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THURSDAY,  NOVEMBER 19,  2009

OBAMA ASIA TRIP SCORE: ZIP - AT 8:01 P.M. ET:  The president is flying home from his Asian trip.  He didn't get the rock star treatment he's used to getting in Western Europe, probably because Asia hasn't entered a period of decadence yet.  He also didn't get any real results, as Mike Allen in The Politico notes:

SEOUL, South Korea — President Barack Obama returns from his maiden Asian swing with none of the concrete accomplishments that White Houses typically put in place before big trips, setting up a stark test for his idealistic theory that the United States should act more like a wise neighbor than a swaggering superpower.

Idealistic theory is right.  It's great for a student government, not for a real one.

Obama’s minimalist approach was most consequential in China, where he did not meet with Christians, dissidents or bloggers, or directly challenge his hosts for repressive tactics that are again on the rise.

The Chinese in turn rebuffed longstanding U.S. concerns – whether on human rights, Iran or currency policy – in a heavily stage-managed visit where China, not Obama, clearly sought the upper hand.

If there was a merit badge for multicultural groveling, Obama would be wearing a Boy Scout sash a mile long. 

It’s an approach that carries great risk for Obama – playing straight into his critics’ accusations that his new, more multilateral style isn’t paying dividends, and worse, is making him look weak and ineffectual abroad.

Making him look weak?  He is weak.

“They don’t want this narrative that the U.S. is a declining power and China is a rising power, and the trip just reinforced that,” said Adam Segal, a senior fellow on China at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The sense of the trip was, ‘We’re not here to get in their face about these things.’”

Add to that the fact the main image of Obama abroad that really broke through to the American public out of the trip – Obama bowing to the Japanese emperor – didn’t exactly reinforce the image of a muscular leader abroad.

Yeah, that doesn't play well outside the Harvard faculty lounge.

David Axelrod, one of Obama's main political strategists, put the White House spin on things:

“This is not an immediate gratification business,” Axelrod said. “I understand that Washington is in the immediate gratification business. … [T]he ultimate measure is where these issues -- how these issues resolve in the weeks and months and years to come. And we have a greater chance for success because of this trip and others he's made.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Mike Allen puts it in English:

But the formulation puts the White House in the awkward position of promising results down the road. It wasn’t just the lack of hard results, but the tone of Obama’s remarks, even passing up opportunity to speak out more vocally against the repressive Chinese regime.

COMMENT:  Another lesson that countries don't give a damn whether an American president gets the teeny-bopper vote.  They do what's good for them.  That isn't necessarily good for us.  Most American presidents can tell the difference.  This one doesn't think it matters.

November 19, 2009   Permalink

THOMPSON BLASTS OBAMA - AT 7:12 P.M. ET:  Former Senator Fred Thompson, sounding very much like a presidential candidate for 2012, has issued the most articulate blast at Obama's Afghanistan policy that I've seen so far.

During the 2008 campaign, Thompson ran for the Republican nomination, but didn't seem to have the fire we'd seen in the man previously.  His campaign fell flat.  This statement is clearly crafted to draw attention and to give him national-security credentials:

Former Sen. Fred Thompson today intensified his party's criticism of President Obama's long deliberation over policy in Afghanistan, announcing that Obama's delay signals that "the war has been lost" and that nothing the president now does will "make any difference."

"It really doesn't matter how President Obama divides the Afghan baby, how he splits the difference between McChrystal and Biden. Because the war has been lost," Thompson said on his radio show today. "I say this because of one sad and simple fact. The president does not have the will and determination to do what's necessary to win it. His heart's not in it, and never has been. The Taliban knows it. Al Qaeda knows it. Our allies know it. And the American people know it.

"Our enemies are now emboldened and our friends are discouraged. We cannot prevail if the American people are not willing to make the sacrifices necessary for an extended effort. The case has not been made to them to justify this effort. The case can only be made by the president. This president is unable or unwilling to make that case," Thompson said.

Thompson's words seem to lay the groundwork for Republican opposition to further American engagement in Afghanistan, cast here as halfhearted.

"Take your time, Mr. President," Thompson said. "Unless you have a total change of heart and mind, it really doesn't make any difference."

COMMENT:  That is very tough stuff, directed at a sitting president.  Frankly, it's about time.  I love this part:  "The president does not have the will and determination to do what's necessary to win it."  In that sentence Thompson puts into words what many people feel, but cannot express.  That is one mark of a successful candidate.

I don't agree that Thompson is necessarily laying the groundwork for GOP opposition to further American engagement in Afghanistan.  He is more likely laying the groundwork for a Republican policy that will say, "Mr. President, either do it right or get out."  And the party will then demand that the president do it right. 

We need more statements like from the Republicans on foreign policy.  The party must, as a political strategy, take advantage of Obama's growing weakness.  Of course, it must be careful in its language and prescriptions.  But the timing is right for Thompson-like wording.

November 19, 2009   Permalink 

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK - AT 6:41 P.M. ET:  On-the-fence-on-health-reform Senator Mary Landrieu may be climbing off the fence...on the wrong side.  It turns out, as ABC reports, that a provision of the Senate's health "reform" bill seems to be a sweet offering to Mary:

What does it take to get a wavering senator to vote for health care reform?

Here’s a case study.

On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.”

The section spends two pages defining which “states” would qualify, saying, among other things, that it would be states that “during the preceding 7 fiscal years” have been declared a “major disaster area.”

I am told the section applies to exactly one state: Louisiana, the home of moderate Democrat Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill.

In other words, the bill spends two pages describing "would" could be written with a single world: Louisiana. (This may also help explain why the bill is long.)

Senator Harry Reid, who drafted the bill, cannot pass it without the support of Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu.

How much does it cost? According to the Congressional Budget Office: $100 million.

COMMENT:  That's your tax money, folks.  And that's the way the game is played.  And on provisions like that does our health-care future depend.

To your good health.

November 19, 2009   Permalink 

MORE POLL WOES FOR THE WHITE HOUSE - AT 6:20 P.M. ET:  Again, more confirmation of the president's decline in the polls.  Fox Dynamics issued its report today:

President Obama's approval rating has hit a new low of 46 percent, according to a FOX News poll released Thursday. An equal number -- 46 percent -- disapprove of the job he's doing.

Breaking down the numbers by political party shows how sharply split American voters are over the president's job performance. While 85 percent of Democrats approve of their party leader, 80 percent of Republicans and 51 percent of independents disapprove.

And...

Despite the drop in Obama's approval rating, the president continues to outperform the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. More than twice as many Americans disapprove (63 percent) as approve (26 percent) of the job Congress is doing.

COMMENT:  Approval of the president in the Fox poll exactly matches the finding in the Rasmussen poll, posted just below.  Disapproval in the Rasmussen poll was higher.

We always stress that polls are snapshots in time, and can change abruptly.  Ronald Reagan had some bad poll numbers in his first term, then went on to win a landslide victory against Walter Mondale in 1984.  However, Reagan had the press against him.  Obama has it in the palm of his hand.  Still, his numbers keep dropping, and Congress's are an embarrassment.

If these numbers hold, Republicans will have a superb opportunity a year from now in the most crucial midterm elections of our era.  Whether they seize that opportunity is another matter altogether.

November 19, 2009   Permalink

OBAMA POLL WOES - AT 9:36 A.M. ET:  Rasmussen's Thursday report confirms the drop in President Obama's poll numbers that we've detected this week - after the bow to the emperor and the decision to try the 9-11 mastermind in New York.

For the second day, Ras's presidential approval index shows a 14-point gap between those who strongly approve and those who strongly disapprove of the president's performance.  It's 41% negative, 27 percent positive.

Overall approval:   Disapprove:  52%.  Approve:  46%.

Remember, in about six weeks we enter 2010, and the midterm campaigns begin.  The president's coattails look shorter each day.

November 19, 2009   Permalink

WHAT AN IRON FIST - MUST BE THE NEW BLACK BELT - AT 9:12 A.M. ET:  Well, that new black belt President Obama was awarded in South Korea is already making him a new man.  The president is getting tough with Iran.  Now, be careful.  You have to define "tough" in the land of Obama.  From AP via Fox News:

SEOUL, South Korea -- Showing impatience with Iranian foot-dragging, President Barack Obama said Thursday that the U.S. and its allies are discussing possible new penalties to bring fresh pressure on Iran for defying international attempts to halt its contested nuclear program.

We're so glad they're discussing.  Maybe the president can explain to us the fruits of his Iran policy.

Obama's warning came after Iran rejected a compromise proposal to ship its low-enriched uranium abroad so that it could not be further enriched to make weapons. Talk of fresh sanctions also showed that Obama is preparing for the next phase should Iran fail to meet his year-end deadline for progress in negotiations.

There's an escape clause there.  All Iran has to do is ask for "clarifications" on December 31st and the deadline can be extended.

"They have been unable to get to `yes', and so as a consequence, we have begun discussions with our international partners about the importance of having consequences," Obama said at a news conference with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.

Huh?  The importance of consequences?  He's just learning that?

And get that language:  "They have been unable to get to 'yes..."  Sounds like a college project in building your negotiating skills.

"Our expectation is, is that over the next several weeks we will be developing a package of potential steps that we could take that will indicate our seriousness to Iran."

Freely translated:  There are disagreements among the "allies."  That's why we have to talk amongst ourselves so much.

The tough talk came as Obama wrapped an eight-day, four-nation tour of Asia in which global issues -- nuclear disarmament, climate change, economic recovery -- dominated and goodwill abounded. There also were few new agreements on pending issues.

There never are with the Obama administration.  All hat, no cattle.

November 19, 2009    Permalink

THE WEIRDNESS CONTINUES - AT 8:48 A.M. ET:  We've been reading some infuriating articles based on "anonymous" administration sources who say that America must be prepared to counter a nuclear-armed Iran.  Thus the hints are out, and are widespread, that there really is no expectation of action that will stop that horrible prospect.  Great for the morale.

But a high administration official has caught the fever.  Hey, defeat isn't fatal, y'know.  There are alternatives.  Read this, from The Washington Times:

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. let stand Wednesday a claim that confessed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed will remain in U.S. custody even if he is acquitted in the so-called "trial of the century" scheduled for a New York courtroom.

The claim arose during a tense Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, at which Mr. Holder defended from a storm of Republican criticism his decision to bring five suspects in the Sept. 11 attacks to trial in New York.

"It's my understanding that if [Mohammed] is not convicted, and somehow the judge lets him off on a technicality or something, then he becomes an enemy combatant, and then you are right back where you started," said Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican. "So what do you gain?"

Mr. Grassley moved on to another topic without waiting for a reply, and Mr. Holder did not return to the question, though he did say elsewhere in the hearing that he is convinced Mohammed will be convicted.

But the assertion raises questions whether the trial will send the powerful message about America's legal values that Mr. Holder has said it will.

COMMENT:  Incredible.  Holder is not disputing the chance that KSM will be let off, and will then have to be held on some other basis.  Can you just imagine that?  Can you just imagine the publicity around the world?  Can you just imagine the jubilation on America's leftist campuses?  Can you just imagine the ecstasy at The New York Times? 

It could happen, and the fiasco could then be blamed on BUSH (!!) and his detention and interrogation policies.  We kind of have the feeling that's the purpose of the trial in the first place, but we hope we're wrong.

Holder's decision has turned into one of the lowest moments of the time of Obama.  As we said yesterday, don't be shocked if it's eventually reversed, under political pressure.

November 19, 2009   Permalink

OH, HE'S DONE IT AGAIN - AT 8:30 A.M. ET:  Nobel peace laureate and newly minted black belter Barack Hussein Obama has apparently shown once again what a sophisticated international traveler he is.  R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. caught the moment in The American Spectator:

WASHINGTON -- What would the mainstream media's response be if former governor Sarah Palin described China's economic growth to an audience of students in Shanghai as "an accomplishment unparalleled in human history"? That is what the most inexperienced president in modern American history said in Shanghai this week. I wonder if any of the assembled journalists choked. President Barack Obama makes such unhinged pronouncements with the kind of frequency that if he were anyone else he would be set down by the media as a boobie. I take that back. Vice President Joe Biden is equally gaffable, yet no one in the mainstream press makes him out to be a boobie. When he was tapped to be Senator Obama's running mate he was widely acknowledged -- from ABC to NBC and with all the like-minded newspapers in between -- as a foreign policy colossus.

QUOTE:  But we're sure that the Chinese equivalent of Chris Matthews got a tingle up his leg when the president praised Chinese economic growth. 

Tyrrell goes on to demonstrate the double standard.  Obama makes a gaffe like that and no one in the MSM points it out.  Sarah Palin makes the perfectly reasonable statement that Alaska is close to Russia geographically, and the media howls.

It's our nation, though, that will eventually pay the price for the immaturity flooding through the gates today.

November 19, 2009   Permalink

BULLETIN - AT 8:14 P.M. ET:  Nobel peace laureate Barack Obama has been awarded the black belt in tae kwan do for zero years of training and practice. There must be something in the air. 

Andrew Malcolm, at the L.A. Times's Top of the Ticket, gives us the exciting details of dear leader's latest triumph:

Anyway, there he was in Seoul, South Korea on the last stop of his journey.

And out of the Seoul sky, President Lee Myung-bak hands over to the American leader a tae kwan do outfit. And then Lee, who practices tae kwan do himself, presents Obama with a coveted black belt.

After 0 long years of study.

There are also reports that the White House will announce later today that the president is pregnant, and will have a baby in May.

November 19,  2009   Permalink

WEDNESDAY,  NOVEMBER 18,  2009

OH, COME ON - AT 8:08 P.M. ET:  If you want to know why journalism is in trouble, read this:

PHOENIX (AP) -- NBC newsman Brian Williams said Wednesday he's not sure if Walter Cronkite would have succeeded in the age of cable news, blogs and Twitter.

''I am convinced that had he come along today, I don't think he would have cracked through. I think there's too much noise, too much to cut through for a modest man from Missouri,'' Williams told an audience in Phoenix. ''But God and history combined to give him to us right when we needed him.''

Williams spoke at a luncheon, where he was given the Cronkite Award from Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism. The ceremony included videotaped congratulatory messages from Jon Stewart and fellow New Jersey native, Bruce Springsteen.

Williams recounted how growing up, his parents didn't serve dinner until after Cronkite ended his newscast with his signature line: ''And that's the way it is.''

''Professionally, the day he died, I lost my North Star,'' Williams said.

COMMENT:  Look, universities give these awards to personalities in order to get them to come.  It's publicity.  I don't know what Williams did to deserve the award. 

As for Cronkite, enough already.  He had good points as a newsman and anchorman, and his reporting on the day of President Kennedy's assassination was fine, memorable work.  But the treatment of Cronkite as a godlike figure is overboard, distorted, and a disservice.  His report from Vietnam in 1968, the most famous news report of the war, hardly stands the test of time.  Cronkite was poorly informed, did not understand the military situation, or chose not to.  His pessimistic observations are at marked variance with North Vietnam's official history of the war, which concedes that the Communists were in fact losing badly during the very same period that Cronkite was analyzing. 

Cronkite never corrected the report, or expressed regret for its misleading conclusions.  He accepted the accolades of the left as the man who changed American opinion on Vietnam.

Cronkite was a man of the left, who sometimes let his views affect his coverage.  His career should be looked at more objectively and critically.  Journalism is in enough trouble without the tendency to worship false gods.

November 18, 2009   Permalink

HOLDER CAN'T HOLD THE LINE - AT 7:02 P.M. ET:  The backlash against Attorney General Holder's decision to try the mastermind of 9-11 in a civilian New York courtroom is building more and more.  Look for this to become a significant campaign issue.

Holder testified before a Senate committee today.  The reception was not entirely warm, as Fox reports: 

A top Senate Republican on Wednesday accused Attorney General Eric Holder of "making bad history" in his decision to send professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators to New York for trial in civilian court.

Speaking at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in which Holder testified, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., raised concerns that the attorney general was imperiling national security by determining that war-time combatants, potentially even Usama bin Laden, might be sent into the criminal system.

"We're making bad history here," Graham said. "The big problem I have is that you're criminalizing the war. ... I think you've made a fundamental mistake here."

Testifying for the first time on the decision, Holder delivered a point-by-point rebuttal to his critics who say he's treating the suspects with a "pre-9/11 mentality."

But the rebuttal did not seem to sway any senators.

And now President Obama weighs in with a statement that is borderline weird:

Meanwhile, President Obama said in one of a series of TV interviews during his trip to Asia that those offended by the legal privileges given to Mohammed by virtue of getting a civilian trial rather than a military tribunal won't find it "offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him."

Obama quickly added that he did not mean to suggest he was prejudging the outcome of Mohammed's trial. "I'm not going to be in that courtroom," he said. "That's the job of the prosecutors, the judge and the jury."

COMMENT:  So the president says he'll be convicted and executed, then says he wasn't prejudging the outcome of the trial.

Oh dear, oh dear.

Wait 'til the defense brings up the president's statement during jury selection. 

I would not be shocked if the decision to try Mohammed in New York is reversed, especially if it starts to affect Democratic political fortunes.

November 18, 2009   Permalink

AND NOW THE NEXT PROBLEM - AT 6:19 P.M. ET:  The president is in Asia, solving one problem after another (not) and breaking down the centuries-old barriers that have prevented human understanding (not) as well as assuring peace for generations (clearly not). 

Alert reader Richard Hirschman sends us this, from the South Korean press:

North Korea built about 800 bunkers in the demilitarized zone to keep
military equipment between 2004 and 2007, Radio Free Asia said Monday
quoting a former North Korean colonel who has worked for a South Korean
military intelligence agency after defecting during the 2000s.

"Pyongyang had built at least 800 bunkers including an unknown number of
decoys by 2007 to prepare for a possible invasion of South Korea," the
ex-colonel claimed. "Each bunker contains military equipment that can fully
arm 1,500 to 2,000 soldiers."

Construction began in 2004, the second year of the Roh Moo-hyun
administration, which continued the so-called Sunshine Policy of its
predecessor.

"If a soldier carried all his military equipment, which weighs 32 kg, and
came to the DMZ in full gear, he would already be exhausted before reaching
the South," the defector said. "So they built bunkers at the DMZ and put all
their operations equipment there. In the bunkers, there are South Korean
military uniforms and name tags, so that they can disguise themselves as
South Korean troops. Also reserved are... 60-mm mortar shells, condensed
high explosives, and all sorts of ammunition."

He claimed "70 percent" of the roughly 800 bunkers are fakes or decoys to
confuse the South. But the semi-underground bunkers are not linked to a
series of underground passages built in the past to attack South Korea, he
added.

"Despite Seoul's appeasement policy, or whatever the South does toward the
North, Pyongyang hasn't given up its aim of unifying the Korean Peninsula by
military force. They are sticking to this principle and teaching North
Koreans about it," he said.

The defector is scheduled to testify at a closed-door session of the U.S.
Congress on Wednesday.

COMMENT:  Reader Hirschman asks if anyone will care about the defector's testimony.  Not likely.  Now, true, defector statements must be verified, but the evidence, in other areas, of constant North Korean cheating and defiance is clear.

Yet, all we hear from the administration is "engagement" and "talks."  It's not as if talks with North Korea just began.  They've been going on for years, in some cases for decades.  Precisely what has been the result?  Essentially, nothing.

But the free nations don't have any sense of urgency. 

History doesn't repeat itself, but the psychology of history does repeat itself.  Is it 1939?  Very possibly.  Are we frozen in 1939?  Very possibly, again.

Do the people who give us the news care?  You be the judge.

November 18, 2009   Permalink

NEXT TIME DON'T BOW SO LOW - AT 10:14 A.M. ET:  We noted some grim polling results for the president in our first item this morning.  Now Scott Rasmussen is out with his daily tracker showing a sudden drop for Mr. Obama.  Especially interesting is the spread in Ras's presidential approval index, measuring the gap between those who strongly approve and those who strongly disapprove:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 26% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty percent (40%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -14. That matches the lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded for this President (see trends).

Over the past month, the number who Strongly Approve of the President’s performance has generally stayed between 27% and 30% (with one exception in each direction). Today’s drop to 26% matches the lowest level of strong approval yet recorded.

And overall approval?  Some 47% approve of the Obama performance, while 52% disapprove.

This poll was taken after Mr. Obama's deep bow to the Japanese emperor, and after the announcement that the mastermind of 9-11 will be tried in an ordinary federal courtroom in New York.  We cannot know the extent to which these events hurt the president's numbers, but they certainly couldn't have helped.

November 18, 2009   Permalink

COMBATIVE SARAH - AT 9:37 A.M. ET:  I'm so glad that Sarah Palin is fighting back, rather than staying as a punching bag for her fashionable critics.  Fox News is reporting the extraordinary response of the Associated Press to her book.  Is this a great moment in journalism, or what?

When the former Republican vice presidential candidate and former Alaska governor wrote her autobiography, the AP found a copy before its release date and assigned 11 people to fact check all 432 pages.

The AP claims Palin misstated her record with regard to travel expenses and taxpayer-funded bailouts, using statements widely reported elsewhere. But it also speculated into Palin's motives for writing "Going Rogue: An American Life," stating as fact that the book "has all the characteristics of a pre-campaign manifesto."

Palin quickly hit back on a Facebook post titled "Really? Still Making Things Up?"

"Imagine that," the post read. "11 AP reporters dedicating time and resources to tearing up the book, instead of using the time and resources to 'fact check' what's going on with Sheik Mohammed's trial, Pelosi's health care takeover costs, Hasan's associations, etc. Amazing."

But that would be so culturally insensitive.

Reviewing books and holding public figures accountable is at the core of good journalism, but the treatment Palin's book received appears to be something new for the AP. The organization did not review for accuracy recent books by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, then-Sen. Joe Biden, either book by Barack Obama released before he was president or autobiographies by Bill or Hillary Clinton.

And some books are ignored completely, like Douglas Feith's excellent "War and Decision," about the runup to the Iraq War. 

Of course, the press also ignored the official North Vietnamese history of the Vietnam War, which tended to confirm the American government's version of events, rather than the accepted press narrative.  That's why it was ignored.

November 18, 2009   Permalink

THE CASE AGAINST MAJ. HASAN - AT 8:54 A.M. ET:  Christopher Hitchens, generally a man of the left,  has actually been quite good about the war on terror.  He has, of course, suffered on the left for his clear-headedness, but has been willing to bear the pain. 

Now he gives us the best piece I've read on the case against Maj. Hasan.  Contrast this, please, with other elements of the wine-and-Brie media, which insist on being oh so intellectual, and oh so fair to the major, a fairness they never granted to George W. Bush:

The admonition not to rush to judgment or jump to conclusions might sound fair and prudent enough, perhaps even statesmanlike when uttered by the president, as long it's borne in mind that such advice is itself a judgment that is more than halfway to a conclusion. What it plainly implies in the present case is that the actions of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan should not be assumed in any meaningful way to be related to his Muslim faith...

... In order to demonstrate the absence of a connection, however, the following facts would have to be regarded as relatively random or secondary:

1) Hasan had been in direct correspondence with a notorious preacher of violence, Anwar al-Awlaki...

2) He bought weapons for himself well in advance of a murderous assault on unarmed soldiers awaiting treatment at a clinic...

3) As he unleashed his volleys, he yelled the universal cry of jihad, "Allahu akbar!" or "God is great!" (The eyewitnesses on this point, originally doubted, are especially convincing since some of them didn't understand the meaning of the words and only sought to reproduce them phonetically.) On his business card, he described himself as "SOA" or "slave," or possibly, "soldier of Allah." Neither would be especially reassuring in this context.

4) He had attracted considerable attention by repeatedly using his postgraduate classes at the Uniformed Service University in Bethesda, Md., for the purpose of Islamic proselytizing, for a version of Islam that, to say the least, did not overemphasize it as a "religion of peace."

5) He had, in spoken and written communications, demonstrated a fascination with the love of death and the concept of suicide martyrdom (better described as suicide murder) that is the central concept of Bin Ladenism.

6) Though he may have been upset by the harrowing stories of returned soldiers—as many, many of us have been, incidentally—his overwhelming and reiterated objection to the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and al-Qaida in Iraq, is that it is "a war on Islam."

7) He seems to have been especially obsessed with the Quranic injunction that forbids devout Muslims to make alliances with Christians and Jews.

But of course, we must not rush to judgment.  And the White House has pulled out all stops to try to delay Congressional investigations into the Fort Hood shootings.

And a warning from Hitchens:

I wrote some years ago that the three most salient characteristics of the Muslim death-squad type were self-righteousness, self-pity, and self-hatred. Surrounded as he was by fellow shrinks who were often very distressed by his menacing manner, Maj. Hasan managed to personify all three traits—with the theocratic rhetoric openly thrown in for good measure—and yet be treated even now as if the real word for him was troubled. Prepare to keep on meeting those three symptoms again, along with official attempts to oppose them only with therapy, if that. At least the holy warriors know they are committing suicide.

We're not supposed to call what we're doing suicide.  We're supposed to call it multicultural understanding, or, in the world of Obama, outreach.  Notice, please, that those we "reach out to" never reach out to us.

Notice also that the clarity of Hitchens's report is almost entirely lacking in the mainstream media.

November 18, 2009   Permalink

THERE'S A REASON IT'S CALLED CODE PINK - AT 8:35 A.M. ET:  Andrew Breitbart's Big Government website has been doing a series on Code Pink, the so-called "anti-war" organization that in fact is an anti-American group that works to undermine the national security of the United States.  These are just old leftists, but the press refuses to say it.  Consider:

Top Obama donor and fundraiser Jodie Evans met with the Taliban in Afghanistan on a recent trip there, according to a report by Jane Fonda of a discussion she had with Evans last month. The meeting with the Taliban took place just weeks before Evans was videotaped directly handing to President Barack Obama a package of information about her trip to Afghanistan at a high dollar fundraiser in San Francisco.

Ah, Obama deals with the finest types.  Just another narrative, I'm sure he thinks. 

The name Jane Fonda comes up.  In my view, Fonda should have been tried for treason during the Vietnam War.  Her actions in support of North Vietnam went, again in my view, well beyond the protections of the First Amendment.

There is precedent to suspect that Evans is acting as a conduit for the Taliban to Obama. In June, her fellow Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin hand carried a letter out of Gaza from the terrorist group Hamas addressed to Obama.

Over the seven years of its existence, Code Pink has acted as propaganda shills for the anti-American governments of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales, Cuba’s Castro brothers and Iraq under Saddam Hussein, as well as Middle Eastern terrorist groups.

Fonda has her own history of working with America’s enemies. During the Vietnam war she visited North Vietnam in 1972 and was photographed manning an anti-aircraft battery used to shoot down American planes. Fonda also recorded propaganda radio broadcasts for the North Vietnamese communists.

Just a great bunch of politically active people.  Wouldn't you just love to go to one of their exclusive parties?

Code Pink’s image as kooky but well-meaning women committed to peace is belied by their words and actions. At home they work to undermine morale in our soldiers, their families and the American public. Abroad they work with terrorist enemies of the United States.

And one of Code Pink’s co-founders, Jodie Evans, works with President Obama. Is anyone in our nation’s capital paying attention?

COMMENT:  No, they're not paying attention.  If they paid attention, they'd be called McCarthyites, and their careers would suffer.

Imagine if, during World War II, prominent Americans went back and forth, trying to improve the image of Imperial Japan? 

Did you ever think you'd see the day?

November 18, 2009   Permalink

OBAMA'S POLL PAIN - AT 8:08 A.M. ET:  One major poll now has the president's approval rating at below 50%, and shows other troubling signs as well.  Political reporter Lynn Sweet, of the Chicago Sun-Times, reports:

President Barack Obama's job approval rating is 48 - 42 percent, the first time he has slipped below the 50 percent threshold nationally, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Support for the war in Afghanistan and approval of President Obama's handling of the war also is down in the last month, and Republican support for the war is more than twice as strong as Democratic support.

Some of the internals are dramatic, and show how divided this society has become:

The President has a yawning gender and racial gap, with women approving his job performance 52 - 37 percent, compared to men's 47 - 44 percent disapproval. He gets 89 percent job approval among blacks and 62 percent approval among Hispanics while white voters disapprove 49 - 41 percent. His support also wanes as you go up the age and income scale.

Well, there you see the GOP dilemma.  While it's unlikely the Republicans make inroads among blacks, given their understandable loyalty to Mr. Obama, the numbers show the work the GOP must do to win women, Hispanics, and the young.  If well done, that effort can produce some inroads.

The poll shows far greater support among Republicans than Democrats for enlarging our effort in Afghanistan.

"Increasingly, the President finds himself with two different coalitions, one that backs him on domestic matters and a completely different one that backs him on Afghanistan. That could create a challenge to his considerable political skills," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

The erosion of support for national defense generally within the Democratic Party, an erosion that started in the sixties, has become disgraceful.  The Democrats are truly becoming a leftist party.  I recall President Kennedy pledging to "pay any price" in defense of freedom.  If only he could see his party now.

November 18,  2009   Permalink