Double vision:  Some subscribers may have gotten two copies of the Angel's Corner last night.  Nothing wrong with your computer.  Technical glitch at our end.

SATURDAY,  AUGUST 8,  2009

TONE DEAF, WITH TIN EARS - AT 10:19 P.M. ET:  The Obama White House seems increasingly out of touch with the American people.  Consider the Obamas' lavish vacation plans, at a time of high unemployment and economic stress:

The First Family is taking a vacation before their vacation.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Friday the president, First Lady Michelle and the kids are heading west on Aug. 14 for a long weekend to visit Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National parks. Just days later, the First Family travels to Martha's Vineyard, off the coast of Massachusetts.

Mrs. Obama and her daughters have already made two overseas trips this summer. Gibbs talked about the westward swing - intended to highlight the national parks - at his briefing, where he offered up Obama's week ahead.

And this:

The place where the Obama family plans to spend the last week of August will offer some room to roam on the remote island off the coast of Cape Cod.

The Blue Heron Farm, a 28-acre retreat in the town of Chilmark, once deemed one of the most expensive towns in America, is among a stable of resorts that fetch $35,000 to $50,000 a week, according to an island correspondent, Sam Bungey, of the Vineyard Gazette, who has nailed down the location of the first family's vacation.

The "farm'' features a swimming pool, a golf tee and a small basketball court, as well as four dwellings and a half dozen other structures "in which to swing a cat'' -- plus private access to a stretch of Squibnocket Beach -- which may keep those Obama swimsuit photos to a minimum.

There is a song from "Camelot" - "What Do the Simple Folk Do?"  I suspect it's a favorite around the White House these days.

August 8, 2009   Permalink

OH, GET OFF IT - AT 6:41 P.M. ET:  If you're going to be sneaky, don't be obvious about it.  Before World War II, when its budget was up for review in Congress, the Navy would often leak the "news" that Nazi submarines were sighted off the east coast of the United States. 

Apparently, someone has read his history.  Now we find the modern equivalent, as The New York Times reports:

The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades, raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence analysts say.

Such climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions, say the analysts, experts at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies who for the first time are taking a serious look at the national security implications of climate change.

Oh dear, oh dear, it's true.  The sky is indeed falling.  Chicken Little lives, and he has a condo in the Pentagon.

This is ridiculous.

Climate and weather have always been considerations in military planning, as we wrote here when another version of this story surfaced weeks ago.  Weather is often the first item reported in a military briefing, especially an aviation briefing. 

Get this:

A changing climate presents a range of challenges for the military. Many of its critical installations are vulnerable to rising seas and storm surges. In Florida, Homestead Air Force Base was essentially destroyed by Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and Hurricane Ivan badly damaged Naval Air Station Pensacola in 2004. Military planners are studying ways to protect the major naval stations in Norfolk, Va., and San Diego from climate-induced rising seas and severe storms.

Wow!  What a headline.  Read all about it.  Hurricanes did damage! 

Now, what is this really about?  This is what it's about:

This argument could prove a fulcrum for debate in the Senate next month when it takes up climate and energy legislation passed in June by the House.

Lawmakers leading the debate before Congress are only now beginning to make the national security argument for approving the legislation.

Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who is the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and a leading advocate for the climate legislation, said he hoped to sway Senate skeptics by pressing that issue to pass a meaningful bill.

The term is cap 'n' trade.  You know, if you can't get the bill passed on its merits, and it doesn't have many merits, just make it a national-defense issue.  It's been done many times.

I suspect it will fail this time.  Too obvious.

August 8, 2009   Permalink

GOOD MEDICINE - AT 6:02 P.M. ET:  Dem strategist Doug Schoen, one of the saner Democratic operatives around, gets to the heart of Obama's political problem.  Schoen will probably be ignored by the red-meat crowd within his own party, but those interested in getting this presidency back on track would be wise to listen:

Mr. Obama, despite his popularity, is proposing policies that are out of sync with a center-right electorate. Specifically, only two in ten Americans are liberal, close to four in ten are conservative and a third are moderate. However, a poll conducted by Scott Rasmussen last week shows that nearly half of all Americans now identify Mr. Obama as being "very liberal" -- up 15 points from January -- and less than 10 percent see him as a conservative.

There is still time for Mr. Obama to change his approach in advance of the upcoming Congressional elections, but time is running out.

Schoen raps the Republicans, accurately in my view, and prescribes how his party can beat the blues:

Let's be clear, the Republicans do not have any policies and they do not have any ideas. Their agenda is based totally on opposition to the Democrats and so far this is proving to be successful. But with a bipartisan, centrist agenda that emphasizes growth, low taxes, fiscal prudence and common sense policies, Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats can isolate Republicans -- whose approval rating has fallen to a record low -- while preventing the loss of 40-50 vulnerable Democratic House seats won during the last two Congressional elections, and as many as seven in the Senate.

COMMENT:  Well, of course I hope the Dems don't follow Schoen's advice because it would be effective.  And, given the current leadership of the Democratic Party, they probably won't.  But the man has common sense, and understands how the Democratic Party was built by Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and a host of others who understood that America is not Berkeley.

August 8, 2009   Permalink

RASMUSSEN - AT 10:46 A.M. ET:  The president's poll numbers have actually shown a slight improvement in the last few days, possibly as a response to news coverage of the town-hall meetings on health care.  They may (or may not) show some future improvement because of the over-hyped improvement in the unemployment rate.  Still, these numbers are grim for the White House, which only months ago basked in numbers fit for a divine entity.

Rasmussen this morning reports presidential approval and disapproval split down the middle, at 50% each.  This is hardly cause for breaking out the champagne in the oval office.  Obama has improved more in Ras's presidential approval index, measuring the gap between those who strongly approve and those who strongly disapprove.  That stands at minus five today.  It had been down to minus 12 on July 30th.

We always stress that polls are snapshots in time.  The only one that counts, as they say, is the one on election day.

August 8, 2009   Permalink

STUNNER - AT 10:32 A.M. ET:  Encouraged by the anti-Israel, indeed somewhat anti-democratic attitude of the Obama administration, the Fatah General Assembly - "representing" the Palestinian people, has now issued an outlandish demand that shows just who is holding up peace in the Middle East:

The sixth Fatah General Assembly decreed on Saturday that the return of both east and west Jerusalem to Palestinian control was a "red line" which was non-negotiable, and would need to be fulfilled before any peace talks with Israel could renew, Israel Radio reported.

According to the report, a document adopted by the Fatah delegates of the assembly declared that Palestinians would "continue to be sacrificed until residents of Jerusalem are free of settlements and settlers." The document went on to state that all of Jerusalem, including the surrounding villages, belonged to the Palestinians, and lands conquered following the Six Day War shared the same status as those located within the Green Line.

COMMENT:  What is remarkable is that west Jerusalem, which has always been Israeli, is included in the demand.  Thus ends the myth that these are "moderate"  Palestinians.  But you'll notice that there is no criticism from Washington, and other nations will take their lead from Washington.

International tensions are getting worse under Obama, not better, and his appeasement of radical forces around the world is one of the reasons.

August 8, 2009   Permalink

TRIALS IN IRAN - AT 9:48 A.M. ET:  Let us not forget that mass trials, Stalinist style, are underway in Iran.  Even a British Embassy employee is in the dock, as Sky News notes:

The inclusion of a British Embassy official in a mass trial in Iran is "unacceptable", the Foreign Office has said.

Hossein Rassam is accused of inciting unrest after the disputed presidential elections.

He appeared in court alongside French citizen Clotilde Reiss and dozens of other defendants.

The Foreign Office described the decision as "completely unacceptable."

A spokeswoman for the FCO said it "directly contradicts assurances we had been given repeatedly by senior Iranian officials."

She added: "We deplore these trials and the so-called confessions of prisoners who have been denied their basic human rights."

COMMENT:  You'll notice the great zeal of our own govenment in denouncing this disgrace.  But our own government has a frightening contempt for democracy, so don't expect much.

August 8, 2009   Permalink

FRIDAY,  AUGUST 7,  2009

SICKENING - AT 7:56 P.M. ET:  There has certainly been some unruly behavior by a small number of the people attending congressional "town meetings" on health care.  But it is sickening to see how some "liberal" members of Congress are using the rudeness of a few to tarnish everyone who is concerned enough to come to a meeting.  Consider:

Over 10 years in Congress, U.S. Rep. Brian Baird has stayed tethered to his district, flying back to Southwest Washington for more than 300 sometimes-bruising town hall meetings during Congressional recesses.

But this year, he's literally decided to phone it in.

Instead of appearing in person, where "extremists" would have "the chance to shout and make YouTube videos," Baird said Wednesday, he's holding what he calls "telephone town halls" instead.

Baird said he's using the new system because he fears his political opponents may be planning "an ambush" to disrupt his meetings, using methods Baird compared to Nazism.

"What we're seeing right now is close to Brown Shirt tactics," Baird, D-Vancouver, said in a phone interview. "I mean that very seriously."

The coming telephone conference call would be Baird's third this year.

COMMENT:  What the story doesn't tell you is that Baird is one of the most left-leaning members of Congress.  No wonder he has such contempt for the voices of ordinary citizens.  It is a conceit of the left that "we know what's good for you, now shut up."

Even some Democratic advisers are cautioning the party against the outlandish attacks being made on constituents by some members of Congress and their allies.  If the Dems had handled this issue with a little intelligence, they wouldn't be getting this anger.

August 7, 2009   Permalink

HOW CONVENIENT - AT 7:12 P.M. ET:  It's amazing how stories get floated at a time convenient to certain political forces.  President Obama has given Iran a deadline, more or less, of the end of September to reply to the president's "outreach," an offer to negotiate on Iran's nuclear program.  And what do you know?  We now have an "intelligence" assessment that basically says, "Hey, not to worry, plenty of time."  The State Department is saying that Iran won't be able to enrich weapons-grade uranium until 2013.  This differs from virtually every other professional assessment we've seen recently, but is certainly convenient in taking the heat off the Obama administration.  Washington Post:

Despite Iran's progress since 2007 toward producing enriched uranium, the State Department's intelligence analysts continue to think that Tehran will not be able to produce weapons-grade material before 2013, according to a newly disclosed congressional document.

The updated assessment, by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, emphasizes that the analysis is based on Iran's technical capability and is not a judgment about "when Iran might make any political decision" to produce highly enriched uranium.

The intelligence community agrees that a political decision has not yet been made. According to the assessment, State Department analysts think such a decision is unlikely to be made "for at least as long as international scrutiny and pressure persist."

COMMENT:  Obviously, we have no way to assess this judgment, but the timing is suspect.  It gives cover to the president.  And it seems out of whack even with the IAEA, hardly a tough-on-Iran body, whose assessments recently have been far more urgent.

We await responses to this, which will come in the form of leaks from European intelligence agencies, from the Israelis, and from other departments within the U.S. Government.

Just four days ago the London Times reported:

Iran has perfected the technology to create and detonate a nuclear warhead and is merely awaiting the word from its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to produce its first bomb, Western intelligence sources have told The Times.

The sources said that Iran completed a research programme to create weaponised uranium in the summer of 2003 and that it could feasibly make a bomb within a year of an order from its Supreme Leader.

Take your pick of intelligence reports.  Makes you confident, doesn't it?

August 7, 2009   Permalink

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE DECLINES - AT 9:10 A.M. ET:  In a stunning development, and very good news for the White House, the unemployment rate has declined, according to figures just released.  It had been expected to rise.  The change is, again, a cautionary note for those who believe that Obama is on an inevitable road downward.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. employers cut 247,000 jobs in July, far less than expected and the least in any month since last August, according to a government report on Friday that provided the clearest evidence yet that the economy was turning around.

With fewer workers being laid off, the unemployment rate eased to 9.4 percent in July from 9.5 percent the prior month, the Labor Department said, the first time the jobless rate had fallen since April 2008.

The government revised job losses for May and June to show 43,000 fewer jobs lost than previously reported.

Analysts had expected non-farm payrolls to drop 320,000 in July and the unemployment rate to rise to 9.6 percent. The forecast was made earlier this week before other jobs data prompted some economists to lower their estimates for job losses.

Ironically, The pro-Obama New York Times is far more cautious:

Yet even as the July numbers came in better than expected, the job market remains shaky in the months ahead.

“We’re a long way from the end of the employment problem,” said Brian Fabbri, an economist at BNP Paribas. “Things are improving, make no mistake. But were not near the time when businesses are going to hire again.”

Even if the economy begins growing again this summer — as many economists expect it will — laid-off workers are likely to be among the last to benefit. Businesses that slashed their work force and inventories over the last year to cope with the economic deterioration are likely to hire temporary workers or pay overtime wages before they begin fielding applications for new full-time workers.

COMMENT:  That is known as a jobless recovery, and is really no recovery at all.  But these latest figures will be trumpeted by the White House, and some Americans will be convinced that all is getting well again.

And we still have new, grave problems created by this administration - a huge increase in deficits, and a possible attempt to impose recovery-killing new taxes.

Any signs of recovery, though, will be helpful to the Democratic Party in maintaining its control of Congress next year.  This is going to be a tough fight in the most important midterm elections of our time.  Numbers will be soldiers in that fight.

August 7, 2009   Permalink

LET THE EXCUSES BEGIN - AT 8:33 A.M. ET:  We've been following the governorship races in Virginia and New Jersey.  We caution that we are still three months away from the elections, but the news isn't good for the Dems.  Even a Daily Kos poll brings grim tidings for the party of goodness and climate change:

Two new independent polls show Republicans with comfortable leads in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races, which, if they hold, could cause the White House a major political headache in November.

In New Jersey, former U.S. attorney Chris Christie (R) led Gov. Jon Corzine (D) 48 percent to 40 percent while in Virginia former state attorney general Bob McDonnell (R) held a 51 percent to 43 percent edge over state Sen. Creigh Deeds (D).

Both surveys were conducted for the liberal Daily Kos blog by Research 2000 and showed the Republican candidates extending their leads from similar polls conducted earlier this summer.

"If Democrats lose not only will people call into question the Democratic party brand but also the brand of Barack Obama," said Penny Lee, the former executive director of the Democratic Governors Association.

COMMENT:  The key to both races is unrelenting work.  Those leads aren't so huge.  Both are eight points, and New Jersey, in particular, is a reliably Democratic state.  As we reported last night, the Virginia race is being framed by many observers as a test of Obama's popularity. 

In the expectations game, the Republicans are now expected to win.  If they lose, the mainstream media will make that the story.  So, no overconfidence please. 

August 7, 2009   Permalink 

SUCCESSFUL STRIKE - AT 8:09 A.M. ET:  From The New York Times:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of Pakistan’s fearsome Taliban militia, was killed Wednesday in a C.I.A. missile strike, two Taliban fighters said Friday, adding that a meeting was taking place to determine which of his top deputies would replace him.

Memorial services will be held at Code Pink headquarters later today.  Be there. 

This was a successful operation, and it reminds us of the importance of good intelligence.  We knew where this guy would be.

The Taliban fighters in northwest Pakistan, one senior leader reached by telephone in Orakzai Agency, and one local Taliban fighter in Waziristan, said that Mr. Mehsud had been receiving kidney treatment from a relative in his father-in-law’s house in the remote village of Zanghara when missiles fired from a remotely-piloted drone struck.

Too bad he didn't have Obamacare.  He would have been on a waiting list for a year, and wouldn't have been there, like a sitting duck, getting treatment.  You see, there are advantages to the new order.

August 7, 2009   Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY - AT 7:32 A.M. ET:  From Michael Gerson, in the Washington Post:

So these are the main accomplishments of the Obama honeymoon: a widely criticized stimulus package, a health debate poorly begun and a growing, potentially consuming deficit problem. The initial period of Obama's presidency has revealed an odd mixture of boldness and timidity. A bold, even fiscally reckless, embrace of the priorities of the Democratic left. A timid, and politically unwise, deference to the views and approaches of the Democratic congressional leadership.

Obama can, of course, recover, as other presidents have. But he did not take full advantage of his honeymoon -- and he will not get it back.

COMMENT:  The perception that Obama is failing as president is growing, as the polls show.  The novelty of an African-American president has worn off.  The public seems to have found a way around the clear bias of the media.  And the president has still not been fully tested in a foreign-policy crisis. 

Republicans, though, must respond to Mr. Obama's decline, not with gloating or "I told you so" comments, but with a creative program of their own.  Otherwise, Obama can seize the initiative again and climb out of the depths.  He is one of the best retail politicians of our time, and he should not be underestimated.

August 7, 2009   Permalink