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FRIDAY,  JUNE 19,  2009

THE PRESIDENT TAKES OFF THE MITTENS - AT 8:41 P.M. ET: We guess this is as tough as it gets in today's Washington.  President Obama has now spoken out about the demonstrations in Iran.  From Fox News:

President Obama is "very concerned" about the events unfolding in Iran, as the Islamic Republic's supreme leader warned Friday about a coming crackdown on peaceful protesters.

"I'm very concerned based on some of the tenor -- and tone of the statements that have been made -- that the government of Iran recognize that the world is watching," the president told CBS News. "And how they approach and deal with people who are, through peaceful means, trying to be heard will, I think, send a pretty clear signal to the international community about what Iran is and -- and is not."

COMMENT:  Say what?  Has the president been under any illusions about what Iran is?  At least the government?  Is he looking for signals?  Will someone please tell him.

We are not in good hands.

June 19, 2009   Permalink

THE WEEKEND TO COME - AT 8:22 A.M. ET:  This could be a momentous weekend.  The mullahs of Iran have threatened "bloodshed" against demonstrators, but the demonstrators don't look as if they'll back down. 

Eyes are not only on Tehran.  They're on Washington, where a weak reaction thus far has dismayed even some allies of the president.  From The New York Times:

TEHRAN — Taking an unequivocal stand against days of mass protests, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sternly warned opposition supporters on Friday to stay off the streets and raised the prospect of violence if their defiant, vast demonstrations continued.

He said bluntly that opposition leaders would be “responsible for bloodshed and chaos” if they did not stop further rallies in protest of last week’s disputed presidential election.

And...

The sermon also raised pressures on the Obama administration to abandon its carefully calibrated expressions of concern about violence and the repression of democratic processes while stressing that “meddling” was not productive.

In Washington, both the House and Senate overwhelmingly passed resolutions condemning the Iranian government’s crackdown on the opposition.

COMMENT:  Only one congressman, Ron Paul, voted against the House resolution, although a number of the heroes and heroines didn't vote.  We'll try to get their names for you, but we can probably list them already.

There is no late information available yet on the Senate vote.

And yet, what are the TV networks doing?  They're ramping up laudatory coverage of President Obama in several specials to be aired this week.  Let's not let world events stand in our way.

This could be a historic weekend, not only in Iran, but also in the Pacific, as American ships track a North Korean vessel suspected of carrying nuclear materials.  The question is being asked:  What will President Obama do?  So far, his administration has treated foreign policy as social work.  Can't we all get along?  Now, North Korea and Iran have essentially given him their answer.  No, we can't all get along.  Is there an alternative policy?  Or just an alternative speech to a friendly audience?

June 19, 2009   Permalink 

 
PRESIDENTIAL POLL NUMBERS - AT 11:15 A.M. ET:  Rasmussen's report this morning confirms other polls showing slippage for the president.  According to Ras, some 54% of Americans approve of the job Mr. Obama is doing, compared with 45% who disapprove.  The Rasmussen presidential approval index, measuring the gap between those who strongly approve and those who strongly disapprove, is down to one point, the second lowest rating since inauguration day.

We always stress that polls are snapshots in time, and can vary considerably from week to week.  But two major polls now show presidential approval in the lower fifties, not very good for a messiah.

With crunches coming on North Korea, Iran, and domestic spending and taxes, Mr. Obama will have to maneuver deftly to hang onto the lead he has.

June 19, 2009   Permalink

HEY, IT'S ONLY OUR MONEY - AT 9:59 A.M. ET:  Something else most Americans seem unaware of - Congress is about to complete action on a "cash for clunkers" program that would provide taxpayer money to make it easier for people to buy more fuel-efficient cars.  The Buffalo News has an excellent story on this, with a Q & A about the program.  Is this the way taxes should be spent? 

Among other problems with still one more federal program is a basic reality:  When you start subsidizing a product, there's an incentive for the manufacturers of that product simply to raise their prices.  This happens in education all the time, with tuition grants.  When tuition is subsidized, there's a temptation on the part of schools to raise it.  After all, why should students be the only ones who benefit? 

Cash for clunkers looks like a program that can easily be manipulated:

The federal government’s proposed “cash for clunkers” program, aimed at getting car buyers to purchase more fuel-efficient vehicles and trade in autos with poorer fuel economy, is moving closer to reality. It has passed in the House and awaits a vote in the Senate.

Just how much of a difference it will make in car sales and whether it is a sound economic idea are still being debated.

Its backers view the program as a way to boost slumping new-car sales by offering vouchers of up to $4,500 to take “gas guzzlers” off the road for good, since the eligible trade-ins would be scrapped.

Some critics have questioned whether cash for clunkers is an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars and challenged the qualifying standards applied to the vehicles.

COMMENT:  This will also cause resentment as some people qualify, and others don't.  And how about the provision that the so-called "clunkers" be scrapped?  What a waste.  Even inefficient vehicles can have value.  Why not give them to charities or centers for the elderly?  Yes, the fuel costs to these institutions would be less than ideal, but they'd probably balance that out, at least, by getting free vehicles.

Someone hasn't thought this through. 

June 19, 2009   Permalink 

SNEEZE NOW, YOU MAY NOT BE ALLOWED TO TOMORROW - AT 9:25 A.M. ET:   You'd think Americans would be more interested.  The Democratic-controlled Congress wants to rewrite medical care in the United States, putting the federal government front and center.  Your health-care decisions could wind up being made by someone in Washington whose knowledge was gained in a high-school first-aid course. 

But now some of the high-flying proposals are running into serious headwinds, in part because of the resistance of moderate Democrats. We've noted here before that a coalition of Republicans and moderate Dems is emerging in Congress, and could frustrate the dreams of the far left.  The Politico reports:

President Obama's campaign for health care reform by this fall, once considered highly likely to succeed, suddenly appears in real jeopardy.

Top White House advisers, especially Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, are still privately predicting massive changes to the health care system in 2009. But for the first time, Democrats on Capitol Hill and in the administration are expressing frank worries about stronger-than-expected opposition from moderate Democrats and worse-than-expected estimates for how much the plan could cost.

Further...

And top Democratic officials tell POLITICO they are increasingly pessimistic about getting any more Republican votes than they did on the stimulus package, with some aides referring to the idea of a bipartisan bill as "fools' gold" — an unattainable waste of time.

COMMENT:  The sad part is that health plans will be debated in Congress during the summer, when Americans are easily distracted.  The subject is complex, involving science, money, insurance, power, and very high emotions.  The mainstream media shows little enthusiasm for real digging or detailed reporting. 

Oh, by the way, the main health bill being proposed exempts members of Congress, who will keep their world-class insurance perks.  It's the rest of us who'll be affected.  What's wrong with that picture?

June 19, 2009   Permalink

KRAUTHAMMER ON IRAN - AT 8:21 A.M. ET:  The outstanding journalistic voice in the United States during the Iran protests has been Charles Krauthammer, which will make him even more hated on the left.  He has truly become the conscience of a journalistic community that increasingly is failing at its responsibilities.  His take on Iran reflects that:

Millions of Iranians take to the streets to defy a theocratic dictatorship that, among its other finer qualities, is a self-declared enemy of America and the tolerance and liberties it represents. The demonstrators are fighting on their own, but they await just a word that America is on their side.

And what do they hear from the president of the United States? Silence. Then, worse. Three days in, the president makes clear his policy: continued "dialogue" with their clerical masters.

It gets worse:

Then, after treating this popular revolution as an inconvenience to the real business of Obama-Khamenei negotiations, the president speaks favorably of "some initial reaction from the Supreme Leader that indicates he understands the Iranian people have deep concerns about the election."

Where to begin? "Supreme Leader"? Note the abject solicitousness with which the American president confers this honorific on a clerical dictator who, even as his minions attack demonstrators, offers to examine some returns in some electoral districts -- a farcical fix that will do nothing to alter the fraudulence of the election.

The multiculturalists must be going batty over this column.  Why, Charles, don't you understand that we must respect the culture aspects of the term, "Supreme Leader"?  Do we want to offend Islamic sensibilities?  Oh, Charles.

Obama totally misses the point. The election allowed the political space and provided the spark for the eruption of anti-regime fervor that has been simmering for years and awaiting its moment. But people aren't dying in the street because they want a recount of hanging chads in suburban Isfahan. They want to bring down the tyrannical, misogynist, corrupt theocracy that has imposed itself with the very baton-wielding goons that today attack the demonstrators.

Oh, these neocons.  Always so upset. 

And where is our president? Afraid of "meddling." Afraid to take sides between the head-breaking, women-shackling exporters of terror -- and the people in the street yearning to breathe free. This from a president who fancies himself the restorer of America's moral standing in the world.

COMMENT:  Krauthammer defines it perfectly.  Obviously, the term "moral standing" means different things to different people.  To the left, it means cozying up to dictatorships, as long as the thug regimes deliver reasonable health care and abortion services. 

The tragedy is that, should the demonstrators be defeated or intimidated, the story of their defiance will disappear in 24 hours.  It is too inconvenient for the in-the-tank Obama press, which is eager to return to their dream of socializing America. 

Incredibly, the left's view of Iran is remarkably similar to the mentality of isolationists of the 1930s.  None of our business.  No threat to us.  Nothing to see here, folks.  Now, about our national car companies...

June 19, 2009   Permalink

IRAN - AT 7:30 A.M. ET:  From Fox:

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran's supreme leader said Friday that there was "definitive victory" and no rigging in disputed presidential elections, offering no concession to protesters demanding the vote be canceled and held again.

In his first public address since demonstrators flooded the streets, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said protests should cease and the opposition must pursue its complaints within the confines of the cleric-led ruling system.

He blamed Great Britain and Iran's external enemies for trying to foment unrest but said Iran would not see a second revolution like those that transformed the countries of the former Soviet Union.

COMMENT:  So much for transparency, democracy, and fair process.  Once the top man speaks, that's it.  Now the question is whether the people of Iran will follow the leader.  If they do, out of fear, the demonstrations will end, the "election" results will stand, and the "realists" in Washington, led by the president, will go back to business as usual, pursuing the grand illusion that they can negotiate with these thugs. 

Don't you like the way American "prestige" has been restored?

June 19, 2009   Permalink

THURSDAY,  JUNE 18,  2009

NEW THREATS FROM NORTH KOREA - AT 8:41 P.M. ET:

WASHINGTON – The U.S. military is tracking a ship from North Korea that may be carrying illicit weapons, the first vessel monitored under tougher new United Nations rules meant to rein in and punish the communist government following a nuclear test, officials said Thursday.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he has ordered additional protections for Hawaii just in case North Korea launches a long-range missile over the Pacific Ocean.

The suspect ship could become a test case for interception of the North's ships at sea, something the North has said it would consider an act of war.

Officials said the U.S. is monitoring the voyage of the North Korean-flagged Kang Nam, which left port in North Korea on Wednesday. On Thursday, it was traveling in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of China, two officials said on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence. 

And then we have this:

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea may fire a long-range ballistic missile toward Hawaii in early July, a Japanese news report said Thursday, as Russia and China urged the regime to return to international disarmament talks on its rogue nuclear program.

The missile, believed to be a Taepodong-2 with a range of up to 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometers), would be launched from North Korea's Dongchang-ni site on the northwestern coast, said the Yomiuri daily, Japan's top-selling newspaper. It cited an analysis by the Japanese Defense Ministry and intelligence gathered by U.S. reconnaissance satellites.

The missile launch could come between July 4 and 8, the paper said.

COMMENT:  We stress that this is speculation, but there are stories floating around that the launch will come on our Independence Day.  What a greeting.

The crunch with North Korea is clearly coming.  The crunch with Iran is underway.  Secretary Gates is properly preparing our defenses.  We await a reaction from our messianic leader.  He should certainly be concerned about Hawaii.  Didn't he live there once?  And in Indonesia?  And in...well, everywhere else?  It's a small world, after all.

The president is taking heat for his wobbly attitude toward the Iranian protests.  This heat will be nothing compared to what he'll get if the North Koreans roll all over him.

June 18, 2009   Permalink

THE GREAT ISSUES OF OUR TIME - AT 8:19 P.M. ET:  Andrew Malcolm of the L.A. Times's Top of the Ticket informs us of the deep intellectual level of a Senate hearing, presided over by one Barbara Boxer, formerly of Brooklyn, now of someplace in California. You will not believe:

California's Barbara Boxer was chairing a hearing of her Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works, examining what in blazes is taking the Army Corps of Engineers so long to properly protect from the sea a Louisiana city that sits below sea level. Good luck with that still. Again.

Boxer was getting a little exasperated, head dramatically on hand and all. As the proper sign of military respect for a female, Brigadier Gen. Michael Walsh was answering "Yes, ma'am" and "No, ma'am."

And finally the ma'am had had enough. "Could you say 'senator' instead of 'ma'am'? It's just a thing. I worked so hard to get that title." No, really. Watch for yourself. She actually said that. A different attitude than on Memorial Day.

COMMENT:  Boxer is not known as a tower of intellect.  And, sadly, this incident will probably have no effect on her reelection campaign next year.  Some radical feminist groups, silent about the bestial oppression of Muslim women, probably think Boxer has hit upon a major issue.  Oh, mustn't say "hit upon."

This is what passes for a congressional hearing.

June 18, 2009   Permalink

WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL - AT 4:17 P.M. ET:  Now here's an example of leadership, a great statement by Mike Pence, chairman of the House Republican Conference:

"The President has the right to draw the line where he chooses to draw it but I am someone who believes that when Ronald Reagan went to the Brandenburg Gate, he did not say 'Mr. Gorbachev, that wall is none of our business.' He went to the Brandenburg Gate and he said, 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.' We know from people like Natan Sharansky and Alexander Solzhenitsyn that deep in the gulags of the Soviet Union, when Ronald Reagan was willing to call the Soviet Empire 'the evil empire,' it gave encouragement to the people who were fighting tyranny within the Soviet Union."

Now we're talkin'.  When Republicans are awake, they do very well.  Mr. Obama is under the gun on Iran.  Increasingly, he sounds like a second-line diplomat from a European country, not like an American president.   Mike Pence reminded him of what an American president sounds like.

June 18, 2009   Permalink

NUMBERS TROUBLE - AT 9:25 A.M. ET:  Two new polls spell trouble for President Obama.  Although he remains personally popular, support for the president's policies is increasingly anemic.  From The New York Times:

A substantial majority of Americans say President Obama has not developed a strategy to deal with the budget deficit, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, which also found that support for his plans to overhaul health care, rescue the auto industry and close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, falls well below his job approval ratings.

And...

A distinct gulf exists between Mr. Obama’s overall standing and how some of his key initiatives are viewed, with fewer than half of Americans saying they approve of how he has handled health care and the effort to save General Motors and Chrysler. A majority of people said his policies have had either no effect yet on improving the economy or had made it worse, underscoring how his political strength still rests on faith in his leadership rather than concrete results.

Meanwhile, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll produced similar results:

WASHINGTON -- After a fairly smooth opening, President Barack Obama faces new concerns among the American public about the budget deficit and government intervention in the economy as he works to enact ambitious health and energy legislation, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds.

These rising doubts threaten to overshadow the president's personal popularity and his agenda, in what may be a new phase of the Obama presidency.

COMMENT:  Significantly, the president was also down in foreign policy, at a time when his relatively soft stand on Iran is getting decidedly mixed ratings. 

The honeymoon, if not over, is in its final stretch.  How the president rates this fall will be politically critical, as the nation starts the long march toward the 2010 midterm elections.

June 18, 2009   Permalink

RECOMMENDATION - AT 8:31 A.M. ET:  Go to Gateway Pundit for an extended interview with an Iranian activist.  The translation is provided by Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, whom we often quote here.  We're not getting this kind of background from the mainstream media, only from the internet.  Well worth it.

June 18, 2009   Permalink

PETERS SLAMS OBAMA ON IRAN - AT 8:18 A.M. ET:  One thing about Ralph Peters - you never have to wonder where he stands.  He's mad as hell at President Obama for his handling of Iran, and says so:

SILENCE is complicity. Our president's refusal to take a forthright moral stand on the side of the Iranian freedom marchers is read in Tehran as a blank check for the current regime.

And maybe that's what's intended. 

And our president is "troubled," but doesn't believe we should "meddle" in Iran's internal affairs. (Meddling in Israel's domestic affairs is just fine, though.)

We just turned our backs on freedom.

Of course, concepts like that are ruled "unsophisticated" in the parlors of Georgetown or the eating clubs of Princeton.  So Bushlike, the kind of thing a man like Peters, retired Army, would say.  Let us sneer.

For decades, Washington policymakers from both parties have prodded Iranians to throw off their shackles. Last Friday, millions of Iranians stood up. And we're standing down.

That isn't diplomacy. It's treachery.

I love commentators with moral clarity.

To Obama, his dogmatic commitment to negotiations is infinitely more important than a few million protesters chanting the Farsi equivalent of "We Shall Overcome."

This is madness. There is no chance -- zero, null, nada -- that negotiations with the junta of mullahs will lead to the termination (or even a serious interruption) of Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons. Our president's faith in his powers of persuasion is beginning to look pathological. Is his program of negotiations with apocalypse-minded, woman-hating, Jew-killing fanatics so sacrosanct that he can't acknowledge human cries for freedom?

No he can't!  The "Yes we can!" list only includes items on the liberal agenda.  Liberating Iran isn't one of them.

Obama's ignorance of history is on naked display -- no sense of the brutality of Iran's Islamist regime, of the years of mass imprisonments, diabolical torture, prison rapes, wholesale executions and secret graves that made the shah's reign seem idyllic. Our president seems to regard the Iranian protesters as spoiled brats...

...Now our president's attempt to vote "present" yet again green-lights the Iranian regime's determination to face down the demonstrators -- and the mullahs understand it as such.

COMMENT:  The president seems quite taken with the so-called "realist" approach of men like Brent Scowcroft, who ran Bush 41's rather cynical foreign policy, a foreign policy that found no punishment for the Chinese crackdown in Tiananmen Square, and turned its back on the anti-Saddam forces in Iraq.  That isn't realism, it's just kicking the can down the road, hoping the next president will solve the problem.

We await more drama from Tehran.

June 18, 2009   Permalink

IN HIS OWN WAY - AT 7:50 A.M. ET:  We are preparing for major fits of indigestion in the mainstream media as former President George W. Bush struck out at his successor, if only obliquely:

ERIE, Pa.| Former President George W. Bush fired a salvo at President Obama on Wednesday, asserting his administration's interrogation policies were within the law, declaring the private sector not government will fix the economy and rejecting the nationalization of health care.

"I know it's going to be the private sector that leads this country out of the current economic times we're in," the former president said to applause from members of a local business group. "You can spend your money better than the government can spend your money."

Mr. Bush did not exactly do a Cheney, but he edged closer.  If he does start defending himself publicly, the Obama administration will have deserved it.  I don't recall any administration that has been so harsh on its predecessor, blaming the Bush government for almost everything, including the weather.

During a question-and-answer session, Mr. Bush recounted tough decisions he made in office. Still steely, the former president said he left Washington with the same moral resolve. "When I look in the mirror, I say, 'He did not sell his soul for short-term politics.'"

COMMENT:  We believe here that Mr. Bush's stock will rise in coming years, although we agree that there were flaws in the execution of his policies, and certainly in explaining them.  Like Harry Truman's, Mr. Bush's White House featured some strong resolve, some excellent decisions, and terrible communications.  The current White House features skilful communications and...well, there must be something else.

June 18, 2009   Permalink

QUOTE OF THE WEEK - AT 7:22 A.M. ET:  From Wesley Pruden in The Washington Times:

Silver linings are deceptive and often hard to find, but that might be a tiny sliver of silver in that dark cloud bank over Iran. Barack Obama got notice from the election results that his tongue, golden and honeyed though it may be, is no match for reality.

If Iranian voters had thrown Mahout Humdinger into the street, the American president would have assumed that he was the One who did it, and the American press would have led the hosannas for the messiah from the south side of Chicago. Just a few more speeches, a few more respectful bows toward Mecca, and all the rough places would be made smooth and plain. But now even Mr. Obama must wake up and smell the tear gas.

COMMENT: Very well said.  Unfortunately, not enough journalists are saying it. 

June 18, 2009   Permalink