption.  That's what it is.  Corruption.  We're melting.  Feel the heat...or, imagine it.  Or maybe just think warm.

November 10, 2009   Permalink

MORE CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN - AT 9:20 A.M.:   Still one more ethical issue confronting the transparent, idealistic, departure-from-past-practices Obama administration.  From the Washington Times:

President Obama's nominee for a top weapons-buying job at the Pentagon recently served as a paid adviser for a big defense contractor and is declining to disclose whom else he has worked for on a government ethics form designed to help the public guard against potential conflicts of interest.

Frank Kendall III, Mr. Obama's pick for principal deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, received $75,000 in consulting fees last year from defense contractor SAIC Inc., according to his recently filed disclosure form. He also reported fees totaling $8,500 from Centra Technology, another defense contractor.

But he's declined to name six other recent private clients, which were alluded to in the disclosure form but not identified. Federal ethics rules allow nominees to keep clients' identities private in limited circumstances. But ethics analysts say the omission raises questions about whether any of the undisclosed clients are also military contractors.

Yeah, I'd wonder about that, wouldn't you?

"It kind of raises a red flag as far as the Obama administration's efforts to keep contractors out of the Department of Defense," Scott Amey, general counsel to the nonpartisan watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, said of Mr. Kendall's defense consulting work.

Yuh think?

This nomination should be withdrawn unless the nominee is more cooperative.  We're talking billions of taxpayer dollars here.  Don't hold your breath.

November 10, 2009   Permalink

AND IN ANOTHER CASE - AT 8:27 A.M.:  The beltway killer, who terrorized the Washington, D.C. area, is scheduled to be executed this evening.  The Washington Post reports:

If attorney Jon Sheldon's final plea to save the life of John Allen Muhammad fails, he will go to Virginia's death chamber Tuesday night to watch the sniper die.

Most of those who will gather at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt readily see the execution as just punishment for the man who masterminded a wave of random shootings that left 10 people dead and terrorized the Washington region for more than three weeks in October 2002.

COMMENT:  I am not indifferent to the moral concerns regarding the death penalty.  The questions involving the state putting an individual to death are profound. 

That having been said, this is another case where we were not permitted to ask questions.  Why would a man named "Muhammad" do this?  Why would he engage in mass murder?  I am not suggesting that I know the answer, or have any private information, but surely we were due a more thorough investigation of the influences over him.   Just "catching the guy" and his accomplice was not enough.

In no way does this cast aspersions on any other Muslims.  Indeed, Muhammad's victims were chosen at random, and some could easily have been Muslims.  But questions should have been raised.  If a member of the Ku Klux Klan, which misuses Christian symbols, had done this, you would have seen whole newspaper series devoted to the ideology of the Klan.  But here, silence.  Once again.

Maybe Fort Hood will wake us up to the fact that the people do in fact have a right to know the extent to which a great religious tradition is compromised by a hateful ideology.

November 10,  2009   Permalink

OBAMA TO FORT HOOD - AT 8:02 A.M. ET:  The president goes to a memorial service at Fort Hood today.  We assume he'll make a few remarks. 

Let us hope that Obama can control his instinct for pontificating.  Let us hope that he remembers who the real victims of the massacre are.  They are the dead and wounded and their families.  They are not those whose feelings might be hurt by some tough questions.

Obama, whose bizarre behavior after the shootings is now a matter of record, should be seeking redemption.  Let's see if he knows how.

Bill Kristol, in the Weekly Standard, tracing the administration's constant missteps concerning Fort Hood, comes to a conclusion that puts additional pressure on the man who presumes to be the commander in chief: 

It was too much to hope, I suppose, that Army Chief of Staff George Casey, appearing on the Sunday talk shows, would signal a re-thinking of the regime of political correctness that seems to have penetrated the Army. It was disappointing that he reinforced that regime with his silly—and offensive—remarks about not letting “diversity” be a further casualty of the events at Ft. Hood, and his warning against a backlash directed at Muslim soldiers. A little more concern for the real casualties of jihadism, and a little less finger-wagging about a hypothetical backlash, would have been nice. As it was, Casey’s remarks merely reinforced the sense that the Army has a political correctness problem...

...Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, in Abu Dhabi, said something very similar to what Casey had to say the same day. So there was clearly administration coordination from high-up at the White House with respect to the diversity/backlash message.

That’s fine. Administrations are entitled to coordinate messages coming from different cabinet agencies. But let’s be clear: The diversity/backlash message is President Obama’s, not merely that of General Casey or Secretary Napolitano.

Your turn, Mr. President.  Don't blow it.

November 10,  2009   Permalink