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TUESDAY,  MAY 4,  2010

BULLETIN – AT 9:07 P.M. ET:  Fox News projects former Senator Dan Coats the winner in the Indiana Republican primary for the U.S. Senate. 

CRIST LEADS IN FLORIDA – AT 8:57 P.M. ET:  A new Rasmussen poll shows former Republican and born-again independent Governor Charlie Crist leading in a three-way Senate race.  Via RealClearPolitics:

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist leads Republican Marco Rubio and Democrat Kendrick Meek in a three-way Senate race, a new Rasmussen poll finds (May 3, 500 LV, MoE +/- 4.5%). Down big in the polls, Crist left the Republican primary last week to run for Senate as an independent.

Crist (I) 38 (+8 vs. last poll, April 22)
Rubio (R) 34 (-3)
Meek (D) 17 (-5)
Und 11

The poll shows Crist picking up some support since a poll taken two weeks ago, prior to his announced switch. With Crist's move from the GOP, RCP now ranks this race as a Toss Up.

COMMENT:  This shows that a week is a lifetime in politics.  It was only yesterday that fast-rising Republican star Marco Rubio looked like a shoo-in.  The cost of overconfidence. 

We'll have to fight for this one.

May 4, 2010    Permalink

INDIANA VOTES – AT 8:02 P.M. ET:  The critical Indiana primary for the U.S. Senate nomination is today.  The winner will be a strong favorite in November to fill the seat being vacated by Evan Bayh. 

Former Senator Dan Coats, who'd held the seat in the 90s, is slightly favored to win the nomination.  He carries baggage.  After leaving the Senate he essentially abandoned Indiana, became a lobbyist and is on record as saying he'd wanted to become a North Carolinian.

Whatever his demerits, Coats is vastly superior to his main challenger, certified nutbag and former Republican Congressman John Hostettler, once a rising power in the House until thrown out in a landslide by his conservative district.  Hostettler, who presents himself as a conservative, is not.  He's a reactionary, and conspiracy theorist.  He also claims to be religious.  He is not.  He's a religious nut.  There's a difference. 

The best candidate is probably State Senator Marlin Stutzman, but he's not very well known, unfortunately.

We're for Coats or Stutzman.  Results later tonight.

May 4, 2010     Permalink

TIMES SQUARE UPDATE – AT 7:05 P.M. ET:  Police Commissioner Ray Kelly of New York, one of the few people I actually take seriously when a terror incident occurs, made clear today what the major break was in the rapid investigation.

Kelly said the break came when a police officer was able to get under the bomb car and find the hidden VIN (vehicle identification number).  Early reports indicated that the VIN had been scratched from its usual place, under the driver's side window.

This was also the break in the first World Trade Center bombing, which occurred in 1993.  Many people – including, fortunately, some terrorists – don't realize that the VIN is engraved in several places on a vehicle because the most visible stamping is so easy defaced.  After World Trade Center I, which was carried out by detonating a bomb in a Ryder rental truck, police found a VIN on the truck's wrecked axle, leading to a trace on the person who rented the truck.

The suspect, a native-born Pakistani who became a naturalized American only months ago, is still being interrogated.  First bulletins said that he claimed he'd acted alone.  Only a fool would believe that.  He may have planted the bomb alone, but he'd had training, incompetent it appears, in building bombs.

One new question:  It's now clear that the suspect was already aboard an airliner, with a ticket to Dubai, when authorities intervened and had the plane returned to the terminal.  But the suspect was on the no-fly list, which means the United States Government already knew something suspicious about him.  Question:  If he was on the no-fly list, how did he get on the plane?  That must be a subject for immediate investigation and punishment.

Andrew Malcolm, of the L.A. Times's Top of the Ticket blog, has the actual tape of the air controllers and Kennedy International Airport recalling the airliner carrying the suspect as it waited for clearance to take off.  It's here.

Obviously, this latest incident, coming only months after Fort Hood, fewer months after the Christmas day airline bombing attempt, and even fewer months after arrests in a plot to hit New York's subways, is leaving people jittery.  The terrorists have to be lucky only once.

May 4, 2010     Permalink

AND NOW THE QUESTIONS – AT 10:39 A.M. ET:  Now that a suspect is in custody in the Times Square attempted bombing (not a "bomb scare" as some minimalists like to call it), the political questions begin. The administration has been less than impressive, as the Washington Post reports: 

But even before the campaign season begins, the White House is also sure to face questions about its early -- and often changing -- characterization of Saturday's attempted bombing.

Speaking on Sunday morning talk shows just hours after the car bomb was discovered, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the case appeared to be isolated, providing some assurance that people need not worry about multiple attacks.

"You know, at this point I have no information that it's anything other than a one-off," Napolitano said on NBC's "Meet the Press." But asked whether it qualified as an act of terrorism, she added, "You know, it certainly looks that way. It certainly looks as if it was intended to be that way."

Later that day, however, as Obama flew to the Gulf Coast to meet with officials battling the oil spill there, neither the president nor his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, used the word "terrorism" to describe the incident in New York.

In a brief statement before making broader remarks on the oil spill, the president pledged to "ensure that our state and local partners have the full support and cooperation of the federal government."

Monday morning, Holder pointedly declined to confirm that the attempted car bombing was part of a terrorist plot, telling reporters at a briefing that it was "too early to designate it as a terrorist incident. I think there's no question that the people, the person who was behind that act intended to spread terror across New York."

By the afternoon, Gibbs was willing to go further. Asked directly whether it was an act of terrorism, Gibbs said, "absolutely."

COMMENT:   Yeah, we're glad that someone noticed.  It's mass confusion built on a thin layer of political correctness.  Obama wants to "engage" the Islamic world and convince the masses that we're not at war with Islam.  But with each new incident there comes the inevitable awkwardness as another jihadist is discovered behind a rock,or driving an SUV. 

Are we at war with a part of Islam?  Pretty please?

A late report tells us that the guy they arrested in connection with the Times Square blowout is saying that he acted alone.  Yeah, right.  He just spent five months in Pakistan, where, I'm sure, he attended performances of Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals.  They all do it.

May 4, 2010     Permalink

TWO DAYS TO GO IN BRITAIN – AT 9:05 A.M. ET:  Britain votes Thursday, with the current prime minister, Gordon Brown, given almost no chance of keeping his job and its benefits.  Looks reasonably good for the conservative, David Cameron, as The Telegraph reports:

David Cameron is closing in on an outright victory in Thursday’s election and has to win over voters in just 14 seats to secure a parliamentary majority, according to a poll of marginal constituencies for The Daily Telegraph.

With momentum building behind the Tories, party strategists believe Mr Cameron is “on the cusp” of being able to form a government by the weekend. The Conservatives are on course to seize at least 103 seats from Labour – 14 shy of the 117 needed to secure an overall majority, the poll shows.

It found a swing of 7.5 per cent to the Tories in the Labour seats they are targeting.

And...

Even if Mr Cameron failed to secure a clear majority, the Telegraph poll indicates he could form a minority government with support from unionist MPs in Northern Ireland and independents.

COMMENT:  That's reasonably good news for the United States, not such good news for President Obama, who clearly would prefer that one of the leftish parties win. 

At the same time, David Cameron is no Churchill or Thatcher.  But he'll do for now, and may we see him greeting a new American president in January of 2013.

May 4, 2010    Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 8:17 A.M. ET:  From superlative foreign-affairs reporter Joel Mowbray, reflecting on the Times Square close call.  From The Washington Times:

Since Sept. 11, there have been more than 800 terror-related arrests in the United States, according to New York University's Center on Law and Security. The onslaught is constant...

...That's why leadership matters. President Obama, to his credit, has not enacted many changes to the Bush administration counterterrorism policies. But the rhetorical shift has been pronounced.

Given the Muslim background of his father and stepfather, and his own formative years in predominantly Islamic Indonesia, President Obama actually has the best position of any U.S. leader to tackle Islamic radicalism head-on. So far, however, he has declined to do so. His administration has instead engaged in a coordinated campaign to soft-pedal the threat of radical Islamic ideology.

Most likely, the number of potential lone wolves will grow over time. As we could have learned in far more painful fashion this weekend, even the best policing can fall short. The key to stopping lone wolves is defeating the ideology that motivates them to act.

It's only a matter of time before our luck runs out.

COMMENT:  The Obama administration was caught behind the curve on this latest attack, making one foolish statement after the other over the weekend, and never once mentioning jihadist ideology.  I guess they were choking on all that Gulf oil.

As Joel says, it's just a matter of time.  I wonder what will be said then. 

May 4, 2010    Permalink

THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING – AT 7:55 A.M. ET:  The White House seems increasingly aware that its handling of the Gulf oil spill is not being viewed as one of the great moments in American history.  There is worry.  There is anguish.  Not over the people of the Gulf Coast, but over something far more precious – image.  From The Politico:

The ferocious oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is threatening President Barack Obama’s reputation for competence, just as surely as it endangers the Gulf ecosystem.

Huh?  What reputation for competence?  Is this something I missed? 

So White House aides are escalating their efforts to reassure Congress and the public in the face of a slow-motion catastrophe, even though it’s not clear they can bring it under control anytime soon.

“There is no good answer to this,” one senior administration official said. “There is no readily apparent solution besides one that could take three months. ... If it doesn’t show the impotence of the government, it shows the limits of the government.”

What a difference a disaster makes.  They weren't saying this after Katrina.

Hope and change was Obama’s headline message in 2008, but those atop his campaign have always said that it was Obama’s cool competence — exemplified by his level-headed handling of the financial meltdown during the campaign’s waning days — that sealed the deal with independents and skeptical Democrats. The promise of rational, responsive and efficient government is Obama’s brand, his justification for bigger and bolder federal interventions and, ultimately, his rationale for a second term.

Yes, after that paragraph I give you permission to get your seasickness pills, or something stronger. 

So there was a “little bit of panic,” according to one administration official, when White House aides sensed the oil spill narrative getting away from them last week.

The narrative?  The narrative? What about the oil spill itself?  Does that count for anything? 

The White House was particularly alarmed by the rash of stories comparing the Obama administration’s initial response with President George W. Bush’s sluggish response in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

When will the mainstream media ever learn?  Bush's response was swift.  The Coast Guard cut the death toll to ten percent of what had been predicted in Katrina.   Monumental incompetence by a mayor and governor damaged rescue efforts.  But everyone knows it was BUSH (!!) who caused the storm in the first place. 

May 4, 2010    Permalink

CAUGHT – AT 7:41 A.M. ET:  A suspect in the attempted bombing of Times Square is in custody.  Fox News reports the "24"-like just-in-the-nick-of-time collar:

NEW YORK -- A Pakistan-born U.S. citizen accused of driving a bomb-laden SUV into Times Square and parking it on a street lined with restaurants and Broadway theaters was to appear in court Tuesday to face charges that he tried to set off a massive fireball and kill Americans, federal authorities said.

The suspect, Faisal Shahzad, was taken into custody late Monday by FBI agents and New York Police Department detectives at Kennedy Airport while trying to board a flight to Dubai, according to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and other officials. He was identified by customs agents and stopped before boarding, Holder said early Tuesday in Washington.

[Unconfirmed reports said Shahzad already was onboard the flight to Dubai, and that the plane was recalled to the gate, where he was arrested. "They just caught him at the last second," a federal law enforcement source reportedly told one cable news outlet.]

Shahzad is a naturalized U.S. citizen and had recently returned from a five-month trip to Pakistan, where he had a wife, according to law enforcement officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation into the failed car bombing.

The U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan was handling the case and said Shahzad would appear in court Tuesday, but the charges were not made public. FBI agents searched the home at a known address for Shahzad in Bridgeport, Conn., early Tuesday, said agent Kimberly Mertz, who wouldn't answer questions about the search.

COMMENT:  Obviously, the key question now is whether others were involved.  Since the guy allegedly tried this stunt after returning from a five-month trip to Pakistan, we logically wonder whether he was trained there, and who paid his bills for the five months.

Is that culturally insensitive?  Do you think?

May 4, 2010    Permalink

MONDAY,  MAY 3,  2010

OUR TURN – AT 8:27 P.M. ET:  It can't be denied.  Our side has waited for quite some time to stick it to those who stuck it to President Bush for Katrina.  Our sticking time has come.  Investor's Business Daily examines the Obama role in response to the Louisiana oil spill, and the behavior of the press in covering that response.  It's okay to be judgmental.  Permission is granted:

As the Gulf Coast faced ecological disaster, the president yukked it up with White House correspondents. His Saturday radio address didn't even mention the oil spill. President Bush, call your office.

Rarely has media sycophancy been on such sharp display as in the largely indifferent response to President Obama's own indifference to the oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The coverage has been far different from that given to President Bush's handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

And...

As the St. Petersburg Times editorialized about the damage that could soon hit Florida's shores: "President Obama met U2's Bono in the Oval Office on Friday when he should have been headed to the Gulf Coast." The fragile marshes and shorelines of the Mississippi Delta could wait. Bono was in the house...

...Other than mobilize the resources of the federal government, there's little the president personally could have done. But words are important, Obama has said, and pictures are worth thousands of words. We remember President Reagan's stirring words and the images of a nation comforted after the Challenger disaster. We will not remember the jokes at Saturday's correspondents dinner.

We also remember the harsh and largely unwarranted criticism of President Bush after Hurricane Katrina, although the state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans, both governed by Democrats, dropped the ball as first and primary responders.

Finally...

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says it could be 90 days before a relief well is completed to address the Gulf spill. Nearly two weeks after the oil rig exploded, Obama appears at the site of a disaster not yet under control. Heckuva job, Mr. President.

COMMENT:  The editorial is correct in every respect.  The press is covering for the president, rather than covering him.  The administration's response is far slower than was Bush's response to Katrina.  But Keith Olbermann, who railed against Secretary of State Condi Rice going to the theater the night Katrina hit, is silent.  So is Anderson Cooper, who rushed to New Orleans for the storm, and found loads of human suffering, most of it caused by the incompetence of the city's mayor, although the focus was on Bush.

Pure hypocrisy, and another black mark on our biased and lazy press.

May 3, 2010     Permalink

KIRK AHEAD IN ILLINOIS – AT 7:55 P.M. ET:  Republican Congressman Mark Kirk leads the Democratic candidate for the Illinois U.S. Senate once held by Barack Obama, according to the latest from Scott Rasmussen.  From the Washington Examiner:

Rasmussen has released its latest poll on the race to fill Barack Obama’s old Senate seat in Illinois:

Kirk now attracts 46% support in Illinois’ race for the U.S. Senate, up from 41% in early April. Support for Giannoulias is at 38%, virtually unchanged from the previous survey but down from March, when he earned 44% of the vote. Five percent (5%) currently support some other candidate, and 12% are undecided…

After months of highly-publicized financial struggling, including reports of loans to convicted felons, Broadway Bank, where Giannoulias worked as a senior official from 2002 to 2006, was seized by bank regulators on April 23 and its assets taken over by another bank. The survey was taken five days later on Wednesday night.

COMMENT:  We're glad Kirk is ahead, but the margin is not comfortable.  Illinois is a Democratic state, there's fooling around on election day in Chicago, and a GOP candidate has to build up quite a head of steam to be elected. Giannoulias has gone through a major scandal surrounding his family's bank.  Kirk is an attractive guy.  I would have imagined that Kirk would be further ahead.

There's talk that Giannoulias will be replaced on the ticket with someone without the current candidate's baggage, someone like Rahm Emanuel.  That will make it even harder for Kirk.  But Kirk is an energetic campaigner, and we remain guardedly optimistic.

May 3, 2010    Permalink

TIMES SQUARE UPDATE – AT 7:18 P.M. ET:  Fox News is reporting that a "person of interest" has been identified in the attempted car-bomb attack in Times Square over the weekend.

The individual is described as a naturalized American who just returned from Pakistan.  Are you not shocked?  Sources have told Fox that the plot appears to have an international flavor.  Are you shocked again?

Earlier today the chief law enforcement official of the United States, Attorney General Eric Holder, said that it was too early to say that this was terrorism.  But it's not too early to say that this man is a clown and a fool, and should be replaced as quickly as you fix a flat tire.  The analogy is a good one.  Both a tire and Holder are usually filled with hot air.

We're following the story closely.

May 3, 2010     Permalink

GOOD FOR THEM – AT 9:37 A.M. ET:  As readers know, we have a rather skeptical view here of some of our institutions of sometimes higher education.  One of the worst things about the college game is the endless rating of colleges, as if we're talking about which coffee maker is best.  Some educators are taking action:

A small but determined group of college presidents is boycotting one of higher education's little-known spring rituals: the practice of lobbying each other for better "peer assessments" in pursuit of a higher spot in the coveted rankings compiled annually by U.S. News & World Report.

The reputation survey is the most important component of the preeminent collegiate rankings and the only factor that depends entirely on the opinions of college leaders, as opposed to objective metrics such as admission rate or student-faculty ratio. Every year, hundreds of college presidents seek to improve their scores by sending their counterparts at other schools glossy mailings, interactive CDs and books that celebrate their institutional feats.

In the midst of this promotional blitz, an opposition movement has emerged: A clutch of presidents, largely centered around the nation's capital, says that the lobbying campaign is unseemly and unworthy of a process that has profound impact on the trajectories of the ranked institutions.

"We have other things to do with our money," said William Durden of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa. Durden said he had received faculty-penned books, bound volumes of presidential speeches and coffee-table art tomes this spring at a rate of 10 to 15 a week. "We know it's a PR gimmick."

COMMENT:  The college admissions madness is sick enough without these phony ratings.  The ratings put additional pressure on high-school students and often distort reality.  Some of the "top" colleges are actually plagued with problems, including political correctness and professors who think their mission in life is to keep out all dissenting ideas.

I'm glad to see this act of resistance.  We need more.  Most important, we need real reform at our colleges, which have taken on a thoroughly undeserved and unbecoming saintly quality. 

May 3, 2010     Permalink

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT NO-WORK – AT 8:28 A.M. ET:  Your government shows it is indeed expert in one critical area – wasting years of time.  Apparently the census takers have a problem.  And remember that their results will determine the way seats in the House of Representatives are proportioned:

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A computer system that the Census Bureau needs to manage its door-to-door count of the U.S. population remained buggy and prone to crash a day before enumerators were set to begin their work, government officials said Friday.

Let's see, they've had ten years to prepare since the last census.  But that's five minutes in government years.

The bureau's Paper Based Operations Control System did not function reliably in tests and, despite hardware and software upgrades, "may not be able to perform as needed under full operational loads," the U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a report.

In other words, it can't count correctly.  Isn't that what the census is about?

"So far, it is not as stable as it needs to be," GAO Strategic Issues Director Robert Goldenkoff said before the start of a congressional hearing on the census.

The paper-based system's hasty design began in early 2008, after the census bureau scrapped plans to use a handheld-computer method that ended up costing more than $700 million but did not operate adequately.

You know, guys, I go to the Apple Store.  I buy my computers.  They work.  They even work under "full operational loads."  And they're as stable as they need to be.  Shall I send you the address of the store?  I know some good sales people who actually know what "boot" means.  And look, you're government.  Maybe there's a discount, or a free subscription to Macworld.   

The system will generate assignments for the roughly 635,000 enumerators hired to visit about 48 million homes to tally people who did not return their census forms by mail.

When we're told that 85% of the population looks like the Democratic Party base, we'll know that the software wasn't quite right.

There have also been massive problems in the FBI computer system, and in systems under development for the FAA.  If government big shots want these systems to work, they should check out the expertise in the dorm rooms of any good American college, and forget some of the favored "contractors" they've been indulging.

May 3, 2010     Permalink

GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DIN-DIN –  While New York police are probing the Times Square bombing, they're also contending with an undistinguished visitor who's popped into town.  He could be trouble at the UN, but what else is new?  John Bolton, in the Wall Street Journal, reflects on Mr. Ahmadinejad, and our failed Iran policy:

Negotiations grind on toward a fourth U.N. Security Council sanctions resolution against Iran's nuclear weapons program, even as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrives in New York to address the Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference...

...In Congress, sanctions legislation also creaks along, but that too is simply going through the motions. Russia and China have already rejected key proposals to restrict Iran's access to international financial markets and choke off its importation of refined petroleum products, which domestically are in short supply.

And...

The further pursuit of sanctions is tantamount to doing nothing...

...Speculating about regime change stopping Iran's nuclear program in time is also a distraction. The Islamic Revolution's iron fist, and willingness to use it against dissenters (who are currently in disarray), means we cannot know whether or when the regime may fall.

And since the Obamans will not use force, and will prevent Israel from doing so, Iran will certainly get the bomb, and soon.

While U.S. policy makers will not welcome that outcome, they certainly hope as a corollary that Iran can be contained and deterred. Since they have ruled out the only immediate alternative, military force, they are doubtless now busy preparing to make lemonade out of this pile of lemons...

...Facile analogies to Cold War deterrence rest on the dubious, unproven belief that Iran's nuclear calculus will approximate the Soviet Union's. Iran's theocratic regime and the high value placed on life in the hereafter makes this an exceedingly dangerous assumption.

Correct.  The proper analogy might be Japan in World War II, which sponsored suicide attacks.

We should recognize that an Israeli use of military force would be neither precipitate nor disproportionate, but only a last resort in anticipatory self-defense. Arab governments already understand that logic and largely share it themselves. Such a strike would advance both Israel's and America's security interests, and also those of the Arab states.

Nonetheless, the intellectual case for that strike must be better understood in advance by the American public and Congress in order to ensure a sympathetic reaction by Washington. Absent Israeli action, no one should base their future plans on anything except coping with a nuclear Iran.

The tragedy is that we have a president who's spent most of his life among leftist intellectuals who really don't see a problem with a nuclear Iran.  After all, who are we to judge?  Because they live in their own limited world, these leftists are convinced that Iran would never use the bomb.  After all, the Iranians must be rational, they argue, and logic will prevent them from using it.

On such fantasies may rest the fate of our nation.

May 3, 2010    Permalink 

HIGHER SECURITY AT AIRPORTS – AT 7:48 A.M. ET:  In response to the Times Square bomb, which clearly had potential for enormous damage, security is being stepped up at airports.  From CNN:

The Transportation Security Administration on Sunday ramped up security screening at airports along the East Coast after an attempted car bombing a day earlier in New York's Times Square, a Department of Homeland Security official said.

The official told CNN the TSA has begun operations to counter potential car bombs, or "vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices," as well as taking measures to prevent other kinds of terrorist acts that might occur in crowded public spaces.

The TSA also is coordinating with Customs and Border Protection to facilitate additional secondary passenger screening on both domestic and international flights, the official said.

Officials in Washington participated in a call with top TSA officials at airports in New York, Boston and Philadelphia to talk about partnering with Customs to identify flights that might need more random screening, the official said.

COMMENT:  This new security upgrade may reflect the fact that, on June 30, 2007, a car carrying a propane bomb was driven into the glass doors of Glasgow International Airport and set ablaze.  The bomb found in Times Square over the weekend was similar in construction. 

How much longer will we be lucky?

May 3, 2010     Permalink

CAUGHT ON TAPE – MAYBE – AT 7:37 A.M. ET:  See for yourself.  This is the tape released by the New York Police Department, possibly of the guy who planted that large truck bomb in Times Square.

The police actually aren't sure that this is the guy.  But he appears to look back toward the place where the bomb was planted, and changes his shirt on camera.  He has a bag with him with the new shirt. 

He's described as a white male in his 40s, although I'd say the tape doesn't make clear whether he's white-bread white or a foreign variation thereof.  Actually, his suspicious movements remind me of a Hollywood agent I know, but that's another story.

We'll be following this closely.

May 3, 2010    Permalink