SATURDAY,  MAY 30,  2009

YOU WILL LIKE SMALL CARS.  THAT IS AN ORDER - AT 8:35 P.M. ET:  The New York Times, in a somewhat bizarre piece, reports the fears of the auto industry that Americans may be losing their love affair with the automobile:

DETROIT — For all the drastic cuts and financial overhauls that are meant to secure a future for General Motors and Chrysler, their prospects in coming years will be determined more by the answer to a simple question: Can American drivers live without that new-car smell?

In recent years Americans appeared to be hooked on it and took advantage of home equity loans, easy credit and cheap short-term lease deals to send new-car sales to levels of more than 17 million a year.

Now, wait.  There were other factors.  The population grew, especially in the west, where cars are a necessity.  Also, we need to point out that, even in recent good times, people were keeping their cars longer.  High purchase costs and better long-time quality, especially in Japanese cars, contributed to that.

Some say the downturn is temporary and that sales will spring back in a few years. Others believe Americans will rethink whether they need so many cars, particularly new ones.

Haven't seen too much rethinking.  Americans love their cars.  A lot of the "rethinking" seems to be going on in the minds of urban, coastal editors who live five blocks from work.

People like Kate M. Emminger do not offer the carmakers much hope. Ms. Emminger sold her 2006 Toyota Corolla last April because she decided she could not afford her $250 monthly payment, even though she earns about $60,000 a year as a university events planner.

But...

“It just became too expensive to have a car,” Ms. Emminger said. Now, she volunteers at City CarShare, a nonprofit organization in San Francisco, in order to earn free use of its vehicles, which normally rent to members for $5 an hour plus 40 cents a mile. Otherwise, she takes public transit.

Works for a university, lives in San Francisco, is now part of a car collective.  Can anyone say "ideologist"?  If you can't afford $250 a month on a $60,000 income, with all those benefits that universities offer, you need a good accountant, not a change in car habits.

Lifestyles have changed, too. As many people move back to cities from suburbs, they are swapping three-car garages for a single parking space. Public transit use is up.

Yeah, right.  People are rushing back to New York City, where two-bedroom apartments can easily run a million.  Where has The Times been?

Look, this can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.  As our leftist government takes over car companies, and dictates what cars are built, the public may get turned off to what's in the showroom.  Cars eight feet long that run on marshmallows may not have great sales appeal.  So sales can plummet, leaving "environmentalists" to celebrate their victory.

But give people the cars they want, and, once the economy improves, they'll be back.  It's called free enterprise.  We may need to be reintroduced to it.

May 30, 2009   Permalink

 
A LOVE AFFAIR THAT MUST END - AT 12:14 P.M. ET:  Economics writer Robert Samuelson, who writes for the Washington Post, says what should be said more often and more loudly - that the media's love affair with President Obama is damaging to the country and the press.  How far do you think he'll get with this?

The Obama infatuation is a great unreported story of our time. Has any recent president basked in so much favorable media coverage? Well, maybe John Kennedy for a moment; but no president since. On the whole, this is not healthy for America...

...Obama has inspired a collective fawning. What started in the campaign (the chief victim was Hillary Clinton, not John McCain) has continued, as a study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism shows.

And...

The infatuation matters because Obama's ambitions are so grand. He wants to expand health care subsidies, tightly control energy use and overhaul immigration.

He envisions the greatest growth of government since Lyndon Johnson...

...The press should not be hostile, but it ought to be skeptical.

Mostly, it isn't. The idea of a "critical" Obama story is a tactical conflict with congressional Democrats or criticism from an important constituency. Larger issues are minimized, despite ample grounds for skepticism.

Finally...

The press has become Obama's silent ally and seems in a state of denial. But the story goes untold: Unsurprisingly, the study of all the favorable coverage received little coverage.

COMMENT:  Samuelson is right, of course, but there's little chance the situation will change in the near future.  Obama's narrative is the one taught to most journalists in college.  They accept it as an accurate portrayal of reality.

As far as the story of the favorable coverage going untold, that is not surprising.  The press doesn't cover the press very well.  It's too close to home, and friends are involved.  Journalists have the same sensibilities as everyone else, although they don't like to admit it.

May 30, 2009   Permalink

ANOTHER NORTH KOREAN TEST? - AT 10:25 A.M. ET:  Related to the story just below is news of another possible North Korean missile test:

TOKYO, May 30 -- North Korea, which launched a long-range missile over Japan in April, appeared Saturday to be moving another one to a launch pad.

Reports that a large rocket was moving by train toward North Korea's east coast punctuated a remarkably tense week on the Korean Peninsula. It began Monday with the North's underground test of a nuclear device, included six short-range missiles fired into the Sea of Japan and featured a declaration by the government of Kim Jong Il that the truce that ended the Korean War was null and void.

The test, if carried out, will take on additional urgency because of the recent, and apparently successful nuclear test.

The money quote:

Once North Korea perfects a three-stage intercontinental ballistic missile of the size of the Taepodong II, experts believe it may have enough range to strike the western United States.

North Korea's recent mix of missile and nuclear testing fits into what U.S. intelligence agencies and independent experts agree is an attempt to fashion a nuclear warhead that is small enough to fit atop the North's growing arsenal of missiles.

COMMENT:  President Obama goes to the Mideast and Europe this week.  He will deliver his much-anticipated speech in Cairo, "reaching out" to the Muslim world.  That is a perfect time for a North Korean missile launch, forcing the president either to make very tough statements during this magical "outreach" tour, or appear weak.  It is always more difficult for a president on a foreign trip to take a tough stand, the danger being that he can appear warlike while visiting other countries.

May 30, 2009   Permalink

GATES STRONGLY RAPS NORTH KOREA - AT 9:31 A.M. ET: At The Angel's Corner last night we called for a much clearer Obama foreign policy, with specifics that could prevent an enemy miscalculation.

Well, there may have been a step in the right direction today, with Bob Gates making a tough speech about North Korea in Singapore, as AP reports:

Drawing the most explicit US line yet on North Korea, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates vowed that the Obama administration would hold North Korea "fully accountable" if it sold or transferred any nuclear material outside its borders.

Gates sketched the framework of a new administration policy by saying that though a nuclear-armed North Korea is unacceptable, any step it takes to spread the technology would invite the swiftest and most forceful US response.

And...

Until Gates' speech, the Obama administration's policy on the North Korean nuclear threat was unclear. However, the warning by Gates formed the basis for President Barack Obama's approach, classifying North Korea's ambitions as a security concern for the region but, more seriously, as a proliferation worry for the United States and the rest of the world.

However, there was this escape clause:

He did not specify the potential consequences, but his language hinted at a military reaction by echoing post-Sept. 11 Bush administration warnings that those who harbor terrorists would be "held accountable."

COMMENT:  We hope that Gates's newer, tougher line actually is administration policy.  But the speech was delivered by a holdover from the Bush government, not by the president himself.  I'll believe it when I hear these words from Obama's mouth.  I'll believe it more strongly when specific actions are described, or at least suggested.

Questions:  What is the point at which the actions, not words, of the administration change?  Do those potential actions have the support of our Asian allies?  Do we count China as an ally, an adversary, or neutral?  Who has the balance of power in Washington, who has Obama's ear, the hard-liners or the endless engagers?

May 30, 2009   Permalink 

BRITS SNAP BACK - AT 9:15 A.M. ET:  The Brits have begun to fight back against the extraordinary attack on the British press by Robert Gibbs, White House news secretary.  (See our post here.)

Nile Gardiner, British conservative and a very good, pro-American guy, comments in The Telegraph:

This kind of attack would normally be made against the likes of the North Korean or Iranian state media, but in the current climate of "engagement" with America's enemies the White House is far more likely to attack its own allies. Gibbs' remarks have echoes of a senior State Department official's anti-British statements to The Sunday Telegraph after the appalling handling of the Prime Minister's visit in March.

Right on, Nile!

The British press, especially the Telegraph, has been singled out because they frequently publish articles critical of the Obama administration and are not afraid to take on the status quo in Washington. Increasingly, millions of Americans are turning to online UK news websites for cutting edge reports on American politics and U.S. foreign policy that the mainstream media refuses to cover in the States, especially if it is unflattering to the Obama White House.

Correct.  Urgent Agenda readers may recall that we've made that same point here over and over.  We turn to the British press for reporting we can't get in the politically correct press of our own country.

For all its talk of "raising America's standing" in the world after the Bush years, the Obama administration is doing a spectacularly bad job of reaching out to its allies. Unfortunately this is the new face of America's public diplomacy, which will only serve to alienate public opinion across the Atlantic. Congratulations Gibbs - you've just made an enemy out of the entire British media, quite an achievement for the man in charge of selling the President's message.

Let's see if this controversy gets any coverage at all in our mainstream press, or if they just "move on," which is what passes for press strategy these days. 

The behavior toward Britain, and things British, by this administration has been extraordinary.  A major story and a major example of the mentality of
The One's regime.

May 30, 2009   Permalink

FRIDAY,  MAY 29,  2009

OUR CASH, THEIR BOMBS - AT 9:16 P.M. ET:  Superb investigative reporter Joel Mowbray, in the Washington Times, exposes something that should have been stopped long ago - the misappropriation of American foreign-aid money shipped to the Mideast.  Of course, we must not be judgmental about the financial choices made by other cultures, mustn't we?  Yes we must.  Consider:

According to a critical report issued last week by the Government Accountability Office, the auditing arm of Congress, the State Department has fallen short overseeing aid to Palestinians through both the U.S. Agency for International Development and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which administers Palestinian refugee camps.

This means in practical terms that many of the Palestinians who are consuming a steady diet of Islamist indoctrination and glorification of violence receive this brainwashing courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. It doesn't require high-level deductions to predict how badly this wounds - if not kills - any hope for Palestinian society to embrace peaceful coexistence with a Jewish state of Israel.

Mowbray notes that Congress has attempted to improve things:

Lawmakers have dictated repeatedly and explicitly that no U.S. taxpayer funds can go to any organization that has even "advocated" terrorism - meaning no money should go to groups whose leaders have declared on Al-Jazeera or elsewhere that suicide bombers are "martyrs." 

And yet...

The State Department's bar that contractors and aid recipients must clear is much lower. Even under the most thorough vetting the department conducts, essentially only people who have actively participated in terrorism would be declared ineligible.  It appears the department hasn't even bothered to think of a way to determine which people trying to receive U.S. taxpayer dollars have advocated terrorism.

In other words, unless you're caught with the suicide belt around your waist, or the bomb in the trunk of your pink Mercedes, you're good to go.

President Kennedy famously declared the State Department a "bowl of Jell-O."  Apparently it's descended even further, into a pile of goo.  There were many reports of State officials trying to torpedo George W. Bush's foreign policy.  There is a mentality at Foggy Bottom that should be changed, but I suspect it is now so institutionalized that it never will be.

There are many terrific members of the Foreign Service who do an outstanding job representing this country, often at the risk of their lives.  But the policymaking levels have frustrated many presidents and members of Congress.  They continue to get away with it.

May 29, 2009   Permalink

BLAME THE BRITS! - AT 8:37 P.M. ET:  There was a song not too many years ago, "Blame Canada," seeking, in a satirical way of course, to blame Canada for all the problems of the world.

But this isn't satirical.  Presidential Press Secretary Bob Gibbs has launched a major assault on the British press, some of whose members claimed that photos suppressed by the White House included images of rape and torture by American soldiers.  The Politico reports on just what he said:

“I want to speak generally about some reports I’ve witnessed over the past few years in the British media. And in some ways, I’m surprised it filtered down,” Gibbs began. “Let’s just say if I wanted to look up — if I wanted to read a writeup today of how Manchester United fared last night in the Champion’s League cup, I might open up a British newspaper. If I was looking for something that bordered on truthful news, I’m not entirely sure it’d be in the first pack of clips I’d pick up.”

“You're not going to find very many of these newspapers and truth within 25 words of each other,” Gibbs continued.

COMMENT:  Quite remarkable, I think.  While a bit over the top, Gibbs is essentially correct.  There are serious credibility issues in some British papers.  However, there are far worse credibility issues in the press of other countries, including and especially some Muslim countries, where myths are reported as news.  But official Washington has been endlessly silent about that.

Going after only the British press is a bit awkward, considering the snubs Mr. Obama has directed at the Brits this year - returning the bust of Churchill that resided in the Oval Office, treating the prime minister rather shabbily when he visited, going along with the idea of not inviting Queen Elizabeth II to next week's D-Day remembrance, and not contradicting a White House aide who said that there was nothing special about our relationship with Britain. 

Now comes the attack on the British press.  That press is less than passionate about Obama, and this won't help.  Look for some tough reporting from London about the president.  I wouldn't be shocked if it's a Brit who uncovers a White House scandal.

May 29, 2009   Permalink

HERE COMES THE JUDGE - AT 9:08 A.M. ET:  To its credit, The New York Times runs a pair of fair-minded pieces (surprise) on Judge Sonia Sotomayor today, raising some legitimate doubts about her fitness to serve on the Supreme Court.  The first is on her temperament:

Judge Sotomayor’s colleagues on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit say her tough and direct questioning reflects engagement and, sometimes, an effort to persuade her colleagues...

...Other lawyers, though, are not so enamored. In the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary, which conducts anonymous interviews with lawyers to assess judges, she has gone from generally rave reviews to more tepid endorsements. Among the comments from lawyers was that she is a “terror on the bench” who “behaves in an out-of-control manner” and attacks lawyers “for making an argument she doesn’t like.”

Wait 'til she tries that with Scalia in the room.

And then there's her politics:

In the 1980s, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund sued the New York City Police Department, claiming that its promotion exams discriminated against Latinos and African-Americans...

...All those efforts were backed by the defense fund’s board of directors, an active and passionate group that included a young lawyer named Sonia Sotomayor, who this week was chosen by President Obama to join the country’s highest court.

Ms. Sotomayor’s involvement with the defense fund has so far received scant attention. But her critics, including some Republican senators who will vote on her nomination, have questioned whether she has let her ethnicity, life experiences and public advocacy creep into her decisions as a judge.

COMMENT:  These are entirely appropriate issues for Senate review.  Judge Sotomayor will be confirmed, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with the opposition placing her entire record before the public, and asking her the same probing questions asked of President Bush's nominees.

May 29, 2009   Permalink

OH - AT 8:42 A.M. ET:  The AP reports a few more wonderfully warm responses to the president's "outreach" policy:

HAVANA (AP) -- Fidel Castro says President Barack Obama "misinterpreted" his brother Raul's remarks regarding the United States and bristled at the suggestion that Cuba should free political prisoners or cut taxes on remittances from abroad as a goodwill gesture to the U.S.

Well, maybe it's just the translator's fault.  And this:

YEONPYEONG, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea defiantly test-fired another short-range missile Friday and warned it would act in ''self-defense'' if provoked by the U.N. Security Council, which is considering tough sanctions against the communist regime for conducting a nuclear test.

Oh, they're just upset.  We get upset, don't we?  It's a cultural misunderstanding.

Anyone watching in Washington?

May 29, 2009   Permalink

RESULTS OF OBAMA'S FOREIGN POLICY - THE ENVELOPE PLEASE - AT 8:07 A.M. ET:  Jon Ward, in the Washington Times, gives us a pretty stark picture of the result of President Obama's foreign policy thus far.  This is not pleasant:

President Obama's Inauguration Day promise to open his hand to hostile world leaders if they would "unclench their fist" has been met with belligerence from North Korea's Kim Jong-il and defiance from Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, testing the efficacy of the president's emphasis on diplomacy.

The president also has had to endure slights from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Castro brothers, but outreach to those Latin American countries does appear to be yielding some early results.

And the great John Bolton, who has yet to be wrong on any major issue, explains things to the new administration:

John R. Bolton, who served as President George W. Bush's ambassador to the United Nations, said Mr. Obama's inaugural remarks were the words of "a naive and inexperienced leader" and that Mr. Obama "did it again" after North Korea's test of a nuclear bomb Monday.

"He said North Korea will never gain international acceptance by pursuing nuclear weapons. That is the paradigm of an American politician who thinks that acceptance is the highest earthly objective," Mr. Bolton said. "The North Koreans couldn't care less about acceptance. They care about having nuclear weapons."

COMMENT:  Why, who is this man Bolton?  Doesn't he understand the importance of acceptance, of being invited to the right parties, of proper mingling?  Why, the man is an...an adult.  Who needs him?

Of course, not everyone agrees with Bolton.  The story quotes the usual suspects, who cheer on our new "engagement" policy.  But, you know, occasionally we impatient, belligerent, simplistic Yanks would like to see some real results.  Nothing much so far. 

May 29, 2009   Permalink

OUR NEW/OLD MIDEAST FANTASIES - AT 7:46 A.M. ET:  While Bob Gates (see just below) hustles to reassure Asia that we're not wimping out on North Korea, policy changes are underway in the Mideast to get tough with an ally.  Jackson Diehl, in the Washington Post, nails it:

From its first days the Bush administration made it clear that the onus for change in the Middle East was on the Palestinians: Until they put an end to terrorism, established a democratic government and accepted the basic parameters for a settlement, the United States was not going to expect major concessions from Israel.

Obama, in contrast, has repeatedly and publicly stressed the need for a West Bank settlement freeze, with no exceptions. In so doing he has shifted the focus to Israel. He has revived a long-dormant Palestinian fantasy: that the United States will simply force Israel to make critical concessions, whether or not its democratic government agrees, while Arabs passively watch and applaud.

Diehl notes that there's a, well, a history here.  Maybe the president just doesn't know:

Setting aside Hamas and its insistence that Israel must be liquidated, Abbas -- usually described as the most moderate of Palestinian leaders -- last year helped doom Netanyahu's predecessor, Ehud Olmert, by rejecting a generous outline for Palestinian statehood.

Yeah.  And it wasn't the first time the Palestinians turned down a generous proposal.  Arafat did it during the Clinton administration.

Now, according to Diehl, the Palestinians feel they can just sit back, do nothing, and wait for the Israeli government to collapse.  Diehl concludes:

In the Obama administration, so far, it's easy being Palestinian.

COMMENT:  So far, Obama's allies in Congress have given him a pass on the Mideast, in part because he's concentrating on the settlements, which are unpopular here.  That pass may have limits, though.

Next week Mr. Obama will be making his much-anticipated speech to the Muslim world, from Egypt.  We will watch every word.  Will he grovel?  Will he accept "moral equivalence" between 9-11 and our action in Iraq?  Will he play to the American and European left?  Will he throw Israel, if not under the bus, then a little closer to it?  Will he abandon our support for democracy in the Muslim world, and the fair treatment of women?

Those are the questions.  We will ask them together.

May 29, 2009   Permalink

GATES SENT TO "REASSURE" ALLIES...AGAIN - AT 7:12 A.M. ET:  Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates seems to have a new portfolio - secretary of reassurance.  Several months after he was sent to the Arab world to "reassure" nations there of our toughness toward Iran, he jets off to the Far East to "reassure" other allies regarding North Korea.  Of course, at the same time he "reassures" Americans that nothing is all that critical.  New York Times:

ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Friday that the United States had detected no unusual military movement in North Korea and had no plans to reinforce some 28,000 American forces in South Korea after North Korea threatened its neighbor to the South with a military attack.

“I’m not aware of any military moves in the North that are out of the ordinary at least,” Mr. Gates told reporters on his plane en route to Singapore for an annual security conference that will be dominated by North Korea’s test this week of a nuclear device.

Well, that's good to know.  Now we can ignore those neocons who are obsessing over that North Korean nuclear blast.

At the same time:

Mr. Gates said he will use the previously scheduled conference to reassure America’s strongest allies in northeast Asia, Japan and South Korea of President Obama’s commitment to their defense in the face of the latest of a half-century of threats from North Korea.

COMMENT:  You know, when you have to keep "reassuring" allies, maybe there's something wrong with the policy. 

Also, note that the reporter slipped in the phrase "half-century of threats from North Korea," as if these latest were just part of a long, ho-hum, line of meaningless threats.  No, they're different.  This time they carry a nuclear and missile-equipped punch.  As the story goes on to say, North Korea's penchant for transferring this technology to other lovelies around the world is the critical issue.

May 29, 2009   Permalink