TUESDAY,  SEPTEMBER 29,  2009

INCREDIBLE - AT 11:42 P.M. ET:  Does the Obama State Department have any concept of reality?  Does it understand why some people, even in European governments, are laughing at the United States?  Consider this, from the Jerusalem Post:

The United States is looking for Iran to disclose details of its nuclear program, provide access to facilities and personnel and otherwise take concrete steps to show it is serious about complying with international demands at Thursday's landmark meeting between the countries - though American officials characterized the parley as the beginning of a long process rather than a one-time occurrence.

Huh?  A long process?  Didn't we just hear last week that Iran has to satisfy our demands by December?  Or is that another one of Obama's phony deadlines, like all the others?

"What we're looking for here is a meeting that leads to a process that leads to a resolution of the concerns that we have...

A process that leads to a resolution of the concerns...  The Europeans have been negotiating with the Iranians for seven years, with no result.  And we're looking for...  Look, the Iranians have already announced that they won't even discuss the issues that concern us. 

"...That process will take some time, and we're not going to make a snap judgment on Thursday," US State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said, two days before the talks set to take place in Geneva, which he indicated could be the first of several.

Snap judgment?  Don't we have...uh...some evidence already?  The idea that such a phrase - snap judgment - would even be used, shows how out of touch these State guys are.

"We don't think that these issues will be solved in one meeting. I don't think that we'll get the full perspective of Iran's willingness to engage in one meeting," he said.

Knowing the Obama crowd, they'll probable schedule a year of exploratory meetings, just to show how decent, kind and culturally sensitive they are.

The lack of urgency is appalling.  But looking back on Obama's career, we can't say we weren't warned.

September 29, 2009   Permalink

LUNTZ - AT 9:48 P.M. ET:  As I mentioned earlier, I went to a talk today by Frank Luntz, whom you've probably seen on TV or heard on radio.  He's one of the best public opinion analysts working today, and is a conservative.  Among the highlights of today's talk:

- Americans now see health care as a fundamental right. 

- While Americans are pessimistic about the country's future, they retain a very sound set of core American values.

- The Republican Party has great opportunities, but has a major liability:  It is seen as the "no" party, the party that simply rejects things, but has no program of its own.  That must be corrected.  (We've been saying that here, as well.)

- The audience for both CNN and MSNBC has collapsed, while Fox is soaring.  Luntz said that MSNBC has more letters in its name than viewers, and that Great MSNBC Hope Keith Olbermann has seen his ratings almost cut in half.

- Political organizations must learn the power of the visual.  Obama's campaign learned it, McCain's did not.  It is what people see that counts.  Luntz used political ads as an example, cautioning the audience never to buy an ad if it uses a voiceover.  The best political ads, he said, feature someone on camera doing the talking.  Then the audience has someone to relate to, and someone to believe.

Luntz told a great story about appearing on Bill Maher's cable comedy show.  Luntz asked the audience how many believe in God.  There was a smattering of applause.  Then he asked how many were agnostics or atheists.  There were loud cheers.  The producer of the show was furious because Luntz had exposed the audience for what it was - radical.  However, Luntz cautioned us that audiences for shows like that are not typical of the country, and should not be seen as such.

COMMENT:  The entertainment industry today is so warped that much of it is outside the mainstream.  The story about the Maher audience did not surprise me.  I once heard a well-known Hollywood agent attack a true story about a family that had lost its fireman father on 9-11, and then sent a son to West Point to serve in wartime.  The agent's reaction:  "These are the people who elected BUSH!"  I had no idea what country he was living in.

September 29, 2009   Permalink 

SARKOZY:  NO BAMA - AT 7:58 P.M. ET:  One of the more startling developments recently has been the public criticism that President Obama is getting from French President Nicolas Sarkozy.  The idea that France would move to the right of America takes some getting used to, but get used to it.  From The Wall Street Journal, which reports that both Britain and France wanted disclosure of Iran's new secret nuclear plant to be made at the UN last week, for maximum effect, not in Pittsburgh, at the G-20:

President Sarkozy in particular pushed hard. He had been "frustrated" for months about Mr. Obama's reluctance to confront Iran, a senior French government official told us, and saw an opportunity to change momentum. But the Administration told the French that it didn't want to "spoil the image of success" for Mr. Obama's debut at the U.N. and his homily calling for a world without nuclear weapons, according to the Paris daily Le Monde. So the Iran bombshell was pushed back a day to Pittsburgh, where the G-20 were meeting to discuss economic policy.

And...

...the French President let his frustration show with undiplomatic gusto in his formal remarks, laying into what he called the "dream" of disarmament. The address takes on added meaning now that we know the backroom discussions.

"We are right to talk about the future," Mr. Sarkozy said, referring to the U.S. resolution on strengthening arms control treaties. "But the present comes before the future, and the present includes two major nuclear crises," i.e., Iran and North Korea. "We live in the real world, not in a virtual one." No prize for guessing into which world the Frenchman puts Mr. Obama.

French leaders have traditionally excoriated Americans for being too belligerent, not "soft" enough.  This is exactly the opposite.

"I support America's 'extended hand.' But what have these proposals for dialogue produced for the international community? Nothing but more enriched uranium and more centrifuges. And last but not least, it has resulted in a statement by Iranian leaders calling for wiping off the map a Member of the United Nations. What are we to do? What conclusions are we to draw? At a certain moment hard facts will force us to make decisions."

We thought we'd never see the day when the President of France shows more resolve than America's Commander in Chief for confronting one of the gravest challenges to global security. But here we are.

COMMENT:  Of course, this got little attention in the mainstream media, which is nostalgic for the days of Jacques Chirac, that great friend of all our fifty states.  But Sarkozy is clearly saying what others in Europe are thinking.  And Europe is moving to the right.

September 29, 2009   Permalink

AFGHAN STALL - AT 7:15 P.M. ET:  I was speaking with a military expert earlier today who was livid over President Obama's trip to Copenhagen Thursday to pitch the Olympics for Chicago.  This man, a retired British officer, made the point that our soldiers are being killed in Afghanistan while the president is delaying decisions on that war and worrying about his home city's athletic future.  The resentment is growing, as Fox News reports:

Is this any way to run a war?

Critics are lambasting President Obama for hitting the pause button on the war in Afghanistan, making U.S. commanders seeking thousands more troops there wait for a decision as he tries to get the "strategy right first."

"The commander in chief is the commander in chief, period," said retired Army Lt. Col. James Carafano, a senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "You can't fight a war from Washington D.C. There's only one way this works: You have trust and confidence in the leaders on the ground, or you don't."

Some critics are going so far as to ask whether Obama is more concerned with finding a political strategy to ensure his re-election than he is in finding a military strategy to win the eight-year war.

That question has been raised after Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top general in Afghanistan, revealed Sunday that he has spoken to the president only once since he took command in May.

"It is nutty," said Bing West, a former Marine and defense official in the Reagan administration. "Obama is stuck with his war of necessity yet he can't bring himself to face the fact he doesn't even know his commander in the field!"

COMMENT:  Don't be shocked if this attitude spreads.  We've written several times here of the possibility of a military revolt.  That doesn't mean a coup, obviously.  We've never had that.  But at various times in our history, like the late forties, elements of the military have made known their displeasure with an administration.  That could be risky for Obama, as the military is one of the most respected institutions in American society.

The outrage is growing, in part, because Obama announced a new strategy only in March.  Now he says that, before committing more troops, he wants to consider whether the strategy is right.  Isn't this what he should have been doing every day?  Isn't he commander-in-chief? 

As we pointed out earlier today, even some liberal columnists are questioning Obama's governing style.  The belief that he is some religious figure come to save us doesn't have quite the same constituency as earlier in the year.

September 29, 2009   Permalink 

PUBLIC OPTION SET BACK - AT 6:50 P.M. ET:  The so-called "public option," creating, in effect, a government health-insurance program, suffered a serious setback in a Senate committee today:

WASHINGTON — After a half-day of animated debate, the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday rejected efforts by liberal Democrats to add a government-run health insurance plan to major health care legislation, dealing the first official setback to an idea that many Democrats, including President Obama, say they support.

All of the other versions of the health care legislation advancing in Congress — a bill approved by the Senate health committee and a trio of bills in the House — include some version of the government-run plan, or public option.

But the Finance Committee chairman, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, long ago removed it from his proposal because of stiff opposition from Republicans who call the public plan a step toward “socialized medicine.”

COMMENT:  This does not kill the public option idea, but it sets it back.  A House bill will almost certainly contain a public option, and will have to be reconciled with a Senate bill. 

A word of caution:  Killing the public option, if that happens, does not mean that Americans love insurance companies.  I went to a talk by pollster Frank Luntz (a conservative) today, and he stressed that point in discussing polling results on health care.  Insurance companies are disliked, and conservatives must proceed with care, politically, by providing a health-care alternative of their own, not simply embracing "private" companies. 

September 29, 2009   Permalink

STUNNING - AT 8:47 A.M. ET:  There have been some stunning columns in recent days from liberal writers severely criticizing President Obama over his governing style.  First, there was Howard Fineman at Newsweek.  Now there is Richard Cohen in the Washington Post.  Is this the start of a defection?  I'm not sure.  This duo is certainly not going to support a Republican candidate for president in our or any other lifetime.  But what if Obama really falters, and Hillary Clinton resigns, and polls show a tough ride for Obama in 2012, and...hmm.  Cohen:

Sooner or later it is going to occur to Barack Obama that he is the president of the United States. As of yet, though, he does not act that way, appearing promiscuously on television and granting interviews like the presidential candidate he no longer is. The election has been held, but the campaign goes on and on. The candidate has yet to become commander in chief.

Ouch!  That one burnt.  And it's so reassuring to see a liberal actually use the term "commander-in-chief" and not sneer.

Cohen skewers Obama over his handling of Iran:

For a crisis such as this, the immense prestige of the American presidency ought to be held in reserve. Let the secretary of state issue grave warnings. When Obama said in Pittsburgh that Iran is "going to have to come clean and they are going to have to make a choice," it had the sound of an ultimatum. But what if the Iranians don't? What then? A president has to be careful with such language. He better mean what he says.

The trouble with Obama is that he gets into the moment and means what he says for that moment only. He meant what he said when he called Afghanistan a "war of necessity" -- and now is not necessarily so sure. He meant what he said about the public option in his health care plan -- and then again maybe not. He would not prosecute CIA agents for getting rough with detainees -- and then again maybe he would.

And Cohen notes that Obama gave Congress an August deadline on health care, then let it slip by.

Obama lost credibility with his deadline-that-never-was and now he threatens to lose some more with his posturing toward Iran. He has gotten into a demeaning dialogue with Ahmadinejad, an accomplished liar. (The next day, the Iranian used a news conference to counter Obama and, days later, Iran tested some intermediate-range missiles.) Obama is our version of a Supreme Leader, not given to making idle threats, setting idle deadlines, reversing course on momentous issues, creating a TV crisis where none existed or, unbelievably, pitching Chicago for the 2016 Olympics. Obama's the president. Time he understood that.

COMMENT:  We'll watch to see if other liberal commentators go in that direction.  One thing is clear, though, and that is that Obama's grip on the throne is slipping.  When a liberal president gets kicked by Fineman and Cohen, that's news.  If Hillary decides to walk next year, as we've speculated she might, that's giant news. 

Stay tuned.  Obama may be attending the 2016 Olympics in Chicago as a spectator.

September 29, 2009   Permalink

LUNTZ SEES AN ANGRY AMERICA - AT 8:21 A.M. ET:  I'll be going to a Hudson New York meeting today to hear Frank Luntz speak about the surveys and soundings he takes around the country.

We get a preview in Luntz's piece for the Los Angeles Times.  He sees an angry, frustrated country.  The picture is alarming, and no valentine to Barack Obama's leadership:

Today, Americans are boiling mad, and the elites from Washington to Wall Street to West Hollywood don't get it. It can best be summarized by 12 short words bellowed by Howard Beale, the deranged TV anchor in the movie "Network": "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore."

The frightening reality is that where there was hope, now there is cynicism. Where there were dreams, now there is disillusion. Instead of courage and resolve, I hear blame and finger-pointing.

According to my research, 72% of Americans agree with Howard Beale -- they really are "mad as hell." Second, 57% now believe that their children will inherit a worse America than they did, and just 33% believe their children will have a better quality of life than they have.

But at least their children will get to sing songs of praise for Dear Leader in their elementary schools.  Hey, that's something.

Americans in the unhappy majority are struggling to keep their jobs as million-dollar bonuses are being awarded at companies their tax dollars bailed out. They're watching Congress showcase the partisan spectacle we now blithely confuse with "government." They have learned (with good reason) to distrust their leaders, their institutions and even their own positive values in a culture that has turned coarse and critical.

And Luntz believes the public mood is reflected in the town meetings we've seen all over the country.

The elites under attack complain that rowdy town halls are bad for civic discourse and democracy. But I contend that their empty dismissals of grass-roots anger are much more dangerous.

If you talk in depth to self-described angry Americans -- as I have -- you don't hear raving demands or reckless hate. What you hear is fear.

But you also hear a belief in American values that many thought were lost. An incredible 88% believe in the adage "live free or die." Conversely, just 35% agree with the statement, "I want it all, and I want it now," and a slight majority (54%) believe "if it feels good, do it." It's nice to know that freedom beats obtaining more stuff.

We remain a great and exceptional people, even if the president doesn't believe it.

If those in power shut up and listen, they'll hear what I'm hearing. It's time to heed the anger and reinforce the positive values behind it.

COMMENT:  Hear that, conservatives?  Reinforce the positive values behind it - with constructive policies and programs that Americans will support, in their lives and at the polls next year.

September 29, 2009   Permalink

THE USUAL SUSPECTS - AT 8:05 A.M. ET:  Maybe we should stop calling them our "intelligence" services.  The New York Times is reporting that the United States is the odd man out, again, in evaluating intelligence coming from Iran.  No, I don't mean that we're more hawkish, more concerned.  I mean exactly the obvious.  From The New York Times.  Airsickness pills required:

The Israelis, who have delivered veiled threats of a military strike, say they believe that Iran has restarted these “weaponization” efforts, which would mark a final step in building a nuclear weapon. The Germans say they believe that the weapons work was never halted. The French have strongly suggested that independent international inspectors have more information about the weapons work than they have made public.

Meanwhile, in closed-door discussions, American spy agencies have stood firm in their conclusion that while Iran may ultimately want a bomb, the country halted work on weapons design in 2003 and probably has not restarted that effort — a judgment first made public in a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate.

I don't, obviously, have independent information on this.  But for the United States to take the most optimistic point of view, given Iran's continued defiance, and the announcement last week of a secret Iranian nuclear site, seems foolhardy.

Some justify the American hesitation by pointing to what they inevitably call the "catastrophically wrong" intelligence on Iraqi WMDs before the Iraq War.  That's an absurd position that misreads what we actually did find.  Yes, it's true, that we didn't find stockpiles of WMD, but we did indeed find the programs, ready to be restarted once the U.N. sanctions on Iraq were lifted.  They were due to be lifted in 2003.  One can only imagine what Saddam Hussein would have today had we not relieved him of his responsibilities. 

There is this cautionary note from one of America's most distinguished experts on nuclear weapons, on the revealing of the "secret" Iranian nuclear site:

Graham Allison, the author of “Nuclear Terrorism” and a Harvard professor who focuses on proliferation, said he could not conceive of Iran’s building only one such site.

“How likely is it that the Qum facility is all there is? Zero. A prudent manager of a serious program would certainly have a number of sites,” he said.

After all, Mr. Allison said, the lesson Iran took away from Israel’s destruction of an Iraqi reactor more than 25 years ago is to spread facilities around the country.

COMMENT:  The dragging by our intelligence services only plays into the hands of the super-doves around Obama and in Congress.  Meanwhile, some of the Europeans are getting to the right of us on Iran.  What humiliation.

September 29, 2009   Permalink 

IS THIS EMBARRASSING, OR WHAT? - AT 7:54 A.M. ET  - I guess the big news of the day, in Chicago at least, is that President Obama will go to Copenhagen Thursday to pitch Chicago for the 2016 Olympics.  We assume, of course, that by then Chicago will have done something about the shooting gallery that exists around many of its schools, specifically schools in the very part of the city where our (absolutely accomplished) first lady grew up.  The Chicago Examiner puts it this way:

Curiously, Obama had different priorities on Sept. 17 when he said First Lady Michelle Obama would go to Copenhagen in his stead: "I would make the case in Copenhagen personally, if I weren't so firmly committed to making real the promise of quality affordable health care for every American." What has changed since Sept. 17? Why is the president now taking it upon himself to persuade the International Olympic Committee to award an event with global prestige and worth untold billions of dollars to a city whose governing establishment virtually defines political corruption?

And, when enterprising journalists crunched the numbers...

Reasonable people familiar with Chicago history know there must be more to this story than mere civic pride. A look at the finances of the bid ought to scare the dickens out of hard-pressed taxpayers everywhere. Chicago's proposed operating budget totals $3.8 billion, but, as Crain's Chicago Business pointed out in a scathing editorial, the plan only includes insurance for $1.1 billion. There's nothing in the budget to cover the possibility that private sector donors won't contribute the $1 billion needed to construct an Olympic Village. And what about cost overruns, which in Chicago, Crain's notes, have a lurid history of "coming in at two or three times estimates." Federal stimulus funds perhaps? That would be the Chicago way.

COMMENT:  If Chicago wins, and The One has a way of charming international organizations, get set to open your wallets.  You'll be paying the tab, but Oprah will get a chance to do her show from the pole-vaulting pit.

September 29,  2009   Permalink

MONDAY,  SEPTEMBER 28,  2009

THE "NEW" CHENEY - AT 11:15 P.M. ET:  The buzz is starting about Liz Cheney, one of the former vice president's two daughters.  Some of you may have seen her on television - articulate, strong, and, most important of all, informed.  She doesn't back down, she has her facts straight, and there's no babble.  Many Republicans see a bright future for her.  Her liability, of course, is that a good chunk of the media will view her as the daughter of the Devil, and treat her accordingly.  The New York Times has a portrait:

NASHVILLE — Liz Cheney looks nothing like her father, but it is clear who he is. She was introduced as “our favorite vice president’s daughter” at a recent gathering of conservative women here. She kept invoking him in her speech, conveying his best regards, and likes to share cute stories about Dad trying to master his new BlackBerry.

Like her father, Ms. Cheney speaks in understated, almost academic cadences, head veering down into her notes. She also shares his willingness to pummel President Obama in stark, disdainful tones, not so much criticizing as taunting him.

“Mr. President, in a ticking time-bomb scenario, with American lives at stake,” she said, “are you really unwilling to subject a terrorist to enhanced interrogation to get information that would prevent an attack?”

By speech’s end, the crowd was standing, and the former vice president’s daughter was being mobbed for photos and hounded to run for office.

Liz Cheney is “a red state rock star,” declared Rebecca Wales, one of the organizers of this event, the “Smart Girls Summit.”

COMMENT:  When Harry Truman left office, his approval ratings were in the low twenties.  Republicans relished in the line, "To err is Truman."  But later, Truman's stock rose and rose, as Americans realized he had made very tough decisions on national security, and usually got them right. 

I hope that Dick Cheney's stock rises as well, as Americans - and maybe even a handful of "journalists" - realize that he was basically correct.  And I hope Liz Cheney follows her instincts, for the ideas she espouses have stood the test of time.

September 28,  2009   Permalink

 
TERROR ACCOMPLICES ARE KNOWN - AT 7:56 P.M. ET:  In what is being widely described as the most serious domestic terror case since 9-11, authorities now say there are accomplices still at large, but that their identities are known.  We dodged a bullet this time.  From Fox News:

NEW YORK — After interrupting what they believed was a terrorist plot on New York City with a series of raids and arrests, authorities have intensified their focus on possible accomplices of the suspected Al Qaeda associate at the heart of the case, a law enforcement official said Monday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation continues, confirmed that investigators know the identities of at least three people believed to be in on a bombing plot they say might have targeted mass transit in the New York area.

Authorities released a flurry of terrorism warnings for sports complexes, hotels and transit systems even while saying the plot was disrupted before it become an immediate threat. But many questions remain unanswered, including the whereabouts of co-conspirators and whether any may be cooperating with the probe.

COMMENT:  Are we at greater risk from terrorists, now that Obama is in the White House?  I personally think we are, but I stress that this is only an opinion:  One thing we learned about the 9-11 attacks is that Al Qaeda was stunned by the size and scope of our military reaction.  They had gotten used to the Clinton style - grim looks, noble statements, ineffective tactics. 

Bush and Cheney changed that style, much to the horror of the velvet-parlor crowd.  Now, though, Obama is sending signals that we're going back to the 90s, or even worse.  I believe that this can embolden terror groups once more, giving them the sense that even a major attack may not bring sizable consequences, that America is going soft again. 

No one can prove this conclusion, but we've had three terror plots unmasked in the last two weeks alone.  Many Americans don't realize it, but in one, the bomb was already placed and set.  Fortunately, law enforcement had infiltrated the plot and supplied fake explosives. 

We've been good, and we've been lucky.  But there's a law of averages here, and those statistics turn against us if terror groups grow more aggressive.

September 28, 2009   Permalink 

MINNESOTA TURNING AGAINST OBAMA - AT 7:23 P.M. ET:  Minnesota went for Obama last year, and also elected, by a whisker, comedian Al Franken to the equally comedic United States Senate.  That was then, this is now.

New polling shows Obama's standing in Minnesota has dropped considerably, possibly an indicator of national trends in Democratic-leaning states:

President Obama's once-robust support in Minnesota has dwindled sharply as he confronts a sluggish economy and significant unease about a health care overhaul that has split Democrats and Republicans in Congress, according to the latest Star Tribune Minnesota Poll.

At 51 percent, Obama's overall approval rating in Minnesota has shrunk 11 points since April, with close to half -- 45 percent -- expressing disapproval of his handling of health care policy, his signature domestic priority.

Just 39 percent said they approve of the president's handling of health care, while 16 percent were undecided.

COMMENT:  The Obama mystique is clearly gone.  Americans are looking at the president's governing ability now, and the verdict is, at best, mixed.  He seems, at times, to be running a perpetual campaign.  As one commentator noted, he has spent more time on David Letterman than with our commander in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal.

Republicans have a magnificent political opportunity, one that will likely grow as Obama's foreign policy shows little or no result.  But the Republican Party remains unpopular, and must come up with clearly defined alternatives to make the most of its current chances.

September 28, 2009   Permalink

SUPPORT FOR (COUGH) HEALTH REFORM SAGS - AT 6:58 P.M. ET:  Rasmussen is reporting that support for the Obama health-reform program is at its lowest level yet:

Just 41% of voters nationwide now favor the health care reform proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s down two points from a week ago and the lowest level of support yet measured.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% are opposed to the plan.

Senior citizens are less supportive of the plan than younger voters. In the latest survey, just 33% of seniors favor the plan while 59% are opposed. The intensity gap among seniors is significant. Only 16% of the over-65 crowd Strongly Favors the legislation while 46% are Strongly Opposed.

COMMENT:  If this passes in the current form, Obama better have those death panels ready, because seniors could become his worst political nightmare.  They think, they read, they vote.  Therefore, they will probably leave the Obama coalition.

There is, of course, no guarantee that anything will pass.  The blue dog Dems may save us yet, and save their own party.

September 28, 2009   Permalink

WAIT, A CONTRADICTION, ISN'T IT? - AT 4:55 P.M. ET:  Mr. Obama will travel again:

President Obama has decided to travel to Copenhagen to support the Chicago bid team seeking the 2016 Summer Games, a development that many expect could swing the vote for Chicago in Friday's selection.

"President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama symbolize the hope, opportunity and inspiration that makes Chicago great, and we are honored to have two of our city's most accomplished residents leading our delegation in Copenhagen," Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley said in a statement.

COMMENT:  Wait a second.  Doesn't this contradict Obama's stated belief that we Americans aren't unique, that we deserve no special privileges, that we owe apologies to the world?  I mean, why Chicago?  Why not Caracas?  That would make the left happy, wouldn't it? 

This is the same president who refused to intervene in Chicago to make sure the man who succeeded him in the U.S. Senate was worthy of the post.  But off to Copenhagen for the Olympic selection.  Afghanistan can wait.

Of course, if Chicago does get the Olympic games, ACORN will build the stadium.

September 28,  2009    Permalink

WHAT? - AT 10:08 A.M. ET:  Remember, Afghanistan is the good war, the necessary war, the war to protect Americans, the war George Bush ignored, the war we must win.  From The Washington Times:

The military general credited for capturing Saddam Hussein and killing the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq says he has only spoken to President Obama once since taking command of Afghanistan.

“I’ve talked to the president, since I’ve been here, once on a VTC [video teleconference],” General Stanley McChrystal told CBS reporter David Martin in a television interview that aired Sunday.

“You’ve talked to him once in 70 days?” Mr. Martin followed up.

“That is correct,” the general replied.

This revelation comes amid the explosive publication of an classified report written by the general that said the war in Afghanistan “will likely result in failure” if more troops are not added next year. Yet, the debate over health care reform continues to dominate Washington’s political discussions.

Former U.S. Ambassador for the United Nations John Bolton said this was indicative of President Obama’s misplaced priorities.

COMMENT:  I'm shocked, but not surprised.  When will Americans wake up and realize that Barack Hussein Obama Jr. isn't interested in national defense, believes most of the problems of the world are our doing, and never really thought that Afghanistan was the necessary war?

Obama is playing a dangerous game.  The question is whether, with all the protection of the media around him, he'll be caught in time.

September 28, 2009   Permalink

OH DEAR, WHAT'S A MULTICULTURAL PRESIDENT TO DO? - AT 9:02 A.M. ET:  It's becoming clear that many foreign observers, especially in allied countries, are catching on to Barack Obama.  What they see, a number of them don't like.  The discontent is centered in Britain, but it's spreading. 

President Bush brought India, the world's largest democracy, closer to the United States than it's ever been.  But get this, from the New Delhi newspaper, The Pioneer:

He may not relish the comparison but it is now becoming increasingly obvious that Mr Barack Obama is the most hostile American President for India since Richard Nixon. In the eight months he has been in office, Mr Obama has snubbed India more than once. He has sent repeated signals that New Delhi is not integral to his Asian security architecture. Partly as a result of his country’s economic crisis, he has bent over backwards to accommodate China. His open advocacy of protectionism has been most visibly targeted at outsourcing of technology jobs to India. He headlined anti-trade legislation by saying it would punish those who created jobs in Bangalore rather than Buffalo, a special mention that was extraordinarily impolitic and did not go unnoticed in India.

Gee, but he makes such good speeches.

This past week, the Obama team reversed a decade of American nuclear pragmatism and went back to an outdated non-proliferation agenda that should have died, really, in the 1990s. Once more, India has been asked to give up its nuclear weapons and sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a second-tier power. Most alarmingly, Mr Obama has swung wildly on Afghanistan-Pakistan (AfPak). At various points his diplomats and Generals have said different things. Yet, in all this the overarching political message has been missing.

COMMENT:  Oh, they're so spoiled.  Why can't these Indians praise Obama the way Hugo Chavez did?  We must be stern with these allies left over from the BUSH (!!) days.  If we don't, they'll get the idea that we're on their side.

But the fact is, this is serious.  Obama treats friends like enemies, and enemies like friends.  The reason, of course, is that he doesn't much like our friends, just as he doesn't much like his own country.  As for enemies, why, they're just misunderstood victims of our Cold War mentality.

September 28, 2009   Permalink

DIAGNOSIS:  POLICY FAILURE - AT 8:03 A.M. ET:  With all the foreign trauma around us, let's not forget that a health-care "reform" package, aimed at impacting a sixth of the American economy and the life of every citizen, is making its way through Congress.  It's been talked about for months.  At the end of this time, what do the American people think about it?  From The Politico:

You could forgive a typical poll-driven pool for being driven around the bend by health reform.

Legislators hoping to learn what their constituents think about the issue — and how to vote to keep them happy — face a dizzying deluge of hard-to-reconcile data, some of which suggests that voters are more than a little confused, as well.

What to make of it, for example, when one poll finds that 63 percent think “death panels” are a “distortion” or “scare tactic,” and only 30 percent think the issue is “legitimate,” while another finds that 41 percent believe that people would die because “government panels” would prevent them from getting the treatment they needed?

Or when one survey finds that 55 percent of Americans support the public option, while another says 79 percent favor one — but also notes that only 37 percent people surveyed actually knew what “public option” meant?

COMMENT:  Glib story, but read it with two eyes.  The wording of polls affects the result.  But, just as important, the story points to the catastrophic failure of the Obama administration, and its allies in Congress, to explain their own health plan, to the extent that they ever had a complete plan. 

Why is that many, if not most, people can tell you the general provisions of their health insurance, but don't know what the president of the United States is proposing?  The liberals will blame it on Rush Limbaugh, or Glenn Beck, or whoever the Villain of the Week is.  But the reality is that I can't recall any issue this critical that has been so poorly handled or explained by those in Washington who presumably should know.

Something is going to come out of Congress, unless moderate Democrats join with Republicans to put the brakes on.  We'd better find out what that "something" is.

September 28, 2009   Permalink

AND AGAIN - AT 7:45 A.M. ET:  As if to emphasize its defiance, Iran has now fired a second set of missiles in a weekend.  These, though, are more ominous than the first group, as The New York Times reports:

Locked in a deepening dispute with the United States and its allies over its nuclear program, Iran was reported Monday to have test-fired long-range missiles capable of striking Israel and American bases in the Persian Gulf in what seemed a show of force.

The reported tests of the Shahab-3 and Sejil missiles by the Revolutionary Guards were not the first conducted by Iran, but they came at a time of high tension, days after President Obama and the leaders of France and Britain used the disclosure of a previously secret nuclear plant in Iran to threaten Tehran with a stronger response, including harsher economic sanctions.

And...

There was no indication whether the testing of long-range missiles — often taken in the west as a sign of potential hostile intent by Iran — was timed to coincide with the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.

Oh, come on.  Of course it was.  The Iranians are masters of symbolism.  Today is Yom Kippur, so Iran tests a missile capable of hitting the Jewish state, eventually with nuclear weapons.  Not a coincidence. 

And the Russian reaction?  From Reuters:

A Russian Foreign Ministry source told Interfax news agency on Monday, however, that Russia was urging restraint from the international community in reaction to the Iranian missile launches.

"We should not give way to emotions now," the source said. "We should try to calm down and the main thing is to launch a productive negotiations process [with Iran]."

Yup.  Obama sure got Moscow to toughen up over Iran.  Just read the steel in that statement.

It's sickening.

September 28, 2009   Permalink

THE CRUNCH - AT 7:36 A.M. ET:  The internet is filled with a sense of despair over Barack Obama's foreign policy, or lack of it.  There is a recognition that crunch time is coming, and coming fast.  It is evident, for example, that the Iranian regime, which is seeking nuclear weapons, is not terribly impressed by Mr. Obama's pencil-rattling.  Minds are focusing on the reality of policy, not rhetoric, which means we are entering an area - action and result - for which the president of the United States is substantially unequipped.  We can't even be sure that he's really interested.

Elliot Cohen of Johns Hopkins, which houses some of the few remaining sane scholars in international studies, has written a superb piece on the actual choices Obama faces with Iran.  This is not comic-book reading, and one does not come away with a yearning for another Obama speech.   Cohen is blunt:

Pressure, be it gentle or severe, will not erase that nuclear program. The choices are now what they ever were: an American or an Israeli strike, which would probably cause a substantial war, or living in a world with Iranian nuclear weapons, which may also result in war, perhaps nuclear, over a longer period of time.

That recalls Churchill's admonition to Chamberlain upon the latter's return from Munich:  "You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war."  I get the feeling we're heading down the same path.

At the heart of the problem is not simply the nuclear program. It is the Iranian regime, a regime that has, since 1979, relentlessly waged war against the U.S. and its allies. From Buenos Aires to Herat, from Beirut to Cairo, from Baghdad to, now, Caracas, Iranian agents have done their best to disrupt and kill. Iran is militarily weak, but it is masterful at subversive war, and at the kind of high-tech guerrilla, roadside-bomb and rocket fight that Hezbollah conducted in 2006. American military cemeteries contain the bodies of hundreds, maybe thousands, of American servicemen and servicewomen slain by Iranian technology, Iranian tactics, and in some cases, Iranian operatives.

This, of course, is conveniently forgotten by "policy" makers who regard such rough talk as beneath them, not quite the jargon one finds in the velvet salons of Georgetown.

Cohen is no automatic warrior.  He recognizes the great limitations of an Israeli air strike.  As for an American action, Cohen's assessment of the Obama administration's will is devastating:

More to the point, it is difficult to believe that the Obama administration has the stomach for war. Its appalling public case of nerves over the war in Afghanistan—a "war of necessity," as of only a few months ago—is indicative of its true temper. And if President Obama does not have the courage to accept hazards and ugly surprises, and if he cannot bring himself to deploy his rhetorical skills to the mobilization of opinion at home and abroad, he should not start a shooting war, even if the Iranians are already waging one against us.

Oh, come now, Eliot.  You can't mean something so harsh about our The One, can you?

Yeah.

What is Cohen's sad conclusion?

It is, therefore, in the American interest to break with past policy and actively seek the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. Not by invasion, which this administration would not contemplate and could not execute, but through every instrument of U.S. power, soft more than hard. And if, as is most likely, President Obama presides over the emergence of a nuclear Iran, he had best prepare for storms that will make the squawks of protest against his health-care plans look like the merest showers on a sunny day.

COMMENT:  The tragedy, one of many, is that, even if Obama fails miserably, he will still maintain his base of support in the universities, among the chattering classes, and on the fashionable media left.  They will never abandon him because they live in a world of symbols, not of bombs.  Like children, they never believe that the bombs are meant for them.

September 28,  2009   Permalink