July 3, 2009
They Won't Have Sarah Palin to Kick Around Any Longer
Not as Governor of Alaska, anyway: Governor Palin announced today that she will not seek re-election and, indeed, will resign her office in the near future. Her statement is here. She isn't retiring, but says she will continue "to make a positive difference and fight for ALL our children's future from OUTSIDE the Governor's office."
Most observers assume that means she will devote full time to running for President. I guess so. Frankly, it seems bizarre to me, unless Palin calculates that in order to run she will have to spend most of her time in the lower 48, and the logistics of doing that while continuing as Governor are impossible.
That's all I have to say. I'm curious to know what our readers think. Weigh in via comments, but remember that your comment will only appear if you include your first and last name. We'll quote salient observations from our readers in updates to this post.
UPDATE: The comments are pouring in. Rather than try to select a few to quote from, I'd suggest you take a look if you're interested or want to participate. To a remarkable degree, readers who have commented so far are supportive of Palin's decision. This includes some who think she is (and should be) running for President and others who think she is just tired of constant abuse from the left. Several expect her to make a third-party run in 2012; I think that's farfetched. Surprisingly few--surprising to me, anyway--think that by resigning she has pretty much taken herself out of the running for 2012. Some expect her to resurface soon as a television commentator. That could well be true. Anyway, as I say, the comments are interesting and I recommend checking them out. Maybe I'll try to select a few representative ones to quote later in the day.
I understand the Democratic National Committee has put out a statement on Palin's resignation, but I haven't been able to find it. Does anyone have a link?
FURTHER UPDATE: At The Corner, Kathryn Lopez says that on MSNBC, they're speculating that Palin's resignation must be due to some impending scandal. Good grief.
Suicide of the West
Today's sign of the apocalypse, from Great Britain: "Prisoners on run cannot be named 'due to privacy rights.'"
Civil servants have refused to name inmates who have fled prison even though individual police forces will often identify them if they pose a risk to the public.They say releasing their names would breach obligations under the Data Protection Act.
It echoes a row in 2007 when Derbyshire Police refused to release pictures of two escaped murderers.
This reminds me of an incident when I was growing up in South Dakota. A murderer escaped from the state penitentiary and was reported to be heading back to his (and my) home town. The judge who sentenced him, the lawyer who prosecuted him and the lawyer who served as his court-appointed defense attorney--one of my father's partners--all had armed police officers posted at their homes until the escaped murderer was apprehended. I'm trying to imagine the authorities, at that time and place, even comprehending the idea that rather than notifying citizens who might be in danger and putting out an APB for the escaped criminal, they had some sort of duty to keep secret the identity of the escapee. I can't do it. As Suffolk Coastal MP John Gummer said:
We have gone mad if this is what we are doing.
We seem to be going mad on a number of fronts these days.
Car of the Future
This IowaHawk video spoofs Washington's takeover of Detroit. It's pretty funny; we might as well laugh as the bows of the ship sink beneath the waves:
Via InstaPundit.
Meet Lieutenant Vargas
Hats off to the New York Times for an inspiring profile of Lt. Ben Vargas, a New Haven firefighter who was one of the plaintiffs--the only Hispanic plaintiff--in the Ricci case. The Hispanic Firefighters' Association sided against him and he was hospitalized after being beaten up in the men's room of a bar in an attack that he believes was orchestrated by pro-race discrimination forces. But the Hispanic firefighters' group eventually came around, and Vargas and his co-plaintiffs were finally vindicated by the Supreme Court.
Vargas, who posted the sixth-highest score on the New Haven exam but joined the lawsuit before he knew for sure that score was his, says:
I consider myself an American -- I was born and raised here. I love my people. I love my culture. I love our rice and beans, our salsa music, our language -- everything my parents raised us with. But I am so grateful for the opportunity only the United States can give.
The article, by A.G. Sulzburger, who I take it is of the dynasty's younger generation and possibly not a chip off the old block, concludes with this:
Gesturing toward his three young sons, Lieutenant Vargas explained why he had no regrets. "I want them to have a fair shake, to get a job on their merits and not because they're Hispanic or they fill a quota," he said. "What a lousy way to live."
Barack Milhous Obama
What prior administration does the Obama administration most resemble? In its early days, there is a surprising contender: that of Richard Nixon.
Helen Thomas sounded the theme in an interview with CNS News that followed a Robert Gibbs press conference:
The Following a testy exchange during Wednesday's briefing with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas told CNSNews.com that not even Richard Nixon tried to control the press the way President Obama is trying to control the press."Nixon didn't try to do that," Thomas said. "They couldn't control (the media). They didn't try.
"What the hell do they think we are, puppets?" Thomas said.
I think the answer to that question is Yes, actually.
The Nixonian note was sounded again in the Obama administration's response to Republicans who are pressing for information on the firing of AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin. It appears that Obama's firing of Walpin was both illegal and politically motivated, and his aides are circling the wagons, hoping the issue will go away without their having to provide information to Congress. Once again, Byron York has the story:
All in all, the "extensive review" appeared more of a sham review -- an exercise designed to support a decision that had already been made. Nor has the White House been open about it. "Information provided to my staff by Mr. Eisen has been incomplete and misleading," Republican Rep. Darrell Issa wrote in a July 1 letter to White House counsel Gregory Craig.For its part, the White House is hinting broadly that it might invoke executive privilege to keep documents from Congress. "Your questions seek information about the White House's internal decision-making process," Craig wrote to Sen. Charles Grassley on June 30. "These questions implicate core executive branch confidentiality interests." At another point, Craig pledged to cooperate "to the fullest extent possible consistent with constitutional and statutory obligations."
The message, apparently, is for GOP investigators to back off.
Ah, executive privilege! The very words are redolent of the 1970s. (Although, of course, all administrations invoke executive privilege on occasion, sometimes properly, sometimes not.) Barack Obama is often compared to Jimmy Carter; the resemblances are obvious. But there may be a streak of Nixon in Obama, as well.
Ballad of a thin man
Omar Jamal of of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center played a walk-on role when prosecutors indicted Somali pirate Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse in New York. He made contact with family members of the pirates during the hostage standoff and spoke up on their behalf.
Jamal announced that Muse's family members "don't have any money. The father has some camels and cows and goats outside the city. ... The father goes outside with the livestock and comes home at night. Father said they don't have any money, they are broke." Jamal sought to to get a lawyer for Muse and to ascertain whether he had medical or mental problems.
Jamal had a sympathetic assessment of Muse's plight: "What we have is a confused teenager, overnight thrown into the highest level of the criminal justice system in the United States out of a country where there's no law at all."
Jamal works out of our own backyard in St. Paul, but one has to go to the Financial Times to find a report on his latest exploits. The Financial Times reports that Jamal worked for months as the middleman in another Somali pirate drama. At the behest of the owner of a ship seized and held by Somali pirates for 10 months, Jamal somehow negotiated its release.
The FT describes the result as "a striking cut-price deal to free a largely forgotten group of men whose abandonment contrasted with the diplomatic pressure, military intervention and millions of dollars in ransoms and negotiating fees expended to liberate other kidnapped ships."
Something is happening here but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?
Via Tom Steward.
While America sleeps
Peter Berkowitz has been spending time in Israel this summer. In "Bibi's choice," he reports on the perception of Israelis regarding the choices they confront on Iran's nuclear program. Berkowitz writes:
Conversations over the last few weeks with more than a dozen members of Israel's larger national security community--right and left, scholars and military men and women, some coming out of the army and others the air force, some with decades of experience in military intelligence and others in clandestine operations, some former Knesset members and others former, current, and soon-to-be advisers to prime ministers--suggest it is fair to conclude that the professionals agree with the public that Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons is a game changer. Among them, there is a consensus that Israel has the technological capacity to undertake a military strike that would inflict heavy damage on Iran's nuclear program. Such a strike, they also believe, would involve unprecedented challenges and risks, including the likelihood of a significant military response by Iran and its allies. Accordingly, an urgent internal debate is well underway in Israel concerning the circumstances in which the country should strike, alternative options, and, in the event that Iran does acquire nuclear weapons, the structure of an effective containment regime....
[T]he experts with whom I spoke were willing to discuss in broad outline Israel's capacity to destroy or substantially degrade Iran's nuclear facilities. All would be delighted to see engagement, diplomacy, or sanctions succeed. All emphasized that a military strike must be the last resort, chosen only after every other option has been fully exploited. All believe that a green light from the United States, or at least a yellow light, would be indispensable. And they seem convinced that Israel has good intelligence about vital Iranian targets and could, if necessary, with a combination of aircraft and ballistic missiles, bring enough firepower to bear to set the Iranian program back far enough to justify the substantial risks.
Berkowitz cites the study by Anthony Cordesman and Abdullah Toukan on a possible Israeli strike against Iran's nuclear program. The study is accessible here. Berkowtiz adds that even if an attack went according to plan, Israel would face considerable costs, both military and political, and outlines six possible responses to an Israeli attack that his Israeli interlocutors envisages.
Buried in the middle of his analysis is the predicate that Israel receive a green or yellow light for a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. If I read the Obama administration right, the chances of that are somewhere between slim to none. Commenting on Obama's Cairo speech, Berkowitz states: "[I]t would have been hard to project to a rapt world greater equivocation concerning Iran's quest for nuclear weapons if the president had deliberately concentrated his vaunted rhetorical gifts on the task."
Although Berkowitz does not explore the Obama administration's thinking beyond this comment, Berkowitz's article provides interesting insight into the thinking of knowledgeable Israelis the choices confronting Israel.
July 2, 2009
A Miserable Failure
That's the Obama administration's "stimulus" plan, which mainly stimulated Democratic constituencies with great gobs of pork. The web site Innocent Bystanders has done a service by plotting the actual unemployment rate against the Obama administration's prediction of what would happen with and without the "stimulus." Here is the latest, updated through June; click to enlarge:
The administration's forecast provides a benchmark against which we can judge the success or failure of the $700 billion porkapalooza. The result is obvious: it was a failure. The best thing Congress could do is to cancel the rest of the program--the large majority that remains unspent--and let the economy recover without being hampered by government-imposed inefficiencies.
Coup are you? part 2
Octavio Sánchez is a lawyer, former presidential adviser (2002-05) and minister of culture (2005-06) of the Republic of Honduras. His Christian Science Monitor column on the events in Honduras is "A 'coup' in Honduras? Nonsense." Sánchez writes:
Sometimes, the whole world prefers a lie to the truth. The White House, the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and much of the media have condemned the ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya this past weekend as a coup d'état.
That is nonsense.
In fact, what happened here is nothing short of the triumph of the rule of law.
Please read the whole thing, and if you know anyone in the State Department, please pass it on.
Via CSM opinion editor Josh Burek.
Administration, Lobbyist, Journalist: Who Can Tell the Difference?
The news cycle these days is like time-lapse photography. Stories are born, flower and pass out of sight again in a matter of hours. For that matter, the Washington Post's "Salon" program didn't last much longer than that. Blink, or take a day off from the computer, and you've missed it.
Here, via The Examiner, is the invitation that the Washington Post sent to lobbyists for companies in the health care industries; click to enlarge:
The mind boggles: the Post wants lobbyists to bring "your organization's CEO or executive director" to a "salon" at the home of Post publisher Katharine Weymouth. If you pay $25,000, your CEO can actually participate in the discussion; or you can sponsor all 11 salons for a discounted price of $250,000. What's the purpose? "Interact with key Obama administration officials and Congressional leaders," thereby "participat[ing] in the health-care reform debate among the select few who will actually get it done."
So the Washington Post is selling lobbyists access to "key Obama administration officials" for a mere $25,000 per evening. Obviously they could not have done this without arranging in advance for those "key officials" to participate. Where does the Obama administration end and the Washington Post begin? That is becoming an increasingly metaphysical question.
There is this, too: participants can "build crucial relationships with Washington Post news executives." Ask yourself: why would it be "crucial" for health sector companies to have relationships with the Washington Post's news executives? Is that a threat or a promise?
Ask yourself this: is it conceivable that the Washington Post would have imagined inviting lobbyists and CEOs to similar "salons" with "key Bush administration officials?" I don't think so.
The Post, embarrassed by disclosure of its cozy, profitable relationships with lobbyists and the Obama administration, has repudiated the "salon" program. Given that their publisher was the program's host and the paper's "news executives" were set to participate, the paper's suddenly discovering its ethical standards rings rather hollow. It's worth mentioning that the story came to light because a lobbyist who received the Post's flyer was offended by the ethics of the event and blew the whistle. It's a sign of the times, I guess.
Judge not. . .
I was in the car with my parents 40 years ago this month when we heard the news that Ted Kennedy had driven his car off of a bridge, after a night of partying, killing a young woman. My father said nothing. I thought "this means Kennedy will never be president." My mother said, "where was [his wife] Joan."
When a public figure gets caught in a sex scandal, women naturally seem to focus on the aggrieved wife. These days, the main issue is how she will react.
It varies. Some stand next to their husband at the press conference, some don't. Some say they aren't "standing by their man," but end up doing just that. Some implore the public to respect the privacy of her family, then end up writing a book about the matter.
Jenny Sanford, wife of the disgraced governor of South Carolina, did not appear at the press conference and, as I understand it, has taken her four children and moved away from her her husband. For this she is earning high praise. But as we see moreof (and learn more about) Gov. Sanford, her response can also be viewed as a no-brainer.
I consider it misguided to pass judgment over the way aggrieved wives handle these situations, or to compare the ways in which they do so. The better response is just to feel sympathy. All marriages are different and so are all women. There is no fixed correct or (within the limits of the criminal law) incorrect response.
The urge to judge is strong, nonetheless. It stems in part from human nature and in part, I suspect, from modern feminism, pursuant to which women feel liberated relentlessly to judge the choices made by other women.
Malta was worth a conversion
President Obama has nominated Douglas Kmiec to be the U.S. ambassador to Malta. If the past is any guide, there's a good chance that Malta will soon be described on someone's website bio as a terribly important place attended to by a long and distinguished line of foreign diplomats.
UPDATE: A reader reminds me that the Knights of Malta is a prominent Catholic group that dates back to the crusades. So the nomination stikes me as a great move by Obama -- he pleases Kmiec for services rendered without giving him anything of substance.
Gray skies are going to clear up?
As John shows below, the unemployment numbers released by the Labor Department today provide strong evidence that the Democrats' stimulus package has not succeeded thus far in curbing unemployment. Indeed, notwithstanding the Democratic over-promising, it was always difficult to see how the package could curb unemployment in the short term. Whatever potential such a package might have positively to affect the unemployment rate, any such positive impact was never going to kick in for many months. That's one of the reasons why a cut in the payroll tax would have been preferable.
However, Bob Stein, a senior economist at First Trust Advisors contends that there is evidence the economy is healing, with the labor market serving as a lagging indicator that will enhance corporate profits, thus inducing more hiring down the road. And even the labor market shows a few small promising signs, Stein says. New claims for unemployment benefits are down and there is some evidence that fewer layoffs are being contemplated now than at this time last year.
In addition, labor force participation (the number of those with jobs or actively looking for jobs) has increased by 1.2 million in the past five months, though it dipped in June. Whether this reflects, in part, increased public confidence in the ability to find work or increased desperation, I don't know. However, Stein points out that without the increase in labor force participation, the unemployment rate would be 8.8 percent, not 9.5 percent. (Of course, it was never likely that there would be no increase in labor force partcipation).
Belt-Tightening In Congress
The times being what they are, one would think that Congressmen would make some effort to economize, if only to show symbolic support for constituents who are being laid off. But no: the Wall Street Journal reports that spending on taxpayer-funded, overseas Congressional travel continues to rise. Such travel spending is up almost tenfold since 1995. It has risen another 50% since the Democrats took control of Congress in 2007. This graphic tells the story:
Not all overseas travel is in the "junket" category, of course. But even when Congressmen piously tell us they're checking out war zones, there may be more to the story:
Often, lawmakers combine trips to war zones with visits to more tranquil spots. In February, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a delegation of Democratic lawmakers to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan for a day. Before landing in Kabul, the eight lawmakers and their entourage of spouses and aides spent eight days in Italy, spending $57,697 on hotels and meals.
If you're suffering from our weak economy and hoping Congress will spend your hard-earned tax dollars wisely, Nancy Pelosi has a message for you: eat your heart out!
Saddam Hussein from beyond the grave
The Washington Post reports on an interview of Saddam Hussein conducted by an FBI agent shortly before Saddam was hanged. The former dictator of Iraq said that he allowed the world to believe he had wapons of mass destruction because he did not want to appear weak to Iran. Going further, Saddam claimed that he felt so vulnerable to the threat from Iran that he would have been prepared to seek a "security agreement" with the U.S.
It is plausible that Saddam presented the false appearance of having a potent stock of WMD in order to look strong to his adversaries, including Iran. It is much less plausible that he was prepared to seek an agreement with the U.S. To my knowledge, there is no evidence that he ever attempted to do so, and such a move would have undercut the image of a strong Arab leader he worked so hard to project.
The former tyrant also told the FBI that he had no dealings with al Qaeda. The Post's Glenn Kessler interprets this as contradicting suggestions that "Iraq had significant links to al Qaeda." But the words Kessler reports -- that Saddam never met Osama bin Laden and that the two did not have the same beliefs or vision -- do not mean that al Qaeda and Iraq were not talking and/or working together.
The Post, in short, is spinning.
Mission Accomplished?
Yesterday, at a townhall meeting in Annandale, Virginia, President Obama declared the stimulus bill a success. "It's done its job," he said.
Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell the nation's employers, both private and public. This morning the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the economy shed another 467,000 jobs in June. The job loss was worse than expected and drove the unemployment rate to 9.5%, the highest in 26 years. Even governments--contrary to Obama's assurance about teachers and firefighters--cut over 50,000 jobs.
This graphic shows how effective the "stimulus" bill and other Obama administration measures have been in curbing unemployment:
President Bush was widely, albeit unfairly, ridiculed for delivering a speech on board a ship in front of a banner that said "Mission Accomplished." It strikes me that Obama's counterfactual proclamation that the pork-laden stimulus bill has succeeded deserves at least equal derision.
The mother of all personnel disputes, Part Two
The gossipy nature of the dispute between Steve Schmidt and Bill Kristol over the anti-Palin leaks by the McCain campaign last year (and the breezy conclusion to my post on the subject) should not obscure the fact that someone engaged in deplorable conduct. Specifically, when the going got tough for the McCain campaign, someone on the inside turned on Palin and provided ammunition to the MSM.
Was it Schmidt, as Kristol and Randy Scheunemann allege? I don't know. But, as I noted, Mark Hemmingway presents good reason to believe that "Schmidt is not above anonymously leaking damaging information about the campaign." And Schmidt's silly, irrelevant attacks on Kristol (e.g., Kristol's from Washington, I'm from Northern Calfornia and Kristol was once Dan Quayle's chief of staff) cast him in a poor light.
A Reminder
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