WEDNESDAY,  OCTOBER 14,  2009

SARAH ON THE GO - AT 7:58 P.M. ET:  Next month will be Sarah Palin month.  Her book comes out, she'll be the rage of talk shows and the object of automatic ridicule.  She could write "Hamlet" and be laughed it.  (You can just hear Chris Matthews ridiculing a play about a Danish prince.  No tingle up his leg.)

Now the former governor is launching a political group, as The Wall Street Journal reports:

Sarah Palin fans can expect to see a new Palin political organization surface as her memoir, “Going Rogue: An American Life,” hits the shelves next month.

“There will be an announcement about it coming up,” Palin associate Tim Crawford said Wednesday.

The New York Post reported this week that Palin’s new group will be called “Stand Up For Our Nation.” (News Corp. owns both the Post and The Wall Street Journal as well as HarperCollins Publishers, publisher of Palin’s book.) Crawford, who is treasurer of Palin’s existing political-action committee, SarahPAC, refused to provide any details about the new organization’s purpose or structure.

But Palin supporters say the former Alaska governor and last year’s GOP vice presidential nominee is eager to keep the public’s attention, even as she rakes in big earnings. “She wants to continue to be in a position to help causes dear to her heart and help people close to her,” said Fred Malek, a former fund-raiser for Sen. John McCain.

COMMENT:  I hope that Palin is spending a good chunk of time learning the details of the major issues.  You can be sure the usual suspects will be out in force next month, trying to trip her up.  If she beats them, we'll be cheering.  But she's got to beat them.

October 14, 2009   Permalink

THE TOP MAN SPEAKS - AT 6:39 P.M. ET:  Putin is the guy to see in Russia, not those other guys with Russian names.  And Putin spoke today, but not to our secretary of state.  The great Ed Lasky of American Thinker refers us to this:

BEIJING (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned major powers on Wednesday against intimidating Iran and said talk of sanctions against the Islamic Republic over its nuclear programme was "premature".

Putin, who many diplomats, analysts, and Russian citizens believe is still Russia's paramount leader despite stepping down as president last year, was speaking after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Moscow for two days of talks.

"There is no need to frighten the Iranians," Putin told reporters in Beijing after a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

Hillary has been in Moscow, no doubt enjoying the sights, but nothing else:

Clinton failed to secure any specific assurances from Russia on Iran during her visit, leaving her open to criticism at home that she had not received anything from Moscow after earlier U.S. concessions on missile defence.

You think?  The left wing of her party probably believes she didn't make enough concessions.

And get this.

Clinton said she would have liked to have seen Putin but that their agendas did not coincide.

Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic.  The secretary of state, and former first lady, gets snubbed by an old KGB guy after we withdraw missile defense from Eastern Europe, as a gesture toward the Russians.

Shows you what a little appeasement can get.

Obama, and messenger girl Clinton, will not bring us peace in our time, any more than the British chap did in 1938.

October 14, 2009   Permalink

THE PARTY OF THE PEOPLE - YEAH, RIGHT - AT 6:23 P.M. ET:  If you didn't think the Democratic Party now represents the chattering classes, think again.  From USA Today:

Democratic members of the House of Representatives now represent most of the nation's wealthiest people, a sharp turnaround from the long-standing dominance that Republicans have held over affluent districts.
A USA TODAY analysis of new Census data found that Democrats represent a far different constituency today than they did in 2005, when they were the minority in the House, or in 1990, when they were the majority.

The Democratic-controlled House is now an unusual combination of the richest and poorest districts, the best and least educated, and the best and the worst insured. The analysis found that Democrats have attracted educated, affluent whites who had tended previously to vote Republican.

The key word is "educated," darlings.  These are the "good" people, those who understand the higher things and the higher thoughts.

Democrats now represent 57% of the 4.8 million households that had incomes of $200,000 or more in 2008. In 2005, Republicans represented 55% of those affluent households.

"Democrats have made enormous gains in affluent, educated suburban districts," says Warren Glimpse, founder of Proximity, a firm that analyzes demographics. "What's not clear is whether this reflects a profound change or a temporary blip."

I worry about it.  There's an old saying that there are people of enormous wealth who'd give everything just to walk down a commencement aisle with a $50,000-a-year professor.  I'm afraid we're seeing that effect here.  We have a generation of affluent college graduates who were "educated" by the intellectual leftovers of the 1960s, and they were influenced.  This is where they think the prestige is.  This is where "goodness" is.

I wonder if these new, affluent Dems ever rub shoulders with the very people they think they're helping, the working stiffs.  Not a chance. 

About five years ago I tried to place a true story in Hollywood about a New York firefighter family and its tragic date with the 9-11 attacks.  One Hollywood guy angrily turned it down, shouting, "These are the people who elected BUSH!"  I am not kidding.  You can be sure he's one of the new, affluent liberals. 

And so we see changes in American politics.  We are in a period of illusion,.

October 14, 2009   Permalink

OH GOOD, OH GOOD, THEY'RE FIGHTING IN THE PLAYPEN - AT 5:44 P.M. ET:  The liberal troops - that contradiction in terms - are getting restless.  Why, it's disgraceful, this number of months into the reign of Barack the Wise - doctors can still treat patients without government approval, "Don't ask, don't tell" still exists, Fox News is still on the air, Huge Chavez hasn't received a state dinner.  What kind of president is this?  Probably one of them leftists in name only, a Rupert Murdoch plant.  Fox News (I told you) reports:

In recent weeks, President Obama has faced increasingly sharp criticism of his style and performance from an unlikely quarter: liberals.

Liberal commentators from Saturday Night Live comedians to newspaper columnists to leftist bloggers to gay rights activists have been portraying Obama as a do-nothing president and "whiner-in-chief," expressing a growing concern that the commander in chief is not showing enough spine.

He's not lefty enough?

Critics on the left are growing impatient with Obama and pressuring him to reject a request from his chief military commander for more troops in Afghanistan, to include a government-run insurance option in his health insurance reform plan and to lift the don't-ask-don't-tell policy concerning gays in the military.

Wait, we haven't gotten to the part where they put Rush in jail.

On Sunday thousands of gay rights activists marched from the White House to the Capitol, demanding that Obama keep his promise to work to end discrimination against gays and lesbians.

"This president has done something pretty extraordinary," said Michael Gerson, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former senior adviser to the Bush administration.

"He's managed to convince a lot of Americans that he's more liberal than he thought he was, at the same time he's disappointed his liberal base," he told FOX News. "That's an accomplishment of sorts."

Well, we knew he was an accomplishment sort of guy. 

But the left complaineth too much.  Just wait for Obama to cave completely to North Korea, Iran, and old favorite, Russia.  Ah, that'll be the day.  All those flowered jeans, celebrating.

October 14, 2009   Permalink

STILL A TOUGH ROAD - AT 10:02 A.M. ET:  Rasmussen reports this morning that Republicans still hold a slight edge in the generic congressional ballot, but have slipped at bit:

Support for Republican congressional candidates dipped slightly this week in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot.

The new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 41% would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate while 39% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent.

Support for Democrats remains unchanged this week, while support for the GOP dropped two points.

Work to be done, obviously.  But here's the very good news:

Voters not affiliated with either party heavily favor the GOP, 41% to 24%.

Independents have been moving in our direction.  But we have to keep them moving, and keep our side motivated.  The generic survey is very close, and ACORN will undoubtedly "find" some liberal votes in next year's midterms, their greatest area of excellence.

October 14, 2009   Permalink

WELL, AT LEAST SHE MENTIONS HUMAN RIGHTS - AT 9:01 A.M. ET:  After having been rebuffed by Russian leaders on Iran, Hillary Clinton fell back to Plan B, talking to kids about human rights and giving an Obama-style apology.  From The New York Times:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Russia on Wednesday to uphold human rights, voicing concern at recent attacks on activists and reporters willing to challenge the Kremlin.

On the second day of her Moscow visit, at the end of a European tour, Clinton told an audience of students that Russia must defend freedom.

"People must be free to take unpopular positions, disagree with conventional wisdom, know they are safe to peacefully challenge accepted practice and authority," she said during a question and answer session at Moscow State University.

(Gee, I wonder if Obama agrees with that.)

When you see the phrase "an audience of students," you know it's boilerplate.  In liberal circles there's a certain mystique about "an audience of students."  They're safe, they're generally to the left, they don't do much.

You can be sure that Clinton didn't give that lecture to the people in power.

And here comes the musical tribute to Barack Obama:

"We have people in our government and you have people in your government who are still living in the past," Clinton said.

"They do not believe that the United States and Russia can cooperate to this extent. They do not trust each other. And we have to prove them wrong. That is our goal. Our goal is to be as cooperative as we can."

Oh, please.  People living in the past?  In the Obama government?  Who are these people?  The only past they're living in is the 1960s.

So she wants to be "as cooperative as we can."  That's nice.  I'm sure the residents of the Kremlin are already looking around for concessions they can make in response to our niceness.  Maybe some extra caviar at Hillary's next Moscow lunch. 

I prefer Reagan's "trust but verify." 

We're making no significant headway with the Russians, or, for that matter, with the Iranians, North Koreans and Venezuelans.  But I guess it's living in the past to say so.

October 14, 2009   Permalink

DOES ANYONE THINK THEY'LL LISTEN? - AT 8:38 A.M.  ET:  The sheer spin surrounding yesterday's passage of health-care "reform" by the Senate Finance Committee may require medical attention.  Even journalists who have respectable reputations are starting to buckle and get with the hysteria.  From The Politico:

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) staked a powerful claim Tuesday that his health care bill is about as far as his party is willing to go in turning the president’s vision of reform into reality.

And it was a Republican — Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine — who helped him stand up to his party’s liberals.

Oh, come on.   Liberals fold because Olympia cast a committee vote?  She's already said this doesn't guarantee what she'll do next.

After months of Democratic infighting, Baucus strengthened his hand by passing an $829 billion bill that checks the boxes on Obama’s wish list: cutting costs, expanding coverage, winning unanimous Democratic support on his committee and even picking up the blush of bipartisanship.

A blush?  Maybe a yawn.  And that public option box wasn't checked.  Wait 'til the "progressives" in the House sink their artificially whitened teeth into that one.

He sent a clear message to progressives who consider Baucus’s bill little more than a good start, a floor from which to build their bill of their dreams:

Don’t mess with a good thing.

Uh, haven't seen that crowd jumping up and down with joy.  Problem is, they don't necessarily think it's a good thing. 

A large mess ahead as "progressives" push their party even further to the left, Blue Dogs whine and Republicans practice their dullness.

October 14, 2009   Permalink

WHAT ARE WE LEFT WITH? - AT 8:16 A.M. ET:  If the polls are correct, the bloom is at least somewhat off Barack Obama's rose.  (Of course, the notion of a rose blooming at all may be stereotypical, and lack multiflower sensitivity, but we'll let it pass.)

While Obama still retains an intense following among his base, that base appears to be narrowing.  More and more Americans seem to be asking what we actually have, or don't have, in the current president.

Michael Gerson has written a fine piece in the Washington Post explaining that Americans are finally seeing the limits of star power, using the Nobel Peace Prize as a starting point:

It is a good thing, the argument goes, for an American president to be loved by foreigners, even if their sloppy display of affection is embarrassing.

But this point needs to be argued, not merely assumed. How does American standing translate into effective diplomacy? And what role does presidential popularity play in building national standing?

The first, most important, element of national standing is credibility -- the perception that a nation will act in its vital interests and do what it has promised.

And is Obama credible?

His initial decisions on Iraq and Afghanistan were generally responsible. His unilateral abandonment of missile defense agreements with Poland and the Czech Republic, his tolerance for engagement without outcomes, his dithering on Afghanistan policy, all raise serious questions on this score.

And Hillary Clinton now returns home from Moscow with, maybe, a box of chocolates, maybe a plastic pen with the hotel's name stamped on it.

A second element of national standing is reputation -- the general good will toward our country, which allows for American action in the world without constantly fighting suspicion and hostility.

And, despite all of Obama's apologies, Gerson argues, the U.S. has a humanitarian history - the Marshall Plan, AIDs assistance.  We are generous.

But Obama -- focused almost entirely on domestic matters -- has yet to add any significant contributions to this humanitarian history. And his demotion of human rights issues in the relentless pursuit of engagement has left many human rights advocates concerned.

The Iranian dissidents have noticed.  Obama will probably disappoint the Venezuelan dissenters as well.  And look at our embarrassment in Honduras.

The final measure of American standing is the personal popularity of its current leader. Here Obama has achieved wonders, especially in Europe.

But there's an asterisk...

But this adoration does not indicate support for American policy views. According to Pew, these improvements are "being driven much more by personal confidence in Obama than by opinions about his specific policies."

...Former Republican Sen. Jack Danforth has described the practical effect of these European attitudes bluntly: "What it really says is we will follow the U.S. provided the U.S. doesn't want to lead anywhere."

Then Gerson correctly lowers the boom, explaining the strange, twisted nature of Obama's appeal:

What does it mean to "do the right thing in world affairs"? For Europeans, this essentially means pacifism. A recent trans-Atlantic poll asked if the use of force can ever be "necessary to achieve justice." Seventy-one percent of Europeans said "no," while 71 percent of American said "yes." In general, Europeans believe that nothing -- not peace, or freedom, or security, or the rights of the weak -- is worth fighting for. It is an attitude Europeans can afford to hold because America has chosen to defend them. But it is not a view that an American president can share, or ultimately appease.

Hard power is essential. Soft power is useful. Star power matters mainly in Oslo.

Ouch.  I would modify that last sentence a bit, however.  Star power is still hot on American college campuses and in the pages of some elements of the elite media.  That's part of our problem in overcoming the Obama madness. 

Great image, bad everything else.  But don't sell Obama short.  He can still remain for eight years unless there's a credible opposition in 2012, and that will take a candidate with a pulse and heartbeat.

October 14,  2009   Permalink

TUESDAY,  OCTOBER 13,  2009

THE JOURNALISM WE DEPEND ON - AT 10:12 P.M. ET:  By now the immediate world knows that the Senate Finance Committee passed a health-care "reform" bill today. 

Do I hear a drumroll?  No?  Well, I guess not.  And for good reason.  This is a smaller step for a man than Neil Armstrong took on the Moon.  But some elements of the press see the Ten Commandments handed down on Mount Sinai:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A key U.S. Senate committee endorsed a sweeping healthcare overhaul on Tuesday, gaining the support of an influential Republican and delivering President Barack Obama a victory on his top domestic priority.

Now wait.  President Obama didn't win a thing.  This is one committee passing one version of one bill.  Other committees will have their own versions, and the House will have a few versions of its own.  It's not much of a victory for the president when the vote, in a committee controlled by his own party, was a foregone conclusion.

The Democratic-controlled Senate Finance Committee approved the measure by 14-9, with Senator Olympia Snowe becoming the first Republican in Congress to back a healthcare reform bill.

Sorry about that.  She is not the first Republican in Congress to back a health-care reform bill.  Other Republicans, like Tom Coburn, have stepped forward with ideas of their own.  Many Republicans have made it clear that they could back a bill that conformed to their standards. 

"Today we reached a critical milestone in our effort to reform our healthcare system," said Obama, who warned there were still big challenges ahead for healthcare reform.

Yeah, like getting Congress to agree on one bill.  You can't send a bunch up to the president, with little tabs attached, and say, "Decide."  Deciding isn't one of those skills he's aced.

The bill, the last of five pending health measures to clear a committee in Congress, will be merged with the Senate health panel's version for a floor vote.

They're not telling us too much about that other one.

Snowe, who had been courted by Obama and his fellow Democrats, said she backed the plan with reservations and could not guarantee her continued support as the overhaul advances.

Yeah, that's the little asterisk next to her vote. 

"My vote today is my vote today. It doesn't forecast what my vote will be tomorrow," Snowe said.

In other words, court me.  Give me what I want.  We'll take Senator Snowe at her word that she reserves the right to oppose the final bill, which, if the trend leftward continues, is exactly what she should do.

There's a lot of combat ahead.  As Churchill said in another context, this isn't the end.  This isn't the beginning of the end.  It's the end of the beginning.

October 13, 2009    Permalink

WHAT? - AT 5:50 P.M. ET:  Hillary Clinton, as reported earlier, is in Moscow.  And what is she coming home with?  From Fox News:

Russia and the United States have tentatively agreed to a weapons inspection program that would allow Russians to visit nuclear sites in America to count missiles and warheads.

The plan, which Fox News has learned was agreed to in principle during negotiations, would constitute the most intrusive weapons inspection program the U.S. has ever accepted.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who met with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said publicly Tuesday that the two nations have made "considerable" progress toward reaching agreement on a new strategic arms treaty.

The 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, expires in December and negotiators have been racing to reach agreement on a successor.

Clinton said the U.S. would be as transparent as possible.

"We want to ensure that every question that the Russian military or Russian government asks is answered," she said, calling missile defense "another area for deep cooperation between our countries."

COMMENT:  We have a right to know a lot more about this "agreement in principle" before we sign on the dotted line.  Just what are we getting in return for this intrusive inspection? 

I know it's more blessed to give than to receive.  But this administration is already, under that definition, super-blessed.  A little receiving isn't a bad thing.

Clinton made no progress on the Iran issue, the main purpose of her trip.  Do you get the feeling we're being rolled, once again?

October 13, 2009   Permalink

DON'T YOU JUST LOVE STUFF LIKE THIS? - AT 5:26 P.M. ET:  From KATU, Portland, Oregon:

ALBANY, Ore. - At the Oaks Apartments in Albany, the management can fly their own flag advertising one and two bedroom apartments - but residents have been told they can't fly any flags at all.

Jim Clausen flies the American flag from the back of his motorcycle. He has a son in the military heading back to Iraq, and the flag - he said - is his way of showing support.

"This flag stands for all those people," said Clausen, an Oaks Apartment resident. "It stands for the people that can no longer stand - who died in wars. That's why I fly this flag."

But to Oaks Apartment management, Clausen said, the American flag symbolizes problems.

He was told to remove the red, white and blue from both of his rides, or face eviction.

"It floored me," he said. "I can't believe she was saying what she was saying."

Even long-time residents like Sharron White, who has flown a flag on her car for eight years, has been told to take it down.

White said management told her that "someone might get offended."

COMMENT:  Yeah, someone might get offended.  We had the same problem after the 9-11 attacks, when some students tried to fly American flags from dorm windows on college campuses.  Heavens.  Someone might be offended, they were told, and were often ordered to take the flags down.

Many Americans need a refresher course in the First Amendment.  They also need a refresher course in common sense.  They might also look at a map, and notice that they're living in the United States, although some might regret it.

October 13, 2009   Permalink

YES, IT'S AN ILLUSION - AT 10:54 A.M. ET:  Many people don't realize that there was a stock-market rally between 1933 and 1937, at the height of the great Depression.  It had nothing whatever to do with the real economy.

Now, we have a repeat.  But wiser heads are warning about where all this is going:

Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Allianz SE, Europe’s biggest insurer and the manager of a portfolio of about $600 billion, expects stocks to fall because economic recovery is lagging behind the seven-month jump in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

“The market rally right now is -- my personal view is -- way ahead of real-life developments,” Paul Achleitner, head of finance at Munich-based Allianz, said yesterday in an interview at Bloomberg headquarters in New York. “The expectation level is so high, you’re going to have the risk that there’s going to be a discrepancy in expectation” and economic data, Achleitner said.

The S&P 500 has surged 58 percent from a 12-year low on March 9 amid signs the worst U.S. recession since the Great Depression is abating. Still, unemployment in the U.S. climbed in September to 9.8 percent, the highest level since 1983, and economists expect a rebound in consumer spending will wane as joblessness surpasses 10 percent.

COMMENT:  The Obamans will pull out all stops, and write all kinds of hot checks, to produce some kind of recovery before next year's elections, but long-term prospects are very shaky, from everything I've seen in economic reports.  People are apprehensive.  Apprehensive people don't buy, and the banks aren't being helpful.

But, you know, Obama wants next year's Nobel Prize in economics, so he might spring something spectacular.

October 13, 2009   Permalink

A VERY GOOD QUESTION - AT 9:20 A.M. ET:  It was 20 years ago that the Soviet empire finally collapsed.  And yet, as Matt Welch points out in Reason magazine, we hardly note it.  But why?  Why don't we celebrate, as we commemorate the end of German and Japanese fascism in World War II?

On August 23, 1989, officials from the newly reformed and soon-to-be-renamed Communist Party of Hungary ceased policing the country’s militarized border with Austria. Some 13,000 East Germans, many of whom had been vacationing at nearby Lake Balaton, fled across the frontier to the free world. It was the largest breach of the Iron Curtain in a generation, and it kicked off a remarkable chain of events that ended 11 weeks later with the righteous citizen dismantling of the Berlin Wall.

Twenty years later, the anniversary of that historic border crossing was noted in exactly four American newspapers, according to the Nexis database, and all four mentions were in reprints of a single syndicated column.

I'm willing to bet that there's an entire young generation of journalists who never heard of the events mentioned above. 

November 1989 was the most liberating month of arguably the most liberating year in human history, yet two decades later the country that led the Cold War coalition against communism seems less interested than ever in commemorating, let alone processing the lessons from, the collapse of its longtime foe. At a time that fairly cries out for historical perspective about the follies of central planning, Americans are ignoring the fundamental conflict of the postwar world...

Gee, I wonder why.  You don't think the press is...tilted, do you?  Nah.  Not our journalists.  Why, every time I turn on MSNBC I marvel at the balance and thoughtfulness.

The consensus Year of Revolution for most of our lifetimes has been 1968, with its political assassinations, its Parisian protests, and a youth-culture rebellion that the baby boomers will never tire of telling us about.

Yeah, I'm afraid that's it.  Painted jeans trump a collapsing Berlin wall every time. 

There were only 69 electoral democracies in 1989; by 2008 their ranks had swelled to 119.

That occurred on America's watch, Mr. President.  No apologies necessary.  And maybe it's time for you to acknowledge the contributions of George W. Bush.

In the long fight between Karl Marx and Milton Friedman, even the democratic socialists of Europe had to admit that Friedman won in a landslide. Although media attention was rightly focused on the dramatic economic changes transforming Asia and the former East Bloc, fully half of the world’s privatization in the first dozen years after the Cold War, as measured by revenue, took place in Western Europe.

And now we are going in the other direction.  Real smart. 

The United States, at least as represented by its elected officials and their economic policies, is no longer leading the global fight for democratic capitalism as the most proven path to human liberation. You are more likely to see entitlement reform in Rome than in Washington (where, against the global grain, the federal government is trying to extend its role).

Not change we can believe in.  That comes after next year's election.

October 13, 2009   Permalink

AND NOW THE PREDICTABLE FAILURE - AT 8:31 A.M. ET:  The new Nobel peace laureate is finding out this morning just how much his prize is worth in the world outside student governments.  From AP:

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday that the threat of sanctions against Iran would be counterproductive, resisting U.S. efforts to win agreement for measures if Iran fails to prove its nuclear program is peaceful.

Didn't we just make a major concession to the Russians on East European missile defense?  I remember something about that.

Lavrov spoke following talks with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is trying to gauge Moscow's willingness to join the U.S. in imposing sanctions if Iran fails to come clean on its nuclear activities.

You've gauged it, Hil.  Now come home and tell the panderer-in-chief.  You went nowhere.

Lavrov said Russia's position is that under current conditions even the threat of sanctions against Iran would be counterproductive.

Clinton said the U.S. agreed it was important to pursue diplomacy with Iran.

''At the same time ... we have always looked at the potential of sanctions in the event we are not successful'' in persuading Iran to comply, she said at a joint news conference.

Another famous victory for the U.S. under Obama.  It's disgraceful.  Can this administration point to one success in its foreign policy?  Is it even looking for success, or just popularity among the international prize givers?

Why do I think I'm seeing a bad sequel to "High School Musical"?

Beyond Iran, Lavrov said the U.S. and Russia have made ''considerable'' progress toward reaching agreement on a new strategic arms treaty.

That's the piece of paper that Obama will wave, Chamberlain-like, in our faces, as he brings us peace in our time...for a few minutes.

October 13, 2009   Permalink

FASCINATING - AT 8:05 A.M. ET:  Some would call it a triumph of hope over experience, but some black Republicans believe next year will be their year.  From Fox News:

Allen West, a retired Army colonel who is running for the second time against Democratic Rep. Ron Klein in Florida's 22nd congressional district, West, is one of a small but determined group of black Republicans running for seats in the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives in 2010.

When former President Jimmy Carter said racism was an underlying factor in attacks on President Obama, it's safe to say he had no intention of boosting Allen West's campaign for Congress in Florida's Broward County.

But according to West, a retired Army colonel who is running for the second time against Democratic Rep. Ron Klein in Florida's 22nd congressional district, that is exactly what has happened.

"Since (Democrats) have thrown out the race card, it has made me more appealing," says West, one of a small but determined group of black Republicans running for seats in the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives in 2010.

Eager to overturn the "conventional wisdom" that the GOP is mainly a white bread party that offers few opportunities for minorities, these black Republicans believe they can attract increasingly agitated conservatives, as well as independents, to make 2010 their year.

COMMENT:  The chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, is an African-American, so the timing here might be right.  But black Republicans have not fared very well in recent decades in the party of Lincoln, and there are still bitter memories of Pat Buchanan and his "southern strategy" racialism of the 1960s.  There is also the reality of Colin Powell, ostensibly a Republican, having endorsed Barack Obama in 2008.

The so-called "black vote" is almost monolithically Democratic, even though the Democratic Party has done little for blacks, while talking the talk.  An imaginative campaign to peel off African-American voters by showing the advantages of conservative policies could revolutionize American politics.  Let's see if the Republicans can wake up and smell the victory.

October 13, 2009   Permalink

THE NOT SO ALMIGHTY DOLLAR - AT 7:40 A.M. ET:  As The One prepares to learn the basics of Norwegian currency, the better to enjoy his upcoming trip to Oslo to pick up the Prize, our dollar is taking a beating on world markets.  Most Americans are unaware of it, but this could hurt:

Ben Bernanke's dollar crisis went into a wider mode yesterday as the greenback was shockingly upstaged by the euro and yen, both of which can lay claim to the world title as the currency favored by central banks as their reserve currency.

Over the last three months, banks put 63 percent of their new cash into euros and yen -- not the greenbacks -- a nearly complete reversal of the dollar's onetime dominance for reserves, according to Barclays Capital. The dollar's share of new cash in the central banks was down to 37 percent -- compared with two-thirds a decade ago.

Currently, dollars account for about 62 percent of the currency reserve at central banks -- the lowest on record, said the International Monetary Fund.

COMMENT:  The impact here is as much psychological as economic.  The Obama crowd tell us that it has "restored" American prestige, but there is precious little to show for it.  The dollar's decline tells us what's happening in the real world, and it could have a strong impact on the perception of the United States as a weakening power.

To the "multicultural" left, this means nothing.  For the sane part of the population, it should be a matter of concern.

October 13,  2009   Permalink