An abomination, typical of ObamaNation ...
Open Government [Iain Murray]
The stink surrounding the Pelosi-Waxman-Markey cap-and-tax bill has become vomit-inducing overnight. Representative Waxman has decided to replace the 1091-page bill with a 300-page bill that will be debated for no longer than three hours today. So your elected representatives will have virtually no time to debate the merits of an economy-spanning bill they will not have had time to read. Speaker Pelosi and her sidekick Waxman are displaying nothing more than complete contempt for the democratic process.
If you're as utterly disgusted by this as I am, you can send a message to Pelosi and her cronies by telling your Congressmen to vote against this bill. You can e-mail them, call them (202-225-3121), or text the National Taxpayers Union on 54608 and they will help.
And would anyone like to help push the Constitutional Amendment I suggested around the time of the stimulus?UPDATE: The e-mail link is now correct.
The Shrinking Consensus [Jonah Goldberg]
Kim Strassel:
Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.
In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-and-trade program.
The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. — 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.)
The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/06262009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/stifling_science_to_fight_warming_176156.htm
The Cap-and-Trade Stampede [Victor Davis Hanson]
It was somewhere around 3-4 years ago that "global warming" suddenly morphed into "climate change" in vernacular speech. Soon previously antithetical events, from floods to draughts, forest fires to ice storms, record lows and unprecedented heat, windless days and violent gusts — hitherto known by our parents as "the weather" and "stuff happens" — suddenly became symptomatic of the horrible middle-class habits of burning carbon to go places and keep either warm or cool. One could not lose an argument, since on any given day something other than clear and 75 degrees was attributed to carbon footprints and global changes. When undetectable the problem was "insidious," when a Southern California canyon went up in wildfires it was, "You see! We warned you!" — as if the newer "climate change" fulfilled some deep-seated psychological need in many in the media.
In the methodology of phrenology or astrology, any natural disaster was hyped in magnitude (the locus classicus was Obama's claim in May 2007 that "10,000" had died (actual death toll: 12) in a tornado in Kansas (apparent proof, he further claimed, of what happens when Bush diverts the Kansas National Guard to Iraq and leaves the depopulated state short-handed while thousands perish).
I just spent a few days in the Sierra in May during freezing cold temperatures and snow; a week ago it was quite cool and raining in New York; each time I have passed through Phoenix this spring it seemed unseasonably cool; and just gave a talk on the Russian River and about froze. Meanwhile the grapes look about ten days behind due to unseasonably cool temperatures. Any empiricist would be worried, as Newsweek once was, about global cooling. Will the planet boil, if we slow down a bit, review the science and dissenting views, and consider the wisdom in a recession of allotting nearly a trillion dollars to changing our very way of life (while the Chinese absorb market share)?
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information II [Jim Manzi]
Conor Clarke accepts that:
I think Jim Manzi and others are right to say — if you believe the IPCC and CBO — that the U.S. won’t experience a climate-induced decline in GDP until 2080 or 2100.
But Conor goes on to argue that the costs that Waxman-Markey is expected to impose on American consumers by 2050 — about $1,1,00 per household per year, or a little less than 1% of total consumption — are pretty trivial, because we should expect to be so much richer by then. (I’ll note in passing that, as per my posts on this, there are very good reasons to believe that the EPA cost estimate is low, and also that costs are also virtually certain to rise between 2050 and roughly 2100 when we would expect to start getting some offsetting benefits.)
He then shows a chart making the point, basically, that 1% is a small fraction of 100%. But of course, this cuts both ways. We hear constantly about the existential threat posed by global warming — Cities underwater! Drought! Famine! Think about his graphic. The expected benefits don’t even outweigh these costs. That ought to make you stop and think.
Keep reading this post . . .
Open Government, Part II [Iain Murray]
This week, CEI released evidence to the public, by means of a filing of comments with the Environmental Protection Agency, that the EPA was suppressing science skeptical of the harmful effects of global warming. By taking this action, Obama's EPA demonstrated its hypocrisy when it comes to the role of science in its decision-making. Shortly before assuming office, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson declared: “As Administrator, I will ensure EPA’s efforts to address the environmental crises of today are rooted in three fundamental values: science-based policies and programs, adherence to the rule of law, and overwhelming transparency.” Jan. 23, 2009. This followed the president’s own January 21 memo to agency heads on “Transparency and Open Government.” And in an April 27 speech to the National Academy of Sciences, the president declared that, “under my administration, the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over.”
What is particularly interesting is the way the EPA has tried to brush this under the carpet. Rather than take my word for it, as an interested party, best to follow the work of the San Francisco Examiner's Thomas Fuller. He reported the story, then, faced with a dismissive response from EPA, decided that there was no story there. However, as you'll see from the link, further investigation proved that there was indeed a real story, and two further updates confirm this. Despite the administrator's and president's declarations, political considerations are clearly dominating scientific discussion at EPA. Now, this is in many ways to be expected as part of the political process, but not when the EPA head and her boss have told the public otherwise.
What is also interesting is that so far, it seems that the traditional media read our evidence and the EPA's denial and stopped there, without further digging. Thomas Fuller, however, did go further, turned over the stone, and found the worms wriggling there.
CEI released the actual suppressed study last night, which it did not obtain from the scientist concerned. You can read more at Watts Up With That.
So add this to the attempted railroading through of the cap-and-tax bill and you can be left with only one conclusion. Democrats currently in government aren't just incompetent, they are contemptuous of the American people.
Bringing in Patrick Kennedy from Rehab [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Pelosi delivers on a Friday night (210-212). Via the DCCC:
Kathryn —Today is truly a day for the history books! A short time ago, the House passed the historic American Clean Energy and Security Act. In doing so, we took a monumental step to get America running on clean energy, create millions of new jobs, strengthen our security, and reduce pollution in the air.This legislation was masterfully written by two longtime champions for building a clean energy economy in America and aggressively fighting climate change - Chairman Henry Waxman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Chairman Ed Markey of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. Most of all, this victory belongs to you. It is directly because of your grassroots support and the leadership of President Obama that progress on climate change is indeed happening in Washington. Thank you for making this good news possible.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi
UGH
Friday, June 26, 2009
Iran Update -- "Execute the protestors !"
But don't worry; Obama will negotiate with his pen pals, the Supreme Leader and Crazy Ahmedinijad; and they will be swayed by Obama's soothing apologies ....
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/34041_Iranian_Cleric_Calls_for_Execution_of_Protest_Leaders
Iranian Cleric Calls for Execution of Protest Leaders
World Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 11:55:32 am PDT
Senior Iranian cleric Ahmad Khatami (no relation to Mohammad Khatami, who visited the US in September 2006) demanded today that the leaders of election protests be executed.
Khatami, a member of the powerful Assembly of Experts, said the judiciary should charge the leading “rioters” as “mohareb” or one who wages war against God.
“They should be punished ruthlessly and savagely,” he said. Under Iran’s Islamic law, punishment for people convicted as “mohareb” is execution.
UPDATE at 6/26/09 12:19:03 pm:
Jake Tapper reports that in his Friday sermon, Khatami also blamed the death of protester Neda Agha Soltan on the protesters themselves.
In his Friday prayer sermon, senior cleric Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami called for the government to protest the “leaders of protests, who were supported by the United States and Israel, strongly and with cruelty so it will be a lesson for everyone.”
Khatami also said that 26-year-old protestor Neda Agha Soltan, shot last Saturday and memorialized by protestors as a martyr for their cause, was killed by those protestors.
“The proof and evidence shows that they have done it themselves and have raised propaganda against the system,” Khatami said. “I say hereby that these deceitful media have to know that the ordeal will be over and shame will remain for them.”
UPDATE at 6/26/09 12:21:49 pm:
Iran’s ambassador to Mexico, Mohammad Hassan Ghadiri, blames Neda’s death on the CIA.
GHADIRI (through interpreter): My question is that how is that this Nada was shot from behind and several cameras take that. And this is done in an area where there was no important demonstration. If the CIA wants to kill some people and attribute that to the elements of the government, and then choosing a girl would be something good for them because it would have much higher impact.
Therefore, we believe and we are looking into this to find who the elements were who did this.
BLITZER: Are you seriously accusing the CIA of killing Neda?
GHADIRI (through interpreter): We say that the bullet that was found in her head was not a bullet that you could find in Iran.
These are the bullets that the CIA and terrorist groups use. Of course they warned that there would be a bloodshed in these demonstrations and then they could attribute that to the Islamic Republic. This is part of a common act of CIA in various countries.
BLITZER: Do you really believe that, Mr. Ambassador? You’re a distinguished diplomat representing Iran. This is a very serious accusation that you’re making, that the CIA was responsible for killing this beautiful, young woman.
GHADIRI (through interpreter): I’m not saying that the CIA had done this. There are different groups. Could be intelligence services, could be CIA, could be the terrorists.
However, these are the people who do these things. You could ask Mr. Andreotti, who was an Italian diplomat, whether Gladiators were a secret group related to CIA or not. Now they of course they use better methods. Of course, you’re not going to say that CIA is a sacred organization that hasn’t done anything to other worlds.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/34041_Iranian_Cleric_Calls_for_Execution_of_Protest_Leaders
Iranian Cleric Calls for Execution of Protest Leaders
World Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 11:55:32 am PDT
Senior Iranian cleric Ahmad Khatami (no relation to Mohammad Khatami, who visited the US in September 2006) demanded today that the leaders of election protests be executed.
Khatami, a member of the powerful Assembly of Experts, said the judiciary should charge the leading “rioters” as “mohareb” or one who wages war against God.
“They should be punished ruthlessly and savagely,” he said. Under Iran’s Islamic law, punishment for people convicted as “mohareb” is execution.
UPDATE at 6/26/09 12:19:03 pm:
Jake Tapper reports that in his Friday sermon, Khatami also blamed the death of protester Neda Agha Soltan on the protesters themselves.
In his Friday prayer sermon, senior cleric Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami called for the government to protest the “leaders of protests, who were supported by the United States and Israel, strongly and with cruelty so it will be a lesson for everyone.”
Khatami also said that 26-year-old protestor Neda Agha Soltan, shot last Saturday and memorialized by protestors as a martyr for their cause, was killed by those protestors.
“The proof and evidence shows that they have done it themselves and have raised propaganda against the system,” Khatami said. “I say hereby that these deceitful media have to know that the ordeal will be over and shame will remain for them.”
UPDATE at 6/26/09 12:21:49 pm:
Iran’s ambassador to Mexico, Mohammad Hassan Ghadiri, blames Neda’s death on the CIA.
GHADIRI (through interpreter): My question is that how is that this Nada was shot from behind and several cameras take that. And this is done in an area where there was no important demonstration. If the CIA wants to kill some people and attribute that to the elements of the government, and then choosing a girl would be something good for them because it would have much higher impact.
Therefore, we believe and we are looking into this to find who the elements were who did this.
BLITZER: Are you seriously accusing the CIA of killing Neda?
GHADIRI (through interpreter): We say that the bullet that was found in her head was not a bullet that you could find in Iran.
These are the bullets that the CIA and terrorist groups use. Of course they warned that there would be a bloodshed in these demonstrations and then they could attribute that to the Islamic Republic. This is part of a common act of CIA in various countries.
BLITZER: Do you really believe that, Mr. Ambassador? You’re a distinguished diplomat representing Iran. This is a very serious accusation that you’re making, that the CIA was responsible for killing this beautiful, young woman.
GHADIRI (through interpreter): I’m not saying that the CIA had done this. There are different groups. Could be intelligence services, could be CIA, could be the terrorists.
However, these are the people who do these things. You could ask Mr. Andreotti, who was an Italian diplomat, whether Gladiators were a secret group related to CIA or not. Now they of course they use better methods. Of course, you’re not going to say that CIA is a sacred organization that hasn’t done anything to other worlds.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Mark Steyn pummels "Bystander In Chief" Obama; others join in ...
A ton of good discussion regarding Obama's flawed thinking, statements, actions toward's Iran here ...
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MDlhMmZmY2I1MjI0MTZlNDBhZmI3N2Y3ZDk2ZGZlYjA=&w=MA==
Neutrality Isn’t an Option
You always have a dog in the fight, whether you know it or not.
By Mark Steyn
The polite explanation for Barack Obama’s diffidence on Iran is that he doesn’t want to give the mullahs the excuse to say the Great Satan is meddling in Tehran’s affairs. So the president’s official position is that he’s modestly encouraged by the regime’s supposed interest in investigating some of the allegations of fraud. Also, he’s heartened to hear that OJ is looking for the real killers. “You've seen in Iran,” explained President Obama, “some initial reaction from the Supreme Leader that indicates he understands the Iranian people have deep concerns about the election . . . ”
“Supreme Leader”? I thought that was official house style for Barack Obama at Newsweek and MSNBC. But no. It’s also the title held by Ayatollah Khamenei for the last couple of decades. If it sounds odd from the lips of an American president, that’s because none has ever been as deferential in observing the Islamic republic’s dictatorial protocol. Like President Obama’s deep, ostentatious bow to the king of Saudi Arabia, it signals a fresh start in our relations with the Muslim world, “mutually respectful” and unilaterally fawning.
And how did it go down? At Friday prayers in Tehran, Ayotollah Khamenei attacked “dirty Zionists” and “bad British radio” (presumably a reference to the BBC’s Farsi news service rather than the non-stop Herman’s Hermits marathon on Supergold Oldies FM). “The most evil of them all is the British government,” added the supreme leader, warming to his theme. The crowd, including President Ahmadinelandslide and his cabinet, chanted, “Death to the U.K.”
Her Majesty’s Government brought this on themselves by allowing their shoot-from-the-lip prime minister to issue saber-rattling threats like: “The regime must address the serious questions which have been asked about the conduct of the Iranian elections.”
Fortunately, President Obama was far more judicious. And in return, instead of denouncing him as “evil” and deploring the quality of his radio programming, Ayatollah Khamenei said Obama’s “agents” had been behind the protests: “They started to cause riots in the street, they caused destruction, they burnt houses.” But that wasn’t all the Great Satin did. “What is the worst thing to me in all this,” sighed the supreme leader, “are comments made in the name of human rights and freedom and liberty by American officials . . . What? Are you serious? Do you know what human rights are?”
And then he got into specifics: “During the time of the Democrats, the time of Clinton, 80 people were burned alive in Waco. Now you are talking about human rights?”
It’s unclear whether the “Death to the U.K.” chanters switched at this point to “Democrats lied, people fried.” But you get the gist. The President of the United States can make nice to His Hunkalicious Munificence the Supremely Supreme Leader of Leaders (Peace Be Upon Him) all he wants, but it isn’t going to be reciprocated.
There’s a very basic lesson here: For great powers, studied neutrality isn’t an option. Even if you’re genuinely neutral. In the early nineties, the attitude of much of the west to the disintegrating Yugoslavia was summed up in the brute dismissal of James Baker that America didn’t have a dog in this fight. Fair enough. But over in the Balkans junkyard the various mangy old pooches saw it rather differently. And so did the Muslim world, which regarded British and European “neutrality” as a form of complicity in mass murder. As Osama bin Laden put it:
The British are responsible for destroying the Caliphate system. They are the ones who created the Palestinian problem. They are the ones who created the Kashmiri problem. They are the ones who put the arms embargo on the Muslims of Bosnia so that two million Muslims were killed.
How come a catalogue of imperial interventions wound up with that bit of scrupulous non-imperial non-intervention? Because great-power “even-handedness” will invariably be received as a form of one-handedness by the time its effects are felt on the other side of the world. Western “even-handedness” on Bosnia was the biggest single factor in the radicalization of European Muslims. They swarmed to the Balkans to support their coreligionists and ran into a bunch of Wahhabi imams moving into the neighborhood with lots of Saudi money and anxious to fill their Rolodex with useful contacts in the west. Among the alumni of that conflict was the hitherto impeccably assimilated English public (ie, private) schoolboy and London School of Economics student who went on to behead the Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Pearl. You always have a dog in the fight, whether you know it or not.
For the Obama administration, this presents a particular challenge — because the president’s preferred rhetorical tic is to stake out the two sides and present himself as a dispassionate, disinterested soul of moderation: “There are those who would argue . . . ” on the one hand, whereas “there are those who insist . . . ” on the other, whereas he is beyond such petty dogmatic positions. That was pretty much his shtick on abortion at Notre Dame.
Of course, such studied moderation is usually a crock: Obama is an abortion absolutist, supporting partial-birth infanticide, and even laws that prevent any baby so inconsiderate as to survive the abortion from receiving medical treatment.So in his recent speech in Cairo he applied the same technique. Among his many unique qualities, the 44th president is the first to give the impression that the job is beneath him — that he is too big and too gifted to be confined to the humdrum interests of one nation state. As my former National Review colleague David Frum put it, the Obama address offered “the amazing spectacle of an American president taking an equidistant position between the country he leads and its detractors and enemies.”
What would you make of that “equidistance” if you were back in the palace watching it on CNN International? Maybe you’d know that, on domestic policy, Obama uses the veneer of disinterested arbiter as a feint. Or maybe you’d just figure that no serious world leader can ever be neutral on vital issues. So you’d start combing the speech for what lies underneath the usual Obama straw men — and women: “I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal.” Very brave of you, I’m sure. But what about the Muslim women who choose not to cover themselves and wind up as the victims of honor killings in Germany and Scandinavia and Toronto and Dallas? Ah, but that would have required real courage, not audience flattery masquerading as such.
And so, when the analysts had finished combing the speech, they would have concluded that the meta-message of his “equidistance” was a prostration before “stability” — an acceptance of the region’s worst pathologies as a permanent feature of life.
The mullahs stole this election on a grander scale than ever before primarily for reasons of internal security and regional strategy. But Obama’s speech told them that, in the “post-American world,” they could do so with impunity. Blaming his “agents” for the protests is merely a bonus: Offered the world’s biggest carrot, Khamenei took it and used it as a stick.
He won’t be the last to read Obama this way.
— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is author of America Alone.
Obama Gives the Regime What It Always Wanted [Rich Lowry]
Every time Obama’s statements get tougher on Iran, I wait for our friends on the left to denounce him for making this about the U.S., for meddling in Iranian affairs, for giving the Iranian government a powerful propaganda tool, for all the parade of horribles we were told would occur if Obama spoke with some moral clarity about this crisis. By their logic, Obama has given the regime just what it wanted (denunciations of its conduct it can use for its purposes) at the very moment it’s cracking down hardest. They should be appalled and dismayed — if, that is, so many of them weren’t committed to praising whatever Obama says and does, ranging from nothing to his increasingly clear statements of the last few days.
'Even as the mullahs who have been at war with the United States for 30 years are engaged in a Tiananmen-style crackdown, President Obama is neck-deep in terrorist-for-hostages negotiations with Iran-backed killers who have American blood on their hands.' [Andy McCarthy]
My column today details the Obama administration's shocking negotiations with Iran's terror network in Iraq. As the result of this policy, President Obama has freed outright a terrorist responsible for the murders of five U.S. soldiers in Karbala, in the process abandoning America's longstanding, life-saving policy against trading terrorist prisoners for hostages kidnapped by terrorists. The administration has thus encouraged terrorists that their methods will work and that they will win valuable concessions by abducting Americans and allied personnel (and, as I elaborate, even by killing them). It is impossible to overstate how dangerously irresponsible this is.
Dear Your Eminence, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei . . . (America-Hating Lunatic) [Andy McCarthy]
The Washington Times reports that President Obama wrote a "let's get engaged" letter to Iran's top mullah before the election. As anyone who has been paying attention for the last three decades might have predicted, the "Supreme Leader" ridiculed the gesture.
. . . Which reminds me of a great point made by Caroline Glick (flagged in NRO's web briefing — and Caroline's point was also noted by Powerline's Scott Johnson): What would the American people really think of all this twaddle about engagement with implacable enemies of the United States if we had a responsible media that actually reported on what a five-alarm whack-job Khamenei is:
THE MOST IMPORTANT repercussion of the US media's propagandistic reporting is that the American public is denied the ability to understand events as they unfold. Take for instance The New York Times' write-up of Khamenei's sermon this past Friday in which he effectively declared war on the protesters. As Russell Berman pointed out in the Telos blog on Saturday, the Times' write-up was misleadingly selective.
The Times did not mention that Khamenei ascribed world events to a Zionist conspiracy which he believes controls the US. It similarly failed to mention his long rant against the US for the FBI's 1993 raid on David Koresh's Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas.
Had the Times - and other major media outlets - properly reported Khamenei's speech, they would have made clear to their readers that he is not a rational thinker. His view of world events is deeply distorted by his hatreds and prejudices and paranoia.But then, if Times readers were permitted to know just how demented Khamenei's views of the world are, they might come to the conclusion that Obama's intense desire to sit down with him, and his constant pandering to Iran's "supreme leader" are ill-advised and counterproductive. They might come to the conclusion that it is impossible to achieve a meeting of the minds with a man who calls Americans "morons" and leads his subordinate government officials in chants of "Death to America," "Death to Britain" and "Death to Israel."
And if they came to these conclusions, how could Obama be expected to affect anything?
Sure, There May Be a 'Problem' Here and There, But Nothing We Can't Get Beyond? [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Barbara Slavin:
Prior to this month's disputed presidential election in Iran, the Obama administration sent a letter to the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, calling for an improvement in relations, according to interviews and the leader himself.
Ayatollah Khamenei confirmed the letter toward the end of a lengthy sermon last week, in which he accused the United States of fomenting protests in his country in the aftermath of the disputed June 12 presidential election.
U.S. officials declined to discuss the letter on Tuesday, a day in which President Obama gave his strongest condemnation yet of the Iranian crackdown against protesters.
Re: The Bystander-in-Chief [Mark Steyn]
Kathryn, what's striking about the Bystander-in-Chief is that the more he does nothing, the more credit he gets for everything. In the New York Times, Helene Cooper attributes events in Iran to the Obama "stealth effect." The fellows in the street shouting "Death to the dictator!" were apparently inspired to rise up by Obama's outreach to the, er, dictator:
He directed his comments not just to the Iranian people but to Iran’s leaders, and referred to Iran as “the Islamic Republic,” further flagging a willingness to deal with the clerical government. He even went so far as to quote from the vaunted Persian poet Saadi, dead for 700 years now.
So the people's demonstrations against the leaders are a direct result of Obama's willingness to do business with the leaders. Gotcha. What's more, this Moussavi learned everything he knows from Barack:
In his campaign, Mr. Moussavi used many tactics that echoed Mr. Obama’s. He pledged to re-engage politically with the United States; he used posters of himself and his wife side by side, and he hired a young chief strategist who said he looked to the Obama campaign for ideas.
He uses posters of himself and his wife! If that doesn't testify to Obama's decisive impact on global affairs, I don't know what does.
My old pal Boris Johnson, mayor of London, is smoking what Helene's smoking. Reflecting on the Supreme Leader's decision to use Friday prayers for a mass chantalong of "Death to Britain!", Boris's crack geopolitical analysis immediately discerns that this is because, under Obama, America is simply too lovable to be plausible any longer as the Great Satan:
There is a good reason why the ayatollah bashed Britain with such singular ferocity, and it is to do with the Iranians' changing view of America. We have been co-opted to play the role of Great Satan, because America is now led by Barack Obama...
Barack is the Carrie Prejean of Iran. He looks hot, but the mullahs have stripped him of his Great Satan title because of his unfortunate remarks:
Barack Obama has shown the Iranian bourgeoisie that America is willing to engage, to treat their country with respect, and it is that sudden hope – of a new role and status for Iran – that is driving the protesters to see if they can be rid of their crazy regime.
What an incredible leader. By seeking to cut a deal with the "crazy regime," he's driven the masses to overthrow the crazy regime. He's an inspiration to both sides — both the protesters taking to the streets and the Revolutionary Guards gunning them down. And I'm sure if some third party emerges Obama will prove to have been the inspiration to them, too. Even if he just stands there looking bewildered:
This is clear both from the initial "caught in the headlights" reaction by Obama as he temporized — albeit with steely skill — and from accounts of diplomatic and other official sources here.
How many other deer caught in the headlights temporize with such steely skill? Thus, the Obama effect: Doe, a deer, a steely deer has led to ray, a drop of golden sun for the people of Iran.
An Inadequate Response to an Illegitimate Regime [Victor Davis Hanson]
Obama's Iran policy has been an ethical and practical embarrassment from the beginning. Moral equivalence? The president put Mousavi — and, by extension, the crowds in the street — and Ahmadinejad on the same moral plain.
Naïveté? For the first few days the administration and its flaks in the media issued pompous "in the know" suggestions to the effect that Ahmadinejad may have "really" won the election.
Straw men? We were supposed to think that those who from the beginning saw the issues at stake and supported the reformers with strong words of encouragement were some sort of interventionist neocons who wanted to do another Iraq-like invasion, or would egg on reluctant demonstrators only to betray them in Hungary-like fashion.
Keep reading this post . .
Krauthammer:
On Obama’s latest statements on Iran:
It had two parts. The use of the emotive words "appalled," "outraged" was new and right. But the policy of engagement remains unchanged.
Major asked him about hotdog diplomacy, meaning the administration weeks ago had said U.S. embassies around the world will be open on the Fourth of July welcoming for the first time in decades Iranian diplomats as a way to symbolizing opening and negotiation.
To do that at a time when the regime is shooting people from rooftops is bizarre. I mean, remember, even the senior Bush, the president who was the most hyperrealist and unsentimental, sent his national security advisor Brent Scowcroft to China after Tiananmen, after the massacre, but at least they waited six months.
This would be the welcoming of Iranians into American embassies to celebrate U.S. independence ten days after the shooting on the streets. That, I think, is disturbing in and of itself.
But secondly, the president speaks about all of these events in an odd way. He says there is a debate happening in Iran about its future. You know, when one senator yields to another in the Congress, that's a debate. Even, if you like, when you're having dueling demonstrations in Tehran, you could call that a debate.
But when you have demonstrators out in the street being shot from rooftops, that is not a debate. That's a massacre or a revolution. And the president refuses to understand or to acknowledge that what's at stake here is the legitimacy of the regime and not just elections.
On the state of the health-care and energy debate:
[Obama] is getting pushback in the Congress, and even appeared to be getting a bit in the press today, which I think is the big story….
[H]is charisma can take him only up to a point—and that point is at which reality asserts itself. The two issues in which he is in trouble in the Congress, on health care reform and on energy, he is up against the contradictions of the policy.
On health care, it is the idea that it is going to pay for itself. He repeated that today. There is no way that is going to happen. And the CBO has told us a week ago that his plans, his ambitious plans as translated in the Senate, are going to cost a $1 trillion or a $1.5 trillion.
And on energy, he is persistent in making the case that by insisting on alternative sources, which are more expensive, and taxing and regulating the more efficient and older-style energy like oil and gas and coal, which we have in abundance, he's going to make us more prosperous.
That's an absurd proposition. And, in the end, the absurdity meets reality in Congress, and that's why he's in trouble.
What's Next After Hot-Dog Diplomacy? [Michael Rubin]
President Obama is continuing plans to have Iranian diplomats — representatives of a regime that continues to imprison and kill peaceful protestors — celebrate July 4th, a holiday marking liberty and freedom, at U.S. embassies around the world.
What's next?
Inviting North Korean officials to share cake at a celebration commemorating the Non-Proliferation Treaty? Perhaps inviting the Taliban to a festival celebrating International Women's Day? Maybe we can even invite Zimbabwe to party with the Department of Agriculture, or have Libyan diplomats as guests of honor at a commemoration of human rights?
The White House and the State Department seem completely blind to the optics of this, something strange given the president's campaigning acumen. It is also a dagger in the heart of the imagery of hope and change which the Obama White House hopes to convey. President Obama, there's always next year. This is not neutrality; it is diplomatic malpractice and an insult to the Iranian people who are watching you so intently right now.
Iran, Exposed [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
As people die from the government crackdown, I asked Amir Taheri if any real progress is actually being made in Iran, for Iranians. He’s optimistic:
Yes. The regime has already lost control of the streets. It is now holding them not through “popular masses” but with armored cars and forces of repression.
On Wednesday, the regime was forced to cancel its rent-a-mob demonstration against Britain’s alleged “interventions in Iranian affairs.” Its fear was that the opposition might use the stage-managed event as a cover for its own genuine protest demonstration.
Meanwhile, the taboo of criticizing Khamenei has been broken.Hundreds of poems and songs mocking him, some using his sobriquet “Ali Gedda” (Ali the Beggar), are now in circulation throughout Iran. He has been exposed as the “godfather” of the Khomeinist establishment rather than the arbiter of national interests as he claimed.
People like Zbigniew Brzezinski can no longer go around claiming that the Khomeinist regime is a “vibrant democracy.” Sen. John Kerry cannot pretend, as he did in a recent New York Times oped, that Iran was facing not a popular uprising but a “neco-con plot.”
Even if Ahmadinejad manages to impose himself for four more years, President Obama will not have a remotely credible interlocutor to negotiate with.
The revolution that led to the shah’s fall took a year before it bore fruit.History is not written in advance, and the current revolt in Iran may well fizzle out.However, one thing is now certain:
The oxymoron “Islamic Republic” has been exposed as a sham.
The regime in Iran has become an Islamic emirate, or imamate if you prefer, like the one that existed in Yemen until 1961 and in Afghanistan under the Taliban until 2002.In Iran we have reached a moment of clarity. And, believe me, that is priceless.In my humble way I have fought for three decades to help bring about that clarity, to show my people, and the world at large, the true nature of the regime created by Khomeini, and I am happy.
To be sure, I hope to be even happier a year from now.
Realism and Obama's Response [Michael Rubin]
The conventional wisdom on Obama's refusal to establish a red line beyond which he won't recognize Ahmadinejad's government and his refusal to rescind the July 4 invitations for Iranian diplomats to celebrate freedom and liberty at U.S. embassies is that Obama wants to keep the door open to engagement with regard to Iran's nuclear program.
Two thoughts:
1. The command and control over any military nuclear program would be in the hands of the Office of the Supreme Leader and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the same groups who are now facing down the Iranian people. In other words, we share a common adversary with the Iranian people. We need to recognize that. The problem has never been the Iranian people — they indeed are far more moderate than their government. We should do nothing to antagonize them (which is why all the talk among some realists of outreach to the Mujahedin a-Khalq or playing an ethnic strategy is wrong, hamfisted, and counterproductive). We need to focus on how to counter and neutralize our common adversary.
2. Realism is about maximizing U.S. interests. Preserving an enemy regime is not realism. It is simply stupid. We should not be throwing a lifeline to the Islamic Republic, the fall of which would enable Iran to emerge as a force for moderation in the region, and allow the Iranian people to take their rightful place among nations.
Kaplan on Iran [Rich Lowry]
Kathryn noted this piece and it's also in the web briefing. Here's the key line: "The Iranian struggle for democracy is now as central to our foreign policy as that for democracy in Eastern Europe in the 1980s." And Kaplan is not a neo-con. As far as I'm concerned, he's exactly what a true realist should be — clear-eyed about the weight of history and culture, free of dogmatic commitments.
'Sources confirm Obama sent a direct message to Iranian leader' [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
(CNN) — U.S. President Barack Obama sent a direct message to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei weeks before this month's disputed election, Iranian sources said Wednesday.The letter requested dialogue and engagement between the two nations, the sources said. The sources said Khamenei has yet to reply to the letter, but nonetheless it "had set the negotiating table in order for both sides to sit around it after the election."Khamenei made an indirect reference to the letter in his sermon on Friday at Tehran University."The U.S. President said that we were waiting for a day like this to see people on the street," the Iranian leader said. "Some people attributed these remarks to Obama and then they write letters to say we're ready to have ties; that we respect the Islamic Republic and on the other hand they make such comments. Which one should we believe?"
Keep reading this post .
Timing [Mark Steyn]
Reading Jonah's piece today, it seems to me the president's problem is that he chose as a matter of policy to legitimize the Iranian regime at the very moment they chose to delegitimize themselves — first, by stealing the election to an unprecedented degree and, then, by killing people who objected to them doing so.
That's awfully bad timing, and one sympathizes, as one would if Nixon had gone to China a week before Tiananmen Square. But the fact is it's happened and adjusting to that reality makes more sense than banking on being able to re-legitimize Khamenei and Ahmadinejad.
This just in ... White House Capitulation:
'WH Rescinds July 4 Invites To Iranians' [NRO Staff]
Here.
The White House has rescinded the invitations to Iranian diplomats to attend July 4 celebrations at U.S. embassies around the world.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said nobody from Iran RSVPed to come, and at this point, the invitations are no longer valid.
"Given the events of the past many days, those invitations will no longer be extended," Mr. Gibbs said.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MDlhMmZmY2I1MjI0MTZlNDBhZmI3N2Y3ZDk2ZGZlYjA=&w=MA==
Neutrality Isn’t an Option
You always have a dog in the fight, whether you know it or not.
By Mark Steyn
The polite explanation for Barack Obama’s diffidence on Iran is that he doesn’t want to give the mullahs the excuse to say the Great Satan is meddling in Tehran’s affairs. So the president’s official position is that he’s modestly encouraged by the regime’s supposed interest in investigating some of the allegations of fraud. Also, he’s heartened to hear that OJ is looking for the real killers. “You've seen in Iran,” explained President Obama, “some initial reaction from the Supreme Leader that indicates he understands the Iranian people have deep concerns about the election . . . ”
“Supreme Leader”? I thought that was official house style for Barack Obama at Newsweek and MSNBC. But no. It’s also the title held by Ayatollah Khamenei for the last couple of decades. If it sounds odd from the lips of an American president, that’s because none has ever been as deferential in observing the Islamic republic’s dictatorial protocol. Like President Obama’s deep, ostentatious bow to the king of Saudi Arabia, it signals a fresh start in our relations with the Muslim world, “mutually respectful” and unilaterally fawning.
And how did it go down? At Friday prayers in Tehran, Ayotollah Khamenei attacked “dirty Zionists” and “bad British radio” (presumably a reference to the BBC’s Farsi news service rather than the non-stop Herman’s Hermits marathon on Supergold Oldies FM). “The most evil of them all is the British government,” added the supreme leader, warming to his theme. The crowd, including President Ahmadinelandslide and his cabinet, chanted, “Death to the U.K.”
Her Majesty’s Government brought this on themselves by allowing their shoot-from-the-lip prime minister to issue saber-rattling threats like: “The regime must address the serious questions which have been asked about the conduct of the Iranian elections.”
Fortunately, President Obama was far more judicious. And in return, instead of denouncing him as “evil” and deploring the quality of his radio programming, Ayatollah Khamenei said Obama’s “agents” had been behind the protests: “They started to cause riots in the street, they caused destruction, they burnt houses.” But that wasn’t all the Great Satin did. “What is the worst thing to me in all this,” sighed the supreme leader, “are comments made in the name of human rights and freedom and liberty by American officials . . . What? Are you serious? Do you know what human rights are?”
And then he got into specifics: “During the time of the Democrats, the time of Clinton, 80 people were burned alive in Waco. Now you are talking about human rights?”
It’s unclear whether the “Death to the U.K.” chanters switched at this point to “Democrats lied, people fried.” But you get the gist. The President of the United States can make nice to His Hunkalicious Munificence the Supremely Supreme Leader of Leaders (Peace Be Upon Him) all he wants, but it isn’t going to be reciprocated.
There’s a very basic lesson here: For great powers, studied neutrality isn’t an option. Even if you’re genuinely neutral. In the early nineties, the attitude of much of the west to the disintegrating Yugoslavia was summed up in the brute dismissal of James Baker that America didn’t have a dog in this fight. Fair enough. But over in the Balkans junkyard the various mangy old pooches saw it rather differently. And so did the Muslim world, which regarded British and European “neutrality” as a form of complicity in mass murder. As Osama bin Laden put it:
The British are responsible for destroying the Caliphate system. They are the ones who created the Palestinian problem. They are the ones who created the Kashmiri problem. They are the ones who put the arms embargo on the Muslims of Bosnia so that two million Muslims were killed.
How come a catalogue of imperial interventions wound up with that bit of scrupulous non-imperial non-intervention? Because great-power “even-handedness” will invariably be received as a form of one-handedness by the time its effects are felt on the other side of the world. Western “even-handedness” on Bosnia was the biggest single factor in the radicalization of European Muslims. They swarmed to the Balkans to support their coreligionists and ran into a bunch of Wahhabi imams moving into the neighborhood with lots of Saudi money and anxious to fill their Rolodex with useful contacts in the west. Among the alumni of that conflict was the hitherto impeccably assimilated English public (ie, private) schoolboy and London School of Economics student who went on to behead the Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Pearl. You always have a dog in the fight, whether you know it or not.
For the Obama administration, this presents a particular challenge — because the president’s preferred rhetorical tic is to stake out the two sides and present himself as a dispassionate, disinterested soul of moderation: “There are those who would argue . . . ” on the one hand, whereas “there are those who insist . . . ” on the other, whereas he is beyond such petty dogmatic positions. That was pretty much his shtick on abortion at Notre Dame.
Of course, such studied moderation is usually a crock: Obama is an abortion absolutist, supporting partial-birth infanticide, and even laws that prevent any baby so inconsiderate as to survive the abortion from receiving medical treatment.So in his recent speech in Cairo he applied the same technique. Among his many unique qualities, the 44th president is the first to give the impression that the job is beneath him — that he is too big and too gifted to be confined to the humdrum interests of one nation state. As my former National Review colleague David Frum put it, the Obama address offered “the amazing spectacle of an American president taking an equidistant position between the country he leads and its detractors and enemies.”
What would you make of that “equidistance” if you were back in the palace watching it on CNN International? Maybe you’d know that, on domestic policy, Obama uses the veneer of disinterested arbiter as a feint. Or maybe you’d just figure that no serious world leader can ever be neutral on vital issues. So you’d start combing the speech for what lies underneath the usual Obama straw men — and women: “I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal.” Very brave of you, I’m sure. But what about the Muslim women who choose not to cover themselves and wind up as the victims of honor killings in Germany and Scandinavia and Toronto and Dallas? Ah, but that would have required real courage, not audience flattery masquerading as such.
And so, when the analysts had finished combing the speech, they would have concluded that the meta-message of his “equidistance” was a prostration before “stability” — an acceptance of the region’s worst pathologies as a permanent feature of life.
The mullahs stole this election on a grander scale than ever before primarily for reasons of internal security and regional strategy. But Obama’s speech told them that, in the “post-American world,” they could do so with impunity. Blaming his “agents” for the protests is merely a bonus: Offered the world’s biggest carrot, Khamenei took it and used it as a stick.
He won’t be the last to read Obama this way.
— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is author of America Alone.
Obama Gives the Regime What It Always Wanted [Rich Lowry]
Every time Obama’s statements get tougher on Iran, I wait for our friends on the left to denounce him for making this about the U.S., for meddling in Iranian affairs, for giving the Iranian government a powerful propaganda tool, for all the parade of horribles we were told would occur if Obama spoke with some moral clarity about this crisis. By their logic, Obama has given the regime just what it wanted (denunciations of its conduct it can use for its purposes) at the very moment it’s cracking down hardest. They should be appalled and dismayed — if, that is, so many of them weren’t committed to praising whatever Obama says and does, ranging from nothing to his increasingly clear statements of the last few days.
'Even as the mullahs who have been at war with the United States for 30 years are engaged in a Tiananmen-style crackdown, President Obama is neck-deep in terrorist-for-hostages negotiations with Iran-backed killers who have American blood on their hands.' [Andy McCarthy]
My column today details the Obama administration's shocking negotiations with Iran's terror network in Iraq. As the result of this policy, President Obama has freed outright a terrorist responsible for the murders of five U.S. soldiers in Karbala, in the process abandoning America's longstanding, life-saving policy against trading terrorist prisoners for hostages kidnapped by terrorists. The administration has thus encouraged terrorists that their methods will work and that they will win valuable concessions by abducting Americans and allied personnel (and, as I elaborate, even by killing them). It is impossible to overstate how dangerously irresponsible this is.
Dear Your Eminence, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei . . . (America-Hating Lunatic) [Andy McCarthy]
The Washington Times reports that President Obama wrote a "let's get engaged" letter to Iran's top mullah before the election. As anyone who has been paying attention for the last three decades might have predicted, the "Supreme Leader" ridiculed the gesture.
. . . Which reminds me of a great point made by Caroline Glick (flagged in NRO's web briefing — and Caroline's point was also noted by Powerline's Scott Johnson): What would the American people really think of all this twaddle about engagement with implacable enemies of the United States if we had a responsible media that actually reported on what a five-alarm whack-job Khamenei is:
THE MOST IMPORTANT repercussion of the US media's propagandistic reporting is that the American public is denied the ability to understand events as they unfold. Take for instance The New York Times' write-up of Khamenei's sermon this past Friday in which he effectively declared war on the protesters. As Russell Berman pointed out in the Telos blog on Saturday, the Times' write-up was misleadingly selective.
The Times did not mention that Khamenei ascribed world events to a Zionist conspiracy which he believes controls the US. It similarly failed to mention his long rant against the US for the FBI's 1993 raid on David Koresh's Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas.
Had the Times - and other major media outlets - properly reported Khamenei's speech, they would have made clear to their readers that he is not a rational thinker. His view of world events is deeply distorted by his hatreds and prejudices and paranoia.But then, if Times readers were permitted to know just how demented Khamenei's views of the world are, they might come to the conclusion that Obama's intense desire to sit down with him, and his constant pandering to Iran's "supreme leader" are ill-advised and counterproductive. They might come to the conclusion that it is impossible to achieve a meeting of the minds with a man who calls Americans "morons" and leads his subordinate government officials in chants of "Death to America," "Death to Britain" and "Death to Israel."
And if they came to these conclusions, how could Obama be expected to affect anything?
Sure, There May Be a 'Problem' Here and There, But Nothing We Can't Get Beyond? [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Barbara Slavin:
Prior to this month's disputed presidential election in Iran, the Obama administration sent a letter to the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, calling for an improvement in relations, according to interviews and the leader himself.
Ayatollah Khamenei confirmed the letter toward the end of a lengthy sermon last week, in which he accused the United States of fomenting protests in his country in the aftermath of the disputed June 12 presidential election.
U.S. officials declined to discuss the letter on Tuesday, a day in which President Obama gave his strongest condemnation yet of the Iranian crackdown against protesters.
Re: The Bystander-in-Chief [Mark Steyn]
Kathryn, what's striking about the Bystander-in-Chief is that the more he does nothing, the more credit he gets for everything. In the New York Times, Helene Cooper attributes events in Iran to the Obama "stealth effect." The fellows in the street shouting "Death to the dictator!" were apparently inspired to rise up by Obama's outreach to the, er, dictator:
He directed his comments not just to the Iranian people but to Iran’s leaders, and referred to Iran as “the Islamic Republic,” further flagging a willingness to deal with the clerical government. He even went so far as to quote from the vaunted Persian poet Saadi, dead for 700 years now.
So the people's demonstrations against the leaders are a direct result of Obama's willingness to do business with the leaders. Gotcha. What's more, this Moussavi learned everything he knows from Barack:
In his campaign, Mr. Moussavi used many tactics that echoed Mr. Obama’s. He pledged to re-engage politically with the United States; he used posters of himself and his wife side by side, and he hired a young chief strategist who said he looked to the Obama campaign for ideas.
He uses posters of himself and his wife! If that doesn't testify to Obama's decisive impact on global affairs, I don't know what does.
My old pal Boris Johnson, mayor of London, is smoking what Helene's smoking. Reflecting on the Supreme Leader's decision to use Friday prayers for a mass chantalong of "Death to Britain!", Boris's crack geopolitical analysis immediately discerns that this is because, under Obama, America is simply too lovable to be plausible any longer as the Great Satan:
There is a good reason why the ayatollah bashed Britain with such singular ferocity, and it is to do with the Iranians' changing view of America. We have been co-opted to play the role of Great Satan, because America is now led by Barack Obama...
Barack is the Carrie Prejean of Iran. He looks hot, but the mullahs have stripped him of his Great Satan title because of his unfortunate remarks:
Barack Obama has shown the Iranian bourgeoisie that America is willing to engage, to treat their country with respect, and it is that sudden hope – of a new role and status for Iran – that is driving the protesters to see if they can be rid of their crazy regime.
What an incredible leader. By seeking to cut a deal with the "crazy regime," he's driven the masses to overthrow the crazy regime. He's an inspiration to both sides — both the protesters taking to the streets and the Revolutionary Guards gunning them down. And I'm sure if some third party emerges Obama will prove to have been the inspiration to them, too. Even if he just stands there looking bewildered:
This is clear both from the initial "caught in the headlights" reaction by Obama as he temporized — albeit with steely skill — and from accounts of diplomatic and other official sources here.
How many other deer caught in the headlights temporize with such steely skill? Thus, the Obama effect: Doe, a deer, a steely deer has led to ray, a drop of golden sun for the people of Iran.
An Inadequate Response to an Illegitimate Regime [Victor Davis Hanson]
Obama's Iran policy has been an ethical and practical embarrassment from the beginning. Moral equivalence? The president put Mousavi — and, by extension, the crowds in the street — and Ahmadinejad on the same moral plain.
Naïveté? For the first few days the administration and its flaks in the media issued pompous "in the know" suggestions to the effect that Ahmadinejad may have "really" won the election.
Straw men? We were supposed to think that those who from the beginning saw the issues at stake and supported the reformers with strong words of encouragement were some sort of interventionist neocons who wanted to do another Iraq-like invasion, or would egg on reluctant demonstrators only to betray them in Hungary-like fashion.
Keep reading this post . .
Krauthammer:
On Obama’s latest statements on Iran:
It had two parts. The use of the emotive words "appalled," "outraged" was new and right. But the policy of engagement remains unchanged.
Major asked him about hotdog diplomacy, meaning the administration weeks ago had said U.S. embassies around the world will be open on the Fourth of July welcoming for the first time in decades Iranian diplomats as a way to symbolizing opening and negotiation.
To do that at a time when the regime is shooting people from rooftops is bizarre. I mean, remember, even the senior Bush, the president who was the most hyperrealist and unsentimental, sent his national security advisor Brent Scowcroft to China after Tiananmen, after the massacre, but at least they waited six months.
This would be the welcoming of Iranians into American embassies to celebrate U.S. independence ten days after the shooting on the streets. That, I think, is disturbing in and of itself.
But secondly, the president speaks about all of these events in an odd way. He says there is a debate happening in Iran about its future. You know, when one senator yields to another in the Congress, that's a debate. Even, if you like, when you're having dueling demonstrations in Tehran, you could call that a debate.
But when you have demonstrators out in the street being shot from rooftops, that is not a debate. That's a massacre or a revolution. And the president refuses to understand or to acknowledge that what's at stake here is the legitimacy of the regime and not just elections.
On the state of the health-care and energy debate:
[Obama] is getting pushback in the Congress, and even appeared to be getting a bit in the press today, which I think is the big story….
[H]is charisma can take him only up to a point—and that point is at which reality asserts itself. The two issues in which he is in trouble in the Congress, on health care reform and on energy, he is up against the contradictions of the policy.
On health care, it is the idea that it is going to pay for itself. He repeated that today. There is no way that is going to happen. And the CBO has told us a week ago that his plans, his ambitious plans as translated in the Senate, are going to cost a $1 trillion or a $1.5 trillion.
And on energy, he is persistent in making the case that by insisting on alternative sources, which are more expensive, and taxing and regulating the more efficient and older-style energy like oil and gas and coal, which we have in abundance, he's going to make us more prosperous.
That's an absurd proposition. And, in the end, the absurdity meets reality in Congress, and that's why he's in trouble.
What's Next After Hot-Dog Diplomacy? [Michael Rubin]
President Obama is continuing plans to have Iranian diplomats — representatives of a regime that continues to imprison and kill peaceful protestors — celebrate July 4th, a holiday marking liberty and freedom, at U.S. embassies around the world.
What's next?
Inviting North Korean officials to share cake at a celebration commemorating the Non-Proliferation Treaty? Perhaps inviting the Taliban to a festival celebrating International Women's Day? Maybe we can even invite Zimbabwe to party with the Department of Agriculture, or have Libyan diplomats as guests of honor at a commemoration of human rights?
The White House and the State Department seem completely blind to the optics of this, something strange given the president's campaigning acumen. It is also a dagger in the heart of the imagery of hope and change which the Obama White House hopes to convey. President Obama, there's always next year. This is not neutrality; it is diplomatic malpractice and an insult to the Iranian people who are watching you so intently right now.
Iran, Exposed [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
As people die from the government crackdown, I asked Amir Taheri if any real progress is actually being made in Iran, for Iranians. He’s optimistic:
Yes. The regime has already lost control of the streets. It is now holding them not through “popular masses” but with armored cars and forces of repression.
On Wednesday, the regime was forced to cancel its rent-a-mob demonstration against Britain’s alleged “interventions in Iranian affairs.” Its fear was that the opposition might use the stage-managed event as a cover for its own genuine protest demonstration.
Meanwhile, the taboo of criticizing Khamenei has been broken.Hundreds of poems and songs mocking him, some using his sobriquet “Ali Gedda” (Ali the Beggar), are now in circulation throughout Iran. He has been exposed as the “godfather” of the Khomeinist establishment rather than the arbiter of national interests as he claimed.
People like Zbigniew Brzezinski can no longer go around claiming that the Khomeinist regime is a “vibrant democracy.” Sen. John Kerry cannot pretend, as he did in a recent New York Times oped, that Iran was facing not a popular uprising but a “neco-con plot.”
Even if Ahmadinejad manages to impose himself for four more years, President Obama will not have a remotely credible interlocutor to negotiate with.
The revolution that led to the shah’s fall took a year before it bore fruit.History is not written in advance, and the current revolt in Iran may well fizzle out.However, one thing is now certain:
The oxymoron “Islamic Republic” has been exposed as a sham.
The regime in Iran has become an Islamic emirate, or imamate if you prefer, like the one that existed in Yemen until 1961 and in Afghanistan under the Taliban until 2002.In Iran we have reached a moment of clarity. And, believe me, that is priceless.In my humble way I have fought for three decades to help bring about that clarity, to show my people, and the world at large, the true nature of the regime created by Khomeini, and I am happy.
To be sure, I hope to be even happier a year from now.
Realism and Obama's Response [Michael Rubin]
The conventional wisdom on Obama's refusal to establish a red line beyond which he won't recognize Ahmadinejad's government and his refusal to rescind the July 4 invitations for Iranian diplomats to celebrate freedom and liberty at U.S. embassies is that Obama wants to keep the door open to engagement with regard to Iran's nuclear program.
Two thoughts:
1. The command and control over any military nuclear program would be in the hands of the Office of the Supreme Leader and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the same groups who are now facing down the Iranian people. In other words, we share a common adversary with the Iranian people. We need to recognize that. The problem has never been the Iranian people — they indeed are far more moderate than their government. We should do nothing to antagonize them (which is why all the talk among some realists of outreach to the Mujahedin a-Khalq or playing an ethnic strategy is wrong, hamfisted, and counterproductive). We need to focus on how to counter and neutralize our common adversary.
2. Realism is about maximizing U.S. interests. Preserving an enemy regime is not realism. It is simply stupid. We should not be throwing a lifeline to the Islamic Republic, the fall of which would enable Iran to emerge as a force for moderation in the region, and allow the Iranian people to take their rightful place among nations.
Kaplan on Iran [Rich Lowry]
Kathryn noted this piece and it's also in the web briefing. Here's the key line: "The Iranian struggle for democracy is now as central to our foreign policy as that for democracy in Eastern Europe in the 1980s." And Kaplan is not a neo-con. As far as I'm concerned, he's exactly what a true realist should be — clear-eyed about the weight of history and culture, free of dogmatic commitments.
'Sources confirm Obama sent a direct message to Iranian leader' [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
(CNN) — U.S. President Barack Obama sent a direct message to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei weeks before this month's disputed election, Iranian sources said Wednesday.The letter requested dialogue and engagement between the two nations, the sources said. The sources said Khamenei has yet to reply to the letter, but nonetheless it "had set the negotiating table in order for both sides to sit around it after the election."Khamenei made an indirect reference to the letter in his sermon on Friday at Tehran University."The U.S. President said that we were waiting for a day like this to see people on the street," the Iranian leader said. "Some people attributed these remarks to Obama and then they write letters to say we're ready to have ties; that we respect the Islamic Republic and on the other hand they make such comments. Which one should we believe?"
Keep reading this post .
Timing [Mark Steyn]
Reading Jonah's piece today, it seems to me the president's problem is that he chose as a matter of policy to legitimize the Iranian regime at the very moment they chose to delegitimize themselves — first, by stealing the election to an unprecedented degree and, then, by killing people who objected to them doing so.
That's awfully bad timing, and one sympathizes, as one would if Nixon had gone to China a week before Tiananmen Square. But the fact is it's happened and adjusting to that reality makes more sense than banking on being able to re-legitimize Khamenei and Ahmadinejad.
This just in ... White House Capitulation:
'WH Rescinds July 4 Invites To Iranians' [NRO Staff]
Here.
The White House has rescinded the invitations to Iranian diplomats to attend July 4 celebrations at U.S. embassies around the world.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said nobody from Iran RSVPed to come, and at this point, the invitations are no longer valid.
"Given the events of the past many days, those invitations will no longer be extended," Mr. Gibbs said.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
ObamaCare Updates ...
Many are saying ObamaCare is DOA ... let's hope so !
Jake Tapper:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/06/what-does-the-presidents-promise-youll-be-able-to-keep-your-health-care-plan-period-really-mean.html
What Does the President’s Promise "You'll Be Able to Keep Your Health Care Plan, Period," Really Mean?
"No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people," President Obama told the American Medical Association on June 15. "If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what."
But today the president clarified that promise. It seems he wasn’t saying “no one” will take away any American’s health insurance – he was saying the government wouldn’t.
Which is not to say that the government wouldn’t create a situation where such a thing would happen.
ABC News asked how the president could make such a guarantee if the public run plan were cheaper, thus possibly enticing employers to enroll employees in that plan.
“When I say if you have your plan and you like it,…or you have a doctor and you like your doctor, that you don't have to change plans, what I'm saying is the government is not going to make you change plans under health reform,” the President said.
The president went on to say that, “Now, are there going to be employers right now, assuming we don't do anything -- let's say that we take the advice of some folks who are out there and say, ‘Oh, this is not the time to do health care. We can't afford it. It's too complicated. Let's take our time,’ et cetera. So let's assume that nothing happened. I can guarantee you that there's the possibility for a whole lot of Americans out there that they're not going to end up having the same health care they have. Because what's going to happen is, as costs keep on going up, employers are going to start making decisions. We've got to raise premiums on our employees. In some cases, we can't provide health insurance at all. And so there are going to be a whole set of changes out there. That's exactly why health reform is so important.”
Pressed on the question of whether a public plan is non-negotiable, that he won’t sign a health care reform bill that does not include it, the president said that it was not, at least not yet.
“We have not drawn lines in the sand, other than that reform has to control costs and that it has to provide relief to people who don't have health insurance or are under-insured,” the president said. “You know, those are the broad parameters that we've discussed. There are a whole host of other issues where ultimately I may have a strong opinion, and I will express those to members of Congress as this is shaping up. It's too early to say that. Right now, I will say that our position is that a public plan makes sense.”
The President Tries to Change His Health-Care Tune [James C. Capretta]
At his press conference today, President Obama scrambled to “clarify” his promise to Americans on health care. It won’t work.
For months now, going all the way back to the early days of the 2008 campaign, President Obama has been promising Americans that, if they like the insurance plan they have, they will get to keep it. He didn’t just mention this once or twice. It was a staple of his pitch, repeated over and over again.
Of course, he made the promise for sound political reasons. His strategists are listening carefully to what their focus groups have to say, and they are hearing the same message Americans have been delivering on health care for years. Yes, many voters wouldn’t mind seeing health-care reform pass in Congress because they perceive problems of cost and coverage that they would like to see fixed. But they don’t want to trade in their good job-based insurance for an untested, government-heavy program.
The problem for President Obama is that he and his allies want to pass an untested, government-heavy program — but without saying so.
Keep reading this post . . .
Government Health Care: One State Resists [John R. Graham]
As the U.S. government rushes to pull us all into a government-run health-care system, one state is preparing to say "hands off my health care." The Arizona State Senate yesterday approved HCR 2014, a proposed constitutional amendment that forbids the government from forcing any citizen to participate in a government-run health-care system. The resolution will be on the ballot in November 2010. (I was privileged to have testified to the House Health & Human Services Committee on the resolution.)
A previous version of this amendment (Prop 101) was on the ballot in November 2008, but was very narrowly defeated, thanks largely to former governor Napolitano and her allies. With Ms. Napolitano now in D.C., the opposition to health freedom will not be so effective in 2010.
— John R. Graham is director of Health Care Studies at the Pacific Research Institute.
Will the President Get to Keep His Health-Reform Pitch? [John R. Graham]
As James Capretta notes, President Obama is realizing that his message — namely, that his reform will not result in you losing your health plan or doctor, is losing credibility and he is scrambling to find a new one. The new one seems to be that “if we do nothing” you will lose your health coverage anyway, because rising costs will make it increasingly unaffordable to employers.
But this is an incredibly self-important statement. If by “we,” the president means himself and Congress, their “doing nothing” by refraining from a complete government take-over of health care doesn’t mean that every American is “doing nothing” about health costs.
In fact, many of us are doing a heck of a lot. According to the American Academy of Actuaries, the millions of us with “consumer-driven” health plans have experienced annual cost growth 3% to 5% less than traditional plans, for five years. Entrepreneurs have been opening up retail clinics for cash-paying patients. And medical brokers are facilitating patients’ travel to hospitals in Asia for surgery at much lower cost than in over-regulated U.S. hospitals.
“If we do nothing”? Speak for yourself, Mr. President.
Health-Care Polling Update [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Republican strategists Ed Gillespie and Whit Ayres write:
Asked whether they would prefer a system where most Americans get their health care coverage through the federal government or a private insurance company, voters favored a predominantly private insurance system by almost exactly two-to-one, 60-31. The Republican margin was almost exactly 8:1 (87-11), and Independents 2½:1 (61-24). Democrats diverged, favoring a system where most Americans get their coverage through the federal government by 15 points (37-52).
This explains important splits in two subsequent policy-related questions. Forty-seven percent (47%) agreed with the statement “Americans need a public health insurance plan administered by the Federal Government to expand choices and control costs by competing with private insurance companies” versus 45% who agreed with the statement “a government-run health insurance plan will use taxpayer subsidies to undercut private insurance rates, and force private companies out of business, resulting in everyone going into a government-run plan.” But when you break this essential tie into partisan IDs, a majority of Independents (51%) agree with the undercutting argument, more in line with the vast majority of Republicans (67%) than the mere 23% of Democrats.
While a plurality in the survey (49%) agreed that “to increase the number of people with health insurance coverage, the federal government should require all employers to provide health insurance for their employees, or pay to support a public plan that would cover their employees” versus the 43% who agreed “if the federal government requires all employers to provide health insurance for their employees or pay to support a public plan, employers will likely drop their coverage and shift their employees into a public plan.” That plurality, however, is driven by the overwhelming agreement of Democrats (66-27). Independents (39-50) and Republicans (36-55) were more likely to agree with the private-to-public shift argument.
There is an inconsistent gap between the strong preference for a system where most Americans get their health coverage through private insurance and the pluralities favoring the employer mandate/tax and the public insurance plan. If the public better understood the privateto- public shift that would result from these two policies, support for them would likely drop significantly.
Also worth noting is a recent Kaiser poll that suggests how malleable public opinion on health care is (see especially charts 21-26). So, for example, respondents split 71-26 percent in favor of a mandate for employers to pay for their employees' health costs — but 65 percent of the majority switches sides upon hearing that a mandate might cause layoffs, and 78 percent of the minority switches sides upon hearing that a mandate would make life easier for companies that already provide insurance.
Both polls via Gary Andres.
Mark Steyn's Obamacare Rallying Call [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
From his guest-host appearance on Rush's show today: "The minute health care becomes a huge, unwieldy, expensive government bureaucracy it's a permanent feature of life and there's nothing anyone can do about it. That's why Republicans need to resist this in Congress, because if we cross this line we can never go back."
Another Incoherent Health-Care Poll in the New York Times [John R. Graham]
I can’t blame the New York Times reporters for spinning their latest poll on health care in favor of a federal government take-over. After all, they had to back up a Sunday editorial endorsing the idea, and feed Paul Krugman’s column today as well. But even so, blaring the headline “Wide Support for Government Run Health” goes beyond the pale.
The New York Times poll reported that 72% of a sample of “randomly” chosen respondents (of whom 48% had voted for Obama and only 25% for McCain last November, question #100), said they’d approve of the federal government giving everyone the option of enrolling in a Medicare-like program. Case closed? Not at all.
Keep reading this post . . .
That Times Poll on Health Care [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Following up on John Graham's post: The question about support for a public option included three words that would tend to make people react positively: "offer," "Medicare," and "compete." I'd be much more interested in a poll that presented a case for and against the public option and then asked respondents which side they found more convincing.
We Don’t Need Obama’s Big-Bang Health-Care Plan [Larry Kudlow]
It looks like President Obama’s big-bang health-care reform is going down to defeat. This is good. But my question is why do we need it at all? According to a recent ABC News/USA Today/Kaiser Family Foundation survey, 89 percent of Americans are satisfied with their health care. That could mean up to 250 million people are happy. So why is it that we need Obama’s big-bang health-care overhaul in the first place?
There’s more. According the U.S. Census Bureau, we don’t have 47 million folks who are truly uninsured. When you take college kids plus those earning $75,000 or more who chose not to sign up, that removes roughly 20 million people. Then take out about 10 million more who are not U.S. citizens, and 11 million who are eligible for SCHIP and Medicaid but have not signed up for some reason.So that really leaves only 10 million to 15 million people who are truly long-term uninsured.
Keep reading this post . . .
Krugman on Health Care [Tevi Troy]
Paul Krugman seems to be trying to expand his circle of enemies today by going after Democratic senators such as Ben Nelson and Kent Conrad for questioning the wisdom of a government-run health insurance plan. He's particularly critical of Senator Nelson for suggesting that the so-called public option would harm private insurance plans, saying that the role of government is to protect Americans and not insurance companies. Krugman is supposed to be smart, so I'll take the more charitable interpretation of his comment, which is that he's deliberately misunderstanding the argument rather than being obtuse. People worried about the public plan forcing private companies out of business are concerned that Americans will lose private insurance options, and that the only choice remaining would be to use the government-run program. Even if you're not worried that government plans will restrict access, you should be worried about the cost to the country of everyone being on the public plan should private insurance go away. On the other hand, maybe Krugman is not worried about this because that's what he is hoping for.
— Tevi Troy, deputy secretary of health and human services from 2007 to 2009, is a visiting senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
Public- vs. Private-sector Health Spending [Tevi Troy]
My friend and former HHS colleague Jeff Anderson just published the results of a very interesting study he conducted for the Pacific Research Institute on public- vs. private-sector health spending. The study showed that Medicare spending grows much more quickly than private-sector health care spending, which has to make one wonder how a public plan modeled on Medicare could reduce costs.
As Jeff puts it:
Since 1970 — even without the prescription drug benefit — Medicare's costs have risen 34% more, per patient, than the combined costs of all health care in America apart from Medicare and Medicaid, the vast majority of which is purchased through the private sector.
Read the whole article here.
Jake Tapper:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/06/what-does-the-presidents-promise-youll-be-able-to-keep-your-health-care-plan-period-really-mean.html
What Does the President’s Promise "You'll Be Able to Keep Your Health Care Plan, Period," Really Mean?
"No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people," President Obama told the American Medical Association on June 15. "If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what."
But today the president clarified that promise. It seems he wasn’t saying “no one” will take away any American’s health insurance – he was saying the government wouldn’t.
Which is not to say that the government wouldn’t create a situation where such a thing would happen.
ABC News asked how the president could make such a guarantee if the public run plan were cheaper, thus possibly enticing employers to enroll employees in that plan.
“When I say if you have your plan and you like it,…or you have a doctor and you like your doctor, that you don't have to change plans, what I'm saying is the government is not going to make you change plans under health reform,” the President said.
The president went on to say that, “Now, are there going to be employers right now, assuming we don't do anything -- let's say that we take the advice of some folks who are out there and say, ‘Oh, this is not the time to do health care. We can't afford it. It's too complicated. Let's take our time,’ et cetera. So let's assume that nothing happened. I can guarantee you that there's the possibility for a whole lot of Americans out there that they're not going to end up having the same health care they have. Because what's going to happen is, as costs keep on going up, employers are going to start making decisions. We've got to raise premiums on our employees. In some cases, we can't provide health insurance at all. And so there are going to be a whole set of changes out there. That's exactly why health reform is so important.”
Pressed on the question of whether a public plan is non-negotiable, that he won’t sign a health care reform bill that does not include it, the president said that it was not, at least not yet.
“We have not drawn lines in the sand, other than that reform has to control costs and that it has to provide relief to people who don't have health insurance or are under-insured,” the president said. “You know, those are the broad parameters that we've discussed. There are a whole host of other issues where ultimately I may have a strong opinion, and I will express those to members of Congress as this is shaping up. It's too early to say that. Right now, I will say that our position is that a public plan makes sense.”
The President Tries to Change His Health-Care Tune [James C. Capretta]
At his press conference today, President Obama scrambled to “clarify” his promise to Americans on health care. It won’t work.
For months now, going all the way back to the early days of the 2008 campaign, President Obama has been promising Americans that, if they like the insurance plan they have, they will get to keep it. He didn’t just mention this once or twice. It was a staple of his pitch, repeated over and over again.
Of course, he made the promise for sound political reasons. His strategists are listening carefully to what their focus groups have to say, and they are hearing the same message Americans have been delivering on health care for years. Yes, many voters wouldn’t mind seeing health-care reform pass in Congress because they perceive problems of cost and coverage that they would like to see fixed. But they don’t want to trade in their good job-based insurance for an untested, government-heavy program.
The problem for President Obama is that he and his allies want to pass an untested, government-heavy program — but without saying so.
Keep reading this post . . .
Government Health Care: One State Resists [John R. Graham]
As the U.S. government rushes to pull us all into a government-run health-care system, one state is preparing to say "hands off my health care." The Arizona State Senate yesterday approved HCR 2014, a proposed constitutional amendment that forbids the government from forcing any citizen to participate in a government-run health-care system. The resolution will be on the ballot in November 2010. (I was privileged to have testified to the House Health & Human Services Committee on the resolution.)
A previous version of this amendment (Prop 101) was on the ballot in November 2008, but was very narrowly defeated, thanks largely to former governor Napolitano and her allies. With Ms. Napolitano now in D.C., the opposition to health freedom will not be so effective in 2010.
— John R. Graham is director of Health Care Studies at the Pacific Research Institute.
Will the President Get to Keep His Health-Reform Pitch? [John R. Graham]
As James Capretta notes, President Obama is realizing that his message — namely, that his reform will not result in you losing your health plan or doctor, is losing credibility and he is scrambling to find a new one. The new one seems to be that “if we do nothing” you will lose your health coverage anyway, because rising costs will make it increasingly unaffordable to employers.
But this is an incredibly self-important statement. If by “we,” the president means himself and Congress, their “doing nothing” by refraining from a complete government take-over of health care doesn’t mean that every American is “doing nothing” about health costs.
In fact, many of us are doing a heck of a lot. According to the American Academy of Actuaries, the millions of us with “consumer-driven” health plans have experienced annual cost growth 3% to 5% less than traditional plans, for five years. Entrepreneurs have been opening up retail clinics for cash-paying patients. And medical brokers are facilitating patients’ travel to hospitals in Asia for surgery at much lower cost than in over-regulated U.S. hospitals.
“If we do nothing”? Speak for yourself, Mr. President.
Health-Care Polling Update [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Republican strategists Ed Gillespie and Whit Ayres write:
Asked whether they would prefer a system where most Americans get their health care coverage through the federal government or a private insurance company, voters favored a predominantly private insurance system by almost exactly two-to-one, 60-31. The Republican margin was almost exactly 8:1 (87-11), and Independents 2½:1 (61-24). Democrats diverged, favoring a system where most Americans get their coverage through the federal government by 15 points (37-52).
This explains important splits in two subsequent policy-related questions. Forty-seven percent (47%) agreed with the statement “Americans need a public health insurance plan administered by the Federal Government to expand choices and control costs by competing with private insurance companies” versus 45% who agreed with the statement “a government-run health insurance plan will use taxpayer subsidies to undercut private insurance rates, and force private companies out of business, resulting in everyone going into a government-run plan.” But when you break this essential tie into partisan IDs, a majority of Independents (51%) agree with the undercutting argument, more in line with the vast majority of Republicans (67%) than the mere 23% of Democrats.
While a plurality in the survey (49%) agreed that “to increase the number of people with health insurance coverage, the federal government should require all employers to provide health insurance for their employees, or pay to support a public plan that would cover their employees” versus the 43% who agreed “if the federal government requires all employers to provide health insurance for their employees or pay to support a public plan, employers will likely drop their coverage and shift their employees into a public plan.” That plurality, however, is driven by the overwhelming agreement of Democrats (66-27). Independents (39-50) and Republicans (36-55) were more likely to agree with the private-to-public shift argument.
There is an inconsistent gap between the strong preference for a system where most Americans get their health coverage through private insurance and the pluralities favoring the employer mandate/tax and the public insurance plan. If the public better understood the privateto- public shift that would result from these two policies, support for them would likely drop significantly.
Also worth noting is a recent Kaiser poll that suggests how malleable public opinion on health care is (see especially charts 21-26). So, for example, respondents split 71-26 percent in favor of a mandate for employers to pay for their employees' health costs — but 65 percent of the majority switches sides upon hearing that a mandate might cause layoffs, and 78 percent of the minority switches sides upon hearing that a mandate would make life easier for companies that already provide insurance.
Both polls via Gary Andres.
Mark Steyn's Obamacare Rallying Call [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
From his guest-host appearance on Rush's show today: "The minute health care becomes a huge, unwieldy, expensive government bureaucracy it's a permanent feature of life and there's nothing anyone can do about it. That's why Republicans need to resist this in Congress, because if we cross this line we can never go back."
Another Incoherent Health-Care Poll in the New York Times [John R. Graham]
I can’t blame the New York Times reporters for spinning their latest poll on health care in favor of a federal government take-over. After all, they had to back up a Sunday editorial endorsing the idea, and feed Paul Krugman’s column today as well. But even so, blaring the headline “Wide Support for Government Run Health” goes beyond the pale.
The New York Times poll reported that 72% of a sample of “randomly” chosen respondents (of whom 48% had voted for Obama and only 25% for McCain last November, question #100), said they’d approve of the federal government giving everyone the option of enrolling in a Medicare-like program. Case closed? Not at all.
Keep reading this post . . .
That Times Poll on Health Care [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Following up on John Graham's post: The question about support for a public option included three words that would tend to make people react positively: "offer," "Medicare," and "compete." I'd be much more interested in a poll that presented a case for and against the public option and then asked respondents which side they found more convincing.
We Don’t Need Obama’s Big-Bang Health-Care Plan [Larry Kudlow]
It looks like President Obama’s big-bang health-care reform is going down to defeat. This is good. But my question is why do we need it at all? According to a recent ABC News/USA Today/Kaiser Family Foundation survey, 89 percent of Americans are satisfied with their health care. That could mean up to 250 million people are happy. So why is it that we need Obama’s big-bang health-care overhaul in the first place?
There’s more. According the U.S. Census Bureau, we don’t have 47 million folks who are truly uninsured. When you take college kids plus those earning $75,000 or more who chose not to sign up, that removes roughly 20 million people. Then take out about 10 million more who are not U.S. citizens, and 11 million who are eligible for SCHIP and Medicaid but have not signed up for some reason.So that really leaves only 10 million to 15 million people who are truly long-term uninsured.
Keep reading this post . . .
Krugman on Health Care [Tevi Troy]
Paul Krugman seems to be trying to expand his circle of enemies today by going after Democratic senators such as Ben Nelson and Kent Conrad for questioning the wisdom of a government-run health insurance plan. He's particularly critical of Senator Nelson for suggesting that the so-called public option would harm private insurance plans, saying that the role of government is to protect Americans and not insurance companies. Krugman is supposed to be smart, so I'll take the more charitable interpretation of his comment, which is that he's deliberately misunderstanding the argument rather than being obtuse. People worried about the public plan forcing private companies out of business are concerned that Americans will lose private insurance options, and that the only choice remaining would be to use the government-run program. Even if you're not worried that government plans will restrict access, you should be worried about the cost to the country of everyone being on the public plan should private insurance go away. On the other hand, maybe Krugman is not worried about this because that's what he is hoping for.
— Tevi Troy, deputy secretary of health and human services from 2007 to 2009, is a visiting senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
Public- vs. Private-sector Health Spending [Tevi Troy]
My friend and former HHS colleague Jeff Anderson just published the results of a very interesting study he conducted for the Pacific Research Institute on public- vs. private-sector health spending. The study showed that Medicare spending grows much more quickly than private-sector health care spending, which has to make one wonder how a public plan modeled on Medicare could reduce costs.
As Jeff puts it:
Since 1970 — even without the prescription drug benefit — Medicare's costs have risen 34% more, per patient, than the combined costs of all health care in America apart from Medicare and Medicaid, the vast majority of which is purchased through the private sector.
Read the whole article here.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Understanding Obama -- A man of the Hard Left
Another great piece by Andy McCarthy ....
Understanding Obama on Iran [Andy McCarthy]
Call me thick, but I continue to be baffled by a lot of the commentary, cited by Rich and others, which gives as the rationale for President Obama's diffidence his purported determination to preserve the opportunity to negotiate with the mullahs on their nuclear program. Obama is resigned to Iran getting nukes (perhaps even having them already) and has no intention of doing anything meaningful about it.
The fact is that, as a man of the hard Left, Obama is more comfortable with a totalitarian Islamic regime than he would be with a free Iranian society. In this he is no different from his allies like the Congressional Black Caucus and Bill Ayers, who have shown themselves perfectly comfortable with Castro and Chàvez. Indeed, he is the product of a hard-Left tradition that apologized for Stalin and was more comfortable with the Soviets than the anti-Communists (and that, in Soros parlance, saw George Bush as a bigger terrorist than bin Laden).
Because of obvious divergences (inequality for women and non-Muslims, hatred of homosexuals) radical Islam and radical Leftism are commonly mistaken to be incompatible. In fact, they have much more in common than not, especially when it comes to suppression of freedom, intrusiveness in all aspects of life, notions of "social justice," and their economic programs. (On this, as in so many other things, Anthony Daniels should be required reading — see his incisive New English Review essay, "There Is No God but Politics", comparing Marx and Muslim Brotherhood theorist Sayyid Qutb.) The divergences between radical Islam and radical Leftism are much overrated — "equal rights" and "social justice" are always more rally-cry propaganda than real goals for totalitarians, and hatred of certain groups is always a feature of their societies.
The key to understanding Obama, on Iran as on other matters, is that he is a power-politician of the hard Left : He is steeped in Leftist ideology, fueled in anger and resentment over what he chooses to see in America's history, but a "pragmatist" in the sense that where ideology and power collide (as they are apt to do when your ideology becomes less popular the more people understand it), Obama will always give ground on ideology (as little as circumstances allow) in order to maintain his grip on power.
It would have been political suicide to issue a statement supportive of the mullahs, so Obama's instinct was to do the next best thing: to say nothing supportive of the freedom fighters. As this position became increasingly untenable politically, and as Democrats became nervous that his silence would become a winning political round for Republicans, he was moved grudgingly to burble a mild censure of the mullah's "unjust" repression — on the order of describing a maiming as a regrettable "assault," though enough for the Obamedia to give him cover. But expect him to remain restrained and to continue grossly understating the Iranian regime's deadly response. That will change only if, unexpectedly, it appears that the freedom-fighters may win, at which point he'll scoot over to the right side of history and take all conceivable credit.
I think Victor had this right on Saturday: "Obama is almost more at ease with virulent anti-Westerners, whose grievances Obama has long studied (and perhaps in large part entertained)," (though I'd have omitted the "almost"). Mark Steyn made the same point in a post last week (about a Robert Kagan column that Pete Wehner also discussed).
It's a mistake to perceive this as "weakness" in Obama. It would have been weakness for him to flit over to the freedom fighters' side the minute it seemed politically expedient. He hasn't done that, and he won't. Obama has a preferred outcome here, one that is more in line with his worldview, and it is not victory for the freedom fighters. He is hanging as tough as political pragmatism allows, and by doing so he is making his preferred outcome more likely. That's not weakness, it's strength — and strength of the sort that ought to frighten us.
Understanding Obama on Iran [Andy McCarthy]
Call me thick, but I continue to be baffled by a lot of the commentary, cited by Rich and others, which gives as the rationale for President Obama's diffidence his purported determination to preserve the opportunity to negotiate with the mullahs on their nuclear program. Obama is resigned to Iran getting nukes (perhaps even having them already) and has no intention of doing anything meaningful about it.
The fact is that, as a man of the hard Left, Obama is more comfortable with a totalitarian Islamic regime than he would be with a free Iranian society. In this he is no different from his allies like the Congressional Black Caucus and Bill Ayers, who have shown themselves perfectly comfortable with Castro and Chàvez. Indeed, he is the product of a hard-Left tradition that apologized for Stalin and was more comfortable with the Soviets than the anti-Communists (and that, in Soros parlance, saw George Bush as a bigger terrorist than bin Laden).
Because of obvious divergences (inequality for women and non-Muslims, hatred of homosexuals) radical Islam and radical Leftism are commonly mistaken to be incompatible. In fact, they have much more in common than not, especially when it comes to suppression of freedom, intrusiveness in all aspects of life, notions of "social justice," and their economic programs. (On this, as in so many other things, Anthony Daniels should be required reading — see his incisive New English Review essay, "There Is No God but Politics", comparing Marx and Muslim Brotherhood theorist Sayyid Qutb.) The divergences between radical Islam and radical Leftism are much overrated — "equal rights" and "social justice" are always more rally-cry propaganda than real goals for totalitarians, and hatred of certain groups is always a feature of their societies.
The key to understanding Obama, on Iran as on other matters, is that he is a power-politician of the hard Left : He is steeped in Leftist ideology, fueled in anger and resentment over what he chooses to see in America's history, but a "pragmatist" in the sense that where ideology and power collide (as they are apt to do when your ideology becomes less popular the more people understand it), Obama will always give ground on ideology (as little as circumstances allow) in order to maintain his grip on power.
It would have been political suicide to issue a statement supportive of the mullahs, so Obama's instinct was to do the next best thing: to say nothing supportive of the freedom fighters. As this position became increasingly untenable politically, and as Democrats became nervous that his silence would become a winning political round for Republicans, he was moved grudgingly to burble a mild censure of the mullah's "unjust" repression — on the order of describing a maiming as a regrettable "assault," though enough for the Obamedia to give him cover. But expect him to remain restrained and to continue grossly understating the Iranian regime's deadly response. That will change only if, unexpectedly, it appears that the freedom-fighters may win, at which point he'll scoot over to the right side of history and take all conceivable credit.
I think Victor had this right on Saturday: "Obama is almost more at ease with virulent anti-Westerners, whose grievances Obama has long studied (and perhaps in large part entertained)," (though I'd have omitted the "almost"). Mark Steyn made the same point in a post last week (about a Robert Kagan column that Pete Wehner also discussed).
It's a mistake to perceive this as "weakness" in Obama. It would have been weakness for him to flit over to the freedom fighters' side the minute it seemed politically expedient. He hasn't done that, and he won't. Obama has a preferred outcome here, one that is more in line with his worldview, and it is not victory for the freedom fighters. He is hanging as tough as political pragmatism allows, and by doing so he is making his preferred outcome more likely. That's not weakness, it's strength — and strength of the sort that ought to frighten us.
Sotomayor -- brief update
Inhofe on Why He Refuses to Meet Sotomayor [Mark Hemingway]
Sen. James Inhofe's refusal to meet with Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor seems to have caused some consternation in certain liberal circles; at Talking Points Memo they've accused him of not being "open-minded." I called Inhofe's office hoping to get a better explanation of his reasoning directly, but unfortunately the senator is traveling and I was unable to speak with him. The senator did, however, give me this statement on the matter:
While Judge Sotomayor’s personal history is compelling, I will be voting against her confirmation for two reasons. First, Judge Sotomayor has consistently demonstrated a propensity for legislating from the bench, and a deference for international laws that threaten our nation’s sovereignty. The job of the court is to follow the Constitution and act as an impartial arbiter of the law, not a maker or shaper of the law. This leads to the second reason I will be opposing her nomination. The Supreme Court is a higher position that requires the bar be set higher for her nomination. Her judicial activism led me to vote against her nomination for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in 1998. Given the higher bar, and the fact that her views of the court have not changed, it only stands to reason that I would vote against her once again.
Having determined how I will vote, I declined to meet with Judge Sotomayor out of deference to her busy schedule. She has been very busy meeting with many other Senators, and she still has many more to meet with. I did not wish to waste her time.
Sen. James Inhofe's refusal to meet with Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor seems to have caused some consternation in certain liberal circles; at Talking Points Memo they've accused him of not being "open-minded." I called Inhofe's office hoping to get a better explanation of his reasoning directly, but unfortunately the senator is traveling and I was unable to speak with him. The senator did, however, give me this statement on the matter:
While Judge Sotomayor’s personal history is compelling, I will be voting against her confirmation for two reasons. First, Judge Sotomayor has consistently demonstrated a propensity for legislating from the bench, and a deference for international laws that threaten our nation’s sovereignty. The job of the court is to follow the Constitution and act as an impartial arbiter of the law, not a maker or shaper of the law. This leads to the second reason I will be opposing her nomination. The Supreme Court is a higher position that requires the bar be set higher for her nomination. Her judicial activism led me to vote against her nomination for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in 1998. Given the higher bar, and the fact that her views of the court have not changed, it only stands to reason that I would vote against her once again.
Having determined how I will vote, I declined to meet with Judge Sotomayor out of deference to her busy schedule. She has been very busy meeting with many other Senators, and she still has many more to meet with. I did not wish to waste her time.
"Will A Wise Man Give A Sharp Dagger To An Insane Person ?"
'I have a message for the international community' [Rich Lowry]
A friend is e-mailing around this excerpt from a CNN interview with a demonstrator this morning:
Mohammad: Excuse me, sir. I have a message for the international community. Would you please let me tell it?
Roberts: Yes, go ahead.
Mohammad: Americans, European Union, international community, this government is not definitely — is definitely not elected by the majority of Iranians. So it's illegal. Do not recognize it. Stop trading with them. Impose much more sanctions against them. My message...to the international community, especially I'm addressing President Obama directly – how can a government that doesn't recognize its people's rights and represses them brutally and mercilessly have nuclear activities? This government is a huge threat to global peace. Will a wise man give a sharp dagger to an insane person? We need your help international community. Don't leave us alone.
Chetry: Mohammad, what do you think the international community should do besides sanctions?
Mohammad: Actually, this regime is really dependent on importing gasoline. More than 85% of Iran's gasoline is imported from foreign countries. I think international communities must sanction exporting gasoline to Iran and that might shut down the government.
Israel & Iran [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Martin Kramer writes that the president should have used the word
"intolerable" not for the situation of the Palestinians (whose "president" has described that same situation as "good" and "normal"), but for the repression in Iran, whose courageous young people genuinely crave support.
A friend is e-mailing around this excerpt from a CNN interview with a demonstrator this morning:
Mohammad: Excuse me, sir. I have a message for the international community. Would you please let me tell it?
Roberts: Yes, go ahead.
Mohammad: Americans, European Union, international community, this government is not definitely — is definitely not elected by the majority of Iranians. So it's illegal. Do not recognize it. Stop trading with them. Impose much more sanctions against them. My message...to the international community, especially I'm addressing President Obama directly – how can a government that doesn't recognize its people's rights and represses them brutally and mercilessly have nuclear activities? This government is a huge threat to global peace. Will a wise man give a sharp dagger to an insane person? We need your help international community. Don't leave us alone.
Chetry: Mohammad, what do you think the international community should do besides sanctions?
Mohammad: Actually, this regime is really dependent on importing gasoline. More than 85% of Iran's gasoline is imported from foreign countries. I think international communities must sanction exporting gasoline to Iran and that might shut down the government.
Israel & Iran [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Martin Kramer writes that the president should have used the word
"intolerable" not for the situation of the Palestinians (whose "president" has described that same situation as "good" and "normal"), but for the repression in Iran, whose courageous young people genuinely crave support.
BBQ Diplomacy Still On? [Greg Pollowitz]
The Iranian murderers are still invited to our Fourth of July celebrations:
WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States said Monday its invitations were still standing for Iranian diplomats to attend July 4 celebrations at US embassies despite the crackdown on opposition supporters.
President Barack Obama's administration said earlier this month it would invite Iran to US embassy barbecues for the national holiday for the first time since the two nations severed relations following the 1979 Islamic revolution.
"There's no thought to rescinding the invitations to Iranian diplomats," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.
"We have made a strategic decision to engage on a number of fronts with Iran," Kelly said. "We tried many years of isolation, and we're pursuing a different path now."
I wonder, How many young women must be shot before the invitation is rescinded?
There's No Nuking Talk Possibilities [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Fox News's Major Garrett tweets from the White House press briefing today: "Gibbs says admin still open to negotiations with ruling Iranian regime on nukes, despite it's 'unjust' acts."
So were the neocons right all along? [Tom Gross]
President Bush said liberating Iraq would have a regional domino effect and give people a taste for freedom and democracy. Is this what we’re seeing now in Iran?
As Bush said, liberty isn’t American, or British, or French. It is human. No, the morality police in Iran are not just “part of Iranian culture” as some critics of Bush have claimed. Nor are public hangings. Nor are arbitrary detentions of doctors, or Holocaust denial conferences.Peace comes through the spread of liberalism and democracy.
Whatever the “foreign policy realists” or “regime apologists” might claim, there is little doubt in my view that should Iran become a free nation the world will be a safer place for all, not just a better place for Iranians.
I have posted some videos of the Iranian uprising on my website and I would strongly urge you to watch them.
They show the reality of Iran’s dictatorship, a reality that many international TV networks are refusing to show. Some of these videos are disturbing but I feel they need to be watched to understand the true nature of Iran’s regime and why it should never be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons.I have not included those which are too bloody to watch.
To state the obvious, this is not some video game or Hollywood movie. These events really happened, and they happened last week, and the leader of the free world, Barack Obama, has been extraordinarily slow to criticize them.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Jib Jab - "He's Barack Obama"
http://sendables.jibjab.com/originals/hes_barack_obama
will probably need to add this to ObamaTunes....
will probably need to add this to ObamaTunes....
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