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MONDAY,  JANUARY 26,  2009

THE DEMS AT THEIR WORST - AT 7:52 P.M. ET:  From AP:

WASHINGTON – The House Judiciary Committee chairman subpoenaed former White House adviser Karl Rove on Monday to testify about the Bush administration's firing of nine U.S. attorneys and its prosecution of a former Democratic governor.

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., said the ongoing legal battle to get Rove and other former Bush administration aides to testify may have success with a new president in the White House.

COMMENT:  Conyers is an embittered hard leftist who still seeks vengeance against President Bush.  This is just an awful waste of an important committee's time.  It's similar to the phony Valerie Plame case.  The Daily Kos and MoveOn will cheer.  No one else will.

OBAMA ON ENERGY POLICY - AT 6:12 P.M. ET:  From a statement on energy policy by President Obama today, via ABC News:

"Year after year, decade after decade, we've chosen delay over decisive action. Rigid ideology has overruled sound science. Special interests have overshadowed common sense. Rhetoric has not led to the hard work needed to achieve results," he said. "Our leaders raise their voices each time there is a spike in gas prices, only to grow quiet when the price falls at the pump."

COMMENT:  The president must be careful.  What he says is largely true, but gratuitous swipes at "rigid ideology" and "special interests" are not helpful.  Some thoughtful experts would assert that the "science" he's accepted on global warming and emissions is more rigid ideology than real science.  As for special interests, we assume he's referring to oil companies.  The president would be wiser to make them his allies, not his enemies.  For decades our oil companies, with all of their real failings, have provided America with incredibly cheap energy, compared to prices charged in Europe.  Use their knowledge and experience, Mr. President, as FDR did in engaging industry during World War II.  Remember movie mogul Jack Warner's line about those he disliked:  "I don't want to see that S.O.B. in this office again...until I need him."  America will need its oil companies.   

EUROPE'S GREAT MORAL VOICE - AT 5:56 P.M. ET:  From The Washington Post.  I am not making this up:

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- European Union leaders said Monday they are willing to take prisoners being released from the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay _ but only after detailed screening to ensure they don't import a terrorist.

COMMENT:  Okay, fair enough.  We'll only send them Gitmo detainees who defaulted on their American Express cards.  They're tough, they may do it again, especially when buying flat-screen TV's, but Europe can handle them.

Geez.

DOW SO-SO - AT 5:45 P.M. ET:   Dow closed up 38, not bad considering the grim economic news today, including the fact that 62,000 jobs were lost in more layoffs.

THEY SHALL RETURN - AT 3:03 P.M. ET:  From CBS News:

Five days after President Barack Obama signed an executive order to close the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay within a year, two Saudis who were released from the controversial U.S. prison in 2007 renewed their pledge to attack western interests in a video released by Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula on the internet today.

“We assure our leaders Sheikh Osama Bin Laden, may God protect him, and Dr. Ayman al Zawahiri, that we shall continue to follow the path of jihad,” said Abu Sufian al Azdi Saeed al Shihri, a Saudi who was a prisoner at the Guantanamo prison.

COMMENT:  Amazing how mainstream news outlets are now running stories on the danger of Guantanamo inmates.  Didn't see much of that during the Bush administration.

HEALTH CARE IN THE U.K. - AT 2:55 P.M. ET:  From the U.K.'s reliably left-wing Guardian:

Meat-free menus are to be promoted in hospitals as part of a strategy to cut global warming emissions across the National Health Service.

The plan to offer patients menus that would have no meat option is part of a strategy to be published tomorrow that will cover proposals ranging from more phone-in GP surgeries to closing outpatient departments and instead asking surgeons to visit people at their local doctor's surgery.

COMMENT:  When people start talking about the beauty of government-guided health coverage, we might want to think about the above story.  I'm not sure I want my health care decided on the basis of global-warming theories.

NO MORE KRISTOL BALL - AT 2:27 P.M. ET:  Bill Kristol has written his last column for The New York Times.  It's the one we quote below, in our 9:06 a.m. entry.  A statement by The Times said the end of Kristol's tenure was by mutual agreement.  The Times story on Kristol's departure said:

The newspaper’s decision to sign him to a one-year contract as a columnist drew intense criticism, particularly from the left, as did many of the columns he wrote.

COMMENT:  "Particularly" from the left?  Did anyone else criticize the decision?  I don't recall that.  There's a left-wing element at The Times that does not believe any conservative voices should be heard at the paper.  When Bill Safire was hired in the 1970s, there was an uproar as well.  He went on to become one of the paper's best columnists.  The Times admits that it has no conservative replacement for Kristol, something it should have had.

DOW NOT WOW - AT 2:18 P.M. ET:  The Dow reversed this morning's upward course and is now down 55.  Many companies today announced further layoffs. 

RICE AND IRAN - AT 2:14 P.M. ET:  From AP:

Newly installed US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice says the new administration led by US President Barack Obama will engage in "direct diplomacy" with Iran.

She warned, however, of further action unless Teheran meets UN Security Council demands to suspend uranium enrichment as a prelude to talks on its nuclear program.

COMMENT:  Her comment was balanced, and could have easily been made by the other Rice - Condi.  These are not the "unconditional" negotiations originally promised by the president during his campaign.  They seem to have faded away with the oath of office. 

MARKET UP - AT 10:14 A.M. ET:  The Dow is up 115.

A LITTLE LATE - AT 10:03 A.M. ET:  From Bloomberg:

Jan. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Former Merrill Lynch & Co. Chief Executive Officer John Thain said paying $1.2 million to renovate his office suite a year ago was a “mistake,” and that he plans to reimburse the company.

Thain, who sold Merrill Lynch to Bank of America Corp. on Jan. 1, was dismissed last week as head of trading, investment banking and brokerage for the combined firm. He made the pledge in a memo dated yesterday to top Merrill executives.

COMMENT:  Might have been a bit wiser to admit the mistake earlier.  But we're glad the guy has 1.2 mil lying around for the reimbursement.  "Executives" like this can kill the free enterprise system.

ECONOMICS FROM NANCY - AT 9:59 A.M. ET:  Drudge reports:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi boldly defended a move to add birth control funding to the new economic "stimulus" package, claiming "contraception will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government."

Pelosi, the mother of 5 children and 6 grandchildren, who once said, "Nothing in my life will ever, ever compare to being a mom," seemed to imply babies are somehow a burden on the treasury.

The revelation came during an exchange Sunday morning on ABC's THIS WEEK.

COMMENT:  If Obama starts getting gray hair, Nancy Pelosi will be one of the reasons.

BORN AGAIN LIBERALISM?

Posted at 9:06 a.m. ET:

Bill Kristol has an excellent column in The New York Times speculating on whether President Obama can save liberalism.  Kristol puts it in context, documenting the sins of liberalism past:

Since Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, conservatives of various sorts, and conservatisms of various stripes, have generally been in the ascendancy. And a good thing, too! Conservatives have been right more often than not — and more often than liberals — about most of the important issues of the day: about Communism and jihadism, crime and welfare, education and the family.

Amen.

Lest conservatives be too proud, it’s worth recalling that conservatism’s rise was decisively enabled by liberalism’s weakness. That weakness was manifested by liberalism’s limp reaction to the challenge from the New Left in the 1960s, became more broadly evident during the 1970s, and culminated in the fecklessness of the Carter administration at the end of that decade.

More amen.  Any opponent of Jimmah is a friend of mine.

In 1978, the Harvard political philosopher Harvey Mansfield diagnosed the malady: “From having been the aggressive doctrine of vigorous, spirited men, liberalism has become hardly more than a trembling in the presence of illiberalism. ... Who today is called a liberal for strength and confidence in defense of liberty?”

Superbly said.  Can liberalism be revived?

The answer lies in the hands of one man: the 44th president. If Reagan’s policies had failed, or if he hadn’t been politically successful, the conservative ascendancy would have been nipped in the bud. So with President Obama today. Liberalism’s fate rests to an astonishing degree on his shoulders. If he governs successfully, we’re in a new political era. If not, the country will be open to new conservative alternatives.

And now the beauty part:

We don’t really know how Barack Obama will govern. What we have so far, mainly, is an Inaugural Address, and it suggests that he may have learned more from Reagan than he has sometimes let on. Obama’s speech was unabashedly pro-American and implicitly conservative.

Yay team!

Obama appealed to the authority of “our forebears,” “our founding documents,” even — political correctness alert! — “our founding fathers.” He emphasized that “we will not apologize for our way of life nor will we waver in its defense.”

Finally, Kristol compares the present to the crisis of World War II:

Today, the dangers are less stark, and the conflicts less hard. Still, there will be trying times during Obama’s presidency, and liberty will need staunch defenders. Can Obama reshape liberalism to be, as it was under F.D.R., a fighting faith, unapologetically patriotic and strong in the defense of liberty? That would be a service to our country.

It will be hard for Mr. Obama because the left wing of his party, once shown the door by Harry S. Truman in 1948, staged a return in the late sixties and stayed for dinner.  Obama must face down the members of that wing, and make plain to them that he will not do their bidding.  Will he?

January 26, 2009.      Permalink          

WE'RE NOT ALONE - AT 8:26 A.M. ET:  It's no secret that American newspapers are in trouble.  But America isn't alone in this.  The French press is in even worse shape.  There's this, from The Times of London:

It's Sunday in Paris and as usual most of the newspaper kiosks are closed. You don't need to look much beyond that absurdity to understand why the French press is in trouble.

The newspaper business is suffering everywhere, but the French one is in worse shape than most. Restrictive practices by communist-led print unions and a bizarre distribution system hobbled the press long before the internet began eating into its readership. France is one of the most expensive places in the world to print and sell newspapers. This created a vicious circle with dwindling readership driving away advertising and forcing prices even higher. Ouest-France, a provincial daily that is France's best-selling newspaper, ranks only 77th in the world circulation league.

COMMENT:  Ah, those Communist unions.  So good for the economy.  But I wonder if The Times is leaving something out.  Is it possible that the French, like many Americans, are becoming skeptical about the content of their newspapers, and are turning to other sources?  Even the French might tire of the constant anti-Americanism and provincialism.  I certainly hope so. 

WHY GOVERNORS SHOULDN'T APPOINT SENATORS - AT 8:02 A.M. ET:  From ABC News:

Illinois' beleaguered Gov. Rod Blagojevich said today that when he was deciding who would take President Obama's Senate seat he considered appointing talk show queen Oprah Winfrey.

Blagojevich made the revelation to Diane Sawyer this morning on "Good Morning America" on the day his impeachment trial begins. That trial is expected to toss him out of office.

COMMENT:  Hot Rod is one of the best arguments I've ever seen for the idea that candidates for high office should have psychiatric clearance.  His impeachment trial begins today, and he's doing talk shows.  Maybe Oprah will help him.

GOOD NEWS FOR THE PRESIDENT - AT 7:10 A.M. ET:  The morning press brings good news for Mr. Obama - he's already being attacked and warned by the political left.   University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole, Bush-hater, surge-doubter, Israel-despiser, is now tut-tutting the new president over our raids along the Afghan/Pakistan border:

Pundits are already worrying that Obama may be falling into the Lyndon Johnson Vietnam trap, of escalating a predecessor's halfhearted war into a major quagmire.

COMMENT:  With enemies like that, Obama doesn't need friends.  Apparently, the left is shocked, shocked, that Obama hasn't surrendered already.

DRIVE, HE SAID - AT 6:54 A.M. ET:  From AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Plunging into energy policy, President Barack Obama is poised to give states a freer hand in curbing emissions from cars, and to get his government moving on fuel-efficiency standards that could remake the auto industry.

Obama will announce his plans Monday at the White House, according to officials familiar with the details who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting the president.

COMMENT:  Obama's energy team is pretty radical.  I have serious doubts about letting states set their own standards at a time when our auto industry is struggling for survival.  You can get a state like California, with its army of environmental nutbags, setting standards so high that the patient can be killed before it has a chance to recover.  Let's look carefully at the details.

IT WON'T GO AWAY - AT 6:51 A.M. ET:  Apparently there was something else that forced Caroline Kennedy to withdraw from the Senate race in New York.  Ace reporter Fred Dicker has the latest on the intrigue that will spawn a hundred book proposals.  He cites two sources:

"Caroline learned on Wednesday that there was a specific and serious concern involving someone in her family, and it had nothing to do with taxes, nannies or her marriage," said the second source...

...The new revelations explain why, as The Post reported yesterday, members of the Kennedy family are "apoplectic" over the way the daughter of President John F. Kennedy was treated.

COMMENT:  This is really ugly stuff.  Governor David Paterson, an African-American, has crossed the Kennedys and the liberal establishment.  His allies in this are Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose vacant seat was being filled, and who clearly wanted Kennedy out of the picture, and Senator Charles Schumer, New York's senior senator and a power in the U.S. Senate.  There is real political bloodletting going on.  It remains to be seen whether the New York Republican Party, renowned throughout Western civilization for its incompetence, can take advantage of the mess.   

TRUTH TELLING IN THE MIDEAST - AT 6:31 A.M. ET:  Occasionally, even European officials get it right.  From the Jerusalem Post:

Hamas bears full responsibility for the war in Gaza, a top EU official said Monday in the Strip, calling the group "a terrorist movement."

"At this time we have to also recall the overwhelming responsibility of Hamas," Louis Michel, European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, told reporters.

"I intentionally say this here - Hamas is a terrorist movement and it has to be denounced as such," Michel said as he visited the town of Jabalya in northern Gaza.

"Public opinion is fed up to see that we are paying over and over again - be it the (European) commission, the member states or the major donors - for infrastructure that will be systematically destroyed," he said.

COMMENT:  I was wondering when the Europeans would realize that much of the aid they give the Palestinians goes right down the drain - either absorbed by corruption or devoted to things that get blown up.  At least this official gets it, but the European left will insist that the checks keep right on coming.

SUNDAY,  JANUARY 25,  2009

HANSON

Posted at 10:18 a.m. ET

Victor Davis Hanson gives his usual sharp analysis, focused this time on the beginnings of the Obama administration.  From The Washington Times:

For nearly three months since the election, we have been warned by President Obama, his staff and the media not to burden him with unreal expectations that no mere mortal could meet.

But why then consciously borrow from Abraham Lincoln's speeches? And why re-create Lincoln's historic train ride to his Inauguration - especially by flying back from Washington to Illinois to then return to D.C. by slow-moving railcar? Lincoln took the train because it was the only feasible way to get to Washington in 1861, not to copy the grand arrival of some earlier American savior.

Wonderfully stated.

And there's something else:

It would be difficult to find a single major policy position that he hasn't backtracked somewhat on, especially on matters of foreign policy and the war against terror. Yet throughout the campaign, Mr. Obama and the media argued that the manner in which Mr. Bush waged the war against terror was harmful to the republic. So, were Mr. Bush's polices wrong then, but suddenly right now?

See our second item today, posted at 8:09 a.m.

Mr. Obama defeated Hillary Clinton by running as a Washington outsider who promised new hope and radical change - and anything other than more Bush or Clinton.

Then he imported much of the old Clinton team for governance - Rahm Emanuel, Leon Panetta, John Podesta, Larry Summers, Hillary herself and a score of others - to put a far more articulate and hip veneer on George Bush's current foreign policy.

We're getting that impression, aren't we?

What is going on here? Apparently, Mr. Obama accepts that the country is both still center-right and yet eager for a nontraditional national spokesman - glib, young, cool and able to charm a hostile world that is often hypocritical toward and envious of America...

...But Mr. Obama's hard-left base had promoted Mr. Obama the liberal activist for different reasons...

...So to satisfy both left and center constituencies, Mr. Obama seems to stick with the status quo on major issues while offering symbolic gestures and low-profile appointments to radical environmentalists, gay and minority activists, open-borders reformers and labor unionists.

But will this all work?  With the Iranians?  With Putin?  The Hamas choir? 

This triangulation may or may not work at home. Yet abroad it is a different story, where one cannot vote present or charm tough guys and thugs who do not always appreciate flexibility - and may interpret it as weakness to be exploited...

...The much-maligned George Bush handled all these characters with often unambiguous, if inelegant, talk, and a no-nonsense toughness. If Mr. Obama, in contrast, feels he can offer them vague hope-and-change great-expectations rhetoric, and make himself agreeable to the world abroad in the manner he did so to us at home - well, then, lots of luck!

Look, as we've said before, we want the president to succeed, especially in foreign- and defense policy.  But Hanson makes a good point.  Mr. Obama is juggling a lot of balls in the air.  He can't let any of them drop.  He's much more articulate than Bush, but what is lacking thus far is clearly defined policy.

January 25, 2009.      Permalink          

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED TO BIPARTISANSHIP - AT 9:45 A.M. ET:  The way the media has been reporting it, Senator John McCain has almost become an ex officio member of the Obama administration, maybe even eligible for an Obama knighthood.  Rahm Emanuel was even seated next to Cindy McCain at the inaugural luncheon.

Not so fast, media.  Take this, from Politico 44, covering the Obama presidency:

Maverick: McCain's not on board with the stimulus plan.

"I think there has to be major rewrites if we want to stimulate the economy. I am opposed to most of the provisions in the bill. As it stands now I would not support it," he said in an appearance on Fox News Sunday.

COMMENT:  Mavericks cut both ways.  McCain retains his independence, and opposes the highly defective stimulus package, which, as written, won't stimulate anything but a flood of new federal projects named for local congressmen.  Go Mac.

NEW SENATOR GETS KNIFED - AT 9:35 A.M. ET:  From The Politico:

Within the high school gossip circle that is New York’s congressional delegation, Kirsten Gillibrand’s nickname is “Tracy Flick” — a not-so-flattering reference to the over-eager, blonde, bubbly and viciously competitive Reese Witherspoon character from “Election.”

Gillibrand, the newly appointed junior senator from New York, has never been shy about her political ambitions — or her willingness to vault over older, more experienced politicians.

COMMENT:  Let's translate this into English.  Compared to what they called Hillary Clinton, Tracy Flick is a compliment.  Bottom line, Gillibrand is a centrist, and the party's left wing is furious.  Also, she doesn't come from the New York City area, which means she's considered foreign-born by much of the state's Dem establishment - maybe not even a citizen, possibly a spy. 

THE ACADEMIC WARS - AT 9:26 A.M. ET:  From TaxProf Blog via InstaPundit:

Teresa R. Wagner, Associate Director of the University of Iowa College of Law Writing Resource Center, has filed a lawsuit against the school and its dean, Tax Prof Carolyn Jones, claiming that she was twice rejected for a legal writing faculty position because of her conservative political views. From the Chronicle of Higher Education and Des Moines Register:

She argues that affiliations listed on her résumé, including stints with groups like the National Right to Life Committee, did her in with a liberal-leaning faculty. To bolster her case, the lawsuit dissects the political affiliations of the approximately 50 faculty members who vote on law-school faculty hires; 46 of them are registered as Democrats and only one, hired 20 years ago, is a Republican, the lawsuit states. Ms. Wagner also says that a law-school associate dean suggested that she conceal her affiliation with a conservative law school [Ave Maria] and later told her not to apply for any more faculty positions.

"She just wants to make it known that conservatives need not apply," Wagner's lawyer, Stephen Fieweger of Moline, Ill., said. "Liberals talk about diversity, except when it comes to bringing in a different, conservative point of view."

COMMENT:  Discrimination against conservatives has become commonplace in our universities.  What can be done about it?  Probably not much, except to wait for generational change.  A recent New York Times piece asserted that most young faculty members aren't as ideological as their older, sixties-oriented colleagues.  Let's hope that's true.  I'd like to see more proof.

A REMINDER - AT 8:31 A.M. ET:  From The New York Times:

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Every night around 8 o’clock, the terrified residents of Swat, a lush and picturesque valley a hundred miles from three of Pakistan’s most important cities, crowd around their radios. They know that failure to listen and learn might lead to a lashing — or a beheading.

Using a portable radio transmitter, a local Taliban leader, Shah Doran, on most nights outlines newly proscribed “un-Islamic” activities in Swat, like selling DVDs, watching cable television, singing and dancing, criticizing the Taliban, shaving beards and allowing girls to attend school. He also reveals names of people the Taliban have recently killed for violating their decrees — and those they plan to kill.

COMMENT:  A friendly reminder of what we're up against.  These are not people with whom you negotiate.  We are at war, and Americans are forgetting.

THE PARTY LINE, BIG TIME - AT 8:09 A.M. ET: 

Don't believe in party-line journalism?  Think again.  When Bush did something, it was bad, sinister, incompetent, not working.  If Obama does it - well, let's have a second look.  A classic example comes from William Saletan in Slate.  He first notes that pilotless-drone attacks into Pakistan, begun under Bush, continue under Obama.  Why?  Get this:

Why is Obama sticking with Bush's drone war? Because it's doing its job, grimly and quietly.

Huh?  You mean it's working?  As Johnny Carson used to say, "I did not know that."  Apparently it's working now that Obama has taken the oath, twice.

And it's suddenly such a good war.  We love it, don't we?

...a drone doesn't need to return fire. It can listen, watch, and wait until it has the bad guys in its sights with few civilians in the way.
If I'm a new U.S. president who needs to hunt, kill, and deter terrorists without invading or occupying countries, this is the kind of war I want.

So welcome to the new line, the lovely war.  Suddenly the things that Mr. Bush was doing look awfully good, and so intelligent.  Why, this is a war we can all believe in.  See your recruiting sergeant today.  You can get an age waiver. 

QUOTE OF THE DAY - AT 5:53 A.M. ET:  From David Horowitz, quoted in The Wall Street Journal:

If we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday at a time of presidential inaugurals, this is thanks to Ronald Reagan who created the holiday, and not to the Democratic Congress of the Carter years, which rejected it. If Americans now have accepted an African American to lead their country in war and peace that is in part because an hysterically maligned Republican made two African Americans his secretaries of state. And if, after the passage of the Civil Rights Acts, race has continued to be a divisive factor in our politics over the last 40 years that is because the generation of Sharpton and Jackson and their liberal supporters have made it so. .

Well stated.