I have a new piece up at Power Line, "Four Deaths and a Rule Change."  For anyone interested, it's here.

I also have a new piece up at Hudson New York, "Is The Free Press Failing Us?"  For those interested, it's here.

FRIDAY,  JULY 10,  2009

EMBURRISED - AT 6:12 P.M. ET:  From AP, via Fox News: 

Embattled Illinois Sen. Roland Burris said Friday he won't run for a full term in 2010, making official the end of a short Senate career clouded by questions about his appointment by disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Burris, the only black U.S. senator, said he was bowing out of the 2010 race because of the burden of raising money to pay for a campaign.

"I was called to choose between spending my time raising funds, or spending my time raising issues for my state. I believe that the business of the people of the state of Illinois should always come first," Burris said.

COMMENT:  His Senate appointment was a public embarrassment, and he never recovered.

Republicans have a great chance in Illinois, which trends Democratic, but which periodically elects Republicans to statewide office.  Will they seize the chance?  Outstanding Congressman Mark Kirk is ready to run, but an apparently egotistical state chairman, Andy McKenna, says he may want to make the race, effectively forcing Kirk into a primary, which Kirk may not want to endure.  Again, self-destruction.  We'll know this weekend if the state chairman wants to be the architect of victory, or the designer of the Titanic.

July 10, 2009    Permalink

DOES GEN. POWELL REGRET? - AT 6:03 P.M. ET:  I've always been baffled by Colin Powell.  By the usual accounts, he was a fine military officer...until he started mixing military with political decisions, and became the consummate bureaucrat.  Last year Powell burned up his prestige by entering national politics and endorsing Barack Obama.  Now he seems to be having some second thoughts, or some thoughts, as Cheri Jacobus, writing in The Hill, notes:

“We can’t pay for it all!”

Colin Powell, a powerful ally of President Obama, rather astonishingly uttered this truth last weekend about Obama’s job performance.

The piece asks this question:

Just what part of candidate Obama’s agenda of big government, big taxes and redistribution of wealth did Powell not understand? Or, as many suspect, was he so blinded by the celebrity of Obama that he threw common sense out the window and joined in the mindless, meaningless chant of “Yes we can!”?

And...

Colin Powell now claims that he “never would have believed that we would have budgets that are running into the multitrillions of dollars, and we are amassing a huge, huge national debt that, if we don’t pay for it in our lifetime, our kids and grandkids and great-grandchildren will have to pay for it.”

Really??? He never would have believed the most liberal senator in Washington would spend, spend, spend?

COMMENT:  Powell's credibility on non-defense issues is, to put it mildly, marginal.  He still wears Teflon armor on defense and foreign policy, for some ridiculous reason.  He escaped all blame for mistakes in Iraq, and his chief deputy, Richard Armitage, was ultimately revealed as the man who blew Valerie Plame's cover.  There's a time to go into private life.  Maybe that time, for the always dignified Gen. Powell, is now.

July 10, 2009   Permalink

RASMUSSEN - AT 10:09 A.M. ET:  We've been following the Rasmussen daily tracker carefully, as it chronicles the decline of the president.  As always, we stress that a poll is a snapshot of the moment.  However, a trend over time is more persuasive.

This morning's Rasmussen poll shows virtually no change from yesterday.  The president's overall approval remains at 51% approving, 48% disapproving.  Other polls show him stronger, but the trend in other polls is also downward.  If he falls below 50% in a few respected polls, there will be a psychological effect, as much within his own party as within the opposition. 

To demonstrate the trend, please note that overall approval on June 10th stood at 57-42.  On May 10th it was 58-41.  On April 10th it was 55-44.  On March 10th it stood at 56-43.  And on February 10th it was 60-38. 

So, the president has had his ups and downs.  But the narrowest gap we see in the list above is 11 points, in April.  Today's gap of three points tells the story.

July 10, 2009   Permalink

IRAN STILL BOILING - AT 9:04 A.M. ET:  We may have taken our eye off Iran, but the Iranian dissidents are still battling, at the risk of their lives.  We thank journalists like Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, who keep us informed every day of events in their native country.  Without them, we'd be getting very little of real depth.

The Jerusalem Post has today's angle:

Iranians prepared for another violent day of confrontations between demonstrators and security forces on Friday, after riot police used tear-gas against hundreds of demonstrators who defied government warnings and swarmed the streets to commemorate the anniversary of a student massacre in 1999.

According to an eye-witness speaking to ABC, two people were killed during protests Thursday.

"The crowds were too large to contain - it seemed like everyone was out on the streets. I saw people parking their cars in the middle of the streets and joining the rest of us," another witness said Thursday.

The demonstrations quickly turned grim. "The basiji were pulling people out of their cars and violently beating them, just because they were honking their horns in support of the protesters. But what really amazed me," said one protester in a phone interview from Teheran, "is that we stood by each other. Many of us selflessly helped our brothers and sisters out on the streets."

At the same time, there is treachery in the West.  One of the worst offenders in terms of collusion with Iran is German business.  There's a great organization in Europe known as Stop the Bomb.  It exposes the awful cooperation between German industry and the mullahs.  Here's an example.  The translation to English is awkward, but understandable:

Andreas Benl, speaker of Stop the Bomb, declares:  "That the lobbyists of the German trade with Iran continue with their business in full peace of mind, while the regime that they supply brutally breaks down the Iranian protest movement is an unbelievable scandal.” According to Benl this counted all the more as the German economy was directly involved in the oppression within Iran: “The regime uses surveillance technology from Siemens as well as electric batons ‘made in Germany’.”  
Especially the activities of the German-Iranian trade chamber have repeatedly been met with strong criticism at home and abroad. Just last year in November the private organization held a seminar at the Hamburg Kempinsky Hotel on how to do export business with Iran successfully despite sanctions. Among other newspapers, the Jerusalem Post and the Wall Street Journal reported on this event. One of the invited speakers was a representative of the Melli bank, on which the EU has imposed sanctions. Also the latest statements by the Tehran representative of the DIHKeV, Daniel Bernbeck, stating despite the suppression of the protest movement he didn’t have “moral problems” doing business with Iran, caused international outrage.

COMMENT:  We quote that to show that there are Europeans who are concerned, and are confronting the moral rot in European countries.   But so far the impact of Stop the Bomb and groups like it has been minimal.  Money talks.  I've always felt it talks louder in Europe than in America.  The lucrative trade with Iran is creating an enormous obstacle to effective action against the Iranian regime. 

July 10, 2009   Permalink

WHAT?  CAN THIS BE TRUE? - AT 8:40 A.M. ET:  From The New York Times:

DETROIT — Believe it or not, General Motors has a hit car on its hands.

Amid the gloom of bankruptcy and a miserable market for new vehicles, G.M.’s new Chevrolet Camaro muscle car is winning over consumers looking for a little excitement in a bland landscape of look-alike sedans and watered-down sport utilities.

G.M. sold 9,300 Camaros during the month of June — more than either its entire Buick or Cadillac divisions could muster on their own.

And with G.M. expected to emerge Friday from bankruptcy as a newly constituted company, it is hardly surprising that the Camaro will play a starring role in the company’s coming-out party and news conference at G.M.’s Detroit headquarters.

COMMENT:  Now just wait.  You must not believe a word of that.  Just ignore it.  Pass it by.

Are these miserable capitalist Bush-loving exploiter swine actually telling us that if a company builds a car people want, they'll buy it?  Do you know how dangerous that kind of thinking is?  It may lead to companies surviving without government control?  Do you want to go back to the dark ages?  Do you?

Send messages to Al Gore and Michael Moore.  Get them on the case.  The Camaro can still be stopped!  Look at the pictures.  It's a militaristic menace, designed by Karl Rove!

Fast - before they make money on it!

July 10, 2009   Permalink 

BABY, IT'S NOT WARM ENOUGH OUTSIDE - AT 7:59 A.M. ET:  The Senate is delaying the "climate change" (formerly known as global warming before all the embarrassing facts came out) bill.  Barbara "please call me Senator" Boxer is the liberal-in-charge:

The Senate does not plan to make any serious moves toward approving a climate change bill until September, a month later than its leaders' previous expectation.

Sen. Barbara Boxer today told reporters that she will not draft a climate change bill in her Environment and Public Works Committee until September, throwing the timetable for action in the chamber into doubt on one of President Obama's top legislative goals.

COMMENT:  This provides an opportunity for the Republicans, and their allies around the country, to mount a major challenge to the bill, with the aim of peeling away moderate Democrats.  The "climate change" bill that passed the House is radical, and could have devastating economic effects...just as we're learning that the global warming hysteria is thoroughly unjustified.

This is a time to educate the American people.  When informed, they will act with their phone calls, polling replies and voices.  The president's poll numbers are going down because voters are responding to facts about wild spending, zero results, and crazy hype.  The same can happen with "climate change" legislation that won't change any climate, will make select individuals very rich, and potentially hurt far more than it will help.

But opposing isn't enough.  Republicans must have, and have quickly, their own legislative program - practical, attractive, and easy to understand.

July 10, 2009   Permalink

STAY HOME, SARAH? - AT 7:50 A.M. ET:  The hits on Sarah Palin continue.  Now The Hill reports that some Republicans don't want her coming into their states and districts to campaign for them:

Republicans facing tough elections in 2010 don’t want Sarah Palin campaigning with them.

Though the soon-to-be-former Alaska governor is seen as popular with the conservative grass roots, several Republicans said she’d help them by staying home in Wasilla.

Several of these Republicans hail from districts or states carried in 2008 by President Obama, a frequent target of Palin’s criticism. Republicans must keep these districts and win others where Obama is popular if they are to gain seats next year.

GOP Rep. Lee Terry (Neb.), who squeaked out a victory despite his district’s overwhelming turnout for Obama, said he’d rather have House colleagues campaign for him than Palin.

COMMENT:  Okay, but there's actually less here than meets the eye.  Palin is a strong conservative.  In swing districts you want to convince voters that you're closer to the center.  By definition, a swing district is one in which the victorious candidate reaches across party lines for votes.  If you need Democratic votes, you may not want to be linked with Sarah.

It's the same, of course, for Democrats.  I'll bet there are some moderate Democratic members of Congress who, privately, would not want President Obama in their districts, especially as his poll numbers are slipping.  They certainly wouldn't want Nancy Pelosi.

Sarah has yet to be tested on the fundraising, base-building campaign trail in an off-year election.  We'll only know as we get into the 2010 campaign combat how popular, or not, she really is, and who invites her in.

July 10, 2009   Permalink

THURSDAY,  JULY 9,  2009

RECORDING ALERT - AT 10:04 P.M. ET:  Before you read, please make a note to set your TV recorder.   You will not want to miss this:  John Kerry is about to hold major hearings on Afghanistan, reminiscent of the hearings on Vietnam at which he testified as an anti-war veteran.  Oh, the nostalgia.  Oh, the memories.  Oh, youth!

WASHINGTON — Sen. John F. Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says he will hold far-ranging oversight hearings on the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.

“End of summer, early fall, we are going to take a hard look at Afghanistan,” Kerry said in an interview with GlobalPost.

I can't wait.

Kerry's proposal for hearings comes as just-deployed U.S. Marines undertake an ambitious and perilous offensive against the Taliban in the south, and as suicide bombings and roadside attacks on U.S. troops have escalated.

Our troops must love the fact that John Kerry is on the case, and will probably undercut their mission.

Between 1966 and 1971, the same committee Kerry chairs, then under Democratic chairman William Fulbright of Arkansas, played an important role in focusing concerns on President Lyndon Johnson’s flawed strategy during the Vietnam War. Kerry, then a 27-year-old decorated combat veteran of that war, rose to prominence as an anti-war leader with his testimony at the committee's hearings.

Now Kerry is in a key position to shape the direction of the war in Afghanistan.

Take a sleeping pill tonight.  Take two.  Maybe your spouse can knock you out with a mallet.

July 9, 2009   Permalink

COMPATIBILITY NEWS - AT 7:43 P.M. ET:  Many observers are starting to notice this.  From Fox:

When the president travels out of country, his secretary of state customarily follows.

Not so with Hillary Clinton.

More and more, President Obama is ditching his top diplomat when he travels abroad. By the time Obama returns from Ghana on Sunday, the last stop on his latest three-country tour, he will have visited nine countries without Clinton.

That's highly unusual for a new secretary of state. Though Clinton has accompanied Obama on several key international visits this year, including Egypt and Trinidad and Tobago, Obama has spent far more time than his predecessors without his foreign policy point person.

Some analysts say this could be a product of Obama's acute interest in diplomacy and international affairs, or perhaps his wariness to promote on the world stage a former rival whose star power could detract from his.

COMMENT:  There'd be a good office pool in just how long Hillary will last.  We speculated early in her term - and it's pure speculation - that she might find it in her interest, especially if Obama fades in the polls, to resign after a year.  Maybe she could say she wants to spend more time with Bill. No, that would never work.  Well, maybe she could hint at policy differences.  That would work, and possibly set her up for some other political office.

The whole relationship seems weird.  The real odd couple.  Maybe Hillary hoped to win a Nobel Peace Prize if something went right.  But she's delusional to think the Norwegians would favor her over Obama. 

Stay tuned.  The soap opera is just starting.

July 9, 2009   Permalink

BULLETIN:  WORLD MAY END IN 96 MONTHS - AT 6:46 P.M. ET:  From London's Independent:

Capitalism and consumerism have brought the world to the brink of economic and environmental collapse, the Prince of Wales has warned in a grandstand speech which set out his concerns for the future of the planet.

The heir to the throne told an audience of industrialists and environmentalists at St James's Palace last night that he had calculated that we have just 96 months left to save the world.

And in a searing indictment on capitalist society, Charles said we can no longer afford consumerism and that the "age of convenience" was over.

COMMENT:  Well, now we know.  The prince has spoken, condemning the money society...in St. James's Palace.

A rumor is flying that the prince is giving up the big house and will take a one-bedroom basement flat in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  Can't confirm it.

I wonder how much computer power the prince used to make his calculations. 

At least now you can plan.

July 9, 2009   Permalink

INCREDIBLE - AT 9:39 A.M. ET: We always stress that polls are snapshots in time, and contain margins of error.  That being said, the downward trend for President Obama in the Rasmussen poll is stark, and continues today:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 30% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-eight percent (38%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of –8. The President’s Approval Index rating has fallen six points since release of a disappointing jobs report last week.

That is the worst showing for the president since inauguration. 

And the figures for overall approval are also getting more grim.  Only 51% approve of the president's performance, while 48% disapprove. 

COMMENT:  Other polls show the president stronger, but also slipping.  Clearly, the economy is the driving factor, but I get the feeling there's also a growing sense that Mr. Obama isn't producing results anywhere.  Voters who believed peace would suddenly break out on inauguration day, and that all swords would be beaten into ploughshares, must be miffed.

July 9, 2009    Permalink

REAL NEWS - AT 9:20 A.M. ET:  Major word news.  Merriam-Webster has added more than 100 new words to its Collegiate dictionary.  Most seem pretty routine.  Then there are two that caught my eye: "carbon footprint" and "earmark."

They didn't have to add "carbon footprint."  The definition is already there, under "junk science."

And they didn't have to add "earmark."  That definition is also there, under "corruption."

Oh yes, I just noticed that they added "green collar," defined as "of, relating to, or involving actions for protecting the natural environment. jobs" 

Could have avoided that one, too.  The definition is under "chic."

Our language evolves.

July 9, 2009   Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY - AT 8:01 A.M. ET: The death of Robert McNamara continues to resonate in the press.  It gave the left, of course, a new birth of kookdom.  They could drive the knife in once more, and rejoice in their moral purity.  After all, the left had opposed the Vietnam War from the start.  Of course, it opposed everything else we did to resist Communist expansion, but it was proudest of Vietnam. 

And in McNamara they had the perfect weapon - a participant, the key planner, who later "admitted" he was wrong.  Whether he really meant or not, we will never know.  McNamara, after all, was never above currying favor with the trendies.

But new histories of Vietnam are telling the story of a war that could have been won.  And Seth Lipsky, in today's Wall Street Journal, provides some needed perspective to all the yapping over McNamara's death:

McNamara's great failure, in short, was not that he continued to front for a war he had concluded was wrong and had decided we would lose. It was that he collapsed in a war that he should have known we could win -- and then derided its very purpose. A central tenet of the left, after all, is that all the dying in the Vietnam War was without purpose. Here is how that famous New York Times editorial put it about McNamara: "Surely he must in every quiet and prosperous moment hear the ceaseless whispers of those poor boys in the infantry, dying in the tall grass, platoon by platoon, for no purpose."

I'm not so sure lack of purpose is what those infantrymen will be whispering to McNamara in whatever purgatory he finds himself. Many did grow cynical with respect to the American expedition -- I talked to hundreds of them in 1970, the year that I covered combat for Pacific Stars and Stripes.

But there also were many GIs who believed in the war in which they were risking their lives. And there were millions of South Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians in and out of uniform who understood the consequences of defeat. It is these people -- if they escaped the killing fields and re-education camps in which so many perished -- who have been living with those consequences ever since.

COMMENT:  The key word is "consequences."  When you lose a war, or pull out, there are consequences, some lasting years, or even decades.  Our withdrawal from Vietnam wrecked American foreign policy until Ronald Reagan rebuilt it in the early 1980s.  And "No more Vietnams" provided a powerful rallying cry for the left, replaced now by "No more Iraqs." 

But it was the people of South Vietnam, and especially Cambodia, who bore the most painful consequences of our withdrawal, and bear them today.  To these people the American left, comfortably installed in universities and newsrooms, has nothing to say.

July 9, 2009   Permalink  

POLL DANCING - AT 7:32 A.M. ET:  I've noticed that the number of articles devoted to President Obama's decline in the polls has increased dramatically this week.  This, from The Politico:

In a potentially alarming trend for the White House, independent voters are deserting President Barack Obama nationally and especially in key swing states, recent polls suggest.

Obama’s job approval rating hit a — still healthy — low of 56 percent in the Gallup Poll on Wednesday. And pollsters are debating whether Obama’s expansive and expensive policy proposals or the ground-level realities of a still-faltering economy are driving the falling numbers.

But a source of the shift appears to be independent voters, who seem to be responding to Republican complaints of excessive spending and government control.

A Dem operative drives in the spike:

“This is a huge sea change that is playing itself out in American politics,” said Democratic pollster Doug Schoen. “Independents who had become effectively operational Democrats in 2006 and 2008 are now up for grabs and are trending Republican.

“They’re saying, ‘Costing too much, no results, see the downside, not sure of the upside,’” he said.

COMMENT:  Do you hear the music?  Do you hear that beat?  An opportunity is opening for conservatives.  Will they seize it, or come up with nothing but platitudes?  It's time to devise realistic, attractive alternatives, like 1994's Contract With America. 

Of course, a dramatic lift in the economy can turn those poll numbers around.  But conservatives must leave nothing to chance.

July 9, 2009   Permalink

SLOW BOAT TO NOWHERE - AT 7:12 A.M. ET:  That's a phrase used by the late drama critic, Walter Kerr, to describe a play that meanders around and goes nowhere.  And so we see one act of that play being performed at the G-8 conference in Italy:

Group of Eight leaders said Wednesday that they deplored last month's post-election violence in Iran, adding that while they remained committed to seeking a diplomatic solution to Iran's contentious nuclear program, if no progress is made, leaders will reach new decisions at a G-20 economic summit in Pittsburgh in late September.

New decisions, mind you.  Read all about the new decisions.  How many times have you heard about new decisions?  Has one centrifuge stopped spinning in Iran?

What's interesting here is that President Obama, a few months ago, said he'd give the Iranians until December to show progress in nuclear talks.  We sense that the Europeans, some of whom have turned tougher on Iran than Washington, felt this was too much time.  We don't know what the reaction of our fearless president was.

At the same time, the statement was apparently dumbed down to make sure that no specific action was threatened.  Doesn't that make you feel more secure? 

This crowd meets again in Pittsburgh in September.  Let's see what they actually do in regard to Iran.  There's talk of sanctions.  You know, "tough" sanctions, like the kind that have never worked.

July 9, 2009   Permalink