WEDNESDAY , JANUARY 14,  2009

GOP HOUSE REVOLT

Posted at 4:56 p.m. ET

There's a revolt brewing among House Republicans about the Bush administration's request, joined by Mr. Obama, to release another $350-billion in bailout funds.  It's about time.  There has never been a greater need to ask tough questions.   From The Washington Times:

House Republicans are planning to vote against President Bush's request to release the second $350 billion under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, Minority Leader John Boehner said Wednesday morning.

Mr. Bush, at the urging of President-elect Obama, earlier this week asked Congress for the additional chunk of TARP funds so that Mr. Obama would have them on hand by the time he takes office next week. But Republican leaders say that would be irresponsible when it is still unclear how the first half of the money has been spent.

Exactly. 

"We don't know what the demonstrated need is for the next $350 [billion], nor do we know what their plan is for using it. And so I do think this request is premature, and I and most of my colleagues on the Republican side will oppose it," he (Boehner) said.

Finally, some spine.  The irresponsible behavior of many of the "banking executives" who got the first bailout bundle, especially their refusal to say how it's being spent, absolutely dictates the new GOP stand. 

In a Wednesday morning appearance on ABC's "Good Morning America," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared to indicate that Congress would approve the incoming president's request, since the money would be spent by "a president who'll enforce the law." But she stopped short of predicting that Congress would vote to release the funds.

Sounds like there may be trouble on the left bank as well.

January 14, 2009.      Permalink          

BIN LADEN SPEAKS

Posted at 4:21 p.m. ET

The terror master greets the administration of Barack Obama with some well-chosen words.  ABC News reports:

In a direct challenge to President-elect Barack Obama, Osama bin Laden questions whether America "is capable to keep fighting us for more years" in a new audio message attributed to him Wednesday morning on an internet website.

A senior U.S. official told ABCNews.com, "There is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the tape."

Bin Laden is picking up on a favorite theme of the political left - that we're an exhausted nation.  It is a theme of those who want us to lose.

Today's message begins with a call for a jihad against Israel because of its attacks on Gaza but concludes with a challenge to the U.S., and implicitly the incoming Obama administration.

"Now America is begging the world for money," bin Laden says, "and the USA will not be as powerful as it used to be."

Our response must be defiance, even if that offends the Daily Kos.

"The majority of the U.S. people are happy to get rid of Bush, Bush left for his successor a heavy heritage, the hardest part of heritage is guerilla wars," bin Laden says.

Guess he's feeling the heat from those missiles we fire just inside Pakistan.

During the campaign, Obama said the capture or death of bin Laden, and the defeat of al Qaeda, would be one of his administration's highest priorities.

We wish every success.

January 14, 2009.      Permalink          

DOW NO WOW - AT 4:18 P.M. ET:  Preliminary figures show the Dow closed down 248, to 8,200.

IMAGINE IF HE WERE A REPUBLICAN - AT 3:49 P.M. ET:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President-elect Barack Obama called disclosures about Treasury choice Timothy Geithner's tax problems an embarrassment Wednesday but said Geithner's ''innocent mistake'' shouldn't keep him from confirmation as the new administration's top official in urgent efforts to revive the economy.

The revelations that Geithner had failed to pay $34,000 in taxes several years ago derailed Senate Democrats' plans to speed him to confirmation by Inauguration Day, but senators in both parties said the information was unlikely to torpedo his chances in the end.

COMMENT:  And Richardson had to withdraw for ethical reasons.  And Obama's replacement in the Senate comes in under an ethical cloud.  And Attorney-General designate Eric Holder has a whole set of ethical issues.  And Hillary Clinton has some serious problems with gifts given to her husband's foundation by foreign governments.  And...  What smooth transition?  But please don't disturb MSNBC.

DOW NOW - AT 10:20 A.M. ET:  The Dow is down 223 to 8,224.

GRIM DECEMBER - AT 10:15 A.M. ET:  From The New York Times:

Retail sales fell in December for a sixth consecutive month, the government reported on Wednesday, as Americans holstered their credit cards and cut back on spending, even as stores offered discounts of 80 percent to entice shoppers.

Sales at department stores, restaurants, gas stations and a host of other retail businesses fell 2.7 percent last month — nearly double what economists had been expecting — and were 9.8 percent lower than sales last December, the Commerce Department reported.

COMMENT:  Problem - people short on cash, afraid to spend.  Solution - quick tax cuts.

Y'SEE, THE BATTERIES IN THE CALCULATOR WENT DEAD - AT 9:55 A.M. ET:  From The Politico:

Democratic and Republican senators say a full-court press by Barack Obama’s transition team is likely to keep ethical questions from sinking the nomination of Treasury Secretary-designee Timothy Geithner.

As Obama pressed senators on his economic recovery plan Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Geithner had failed to pay $42,000 in taxes and had employed a housekeeper whose work permit had expired.

COMMENT:  It just doesn't look good, a secretary of the treasury with a tax problem.  There's a point where the late-night comedians start to notice. 

WELCOME, ROLAND - AT 9:49 A.M. ET:  From The Politico:

Roland Burris will take his seat in the U.S. Senate on Thursday, but he shouldn’t expect a warm welcome. Republicans are ready to portray Burris as a poster child for all that’s wrong with the Democratic Party, and Democrats aren’t sure that they want to back him if he runs for the seat in 2010.

“That’s hypothetical, and I don’t think I’m going to comment on it,” Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, the senior senator from Illinois, said Tuesday when asked about supporting Burris in two years.

COMMENT:  The president-elect, whose seat Burris is taking, could have eliminated this problem, but didn't.  It may come back to haunt him.

WHY, HELLO AGAIN - AT 9:23 A.M. ET:  From Fox News:

WASHINGTON -- Terror suspects who have been held but released from Guantanamo Bay are increasingly returning to the fight against the United States and its allies, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

Sixty-one detainees released from the U.S. Navy base prison in Cuba are believed to have rejoined the fight, said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell, citing data from December. That's up from 37 as of March 2008, Morrell said.

COMMENT:  Some sobering statistics to remember when the chant goes up, "Close Guantanamo!"  Maybe the chanters would like to take in some of the inmates, and call them international-exchange students.

REQUIRED READING - AT 7:33 A.M. ET: I commend two articles to you this morning.  Both provide an excellent perspective on the current fighting in Gaza.  More important, they provide a clear view of what we in the West, and in America in particular, are facing when we confront Islamo-fascism, which is very determined to confront us.

Hudson New York does a distinct service in reprinting the Hamas charter here.  It is disgraceful, scandalous, that our so-called "news" media has not reprinted this document as part of its coverage of the war on terror.  It would be like covering the rise of Nazism in the thirties and making no reference to Mein Kampf.

Hamas means it.  That's the message of Jeffrey Goldberg in his well-documented op-ed piece in The New York times, found here.  As we begin a new administration, one committed to diplomacy, we should be reminded regularly of who might be sitting on the other side of the table. 

IN DEFENSE OF FREEDOM

Posted at 7:26 p.m. ET

(Some readers have asked why I don't reprint articles I do elsewhere at my own Urgent Agenda site.  Excellent question.  I will be doing more of that, starting today, with this reprint of my piece, "In Defense of Freedom," from the Hudson New York website.)

It is during periods of economic decline that people are most likely to turn to the quick, totalitarian solution. It is during these times that the fascist, or the red, who has waited in the wings or shouted from the audience, tries to take center stage. The rise of fascism in the 1930s in Europe, and the dabbling in Marxism in Western countries during the same time should give us pause. It was common in the thirties, even in the United States, for certain members of the "intellectual" class to advocate that we look beyond old-fashioned American democracy for quicker, more efficient solutions to our problems.

Ronald Reagan gave us a blunt warning: "Freedom," he said, "is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States, where men were free."

Are we in danger now? Are we in danger of slipping into the totalitarian mentality? The answer appears to be yes, and for proof we need look no further than the attitudes toward human freedom that have developed in recent decades, certainly internationally, but, sadly, here at home as well.

“Domestic hate groups are on the rise as the economy falters," Carrie Johnson cautions us in The Washington Post. "Veteran investigators," she reports, "say they have advocated for increased attention to the problem since late September, when the nation's economic troubles widened, giving white supremacists a potent new source of discontent to exploit among potential recruits."

Obviously, that's a worrisome thing. But it's part of a larger pattern, something else that is troubling, especially at a time of economic stress - a certain indifference, even contempt for, the whole idea of human freedom.

We are reminded of these words, from John F. Kennedy's inaugural address:

"Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans--born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage--and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

Those words are revered only because they were spoken by a martyred president. If they were spoken by George W. Bush today, they'd be laughed at, ridiculed, or regarded as bellicose expressions of "American imperialism." How do we know? Because Mr. Bush has said essentially the same things repeatedly through his presidency, and look at the reaction. Freedom for Iraq? Why, what right do we have to impose freedom on anyone? And these people aren't ready for freedom. It's foreign to them. An agenda to spread democracy throughout the Mideast? Why, it's not right to think that others would want what we want.

We hear these objections constantly. They generally come from our universities and our media, the very institutions that, one would think, would be the first to champion liberty.

In 1948 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It says, among other things, "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person." When is the last time you saw that quoted? When is the last time you heard any reference to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? The key word in that title, of course, is "universal." The Declaration held that freedom was an international right, that all the people of the world deserved it. The leaders of free nations in 1948 had no trouble at all with that notion. They had just fought a world war to insure it.

But today freedom is too often seen as a "cultural construct," just one idea among others. And who are we to say that it's better than some other "cultural norm"? If these words are familiar, you shouldn't be surprised. They've been standard fare in American universities since the sixties.

One of the great myths is that freedom is popular. Yes, it's generally popular among ordinary people. But in recent decades it's become increasingly unpopular among some "intellectual leaders." Many colleges have imposed "speech codes" that limit what students can and cannot say. Of course, they impose these codes to create "a more respectful society." Many news organizations make no distinction, in reporting foreign news, between dictators and democrats. It was common, during the latter period of the Cold War, for right-wing dictators to be referred to as dictators, but for left-wing dictators, especially those who ran the Soviet Union, to be called leaders. It was the intellectual fashion, and that fashion has become even more chic.

Ruth Wisse of Harvard has asked, rhetorically, why intellectuals often support the worst causes. We can debate the answers, but the fact is that, today, human freedom has fallen out of favor among some intellectual classes as a cause worth defending. Thus, feminist organizations, outraged if a well-paid lawyer is called "honey" in a courtroom, are silent about the honor killings that go on routinely in Muslim cultures. To denounce them would be to acknowledge Mr. Bush's call for an expansion of freedom and human rights, and that doesn't fit the party line.

So we may be ripe for totalitarian ideas to help us through the economic crisis. With the sharp economic decline, with the constant drumbeat of Bush hatred from the media, with decades in which our college students have been taught that the very heart of American freedom is just a "cultural construct," with journalists educated in those same colleges, we may be primed for the very thing that Ronald Reagan warned against. Of course, Reagan was laughed at by the same institutions that may happily restrict the freedoms that they themselves enjoy. They're very good at laughing. They're not very good at keeping us free.

January 14, 2009.      Permalink          

THE COUNTDOWN

SIX DAYS TO THE AGE OF OBAMIUS

Posted at 6:58 a.m. ET

In six days the Age of Obamius will be upon us.  The stock market will go to 41,000.  Every GM car will sell.  Through the Obama Miracle, all mortgage defaults will be forgiven.  And the temperature of the Earth will stabilize at a comfy level, and never change.

We can report the following developments:

- The Obama transition team went into crisis mode after learning that treasury secretary nominee Timothy Geithner had failed to pay a big chunk of federal taxes.  New slogans were put out immediately:  "He gave himself a tax cut, now it's everyone's turn."  Or, "He'll save for you the way he saved for himself."  Or, "He was trying to force change he could believe in."  Or, "It's nothing compared to Hillary."  It looked like he'd get confirmed anyway.

- The president-elect agreed that CIA Director-designate Leon Panetta must brush up on his professional skills.  Panetta was seen walking into a party at the Pakistani embassy and saying to guests, "Just speak into my lapel."

- Caroline Kennedy was gently chided for saying that, if appointed senator from New York, she'd bring in Barack Obama to campaign.  An Obama official said that Kennedy should understand who's running things.  She responded, "I do understand, and I take the responsibility seriously."

- Attempts to compare Obama with Lincoln continued, but the Secret Service ordered Mr. Obama to stop splitting rails in his hotel room, after other guests complained about the noise.

- President-elect Obama announced that people who'd been instrumental in getting him elected had been invited to submit drafts of an inaugural address.  He said the contribution from the publisher of The New York Times was quite wonderful.

- Joe Biden met with leaders in Iraq.  The leaders were surprised, though, when he walked into a room wearing a button saying, "Hello, my name is..."

January 14, 2009.      Permalink          

TUESDAY,  JANUARY 13,  2009

INFORM THE DAILY KOS, IMMEDIATELY - AT 8:23 P.M. ET:  Marc Ambinder, at The Atlantic, reports that President-elect Obama is having dinner tonight with conservative columnists George Will, Bill Kristol and David Brooks. 

COMMENT:  MoveOn.Org, after hearing this news, assigned grief counselors to treat its members.   

YOU MEAN, THEY DON'T LOVE HIM?- AT 6:20 P.M. ET:  John Hinderaker at Power Line has some terrific pictures of demonstrations in Iran...in which Barack Obama's picture is set afire.  Apparently, the radicals haven't gotten the word from the inaugural committee.  As John writes, "The point, of course, is that if anyone thinks that electing Obama as President will cause us to be loved by our enemies, just because he isn't George Bush, that person is doomed to disappointment."  See the photos here.

HILL ON THE HILL - AT 5:56 P.M. ET  I monitored some of Hillary Clinton's testimony today before the Senate Foreign Relations Committe, which is considering her nomination to be SecState.  She is very competent at these things, and there should be no problem confirming her.

Curious, though, most of the "policy changes" she described seemed awfully minor.  What we're getting, it seems to me, is Bush Lite.  There'll be some diplomatic dancing and lots of "multilateral" talk, but I didn't detect any radical change, which may be good.  Neither Obama nor Clinton want any setbacks for this country on their watch, and they're not about to be sunk by adopting the policies of the looney left. 

We await, as they say, further clarifications from our government.

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED TO TIM GEITHNER ON THE WAY TO THE TREASURY - AT 5:41 P.M. ET:  From The New York Times:

Timothy F. Geithner, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to be Treasury secretary, failed to pay tens of thousands of dollars in federal taxes and also faces questions about the immigration status of a former household employee, according to the committee and the Obama transition.  After the underpayments were detected, he paid back taxes and interest totalling $43,200.

COMMENT:  He should withdraw.  There's too much taint already in this new administration, much of it coming from Chicago politics, and from the need for Bill Richardson to pull his nomination for the Commerce Department.  The idea that the secretary of the treasury, in a time of economic hardship, has a tax problem, and possibly an immigration problem, is disqualifying.  This is a matter of image and style.

ON SECOND THOUGHT - AT 5:25 P.M. ET:  From The New York Times: 

WASHINGTON — Physics met politics at the confirmation hearing Tuesday for Steven Chu, the Nobel laureate scientist chosen by President-elect Barack Obama to head the Department of Energy, and the physics bent a bit, as Dr. Chu backed away slightly from earlier statements he has made — that gasoline prices should be higher, and that coal was his “nightmare.”

COMMENT:  What a strange lead.  What does physics have to do with gasoline prices?  Maybe Dr. Chu is just learning that other people know a lot about energy.  Being a Nobel laureate doesn't make you an expert on everything.  Dr. Chu will teach in his new position, but we hope he learns as well.

FANATICS - AT 5:05 P.M. ET:  Reader Adrian Murray alerts us to this, from AP:

WASHINGTON – The incoming Obama administration should launch a criminal investigation of Bush administration officials to see whether they broke the law in the name of national security, a House Democratic report said Tuesday. President-elect Barack Obama has been more cautious on the issue and has not endorsed such a recommendation.
Along with the criminal probe, the report called for a Sept. 11-style commission with subpoena power, to gather facts and make recommendations on preventing misuse of power, according to the report by the Democratic staff of the House Judiciary Committee.

COMMENT:  Whenever you see the name "House Judiciary Committee," run, do not walk, to the nearest exit.  The committee is presided over by John Conyers, a hard-left congressman from Michigan.  His state is falling apart, but Conyers devotes his time to this.  Clearly, the much shrewder Barack Obama wants nothing to do with these revenge probes, but Conyers has independent power, and may do as he pleases.

BIAS?  WHAT BIAS?

Posted at 9:19 a.m. ET

One of the things we like to do here is take a news story and examine it for bias.  Reuters today provides an extraordinarily rich opportunity to do just that.  It's a report, complete with appropriate sneering, of President Bush's final news conference of his presidency.  The arrogance of this report, by Matt Spetalnick, should win some kind of prize:

At a farewell news conference in which he tried to burnish a troubled foreign policy legacy, Bush denied that U.S. treatment of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo, criticized by human rights groups, had damaged America's moral standing in the world.

Troubled foreign policy legacy?  That's an editorial opinion, not appropriate for a news story.  And again we have the term "human rights groups," even though many of them have clear political agendas, never spelled out by the mainstream media.

Bush, speaking at the White House eight days before handing over to Obama, staunchly defended his record but was at times uncharacteristically reflective.

I haven't noticed that Mr. Bush is either more or less reflective than many of his predecessors.  The reporter offers a journalistic assumption that's been accepted without proof. 

He admitted having regrets that weapons of mass destruction had not been found in Iraq after the U.S.-led 2003 invasion. Presence of such weapons was the prime justification for overthrowing President Saddam Hussein.

Admitted?  Is this a courtroom?  Is there any doubt that Mr. Bush regrets that WMD were not found?  However, WMD programs were found, but you'll notice that the press never points that out.

Six-party talks with North Korea over dismantling its nuclear arms programs have stalled and little movement is expected before a new U.S. administration. Obama has promised his administration will have direct talks with America's foes, in contrast to Bush's strategy of diplomatic isolation.

Note the slant.  Only a new administration will bring progress.  Why?  Because Obama has a new strategy.  This is absolute conjecture, again given with no evidence.  Pure editorializing presented as news reporting.

Bush, in his 2002 State of Union address, called Pyongyang and Tehran -- along with Iraq, then under dictator Saddam Hussein -- an "axis of evil." He never backed away from the accusation, which came to epitomize what critics called his administration's "cowboy diplomacy."

The implication here is that they're not an axis of evil, or that the term is misapplied.  Evidence please?  Is it "cowboy diplomacy," or the truth?

On Iraq:

The war undercut U.S. credibility abroad and contributed to a resounding victory by Obama, a Democrat, against John McCain, nominee of Bush's Republican party, in the November election.

Really?  All that?  The war may have been unpopular in many countries, but how did it undercut American credibility?  Also, Obama's victory in the popular vote was not resounding.  He won by about six points.  Further, Iraq actually played a small role in the campaign, as surveys showed.  It was the economy that dominated everything.  Where was this reporter?

Indeed, where has the mainstream media been for the last eight years?  I think we know where.

January 13, 2009.      Permalink          

WORST IDEA OF THE DAY - AT 7:45 A.M. ET:  Time's Cairo bureau chief, the vulgar Scott MacLeod, who is rivalled only by the magazine's Joe Klein for out-of-control hatreds and ego, provides this brilliant prescription for Barack Obama to deal with Iran:

Start a dialogue with Iran that will isolate hard-liners, encourage moderates and generally give Iranians a bigger stake in a peaceful Middle East.

COMMENT:  The deeply philosophical MacLeod presents this after a column filled with Bush-bashing.  But wait a second.  Haven't the Europeans been trying just that for about six years?  Shall we list the European diplomatic accomplishments during this period?  And how do you give Iranians a bigger stake in a peaceful Middle East?  We've been providing carrots for years, with no effect.  And MacLeod's simplistic use of the term "hard-liners" fails to describe the true, fanatical nature of the Iranian regime. 

OBAMA WITH PEACE OFFERINGS - AT 7:26 A.M. ET:  From the Politico:

Barack Obama will meet Senate Democrats at their weekly caucus meeting on the Hill Tuesday to address their concerns about his stimulus proposal and plans to add $350 billion to the bank bailout, senior Democrats confirmed last night.

Obama's visit comes after a week of intense negotiations between Obama's economic team and Democratic leaders -- talks that included a pair of sometimes stormy sessions with incoming White House adviser Larry Summers, a former treasury secretary.

COMMENT:  It's becoming clear that, especially on economic matters, the Democrats in Congress will act independently of the Obama administration.    At the same time, I have to wonder whether the "stormy" sessions with Larry Summers actually involved the economy, or were based more on the left's contempt for Summers, who dared to take on some aspects of political correctness when he was president of Harvard.  The left does not forget.

BIDEN IN BAGHDAD - AT 7:13 A.M. ET:  Well, as one great comedian used to say, everybody's gotta be somewhere: 

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Vice President-elect Joe Biden told Iraqi leaders Tuesday that the incoming U.S. administration is committed to a responsible troop withdrawal that does not endanger improvements in security, an Iraqi spokesman said.

COMMENT:   And this differs from the Bush administration's approach by...?  In fact, it seems awfully similar, except for some theatrical trimmings.

THE COUNTDOWN

SEVEN DAYS TO THE AGE OF OBAMIUS

Posted at 6:53 a.m. ET

In seven days the Age of Obamius begins.  Already the cross-cultural currents have begun, ushering in a time of serenity, understanding and perfection.  The Palestinian Authority is opening kosher restaurants.  Russia's Vladimir Putin is taking lessons in country line dancing.  North Korea is having an MGM film festival.  And the city of Berkeley, California, is giving out the Hugo Chavez Peace Prize.  Everyone is excited.

We can report the following:

- Incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel confirmed that President-elect Obama will "quickly empty Guantanamo of enemy combatants."  Emanuel added that he personally will refill it with Republicans.

- The President-elect reprimanded CIA Director-designate Leon Panetta for lobbying the movie industry to have George Clooney play him in the film.

- Hillary Clinton will testify today at her secretary-of-state confirmation hearing.  We can report that she angrily rejected offers to call her Your Excellency, and instead opted for the more modest, and democratic, Your Highness.

- Chris Matthews was so overcome with emotion at having an exclusive interview with Barack Obama that he spontaneously knelt down and kissed Obama's wedding ring.

- A day after Mr. Obama denied comparing himself to Abraham Lincoln, a draft of his inaugural address leaked, beginning with the words, "Eleven score and 13 years ago..."

- It's also reported that Michelle asked Barack to lose the stovepipe hat.

January 13, 2009.      Permalink