September 2, 2010
Obama the two-faced
Some folks are defending President Obama's decision not to say anything positive about the substance of the Iraq war in his Tuesday speech on the grounds that Obama simply doesn't believe any good came out of the project. And, although I certainly haven't defended this aspect of the speech, I did write, "let's give Obama the benefit of the doubt and assume [he was uable to speak of the meaning of the war] because he thinks the struggle had no meaning, except as it related to domestic politics in the U.S."
But Doug Feith points out that, when speaking to soldiers at Fort Bliss on the day of the speech, Obama did find a positive and constructive meaning to the war. Obama told the troops that "because of the extraordinary service that all of you have done, and so many people here at Fort Bliss have done, Iraq has an opportunity to create a better future for itself, and America is more secure."
Thus, Obama was unwilling to share with the nation what he told the troops. Was he deceiving the troops or not being forthcoming with the nation?
Here is Feith's answer:
Evidently the president is not comfortable admitting that the war has made America more secure. Presumably this is because he repeatedly declared before he became president that the war had made the United States less secure. The president does not quite know what to do with the rather inconvenient truth that the 2007-08 surge strategy worked. In January 2007 he had proposed legislation ("The Iraq War De-escalation Act of 2007") that would have ended the U.S. war effort in March 2008, before the strategy could produce its success. But now military, political, and economic progress in Iraq has reached a point where President Obama does not believe he can ignore it, is not willing to throw it away, and therefore feels compelled to remain engaged in Iraq as a "strong partner" for the foreseeable future. At the same time, it sticks in his craw to praise -- or even just admit -- what the war has done to serve U.S. national security interests.
Feith adds:
It would have been useful for the president to have used his Ft. Bliss formulation when he gave his oval office speech. If statesmanship trumped politics, he would have observed last evening that the war not only freed the Iraqis from a sadistic tyranny, but it made America more secure in various ways. It removed a regime that threatened aggression throughout its region. It punished a regime that was hostile to the United States and contemptuous of the U.N. Security Council's formal decisions on disarmament and peace. It demonstrated that a large price is sometimes imposed on regimes that support terrorism and pursue weapons of mass destruction. And it gave the Iraqis an opportunity to create democratic political institutions in their country, an enterprise that might help someday bring about a benign political transformation of the Arab world and the broader Muslim world
Making even a fraction of these concessions might not have helped Obama the politician, but it would have served his purposes as president. For, as Feith explains, Obama "needs popular support for his Iraq policy, but he's is not going to be able to sustain it for long if he can't bring himself to speak about U.S. interests there truthfully, specifically, and lucidly."
It's Miller time
The emergence of Joe Miller as the Republican senatorial candidate in Alaska is one of the most surprising results so far in an already surprising year. Miller's defeat of incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski in the Republican primary must be attributable in substantial part to the support of Sarah Palin, and it replayed Palin's own surprising defeat of former Governor Frank Murkowski in the 2006 Republican gubernatorial primary. Before Lisa Murkowski's concession this week, the Weekly Standard's John McCormack answered the question "Who is Joe Miller?" "Based on merit alone," McCormack writes, "Miller was easily the superior candidate to Murkowski..." He should be a strong candidate in a must-win race.
PAUL adds: I don't know enough about Miller, even after reading McCormack's article, to say whether he was the superior candidate in his race with Lisa Murkowski. I can say that he was the more conservative candidate, which counts for a lot, and that he certainly deserves to be elected in November.
I want to add, however, that Murkowski is an underrated Senator, in my view. As ranking member of the Senate Energy Committee, she performed excellent service in opposing the Democrats' agenda, including efforts effectively to restrict the ability to drill off-shore to foreign companies (this earned her Keith Olbermans's "worst person" award). She has also led the charge to overturn EPA's "endangerment" finding for greenhouse gases, a determination that paves the way for agency climate rules. In my view, Murkowski might well be the Republican party's most valuable member on environmental issues recently.
As for the claim that Murkowski is a "Republican in name only," this is baseless. Murkowski (whose lifetime ACU record is around 70 percent) voted with the Republicans on the big issues in this Congress, including the stimulus, Obamacare, and financial reform.
Moreover, Sarah Palin initially contributed money to Murkowski's re-election campaign. Later, when Miller entered the race, she concluded that Miller is the better candidate, which is fine and possibly true. But if Murkowski were truly a Republican in name only, Palin would not have contributed to her campaign in the first place.
It is one thing (though not a good thing) to demonize political opponents through exaggerated statements during a campaign. Now that the campaign is over, a bit more perspective is in order.
Power Line Bookshelf
Give hudna a chance
The Wall Street Journal editorial staff dug up some New York Times letters to the editor by the imam behind the Ground Zero Mosque. The Journal editorial reports:
In a letter published on November 27, 1977, Mr. Rauf commented on Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's historic trip to Israel and encouraged his fellow Muslims to "give peace a chance." That John Lennon lyric sounds good. But he added: "For my fellow Arabs I have the following special message: Learn from the example of the Prophet Mohammed, your greatest historical personality. After a state of war with the Meccan unbelievers that lasted for many years, he acceded, in the Treaty of Hudaybiyah, to demands that his closest companions considered utterly humiliating. Yet peace turned out to be a most effective weapon against the unbelievers."
The Journal also quotes Rauf supporting the Iranian revolution of 1979: "The revolution in Iran was inspired by the very principles of individual rights and freedom that Americans ardently believe in."
The editorial explains the historical reference to the Treaty of Hudabyiha and elicits this characteristically forthright comment from the imam on the status of his current views:
"It is amusing that journalists are combing through letters-to-the-editor that I wrote more than 30 years ago, when I was a young man, for clues to my evolution. As I re-read those letters now, I see that they express the same concerns--a desire for peaceful solutions in Israel, and for a humane understanding of Iran--that I have maintained, and worked hard on, in the years since those letters were published."
Thanks, as always, for clearing that up.
September 1, 2010
Our shrinking president
I didn't watch any of the TV commentary on President Obama's speech last night. But J.E. Dyer at Contentions informs us that the "TV commentariat rose up to advance the narrative that Obama had no obligation to acknowledge Bush's surge decision, because there was never a valid justification for regime-changing Iraq to begin with."
This is the kind of non sequitur that, I suppose, keeps me away from post-speech TV commentary. Let's note first that premise here -- that there was no valid justification for our action in Iraq -- is controversial and, in my view, false. A better premise (more apt and less controversial) would have been that Bush doesn't deserve credit for the surge decision because he should have formulated the correct strategy for preventing, or dealing with, the insurgency in the first place.
In any event, the "commentariat's" conclusion doesn't follow from its premise, or even from the better one I just described. Unless President Obama believes that the war in Iraq is so unjust and dishonorable that it would be better to lose the war than win it, he must acknowledge that decisions that help us avoid defeat in that war are good and worthwhile decisions. Similarly, unless he believes that an Iraq that features the large-scale massacre of civilians is better than one in which there is far less violence, he must acknowledge that decisions that help significantly reduce violence are also good and worthwhile.
Because President Bush's decisions in connection with the surge helped avoid a U.S. defeat and save Iraqi lives, they are praiseworthy, and Obama should give Bush credit for the surge whatever he thinks of the original mission. And he certainly should so in a speech that (a) lauds the current situation in Iraq and (b) purports to turn the page on Iraq and put domestic acrimony behind us.
Fallability on big questions (assuming now that Bush erred in invading Iraq) should not forever preclude one from being praised. Obama himself was wrong about the surge. If his prescription had been followed in 2007, Iraq would probably have suffered a monumental bloodbath, and al Qaeda might well control Anbar province. But that shouldn't bar Obama from receiving praise if he helps navigate Iraq through its current (much less severe) difficulties. The same idea applies if, after a year-and-a-half of stumbling, Obama finally finds the correct recipe for helping get our economy back on course.
Obama has developed a specialty of telling us, in balanced-sounding terms, what major players have done right and what they done wrong. The players he has pontificated about in these terms include the Arabs, the Israelis, the Africans, and the United States itself. I would argue that, assuming this is worth doing, it is possibly the only thing Obama does well as president.
But when the best Obama can say of George W. Bush, in a speech delivering the "summation" on Iraq, is that he is patriotic and supports the troops, Obama isn't even performing his "philosopher king" role well.
I'm no longer bothered by this sort of thing, having resigned myself long ago to the fact that Obama lacks the grace we all should hope for in any U.S. president. At this point, he is only hurting himself, as he looks smaller and smaller with each appearance.
Predicting the future is difficult; telling the truth about the past should not be
I expect November 2, 2010 to be a very good night for Republicans. But for me, it won't be a fully satisfactory night unless Sen. Barbara Boxer goes down to defeat.
To understand why, consider Sen. Boxer's exchange with then-Secretary of State Rice regarding the troop surge in Iraq, which had just been announced. Boxer made it clear that she didn't expect the surge to work. She was confident that more troops would not help because the Iraqis already relied on us too much.
Boxer was also incensed (not too strong a word, if you watch the video) that Rice had not anticipated the large uptick in violence that occurred in 2006. She even had someone hold up a poster with a statement Rice made in 2005 that was overly optimistic. Boxer later misrepresented what was on her own poster.
But Boxer's main point was to inform Rice that the cost of the Iraq war was being paid by American military families, not by members of Boxer's or Rice's immediate family (Rice is unmarried and has never had children). As you can see below, Boxer was at her arrogant and obnoxious best throughout her harangue.
Recently, Debra Saunders of the San Francisco Chronicle asked Boxer about the exchange. A much more subdued Boxer responded by claiming that, far from attacking Rice, she was trying to "bring us together" by pointing out that neither she nor the Secretary had immediate family members in harm's way.
Boxer conceded, however, that she did criticize Rice because she "did not know how many people died in Iraq."
But Boxer never asked Rice how many people had died in Iraq. Instead, she asked Rice how many Americans would die in the future as a result of the surge.
The question is an absurd one, of course, and I haven't heard Boxer ask the corresponding one to anyone in the Obama administration with respect to the surge in Afghanistan. As Rice pointed out, with far less derision than would have been appropriate, no one can say how many people will die under a military strategy that has not yet been implemented.
Clearly, then, Boxer is being dishonest about her exchange with Rice. But the exchange itself reveals Boxer's unfitness for serious office. Boxer expects Rice to know how many people will die in an extended military campaign that has not commenced. And she castigates Rice for not anticipating in 2005 the large increase in violence that occurred in 2006 after the bombing of the Golden Mosque.
Meanwhile, Boxer dismisses the idea that the surge will succeed. She therefore fails to meet the standard of prophecy to which she holds the Bush administration.
Either her attack was a disgrace or her failure to predict the outcome of the surge was.
You can help bring an end to Boxer's Senate career by contributing to Carly Fiorina's campaign here.
They're Missing Him In Ohio
This poll finding is not just stunning, but important: if you run a presidential race between Barack Obama and George W. Bush in Ohio, it's Bush by 50-42:
We'll start rolling out our Ohio poll results tomorrow but there's one finding on the poll that pretty much sums it up: by a 50-42 margin voters there say they'd rather have George W. Bush in the White House right now than Barack Obama.
Independents hold that view by a 44-37 margin and there are more Democrats who would take Bush back (11%) than there are Republicans who think Obama's preferable (3%.)
A couple months ago I thought the Pennsylvanias and Missouris and Ohios of the world were the biggest battlegrounds for 2010 but when you see numbers like this it makes you think it's probably actually the Californias and the Wisconsins and the Washingtons.
It's been apparent for a while that the Obama administration's "blame Bush" strategy has been a failure, but data like this suggest that it is counterproductive.
PAUL adds: There is no better political bellwether state than Ohio. If the Democrats weren't panicking before, they should be now.
This Fish Needs A History Lesson
It is remarkable how little it takes, on the Left, to earn a reputation for intellectual acuity. Stanley Fish is an academic of some renown, although I'm vague as to what he has actually written or accomplished. Now he has an occasional op-ed column at the New York Times, usually a bad sign.
Monday's effort--no surprise here--attempts to indict conservatives. Fish argues that when a terrorist attack or other crime occurs, one can blame it on either a "malign culture" or on "individual choice." He dredges up Timothy McVeigh--what would liberals do without him?--and writes:
[W]hen it turned out that a white guy (with the help of a few of his friends) had done it, talk of "culture" suddenly ceased and was replaced by the vocabulary and mantras of individualism: each of us is a single, free agent; blaming something called "culture" was just a way of off-loading responsibility for the deeds we commit; in America, individuals, not groups, act; and individuals, not groups, should be held accountable. McVeigh may have looked like a whole lot of other guys who dressed up in camouflage and carried guns and marched in the woods, but, we were told by the same people who had been mouthing off about Islam earlier, he was just a lone nut, a kook, and generalizations about some "militia" culture alive and flourishing in the heartland were entirely unwarranted.
Here, Fish tells the story in doughnut fashion, with a hole in the middle. What was actually going on at the time was that liberals tried to blame McVeigh's crime on conservative politicians and pundits, especially Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh. Liberals argued that conservatives' opposition to Hillarycare somehow equaled encouragement to commit mass murder. (Does history repeat itself, or what?) Conservatives, in response, pointed out that there was no connection between McVeigh and any mainstream (i.e. sane) version of American conservatism. His action was, in fact, that of a lone nut; or possibly, that of a lone nut with a friend. Neither Limbaugh nor Gingrich nor any other conservative had advocated blowing up buildings. But Fish never mentions the Left's effort to make political capital out of McVeigh's act.
Fish thinks he has caught conservatives in a contradiction when it comes to the Ground Zero Mosque:
Now, in 2010, it's happening again around the intersection of what the right wing calls the "Ground Zero mosque" (a geographical exaggeration if there ever is one) and the attack last week on a Muslim cab driver by (it is alleged) 21-year-old knife-wielding Michael Enright.
Let's just pause on the "geographical exaggeration." The proposed mosque/Islamic center would be two blocks from Ground Zero, about as close as you can get. And that is the whole point: there are close to 100 mosques in Manhattan, already. What was the selling point of this one on the basis of which its developers expect to raise $100 million in Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and elsewhere in the Arab world? It is at, or near, Ground Zero. Fish misses all of this. He continues:
First the mosque. It is wrong, we hear, to regard the proposed mosque or community center as an ordinary exercise of free enterprise and freedom of religion by the private owners of a piece of property. It is, rather, a thumb in the eye or a slap in the face of the 9/11 victims and their families, a potential clearinghouse for international terrorist activities, a "victory mosque" memorializing a great triumph of jihad and a monument to the religion in whose name and by whose adherents the dreadful deed was done.
Fish apparently disagrees with this perspective, but he doesn't say why. He puts "victory mosque" in quotes, without mentioning that the intended name of the Islamic center is Cordoba House. Does that not, in fact, "memorializ[e] a great triumph of jihad" and serve as a "monument to the religion in whose name" the September 11 attacks were carried out? Most Americans think it does. If Fish disagrees, he should at least explain why. His failure to do so suggests that he is intellectually lazy and dashed off this column for his fellow leftists at the Times, without even thinking about the arguments he might need to make to persuade the uncommitted. Fish continues:
But according to the same folks who oppose the mosque because of what it stands for, Michael Enright's act doesn't stand for anything and is certainly not the product of what Time magazine calls a growing "American strain of Islamophobia." Instead, The New York Post declares, the stabbing is "the act of a disturbed individual who is now in custody," and across the fold of the page columnist Jonah Goldberg says that "one assault doesn't a national trend make" and insists that "we shouldn't let anyone suggest that this criminal reflects anybody but himself."
Here Fish seems to be banking on his readers' ignorance. As we wrote here, Michael Enright was a lefty who worked for Intersections International, a "global initiative dedicated to promoting justice, reconciliation and peace across lines of faith, culture, ideology, race, class, national borders and other boundaries that divide humanity." As you would expect, Intersections International enthusiastically supported the Ground Zero Mosque project.
So, if Enright's drunken attack is to be blamed on "malign culture" rather than "individual choice," the malign culture was, apparently, Fish's own American liberalism. But Fish takes the easy way out; he assumes, apparently, that his readers at the New York Times are not burdened with any knowledge of the facts, and he doesn't try to remedy their ignorance.
Fish sums up, applying his conclusion only to conservatives and not to his own left wing of the Democratic Party:
The formula is simple and foolproof (although those who deploy it so facilely seem to think we are all fools): If the bad act is committed by a member of a group you wish to demonize, attribute it to a community or a religion and not to the individual. But if the bad act is committed by someone whose profile, interests and agendas are uncomfortably close to your own, detach the malefactor from everything that is going on or is in the air (he came from nowhere) and characterize him as a one-off, non-generalizable, sui generis phenomenon.
What this "formula" overlooks, obviously, is that circumstances vary. Some violent acts--the vast majority-- are, in fact, committed by misfits who do not represent any significant slice of humanity. Timothy McVeigh is a good example of that breed. When he blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City, there was no faction of American politics on either the left or the right that advocated such deeds. No one danced in the streets in solidarity with McVeigh. He was, quite simply, a nut. If there were a few like him in militia organizations or whatever, they were probably outnumbered by the federal agents who infiltrated such groups.
Radical Islam is very different. There are over a billion Muslims in the world, and a significant proportion of them, based on pubic opinion polling, are radicals. "Radicals" in this context means that they advocate mass murder as a means of terrorizing civilian populations so that Islamic government can be established over the entire Earth. Or most of it, anyway.
Is this radical Islamic dream a stupid fantasy that can safely be disregarded? Apparently not. Radical Muslims have committed hundreds if not thousands of terrorist acts in recent decades, killing many thousands of innocent people. They have taken over nations and are lavishly funded by some of the richest plutocrats outside America's Democratic Party, like, for example, the Saudi royal family. With their many billions of dollars in support, they have established hundreds or thousands of radical schools around the world. Their ongoing efforts to wreak terrorist havoc are obvious to anyone who follows the news. And those efforts are supported and encouraged by many Islamic clerics, including some of those who want to establish a mosque as close as possible to Ground Zero.
So conservatives, far from being inconsistent as Fish groundlessly alleges, have evaluated the facts and drawn appropriate inferences. Nuts like Timothy McVeigh certainly can be dangerous, but they have no connection to any significant strand of liberal or conservative thinking and, therefore, no substantial base of support. Radical Muslims, on the other hand, might be crazy, but they represent an ideology that infects millions of people around the world, is feverishly advocated for by thousands of clerics, and is lavishly funded by some of the richest people and institutions in the world.
It would be foolish to observe the many acts of Islamic terror that have occurred over the last 30 years and fail to associate them with the "malign culture" of radical Islam, or fail to conclude that this "malign culture" is something that should be exposed and combated. That is, of course, exactly the foolishness that reigns in the editorial pages of the New York Times.
Concurrent or consecutive sentences?
As I see it, the nation's current economic woes translate, under normal political practice, into a net gain of roughly 50 House seats for the out-of-power party. The perception that President Obama won the presidency on false pretenses, is governing from too far to the left, and needs to curbed translates into a net gain of roughly 25 seats.
The question is, will the Democrats serve these two "sentences" concurrently or consecutively?
UPDATE: I am being a bit whimsical in this post. Obviously, the 50-seat "economic" pick-up (if that's the correct number) will come mostly from districts where the Democrats are inherently vulnerable, with some seats in particularly distressed districts mixed in. The 25 seats winnable on ideological grounds (if that's the correct number) will also consist largely of inherently vulnerable ones.
Thus, if my numbers are right (and they are hardly scientific), the Republican net gain will be closer to 50 than to 75.
A classless, limp and boring speech
President Obama's Oval Office speech on the termination of combat operations in Iraq was so half-hearted and detached, it was a little hard to discern its true meaning. I don't think anyone has captured the nature of Obama's discussion of President Bush better than Paul Mirengoff. Paul relegated this observation to an update in "Sometimes the past really is a foreign country," but it deserves to be highlighted:
In his speech, Obama was his slippery self when it came to President Bush. He acknowledged that Bush is patriotic and cares about the troops -- how big of Obama -- but gave him no credit for the surge or for liberating Iraq and the region from Saddam Hussein (who went unmentioned).
Obama pointed out that it was from the very desk in the oval office where he was sitting that Bush sent troops into Iraq. Thus, he tried to rub in Bush's unpopular decision -- and contrast it to his more popular one -- without mentioning the decision Bush made that turned the situation around and made it possible (or perhaps I should say conceivable) for Obama to exit Iraq honorably.
Obama eventually mentioned the Iraq surge, but only in connection with Afghanistan and by way of patting himself on the back for using the same approach in that theater. But he didn't acknowledge the fact that the Bush administration crafted and successfully implemented that approach in Iraq.
In sum, Obama tried to give the appearance of graciousness without actually being gracious. Among his many other faults, the man has no class.
In my view, Paul nailed the rest of what Obama had to say (and didn't say) in "A limp and boring speech."
Uncommon Knowledge with Haley Barbour
Haley Barbour is the Governor of Mississippi, now serving his second (and final) term in office. Governor Barbour distinguished himself for his leadership in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Earlier this week, Ellen Ratner saluted Governor Barbour as one of the heroes of Katrina. "I've been around politicians for 19 years as a reporter," Ratner wrote, "and Barbour is a master of being totally present to his citizens. It is a rare gift."
Governor Barbour served as Chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1993 to 1997, during which time the Republicans captured both the United States Senate and United States House of Representatives for the first time since 1954. He currently serves as the Chairman of the Republican Governors Association, one of the subjects covered in his recent interview with Peter Robinson.
Near the top of the interview, Governor Barbour discusses what possessed him to become a Republican in the still-solidly Democratic South of his youth. He recalls that at the time of his first involvement in local politics, six percent of Mississippians identified themselves as Republicans: "To be a Republican in Mississippi in 1968, you had to take the long-term view."
Governor Barbour supplies a personal twist to the discussion of Mississippi's overcoming of its solidly Democratic and segregationist past. It was the old Democrats who fought to preserve segregation, he recalls, while his generation changed the South and led the transition to a state with a viable Republican presence. After the election of two Republican congressmen in 1972, he says, they were "itching" to elect a Republican Senator. A friend advised him, however, that they "were just a few funerals away" from that eventuality.
This is an engaging and thought-provoking interview. Through our arrangement with the Hoover Institution, we are pleased to present the interview in its entirety. Please check it out.
Turn it up!
Yesterday Van Morrison -- singer, songwriter and world-class artist -- celebrated his sixty-fifth birthday. Van is an artist who has absorbed all the strains of American popular music and recapitulated them in his own unique voice. As such, he stands shoulder to shoulder with the greats in the pantheon of the Cosmic American Music.
Beginning with "Astral Weeks" in 1968, Van experienced a tremendous burst of creative energy that is also reflected on "Moondance," "His Band and Street Choir," "Tupelo Honey" and "Saint Dominic's Preview."
"Caravan" is one of the beautiful fantasy songs from this period. The song is Morrison's take on Curtis Mayfield's "Gypsy Woman" as well as a a tribute to radio and to the music that has been so much a part of his inspiration. "Turn it up, turn it up, little bit higher, radio," goes the chorus. Why? "So you know it's got soul" is one answer.
"Caravan" is not only one of the highlights of "Moondance," it's also one of the two songs that Van performed with the Band at the Band's final concert on Thanksgiving in 1976 at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. The Band's Robbie Robertson had to talk him into the other song he performed that night, a terrific version of "Tura Lura Lura."
Martin Scorsese documented Van's performance with the Band on film in "The Last Waltz" (video above). Morrison famously overcame a major case of stage fright, first to save the show and then to steal it. Greil Marcus covered the show for Rolling Stone. Marcus described Van's performance:
Van Morrison made his entrance and he turned the show around. I had seen him not many minutes before prowling the balconies, dressed nondescriptly in a shirt and jeans, scowling; but there he was onstage, in an absurd maroon suit and a green top, singing to the rafters. They cut into "Caravan" -- with [producer] John Simon waving the Band's volume up and down, and the horns at their most effective -- while Van burned holes in the floor. He was magic, and I thought, Why didn't he join the Band years ago? More than any other singer, he fit in, his music and theirs made sense together. It was a triumph, and as the song ended Van began to kick his leg into the air out of sheer exuberance, and he kicked his way right offstage like a Rockette. The crowd had given him a fine welcome and they cheered wildly when he left.
Scorsese's camera caught Van with the barest hint of a smile as he triumphantly left the stage. "Hey, Van the Man," Robbie Robertson exulted.
Van is still going strong, both in writing and performing. I saw him last when he came through Minneapolis in December 2007. By my lights he remains a riveting, essential and enigmatic artist live and on disc.
August 31, 2010
A limp and boring speech
President Obama's speech from the oval office, only the second of his presidency, was surprisingly limp. With three momentous subjects to cover - Iraq, Afghanistan, and the U.S. economy - Obama struggled to say anything new or interesting. It isn't just that the soaring rhetoric of 2008 has disappeared; Obama is now affirmatively boring.
In "turning the page" on Iraq, the Great Speechifier could find no words with which to give meaning to our epic struggle there. Let's give Obama the benefit of the doubt and assume this is because he thinks the struggle had no meaning, except as it related to domestic politics in the U.S. But then why give a speech about it?
Perhaps the idea was to signal our resolve going forward. The best he could do on this front was to say that after our troops leave at the end of 2011, we'll still have diplomats, aid workers, and advisors on the scene. But we have diplomats, aid workers, and advisors all over the world; what if Iraq needs more than that, given all of its challenges? If Obama signaled anything in this speech, it was his lack of interest in Iraq's past (Saddam who?), present, and future.
Despite the fact that Afghanistan has become Obama's war in a way Iraq never did, the president displayed no great interest in, or true sense of commitment to, that action either. In ten short months, Obama once again pledged, we will begin pulling out of Afghanistan too. These words can only comfort our terrorist enemies and cause sleepness nights for anyone in Afghanistan who has ever supported us.
When it came to the economy, Obama had nothing new to offer. So instead, he provided America with a pep talk, exhorting us to "honor" our troops by "coming together" with a great sense of urgency to "restore our economy."
Presumably, this means rallying around Obama's unpopular domestic agenda. In any case, Americans are unlikely to be impressed by a president whose answer to our economic woes sounds something like "hug a soldier and hope that some of his grit rubs off."
Sometimes the past really is a foreign country
Many people view Republicans and especially their leaders as being fixated on the past, and that perception is not entirely unjustified. Just last week, at the Lincoln Memorial, Sarah Palin spoke of the need to restore America rather than to transform it. And not that long ago, as some of us measure time, Bob Dole ran for president promising to be "a bridge to the past."
These days, however, it is President Obama who seems to thirst for the past, albeit the recent past when he was a bright new thing, and popular to boot.
I've already commented on Obama's decision "wallow" in Hurricane Katrina. I took that to be, in part, a reflection of his yearning for the happy days when Republicans were the ones having their competence questioned and feeling the ire of the public. Certainly, it was reflection of his yearning to remind the public of those days.
Tonight, Obama will address the nation on Iraq. This is a topic that also is far from the minds of most Americans, and thus an odd one to which to devote a would-be major presidential speech.
But Obama has reason to believe that a speech on Iraq might serve his purposes. Like Katrina, this is a subject that once was a major source of American discontent with Republicans. And it's a subject on which, at the height of that discontent, Obama was viewed as having the correct line. Moreover, it is an issue about which he can claim to have kept his campaign promise. And it's an area where a significant portion of his political base might still be fairly happy with his performance.
Yet there are complications for Obama, the most important of which is that he opposed the policy that turned the situation in Iraq around, namely the surge. How to deal with this inconvenient truth?
It actually shouldn't be very difficult. Obama could simply give credit to President Bush for launching the surge. A gracious word about his predecessor would improve Obama's image. After all, he won office in part by promising to transcend partisan finger-pointing. And by exhibiting a little grace for a change, Obama would make it seem churlish for anyone to point the finger at him over his misguided thinking about the surge.
Perhaps Obama will rise above his perpetual pettiness and turn his speech into a bi-partisan feel-good event. Obama reportedly called former president Bush this morning. That might be a good sign.
On the other hand, Obama's spokesman, Robert Gibbs, is dancing around the question of whether and to what extent the surge is responsible for the turnaround in Iraq. When asked point blank, "Why not give President Bush credit for ordering the surge?" the best Gibbs could do was to respond, "Again...I'd be happy to circulate the president's comments that go back to 2007 and go back to 2008 on this."
If Gibbs does circulate comments by Obama from that period, he had better be selective. For, as Peter Wehner shows, Gibbs is not being truthful about Obama's position on the surge.
According to Gibbs, "President Obama, then-candidate Obama, said that adding those 20,000 troops into Iraq would, indeed, improve the security situation, and it did." But on the night of President Bush's "surge" announcement, then-Senator Obama proclaimed: "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq are going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse" (emphasis added).
If Obama goes down the same dishonest path as his press secretary, his address will, if anything, be a political negative for him. If he takes the high road, it might well be a plus. But so far in his presidency, this prospect has not provided Obama with sufficient incentive to take the high road.
UPDATE: In his speech, Obama was his slippery self when it came to President Bush. He acknowledged that Bush is patriotic and cares about the troops -- how big of Obama -- but gave him no credit for the surge or for liberating Iraq and the region from Saddam Hussein (who went unmentioned).
Obama pointed out that it was from the very desk in the oval office where he was sitting that Bush sent troops into Iraq. Thus, he tried to rub in Bush's unpopular decision -- and contrast it to his more popular one -- without mentioning the decision Bush made that turned the situation around and made it possible (or perhaps I should say conceivable) for Obama to exit Iraq honorably.
Obama eventually mentioned the Iraq surge, but only in connection with Afghanistan and by way of patting himself on the back for using the same approach in that theater. But he didn't acknowledge the fact that the Bush administration crafted and successfully implemented that approach in Iraq.
In sum, Obama tried to give the appearance of graciousness without actually being gracious. Among his many other faults, the man has no class.
I'll probably say a bit more about other aspects of Obama's nothing-ish speech later tonight.
Dead Heat
We have been reporting on the Minnesota gubernatorial race among Tom Emmer, a solid conservative; Mark Dayton, a deeply flawed and wackily liberal Democrat; and tax-raiser Tom Horner playing the traditional spoiler's role as the representative of the Independence Party. Republicans have been dispirited by an early poll showing Dayton with a substantial lead, but today's NPR/Humphrey Institute survey has the race tied among likely voters, 34-34, with Horner at 13 percent.
The poll also suggests a lot of volatility, with quite a few voters whose minds aren't made up; also, of course, the third-party candidate injects volatility because it is hard to predict how many who say they support him in polls will change their minds in the voting booth and pull the lever for someone who can win.
All of which means that we have a hot race that should stay interesting until November 2. If you want to help save Minnesota from the embarrassing prospect of a Mark Dayton administration--Dayton makes Jesse Ventura look like a model of stability and good judgment--go here, read about Emmer and donate to his campaign.
Sarah celebrates shabbat
Sarah Palin celebrated the Jewish sabbath among friends Friday night before her appearance at the Restore Honor rally on the Washington mall on Saturday. Benyamin Korn reports:
By evening, the halls of the Hershey Lodge were filled with the aroma of chulent, the traditional Sabbath stew....My colleague Sheya, director of PalinTV, presented Mrs. Palin with the ArtScroll edition of Perek Shira, a commentary on the song of celebration sung by Jewish women during the exodus from Egypt. Mrs. Palin received the Hebrew volume with obvious delight; she has used the biblical Book of Esther as bedtime reading material for her eight-year-old daughter, Piper. She wants Willow to emulate Esther, Jewish history's great heroine, who risked everything to save the Jewish people from Haman's plan for genocide.... On her lapel, she wore a pin showing the American and Israeli flags intertwined.... As we enjoyed our Shabbat meal, we listened to Mrs. Palin's references to "Judeo-Christian values"--a concept well understood by the deeply religious Christian audience with whom we shared the evening, including more than a few Amish ladies wearing their traditional bonnets....
Via Bill Kristol, who provides the midrash on Korn's text.
UPDATE: John Podhoretz comments briefly in "Queen Esther goes to Alaska."
Meet Ignat Solzhenitsyn
Last year I went to New York to take my daughter to see Steely Dan perform The Royal Scam and selected favorites at the Beacon Theater. My attorney friend Kirk Kolbo joined us for the show. (I provided an account of the show here.) National Review's Jay Nordlinger joined us for dinner after the show. All in all, it was one of the most fun evenings I've ever had.
During dinner Jay mentioned Ignat Solzhenitsyn, the son of the author (photo above). Jay noted that Ignat makes a living in the United States as an accomplished pianist and conductor. Kirk subsequently took note of Jay's Impromptus column commenting on Ignat:
Let's talk about something more pleasant. I think I told you that I was going to Stetson University, in DeLand, Fla., for events involving Ignat Solzhenitsyn. And I did. Ignat, you remember, is a pianist and conductor. Next week, he leads his final concerts with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. He will move on to other musical pursuits.
At Stetson, Ignat did two things: He gave a lecture on the life of his father, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn; and he gave a piano performance. In both things, he was splendid.His lecture was so good, so absorbing, as to be spellbinding: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn led a great, brave, and heroic life. Also a very important one. You don't need to dress it up: You can simply relate the facts. And that's what Ignat did. About an hour after the lecture, he played Schubert's Sonata in D major -- a long, profound, thoroughly Schubertian work. And then we had a little Q&A. It was a tremendously rewarding day.
I might note that Ignat is not merely his father's son, but a real expert on his father: a close student of all his writings; even a translator of some of them. He has an expertise both filial and scholarly, so to speak....
After reading this Kirk contacted Ignat through his agent, explaining that he had met Jay over dinner in New York and had read Jay's account of Ignat's lecture about his father. He wondered if Ignat might be willing to come to Minneapolis to speak about his father. Indeed, it turned out, he would.
Kirk will be hosting Ignat for dinner at the Minneapolis Club on September 14 for the talk "Stranger than Fiction: The Extraordinary Life of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn." Tickets are $90; tables for 8 can be purchased for $650. If you are interested in making reservations to join us with Mr. Solzhenitsyn for dinner and the talk, contact Kirk by email at kirk.kolbo@maslon.com or call (612) 672-8327. The event announcement (along with additional information) is posted here.
Inside the Orlando mosque
The video below is an investigative report on the the June 2009 fundraiser for Hamas held at Masjid Al-Rahman mosque in Orlando, Florida. Featuring "that tool" George Galloway, the fundraiser was intended to raise money for Galloway's Viva Palestina, then funneling money openly to the Islamist terrorist movement of Hamas in Gaza.
Big Peace comments that the video also serves as a backgrounder on the Muslim Brotherhood front groups in the United States including the Muslim American Society and the Islamic Society of North America, both unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation prosecution. To this list I would add the North American Islamic Trust, which holds the title to many such mosques.
Patrick Poole asks where the feds are now. Let's go to the tape.
August 30, 2010
Wallowing in Katrina
Like most nostalgia, the excessive coverage this weekend of the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina signified a yearning for happier days from the past. In this case, it was the yearning of the MSM and President Obama for the happy days when Republicans were the ones having their competence questioned and feeling the ire of the public.
But Bill Otis finds deeper, more ominous significance in the weakend of wallowing:
Out of all the coverage, one thing strikes me as mind-blowingly absent, even from the few conservative commenters who've talked about it: Isn't the real scandal here that, after FIVE YEARS, people down there are still bellowing for federal dollars, rather than being expected to stand on their own feet? One year of help, fine; maybe two years. But if you haven't taken care of your own business after five years, the problem is not with George Bush or even Barack Obama. The problem is with you.
Has the country so lost its moorings, or become so persuaded that adults are really helpless infants, or become so afraid of the rote charge of racism, that no one will ask this question?
Yes to all of the above, I fear.
