Letter to Obama: "You Scare Me"

http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=8004931906890597215

Subject: VP of Procter and Gamble to Obama

This comes from a former VP of Procter and Gamble to send this letter to the NY Times, even though they did not publish it. Lou Pritchett is one of corporate America's true living legends, an acclaimed author, dynamic teacher and one of the world's highest rated speakers. Successful corporate executives everywhere recognize him as the foremost leader in change management. Lou changed the way America does business by creating an audacious concept that came to be known as "partnering." Pritchett rose from soap salesman to Vice-President, Sales and Customer Development for Procter and Gamble and over the course of 36 years, made corporate history.

AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA

Dear President Obama:

You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived, and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me. You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you. You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support. You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American. You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll. You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus don't understand it at its core. You scare me because you lack humility, and 'class', always blaming others. You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned yourself with radical extremists who hate America and you refuse to publicly denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail. You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the 'blame America ' crowd and deliver this message abroad. You scare me because you want to change America to a European style country where the government sector dominates instead of the private sector. You scare me because you want to replace our health care system with a government controlled one. You scare me because you prefer 'wind mills' to responsibly capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves. You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose that lays the golden egg which provides the highest standard of living in the world. You scare me because you have begun to use 'extortion' tactics against certain banks and corporations. You scare me because your own political party shrinks from challenging you on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals. You scare me because you will not openly listen to, or even consider, opposing points of view from intelligent people. You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both omnipotent and omniscient. You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you do. You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the Limbaughs, Hannitys, O'Reilllys and Becks who offer opposing, conservative points of view. You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing. Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.
Lou Pritchett

TRUE - CHECK:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/youscareme.asp

This letter was sent to the NY Times but they never acknowledged it. Big surprise.
Since it hit the internet, however, it has had over 500,000 hits

Obama / White House comments re: Israel / Jerusalem are Disturbing

Its one thing for UN idiots like Sec Gen Ban Ki Moon to make ignorant comments like this:

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon joined Western countries in condemning Israel's decision, Army Radio reported Tuesday overnight.

He referred to the sprawling south Jerusalem neighborhood as a "settlement" built on land Israel "conquered from the Palestinians in 1967."

Now of course, Jerusalem is no settlement, it is Israel's capital. In addition, no lands, including the West Bank & Gaza were "conquered from the Palestinians".

How ignorant can one be ??

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1258027313763&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

But the Obama administration is also clearly both ignorant and fundamentally hostile towards Israel, as indicated by the following:

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs put out a statement on Tuesday harshly criticizing the decision, saying the US was "dismayed" by the move.

"At a time when we are working to relaunch negotiations, these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed," he said in a statement. "Neither party should engage in efforts or take actions that could unilaterally preempt, or appear to preempt, negotiations."

His comments included criticism of Israel's "continuing pattern of evictions and demolitions of Palestinian homes," a point the Obama administration has made in the past.

In this case, though, the condemnation was primarily leveled at building in a Jewish Jerusalem neighborhood.

It is highly unusual for the US to criticize construction in Gilo, a neighborhood straddling the Green Line in the city's south and considered noncontroversial among Israelis.

Initially the White House statement was titled a response to "the approval of settlement expansion in Jerusalem."

But the version of the statement the White House later posted on its Web site had different wording. It does not use the word "settlement" in reference to Jerusalem, and is instead titled a comment "on Jerusalem."


http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1258566462435&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Others reacted with similar surprise, but also frustration at what they said was misguided American policy in an area considered by a wide consensus of Israelis to be just another Jerusalem neighborhood.

"Since when is anyone thinking about giving Gilo away?" asked an elderly man as he waited at a bus stop. "And if we're not giving it away, why on earth can't we build here? Obama is sitting all the way over there in the White House making demands, and really, what does he know about anything?"

Ron, a grocery store owner on Rehov Zecharia, labeled the American criticism "stupid," and said he was shocked to see the question of building rights in his neighborhood thrust into the headlines.

"When I picked up the newspaper today I couldn't believe it," he said. "The location they want to build in isn't even close to any Arab homes, and it has nothing to do with peace negotiations.
"Since when was Gilo on the table?" he asked. "To be honest with you, it's all very upsetting."

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1258566462450&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

ObamaCare in the Senate tonite ...

In Case You're Just Tuning In [Robert Costa]

There are a few things you need to know about tonight's vote and what it means.

— One, Obamacare (in the form of a cloture vote on Senate majority leader Harry Reid's bill) needs 60 votes tonight to be eligible for a final Senate-floor debate. Tonight's vote, in other words, is the last procedural roadblock for Democrats as they push to bring their health-care bill to its final legislative stage.

— Two, if Reid does get his 60 votes tonight, and the bill moves to the floor, it's a big win for Democrats — if but for a moment. The Senate would then go on Thanksgiving break and come back to start the final health-care debate on Monday, November 30th.

— Three, if the bill moves to the floor for a final debate, that debate could stretch on for a long time. Why? Reid will need 60 votes to end the final debate. However, Reid does not need 60 to pass the bill. He only needs 51 for that.

Think of it like this: tonight's vote to move the bill to the floor needs 60 to pass. Then, to end the debate on the bill once it's on the floor and move to a final vote, Reid needs 60 votes again. If he can clear these two hurdles, the bill will come to a final vote in the Senate, where it needs 51 votes to pass. Even if it passes in say early 2010, then the bill will then head to a conference committee between the House and the Senate, where issues will be hashed out even more before it has any chance of reaching President Obama's desk.

So, it's a long road ahead. Stay with us through the fight.


Senator Orrin Hatch on the Senate floor ...

Mr. President, We are rapidly approaching perhaps one of the most important votes for each of us here in the United States Senate. This is bigger than us, our parties or our ideologies.
This about the very future of the greatest nation in the history of the world. It is about your children and my children. It is about your grandchildren and my children. It is about giving our future generations the same opportunities and the same sense of pride. It is about every American life and every American business that will be subject to this 2,074-page edict from Washington.

I am going to spend my time before this historic vote to highlight some very important numbers, so every member of this chamber understands what they are voting to advance. Make no mistake, our actions today will not be without consequences. History and our future generations will judge us on this.

Here are some numbers:

· 0 – the number of provisions prohibiting the rationing of health care.

· 0 – the number of government-run entitlement programs that are financially sound over the long-term.

· 10.2 percent – our national unemployment rate, the highest in 26 years.

· 70 – total number of government programs authorized by the bill.

· 1,697 – times the Secretary of Health and Human Services is given authority to determine or define provisions in this bill.

· 2,074 – total pages in this bill.

· 2010 – the year Americans start paying higher taxes to pay for this bill

· 2014 – the year when this bill actually starts most of the major provisions of this bill

· $6.8 million – cost to taxpayers per word

· $8 billion – the total amount of new taxes on Americans who do not buy Washington-defined health care.

· $465 billion – Cuts in Medicare at a time when it faces a $38 trillion unfunded liability to finance more government spending.

· $494 billion – total amount of new taxes in this bill

· $2.5 trillion – the real cost of the bill

· $12 trillion – our total national debt


These numbers are facts. They are undisputable.

Let me finish by reading an excerpt from a letter from one of my fellow Utahans from Provo, who is worried just like me about what this bill will mean for our country:

“I am writing out of deep concern over the increasing expansion of government. I moved here from Germany 20 years ago. I love America because it is free – freer than Germany in that I have the freedom to choose, among other things, how I want to insure my family (we have six children). I’m all for affordable health insurance which requires affordable health care. I am self-employed and have been hit hard by the economy.

There is a good chance that we would actually benefit from [this bill]. Business has been so bad that we would qualify for free school lunches if we asked for it. But I don’t want more government handouts.

I don’t want the government telling me what kind of insurance I need to have. I don’t want the government telling me what services I can receive when I need them. I don’t want them taking an ever greater part of my income to help finance government programs such as the ‘public option’ and the army of government employees it will take to administer such a program. I do not want more government. I want less. A lot less.”

Obama's "Chump Diplomacy" - Rich Lowry

Good piece by Rich ...

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YzZmOWNhNTZiYTdiZTU2OTgzMzlhNmYxNGE5YjgzMDk=

Kill ObamaCare Already ! NO-BAMA-CARE update

Plenty of reading here:

End It, Don't Amend It
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjUxNzU2ODFmMjVlOTA2ODgxMjE3NjJlNDA3N2UxMDc=


The Audacity of Reid's Healthcare Bill
http://healthcare.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2VhM2ZhZTQzOTkxMTdlNWM0MmQ4MjljYzA5MDFhMDU=

NPR Reporters unearth truth about ObamaCare
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDlhOWMxMWM0NjI0Y2RmYTUwNzQ4YmJjMTIyYTA5MWE=

A Dozen Reason's Why Reid's Bill Stinks:
http://healthcare.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDU5MWJlYjNlZGY5ZDgwNDM1ZGU0MzEyNTU4ZjhlNGM=

Reid's $4.9 Trillion Spending Increase:
http://healthcare.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTc1MjEzYjI5NzM0M2Y1YjUwNzZhZmVhZGFhYTQxYjI=

Reid's Stacked Deck Gamble:
http://healthcare.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGFiMWFjYzk3MTZkZDRhOGU2MGYxMzBmMGUyYTNkN2Q=

Don't Use the Democrats False Numbers:
http://healthcare.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmRhZjBmNGQ4MTM0M2ZjMmM5NDRhOTY0YzUwMzMzZWY=

Tune of the Day - may have to add to the Tunes section

"No Alexis Glick in my ObamaMobile"

http://dailybail.com/storage/obama-mobile.mp3

"pulls to the left"

ObamaCare - Harry Reid's new monstrosity

$2.5 B Trillion cost if you are honest about it !

I love the name of this post ... Happy Thanksgiving America from the Undertaker, Harry Reid.


Reid’s Turkey [Yuval Levin]

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has finally released the text of his version of the Democrats’ health care bill. The roughly 2,000 page bill is a monstrosity, pure and simple.

It is fiscal madness, for one thing. CBO’s 10-year projection scores its cost at $848 billion, since CBO is required to use a 10-year window that starts at enactment and the bill is designed to start collecting taxes well before it starts spending money. If you look at the first 10 years of actual implementation, when both the spending and the taxes are in effect, the 10-year cost is $2.5 trillion. The Democrats are proudly pointing to the fact that even with its high cost the CBO says the bill will not increase the deficit in the first ten years, but what that actually means is that in the midst of an economic downturn it raises taxes (and also cuts Medicare for the elderly) enough to cover the gargantuan cost. In fact it raises taxes by almost half a trillion dollars over ten years (including taxes on employers, on the uninsured themselves, and on drugs and medical devices and more), and cuts Medicare by nearly as much. And of course, the deficit neutrality calculation assumes things that will never happen (which, as usual, the CBO does its best to signal to readers of its analysis of the bill, even if it cannot say it outright.) It is based, for instance, on the bill’s claim that some key Medicare physician payments would be cut by 23% in 2011 and would not be restored—which will happen well after hell freezes over.

As the CBO carefully puts it: “The legislation would put into effect a number of procedures that might be difficult to maintain over a long period of time,” and “the long-term budgetary impact could be quite different if key provisions of the bill were ultimately changed or not fully implemented.” This is Washington-speak for “someone is holding a gun to my head.”
Meanwhile, the bill would do basically nothing to address the actual problem at the heart of our health care woes: rising costs. It would bend the government’s health care cost curve up, not down, and it contains all the ingredients that the other Democratic bills have contained for an increase in the cost of private health insurance premiums.

It also does not include the abortion language that was in the House bill to prevent public funding of abortion coverage, which will (or at least should) be a problem for Senator Ben Nelson and perhaps a few other Democrats (let alone for any eventual conference committee). And it does include a public option (which will be a problem for Senator Lieberman and a few others). And of course it consists of a fundamentally unwise approach to financing health care coverage.
So, to sum up: the idea is to spend trillions even as our debt is mounting, inflict massive tax increases on a troubled economy, impose costly mandates on employers as unemployment hovers above 10%, squeeze money out of Medicare not to fix the program’s finances but to create a whole new enormous federal entitlement alongside it, insert the government in countless new ways between doctors and patients, and cause millions of middle-class families to lose the employer-based insurance they have today, pay even higher premiums, and find themselves herded toward a government insurance provider. Oh, and at the end of it all, if we use the methods of counting the uninsured favored by the Democrats, there are still 24 million people without health insurance.

Another sure winner.

Andrew McCarthy vs. Atty General Eric Holder -- No Contest

McCarthy by KO.


Not Scared of KSM . . . and Not Worried about McCarthy! [Andy McCarthy]

From today's hearing:

SEN. KYL: Let me just close with this point. You said — and this really bothers me, Mr. Attorney General, with all due respect — "For eight years, justice has been delayed for the victims of the 9/11 attacks." I want to put in the record, Mr. Chairman — ask unanimous consent to insert in the record an article called "Justice Delayed" by Andrew McCarthy.

SEN. LEAHY: Without objection.

SEN. KYL: And I'll just quote two paragraphs from this.

"This is chutzpah writ large," he writes. "The principal reason there were so few military trials is the tireless campaign conducted by leftist lawyers to derail military tribunals by challenge (sic/challenging) them in the courts. Many of those lawyers are now working for the Obama Justice Department. That includes Holder, whose firm, Covington & Burling, volunteered its services" —

ATTY GEN. HOLDER: Hah!

SEN. KYL: — "to at least 18 of America's enemies in lawsuits they brought against the American people."

And it concludes, "Within two years, KSM and four fellow war criminals stood ready to plead guilty and proceed to execution. But then the Obama administration blew into Washington. Want to talk about delay? Obama shut down the commission, despite the jihadists' efforts to conclude it by pleading guilty. Obama's team permitted no movement of (sic/on) the case for 11 months, and now has torpedoed a perfectly valid commission case — despite keeping the commission system for other cases — so that we can instead endure an incredibly expensive and burdensome civil (sic/civilian) trial that will take years to complete."

The witness can surely respond to what I said.

ATTY GEN. HOLDER: I don't even know where to begin — other than to say that, you know, this notion of leftist lawyers somehow prolonging this: The vast majority of the time in which these matters were not brought to trial, to fruition, happened in the prior administration. The Supreme Court — not, I think, a group of leftist lawyers — had concerns about the way in which some of the commissions were — the way in which the commissions were constructed.

The Congress reenacted — and, I think, appropriately so — the way in which the commissions were constructed. This is not a Congress peopled only with leftist lawyers, as Mr. McCarthy would say. So, you know, that makes for nice rhetoric and it makes for, you know, good, I guess, fodder on the talk shows and all of that stuff, you know, but I'm here to talk about facts and evidence, real American values, and not the kinds of polemics that he seems prone to — seems prone to. So, you know, that's — I'm not worried about Mr. McCarthy.


Can the AG Keep His Story Straight? [Andy McCarthy]

It's hard to when you're making it up as you go along.

In yesterday's exchange with Senator Kyl, while giving the back of the hand to my claim that leftist lawyers had derailed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, Attorney General Eric "Real American Values" Holder argued that it was the Supreme Court — "not, I think, a group of leftist lawyers" — who had "had concerns" about the way the military commissions "were constructed." Of course, it wasn't the full Supreme Court that had "concerns" in the 2006 Hamdan case — it was Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsberg and Breyer (i.e., the Court's leftist bloc), joined by Justice Kennedy (who tends to vault left when the issue is whether the judiciary can impose new restraints on executive power). Hamdan was represented by Neal Katyal, now the Deputy Solicitor General in the Obama Justice Department. Katyal, who is a very able lawyer, began his legal career clerking for Justice Breyer, after a stint clerking on the Second Circuit for Judge Guido Calabresi, one of the most left-wing jurists in the U.S. And here's a rundown of the numerous legal briefs filed in the case. You can judge for yourself whether I accurately described the major opposition to the MCA as leftist lawyers.

But here's the thing. Yesterday, the AG went on to say that after Hamdan was decided in June 2006, "The Congress reenacted — and, I think, appropriately so — the way in which the commissions were constructed." (Emphasis added.) But he didn't "think" it was "appropriately so" at the time. As I've argued, the ink was not yet dry on the MCA when the detainees (several of whom have been represented by Holder's old firm and by other Obama DOJ lawyers) marched en masse into federal court to challenge the MCA as unconstitutional. And in June 2008, speaking as an Obama campaign adviser at the left-leaning American Constitution Society, Holder inveighed that the Bush administration had "secretly detained American citizens without due process of law, denied the writ of habeas corpus to hundreds of accused enemy combatants and authorized the use of procedures that violate both international law and the United States Constitution."

Now that he's actually had his Department endorse many of the policies he then condemned, I wonder if the Attorney General would agree that his June '08 speech was a tad polemical?


How Hard Can AG Holder Have Studied The KSM Question? [Andy McCarthy]

Attorney General Holder's exchange with Senator Lindsey Graham yesterday has, quite appropriately, gotten lots of attention. I want to drill down for a moment, though, on one element of it. The lawyer's stock in trade is precedent. Whether you're a prosecutor or any other lawyer faced with a policy question, the first thing you want to know is what the law says on the subject: Has this come up before? Are there prior cases on point? What have the courts had to say? Those are the first-order questions — always.

Here's the relevant transcript:

SEN. GRAHAM: Yeah, nor do I. But here's my concern. Can you give me a case in United States history where a enemy combatant caught on a battlefield was tried in civilian court?

ATTY GEN. HOLDER: [ACM: LONG PAUSE] I don't know. I'd have to look at that. I think that, you know, the determination I've made —

SEN. GRAHAM: We're making history here, Mr. Attorney General. I'll answer it for you. The answer is no.

ATTY GEN. HOLDER: Well, I think —

SEN. GRAHAM: ... The Ghailani case — he was indicted for the Cole bombing before 9/11. And I didn't object to it going into federal court. But I'm telling you right now. We're making history and we're making bad history.

How could Holder possibly not know the answer to this fundamental question — how could he, in fact, be stumped by it. If he studied and agonized over this decision as he says he did, this would have been the first issue he'd have considered: the fact that there was no legal precedent for what he wanted to do. Or, put another way, if there was a single case that supported Holder's decision, it would have been the only case we'd have been hearing about — from DOJ, the academy, and the media — for the last ten months.

Of course, if, as I've suggested, this is a political decision rather than a legal one, it would make perfect sense that the Attorney General wasn't up to speed on legal precedent. The law isn't what's driving this train.

The Obama Reality - A report card

When Reality Catches up to Rhetoric [Victor Davis Hanson]

The growing problem for the Obama administration is that the public has finally caught on that the president's tough rhetoric and soaring oratory don't match reality.

"Considering all options" and "wanting more information" essentially mean dithering and voting present on Afghanistan, even after announcing the adoption of a new bold strategy.

"Saving jobs" means conjecturing about the effects of massive borrowing and enhancing your figures through the creation of fictitious congressional districts and bogus employment reporting.

"Punishing KSM" means giving the liberal community a world platform for legal gymnastics designed to repudiate the past administration and demonstrate that community's "tolerance" — without much worry about justice for KSM or the adverse effects of giving such a monster a public megaphone.

The health-care mess grows worse: The Chinese have caught on that Obama wants to borrow more billions for us, who are cash poor, to create entitlements that they, who are cash rich, would not create for their own people. The new government suggestion that women not begin receiving routine mammograms until age 50 comes at a bad time, given that critics of Obamacare have been arguing that it will lead to rationing of service.

Guantanamo is about to go the way of tribunals, renditions, intercepts, Predators, and wiretaps — damned in rhetoric, but kept intact in reality.

"Transparency" did not quite happen either: The Obama administration has offered more photo-ops and fewer press conferences (cf. Anita Dunn on that tact), and Washington has as many lobbyists as ever. Meanwhile, the administration has not fulfilled its promise to post pending legislation on the Internet; it has politicized the NEA; and it has declared war on Fox News, the Chamber of Commerce, and the town-hall protesters. The president has even employed the sexual slur "tea-bagger" against his opposition.

Obama's "reset button" foreign policy in just ten months has made the Middle East worse and has delighted European leftists as much as it has terrified Europe's centrist leaders. In Latin America, the U.S. has gone from being an advocate of consensual government, human rights, and market capitalism to being an appeaser of Chávez, Zelaya, Ortega, the Castros, et al., inasmuch as these communist hardliners are now seen as problematic advocates for indigenous peoples and economic justice.

We are left with two conclusions. 1) A very inexperienced president has discovered that all the easy, Manichean campaign rhetoric of 2008 does not translate well into actual governance. 2) Obama is in a race to push a rather radical, polarizing agenda down the throat of a center-right country before the country wakes up and his approval ratings hit 40 percent.

We may see one of two things happen: Either the country will move more to the left in four years than it has in the last 50; or Obama will take down with him both the Democratic Congress and the very notion of responsible liberal governance, thereby achieving a Jimmy Carter–type legacy.

The next year will be one of the most interesting in memory.

Obama's China Trip - a consensus failure

Good trip - if you are a tourist.

If you are the President - not so good.

That Same Old Carter Feeling Again [Seth Leibsohn]

Yesterday, I detailed how little respect the Chinese authorities gave the Obama administration in its requests for media, "less respect than was given presidents Bush or Clinton" was how the New York Times put it yesterday. "A retreat," the NYT said. This morning the LAT has more, about less: "In China, Obama's Hosts Show No Signs of Budging" is the headline. The subheading: "President Obama is Leaving China Without Any Definable Concessions on Tougher Sanctions on Iran or Currency Exchanges."

The story continues:

When it came to China, President Obama's famous powers of persuasion failed to persuade.He came bearing a long shopping list, including Chinese support for tougher sanctions on Iran and more flexibility by Beijing on currency exchange rates, but Obama was met with polite, yet stony, silences. . . . Not only is the U.S. president coming away without any definable concessions, but the Chinese appeared to be digging in their heels. . . . Perhaps most disappointing was China's failure to budge in its opposition to tougher sanctions on Iran. With their extensive oil interests influencing their policies toward Tehran, the Chinese are increasingly seen as an obstacle to reining in Iran's nuclear ambitions. . . .

Obama did not meet with Chinese journalists, lawyers, human rights advocates, environmentalists or any ordinary Chinese, and an expected meeting with Hu Shuli, who recently resigned as editor of China's leading business magazine, did not materialize.Obama's limited results in part reflect the profound shift in Sino-U.S. relations and global politics, with China's rapid rise and America's weakened position, especially in the wake of the financial crisis.

There's more. Helene Cooper of the NYT reports: "China held firm against most American demands. With China’s micro-management of Mr. Obama’s appearances in the country, the trip did more to showcase China’s ability to push back against outside pressure than it did to advance the main issues on Mr. Obama’s agenda, analysts said."

And now the Washington Post: "If there was any significant change during this trip, in fact, it was in the United States' newly conciliatory and sometimes laudatory tone. . . . Obama's trip stood in stark contrast to visits by his predecessors."

This gives me no pleasure to report. One might ask what the Asia trip was for? The two most important things happening in and about Asia are Afghanistan, where President Obama did not go, and China's support for our attempt at an Iran policy, which Obama did not get. No budging from China. The whole idea of negotiating with Iran was based on sanctions. And the whole idea around sanctions was that it would work if China cooperated. I never thought sanctions would work; I never thought negotiating with Iran would work. And, regardless, China is not playing ball with President Obama — in part because of our "weakened position."

This is reminiscent of the Jimmy Carter years — the last time the U.S. was seen as weak — unable to move and coax other countries, unable to reassure dependent allies, unable to have the respect of the world and, of course, unable to move the mullocracy of Iran.

As for our "weakened position," there are any number of ways to change that. Yes, our economy is the first problem and right now we have little leverage there. But our foreign policy has been one of retreat and capitulation as well. We capitulated to China on the Dalai Lama, we are capitulating to the Chinese client state of the Sudan, President Obama on Monday shook hands with the prime minister of repressive Myanmar (another China vassal state), of course he bowed to Japan, he took missile defenses out of Eastern Europe at the request of Russia, he has refused to say anything of strength about Iran, and has shown appeasement to Latin American dictators. Looking at this record: Why would a skeptical country like China think we are strong, deserving of respect?

This is not only sad, it is dangerous. A weak and disrespected America is bad for America, sends the wrong message to enemies (including terrorists), hurts dissident movements abroad, and — as a political matter, again — reminds us nothing so much as it does of the years of Jimmy Carter, which it took even more years to overcome.Not a very good first year for America, or the world, under a new leadership that promised a new respect, a new start, and a new way of doing business. It's new alright — it just isn't any good.

— Seth Leibsohn is a fellow of the Claremont Institute.

Obama Teleprompter Video ... must watch ... hilarious

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQTaWjMoFw&feature=player_embedded

hat tip: ssdirk

Obama & His Fantasy Jobs

Re: Where Troubles Melt Like Lemon Drops [Jack Fowler]

Mark, the stimulating of non-existent Congressional Districts isn’t limited to New Hampshire and its infamous 00th — there’s also the North Dakota 99th, and plenty more where that came from. There’s a great piece by Bill McMorris over at Watchdog.org that reports $6.4 billion in stimulus funds going to 440 phantom districts:

Just how big is the stimulus package? Well for one, it has doubled the size of the House of Representatives, according to recovery.gov, which says that funds were distributed to 440 congressional districts that do not exist.

According to data retrieved from recovery.gov, nearly $6.4 billion was used to “create or save” just under 30,000 jobs in these phantom congressional districts–almost $225,000 per job. The web site operates on an $84 million budget and is tasked with monitoring the distribution of the $787 billion stimulus package passed by Congress–which, for the record, counts 435 members–in early 2009.

The site’s monitors, however, are not too savvy about America’s political or geographic landscape. More than $2 million was given to the 99th District of North Dakota, a state which has only one congressional district. In order to qualify for 99 districts, North Dakota would have to have a population of about 60 million people, almost 24 million more people than California.


Where Troubles Melt Like Lemon Drops [Mark Steyn]

Jack, Jack, re all those Obama-stimulated jobs in phantom New Hampshire Congressional districts, you just don't get it, do you? Why pay ACORN to register non-existent voters when you can register entire non-existent Congressional districts? And how many votes do states 51 thru 57 have in the electoral college?

Reading those jobs numbers, I can't be the only resident of New Hampshire's Second Congressional District who dreams of relocating to the "00 Congressional District", land of 2,873.9 newly created jobs. What a great name! Because in the Obama budget you can always use a couple extra zeroes.

I like to think of it as somewhere up around the Fourth Connecticut Lake or the Indian Stream by the old bootlegging routes in from Quebec. I drive around in the forlorn hope that one day on a rutted Class VI road deep in the woods, just over the washed out culvert, I'll round the bend and see the sign saying "Now Entering The 00 Congressional District. This $47,000 sign brought to you by the America Recovery & Reinvestment Act," and the Emerald City of Oo will rise before me, its streets paved with Stimulus green and lined with dancing fountains of sparkling H1N1 vaccine and Obamatronic statues that bow as you pass by as if you're the Japanese Emperor and they sing "Be Our Guest" in a faintly metallic voice. And I'll be greeted by 2,873.9 gnarled old stump-toothed loggers with an average of 2.7 fingers between them, now federally retrained as green-jobs czars, NEA performance artists, end-of-life counseling coordinators, and Joe Biden speechwriters . . .


Re ‘The Acornization of America’ [Jay Nordlinger]

VDH wrote about “the strange Obama-administration practice of counting hypothetical jobs saved by more government borrowing rather than focusing on real statistics of real jobs lost,” and the “fantasy congressional districts with fantasy new employment in them.” I could not help thinking of a line from the president’s inaugural address: “We’ll restore science to its rightful place.” Well, maybe, but what in the world is the administration doing with statistics? More generally, has an administration’s practices ever been more out of line with a president’s boasts and promises?

UPDATE: A reader chimes in, “You think those districts don’t exist? They will after the ACORN-ized 2010 Census, and they’ll be gerrymandered for the Democrats, too!”

P.S. Remember when Reagan, saying “gerrymander,” would signal that he knew that Gerry pronounced his name with a hard “G,” though we pronounce “gerrymander” with a soft one? Amazing guy, the Gipper.

The Obama / Holder Pervision of Justice

Instead of Death to KSM, we get Obama passing the buck to the slimy Eric Holder:

Excellent commentary, as usual by Charles Krauthammer:

On the decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a New York civilian court:

What is so hard to understand is Holder's argument, the logic of his argument.

Now, I want to look only at a single aspect of it. … If [Holder] opposed the military commissions on principle, you could say his decision on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was wrong, but at least it was logical.

But he doesn't. On the day he sent KSM to a civilian trial in New York, he announced he would send five of the miscreants who attacked the Cole, a warship, to a military trial in Guantanamo or perhaps elsewhere.

Now, what is the logic here? Holder was asked about this, and to the extent that he was coherent, which is only to a small extent, he said: Well, if you attack a civilian target, as in 9/11, then you go to a civilian court; a military target like the Cole, to a military [court].
First of all, the Pentagon was hit on 9/11, so it wasn't exclusively a civilian attack. But perhaps Holder forgot about that.

But secondly, even if [9/11] were exclusively an attack on civilians — which is a worse act of war criminality, attacking defenseless civilians or attacking a military target, like a warship? We have attacked warships in our history, Japan and Germany in the Second World War and elsewhere. That is an accepted act of war.

Why does a person [like] Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who attacked civilians — the more obvious and egregious war crime — get the extra protections, the extra constitutional niceties that you get in a civilian courtroom, as opposed to someone who attacks a military target? The logic here is perverse.

And the incentive is [perverse]: If you are a terrorist overseas thinking — am I going to attack a well-protected military installation? [No,] I will hit a civilian [target]. I will be in a cozy cell with a lawyer, Miranda rights and perhaps even a blog. Why wouldn't I attack innocent civilians?

On whether, if by technicality or hung jury, one of these cases went the other way, they would be let free:

They will be rearrested in the courtroom. A second charge will be filed, and it will be endless. And in the end, if they are acquitted on all charges endlessly, they will end up in indefinite detention.

We will not let them out. Everyone knows that. That's what makes it such a farce.


Holder's 'Decision' [Jonah Goldberg]

My column on all this will be up tomorrow on NRO. But there's at least one point I make in it that I think isn't getting enough attention. It is ludicrous for the president to claim this was solely Holder's decision. First, I don't think it's true that Obama handed it off to Holder without any input on the matter.

But even if it were true, it's still Obama's decision. When the commander-in-chief gives law enforcement the final authority over what to do with enemy combatants, he can't then claim that he's not responsible for the decision. This isn't just a "buck stops here" point, though that's part of it. The moment he made this the Justice Department's call rather than the Defense Department's he made it clear where he comes down on the question. It's good politics to claim that he's just letting the rule of law and the justice system work through the issues, but that's all it is, politics. And, as president, it's if he thought Holder was wrong, he would have both the power and the responsibility to overrule him. He doesn't want to overrule Holder because the two of them see eye-to-eye on these questions.


Re: Holder's 'Decision' [Andy McCarthy]

On Jonah's point, I would just add that Obama has been playing this game from the first, and he gave the game away by overruling Holder when the blowback got bad over DOJ's effort to disclose classified photos of prisoner abuse. (See here and here.)

On that, note that Holder plays the same game — he (and Obama) claimed that they were simply complying with court orders. As I've explained a few times, Obama and Holder have the power under the Freedom of Information Act to order disclosure, but (a) they want disclosure and (b) such an order would make their base go nuts. So, Obama passes the buck to Holder, and Holder passes the buck to the courts — but it shouldn't obscure that the decision is Obama's. He's now playing out the string on the photos: he reversed Holder and had DOJ appeal the disclosure order to the Supreme Court; he's figuring the Supremes will uphold the disclosure order and then he can have DOJ publicize the photos under the fig-leaf that the Court has spoken. But it's a game — the justices are in this position only because Obama is trying to be unaccountable.

Secondly, as I recount in Willful Blindness (about to be released in paperback), the decision to indict Omar Abdel Rahman (the Blind Sheikh) was a controversial one, involving not only DOJ but State, the National Security Council, the Intelligence Community, etc. Attorney General Reno was forcefully in favor of indictment, others were either neutral or opposed but not strongly so. (Not indicting the Sheikh would have created a separate set of serious issues.) But it was not the AG's decision alone. Whenever a decision like this implicates the interests of multiple executive branch agencies, they are all consulted. But if there is strong disagreement, the president resolves the disagreement; and if it's a national security matter, the AG does not pull the trigger and indict if the president does not want that to happen — AG Reno would never have given us the green-light to go ahead unless President Clinton was on board.

In my mind, it is really foolish cowardice on President Obama's part to pretend AG Holder made this call alone. Obama owns the decision whether he owns up to it or not, so he might as well get out there and own it.


Justice Delayed [Marc Thiessen]

As usual, Andy McCarthy hits it out of the park with his column today on NRO, "Justice Delayed."I would add only one point: Part of the delay in trying KSM was in fact by choice, and it was a wise choice. Unlike the Obama administration, our first priority in the Bush administration was not putting KSM on trial — it was getting intelligence from KSM so we could stop follow-on attacks and save lives.

Remember what KSM said after his capture: He would tell us everything when he got to New York for his trial. We told him: You’re not going to New York. First, you’re going to spend a little time talking to the CIA. And under CIA questioning, KSM — together with other CIA detainees — gave us vital intelligence that helped stop a number of attacks, including a plot to fly an airplane into the Library Tower in Los Angeles; a plot to fly airplanes in the Heathrow Airport and buildings in downtown London; a plot to blow up our consulate in Karachi; a plot to blow up our Marine camp in Djibouti; and many others. His interrogation produced thousands of intelligence reports, and helped us wrap up the two main terrorist networks still at large at the time of his capture: the remaining members of the KSM network that had planned the 9/11 attacks, and the key members of the Hambali network that was working with al-Qaeda on follow-on attacks.

Once we had exhausted KSM as an intelligence source, President Bush transferred him and 13 other detainees from CIA custody to Guantanamo Bay so that they could face justice. If it had not been for the legal obstacles Andy cites, their trials would have begun soon thereafter.

And had it not been for the Obama administration, KSM and his partners would now be sitting on death row. KSM and his co-conspirators offered to plead guilty once their military commissions got underway and proceed straight to execution — until the Obama administration suspended the proceedings. This means that, with his decision to give KSM a civilian trial, Eric Holder effectively rejected KSM’s guilty plea, and told him, “No, Mr. Mohammed, first let us give you that stage you wanted in New York to rally jihadists to kill Americans and incite new attacks.”

That decision is what will lead to years of delay — and could lead to new terrorist attacks.

It is telling that Eric Holder considers the three years KSM spent being questioned by the CIA as a “years of delay.” To the contrary, the delay in KSM’s prosecution saved lives. If we had followed the Obama/Holder model, and sent KSM to New York to see his lawyer, there would likely be craters in the ground in Los Angeles, London, and where our consulate in Karachi and our Marine camp in Dijbouti once stood.

— Marc Thiessen’s new book, Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack, will be published by Regnery in January 2010.


Mukasey: Obama Administration's 'soft, cushy euphemisms reflect they're back in a pre-9/11 mentality' [Andy McCarthy]

The Washington Times reports that Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey elaborated today on his warnings about the dangers of transferring the 9/11 jihadists to New York City for a trial in the civilian justice system.

"It's simply a fact of life that a jihadist, particularly somebody like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, is looking for a big stage," Mukasey said in an interview on the WTimes's "America's Morning News" radio show. "New York City is the biggest stage in the world, and the attempt will be made to make this as big, spectacular and ugly as possible."

He reminded listeners that Zacarias Moussaoui had turned his civilian trial into a circus (Remember this ditty: "America, you lost . . . I won," and "God save Osama bin Laden. You will never get him.")

Joe Weber's report continues:

Mr. Mukasey also supported the criticism that the Obama administration's plan for the trials — as announced Friday by Attorney General Eric Holder — reflects a "pre-9-11" mentality, or worse. He cited Mr. Obama's decision to bring suspected terrorists from the Guantanamo Bay detention center to trial on U.S. soil and his refusal to use the term "war of terror."

"Using soft, cushy euphemisms instead reflect they're back in a pre-9-11 mentality," he said. "In some ways it's worse, because at least before [the attacks] we were not aware of what we were facing."

Mr. Mukasey also said the mass shooting at the Fort Hood Army base in which 13 people were killed was a terrorist act. Witnesses said suspected shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan yelled "Allahu Akbar" before shooting. "It's impossible to categorize it as any other act," Mr. Mukasey said.

He said Maj. Hasan represents the new breed of "leaderless jihadists," encouraged by Osama bin Laden and other terrorist leaders. "This man is a fulfillment of their dreams," he said.

Afghanistan - Obama Fumbling, Dithering, whatever

call it whatever you like; it is certainly not leadership ...

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDMwNTc2NWFkOGIxODVjY2I1NjdlOTA4OTZhY2MwZDY=


President Obama’s deliberations on Afghanistan have begun to take on an element of farce.

It’s understandable that he wants to think carefully before almost doubling our force in Afghanistan as requested by Gen. Stanley McChrystal. But let’s remember: McChrystal is Obama’s hand-picked general, sent to Afghanistan to carry out the “comprehensive” strategy Obama announced in the spring. Obama isn’t drilling down on a strategy that has failed — as Bush had to do in Iraq at the end of 2006 — he’s reconsidering his own strategy before it’s been given a chance to work.

And his own aides have been leaking mercilessly against that strategy. Obama can barely get out of the Situation Room before “senior administration officials” are on the phone to the Washington Post with leaks obviously designed to put the war’s doubters in the best possible light. The latest skirmish in the leak campaign was a spectacular one: classified cables from our ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, vehemently opposing McChrystal’s strategy on the grounds that Hamid Karzai’s government is too corrupt and incompetent to be a reliable partner.

Put aside the substance of that argument for a moment. It’s hard to see how Eikenberry and McChrystal can work together effectively with the ambassador so publicly on the record against the general’s strategy. This is no small thing, since civil-military cooperation is essential to a successful counterinsurgency campaign. One of the reasons the surge worked in Iraq is that Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker forged a nearly seamless working relationship that should be studied in textbooks for years.

Eikenberry’s cable gambit is the latest instance of an Obama diplomat making a mockery of “smart power.” Between Dick Holbrooke’s becoming basically persona non grata in Afghanistan, Christopher Hill’s leaving a vacuum in Iraq, and George Mitchell’s rushing the Mideast “peace process” to a worse place than it was when he started, Obama’s team has managed an early record of glaring diplomatic ineptitude that suggests “smart power” is neither.

Eikenberry is not the only one to invoke Karzai’s failings as a reason to deny McChrystal’s troop request. All the erstwhile Afghanistan hawks on the Left have made Karzai central to their anti-war case. Karzai’s performance is undeniably a problem, but relatively clean, functional government is a goal of counterinsurgency, not a pre-condition.

The Obama administration would be much better advised to consider Karzai a flawed partner rather than a punching bag. The threats to cut him loose prior to the election only pushed him into the arms of exactly the kind of people we want him to avoid and to isolate. But if he can’t rely on us, why wouldn’t he fortify himself politically with the support of key indigenous players, even if they are tainted?

If we want Karzai to improve, we’ll need to work through problems with him rather huff-and-puff with ultimatums (pulling out, or drawing down) that we can’t follow through on without damaging our own interests. And we’ll need to get a better handle on the security situation. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Malki had many of the same failings as Karzai as we permitted his country to collapse all around him in 2006. Only when the surge improved security did he become a stronger and more popular leader.

That’s not going to happen in Afghanistan unless McChrystal gets his additional troops. Obama gives every sign of wanting to flinch from this fact and find a clever way around it. According to news reports, Obama has been evaluating troop numbers province-by-province in Afghanistan, a level of detail that should be well beneath his pay grade. He has been discussing “off ramps” for the troop surge, mulling the best way to configure our troop commitment to pressure Hamid Karzai, and considering giving McChrystal only part of his request while trying to make up the difference with NATO troops.

All of this is needlessly complicating what is a momentous but relatively simple decision. If the Afghan war is important enough that we need to win it, and if counter-insurgency is the only way to do it — conclusions that most members of Obama’s national-security team, from Hillary Clinton to Bob Gates to chairman of the joint chiefs Admiral Mullen, already have reached — then McChrystal must get his troops.