JustOneMinute

You, Too, Can Be Cool Like Barack - The Times Tells You How

The bull market in Obamadulation continues apace as Times political reporter Kate Zernike presents a Week In Review article that should have been titled "How To Be Cool Like Barack":

Never Let Them See You Sweat

By KATE ZERNIKE    

The economy jolts and stumbles, wars slog on in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the horrors of a new terrorist attack blanket the news and draw frayed attention yet again to our precarious alliances in the world. The watchword for the holidays is subdued; certainly not much inspires celebration.

Perhaps it is no coincidence, then, that to lead us in crisis, Americans elected a man repeatedly recognized for his uncommon calmness. More than ever, we crave stability, a steady hand, the reassuring face on television.

We even elevate such equilibrium to the superhuman: calm, as applied to No Drama Obama, often comes linked to the modifier “preternatural.”

But the calm temperament is not so superhuman, nor is it entirely the gift of the chosen few. It can be cultivated, even as the world cleaves around us.

So how do we get there without a steady diet of beta blockers and Xanax? Calm, per se, doesn’t appear in the taxonomy of those who study personality and temperament. People we might colloquially describe as calm are classified as low on the scale of neuroticism — a scale everyone is measured on, to a greater or lesser degree.

"Cool" is back in style?  When did it go away?  James Dean was cool.  The Rat Pack was cool.  Cool Hand Luke was, well, cool.  Even Governor Dukakis himself was cool when he ran for President in 1988. So cool, in fact, that when asked during a nationally televised debate how he would deal with a man who raped and killed his wife, the Duke promised to apprehend the malefactor and recite to him statistics on rehabilitation, recidivism, and the inefficacy of capital punishment until the desperate prisoner begged for extradition to a capital punishment state.  Or at least, I remember it that way.  No, the Duke did not lack for cool.  He was not cool enough to defeat Bush 41 or protect me from the Russkies, but he was cool.  "Technocratic" was the preferred adjective back then, as I recall.  Some even went with "robotic".  But he would have been "cool" if he had won.

Segue.  Obama is cool and you can be to, and more importantly, ought to want to be.  On another day I would moan "If the Times is going to continue this sort of fawning coverage just kill me now" but that would sort of run counter to their theme, so I'll be chill.  Now, a question for the house - does anyone recall whether back in 2000 the Times ran laudatory articles about Bush's resolution, doggedness and perseverance?  Those are useful virtues too, when the time is right - Bush has created a bit of a bear market in those attributes, but contrarians may see a buying opportunity.

This bit from the article fascinates me and confirms a bit of folk wisdom I acquired decades ago:

But many researchers argue for two ways to think about calmness: you are calm, or you learn how to be.

Imagine two people with equally high measures of neuroticism dealing with the same irascible boss. One gets yelled at and leaves the boss’s office perfectly composed; the other gets yelled at and flees to the bathroom in tears or storms out and kicks the wall.

The difference is that the first person has learned to regulate the neuroticism.

People tend to think that the confrontation produces the reaction; if you’re faced with an irrational rant, who can blame you for falling apart? But researchers in emotional regulation tease out a factor in between: how we think. Between the “a” of the antecedent and the “c” of the consequence, they argue, is the crucial “b,” for belief, which in the case of the person melting down might sound something like: my boss hates me, everyone hates me, I’m a total failure.

That is the opportunity for emotional regulation.

Someone who had taken inspiration from Woody Allen's quip that 90% of life is just showing up opined that life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you feel about what happens to you, although when pressed he admitted that the ratios may be subject to adjustment during, for example, a major earthquake.  Or when reading Times coverage of Obama.

Viva VIVACE, Or, Hurray For Fish Power

Slow moving currents can power us up, reports the Daily Telegraph:

A revolutionary device that can harness energy from slow-moving rivers and ocean currents could provide enough power for the entire world, scientists claim.

The technology can generate electricity in water flowing at a rate of less than one knot - about one mile an hour - meaning it could operate on most waterways and sea beds around the globe.

Existing technologies which use water power, relying on the action of waves, tides or faster currents created by dams, are far more limited in where they can be used, and also cause greater obstructions when they are built in rivers or the sea. Turbines and water mills need an average current of five or six knots to operate efficiently, while most of the earth's currents are slower than three knots.

The technology is described in the November 2008 issue of the Journal of Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering (by subscription, but see abstract).  Here is last week's press release and a website run by Vortex Hydro Energy, the group hoping (I hope) to commercialize this.

The website includes a Dec 2006 paper on the VIVACE technology presented to the Department of Energy.

This site tells us "[Dr. Michael Bernitsas, Chief Technology Officer], also a professor at U-M, thinks the technology is about 5-6 years away from being commercialized".  Cool.

Remembering Bush

George Bush contemplated his legacy in a hard-hitting interview conducted by his sister.  It's fun to see how different news outlets address or avoid what may soon enough be known as the Bush Problem.

The NY Times does not want to spoil the holiday mood for its readers:

The interviewer asked no bothersome questions about the financial crisis, wars overseas or Republican setbacks in the elections. Chances are that the interviewer, Doro Bush Koch, already knew how her brother the president felt about those and other weighty issues of the day.

“I would like to be a person remembered as a person who, first and foremost, did not sell his soul in order to accommodate the political process,” Mr. Bush said. “I came to Washington with a set of values, and I’m leaving with the same set of values.”

Mrs. Bush said she would “always have a special place in my heart” for the women and girls of Afghanistan, able in the post-Taliban era to go to school or walk outside without male chaperones.

The AP is comparably coy with their coverage, ducking the legacy question entirely:

WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush is relishing the chance to see "the klieg lights shift somewhere else," although he admits he'll miss perks like White House cooking and flying on Air Force One.

"Frankly, I'm not going to miss the limelight all that much," Bush said in an intimate family conversation with his sister, Doro Bush Koch, about how he'll feel when he leaves the White House to make way for Barack Obama on Jan. 20.

The AFP gets after it:

Bush wants history to see him as a liberator of millions

WASHINGTON (AFP) — George W. Bush hopes history will see him as a president who liberated millions of Iraqis and Afghans, who worked towards peace and who never sold his soul for political ends.

"I'd like to be a president (known) as somebody who liberated 50 million people and helped achieve peace," Bush said in excerpts of a recent interview released by the White House Friday.

Reuters and UPI also included the liberator theme.  So did CNN but they had trouble with the math and forgot Afghanistan:

"I came to Washington with a set of values, and I'm leaving with the same set of values," Bush told Koch in an interview taped earlier this month that aired on National Public Radio Thursday.

Bush also indicated he hopes his legacy is evaluated on success in the War in Iraq, America's efforts to combat AIDS, and the passage of Medicare legislation in 2003.

"I'd like to be a President (known) as somebody who liberated 50 million people and helped achieve peace; that focused on individuals rather than process; that rallied people to serve their neighbor; that led an effort to help relieve HIV/AIDS and malaria on places like the continent of Africa; that helped elderly people get prescription drugs and Medicare as a part of the basic package; that came to Washington, D.C., with a set of political statements and worked as hard as I possibly could to do what I told the American people I would do," Bush said.

Well.  I will have a hard time overlooking the dismal planning of the initial post-liberation phase in Iraq, but if, ten or twenty years from now, a stable and more-or-less democratic Iraq has become a beacon of hope and change in the Middle East it will be harder to sustain Bush's ranking as worst President ever.  Hmm - we lost New Orleans and all our investment banks but not Iraq! Some scorecard.  That will be the Bush Problem.  If he's lucky.

Saturday Open Thread

I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving.

Baffling History

Despite a plausible premise Fred Kaplan loses my confidence early in this piece:

In the spring of 1977, Menachem Begin was elected prime minister of Israel and surprised everyone by choosing as his foreign minister not someone from his own Likud Party, but a star of the opposing Labor Party, Moshe Dayan. It proved a brilliant choice, as Dayan helped direct the peace process with Egypt that culminated with the Camp David accords.

In the fall of 1968, Richard Nixon was elected president of the United States, and rather than choose as his secretary of state someone from among his own supporters, he chose Henry Kissinger, a supporter of Nixon’s arch-rival, Nelson Rockefeller. Again, that proved a fortuitous choice, as Kissinger helped orchestrate a rapprochement with China, as well as accords in the Middle East and with the Soviet Union.

How soon they forget!  Without even looking it up I remember (as should Mr. Kaplan) that as a steroid-enhanced National Security Adviser Kissinger neutered some Secretary of State who is (evidently) forgotten to history before eventually assuming the spot himself in Nixon's second term.

Well, history is bunk.  Here is the interesting bit, which looks accurate:

But the real reason that Obama and Clinton might enjoy success is something that goes barely mentioned in the media. Obama and Clinton are buying into a bottomed-out market vis-à-vis America’s position in the world. It is as if they will be buying stock after the market has crashed, and just at the point when a number of factors are already set in motion for a recovery. For President George W. Bush did not just damage America’s position in the world, he has also, over the past two years, quietly repositioned himself as a realist in foreign policy, and that, coupled with a bold new strategy in Iraq, known as the “surge,” has poised America for a diplomatic rebound, which the next administration will get the credit for carrying out.

They Might Be Giants

The Times tells us about plans for a stimulus package for the European Union:

Giant Stimulus Plan Proposed for Europe

By STEPHEN CASTLE and DAVID JOLLY    

BRUSSELS — Seeking to revive the region’s rapidly deteriorating economy, the European Commission on Wednesday proposed a stimulus package totaling 200 billion euros, or $256.22 billion.

The commission, the executive arm of the European Union, said in Brussels that the stimulus measures were necessary to bolster growth and employment in the European Union’s 27 member countries. Just Tuesday, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development predicted that the 15 countries of the euro zone would contract next year by a combined 0.6 percent, and economists have begun speaking of 2009 as a “lost year.”

$256 billion is "giant"?  C'mon, Obama is talking about a $500 billion plan on top of the billions and billions already committed by the Fed and Treasury.  Of course, it isn't a "stimulus" plan, it's a recovery plan, so maybe by the standards of recovery plans, Obama's is modest.

Whatev.  We welcome Europe aboard.

When Doves Cry

Gates at Defense and retired Marine Corps General Jones as National Security Adviser?  Max Boot is "gobsmacked".  In a good way.  But Paul Mirengoff at Powerline delivers a bracing bucket of coldwater with a reminder that, although Hillary at State may not be strumming the guitar she knows all the words to "Kumbaya".

The WaPo profiles Jones but omits his campaign appearance with McCain and his " I think a deadline of this magnitude would be against our national interest" testimony on Iraq in Sept 2007.

Libs may moan now but when Obama delivers the glorious middle-class entitlement on health care they will be all smiles again.

Star Power

Sarah Palin is going to Georgia to campaign for Saxby Chambliss in the Senate run-off.  As McCain already noted, we are all Georgians now.

Other bright lights:

Palin is the latest high-profile politician to head to Georgia to campaign for either Chambliss or Martin. Former President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore have campaigned for Martin, while Republican presidential nominee John McCain, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney have appeared on behalf of Chambliss. Today, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani will campaign for the Republican senator.

If Chambliss pulls this out victory will have a thousand fathers and one hockey mom.  The Captain has more on polls and turn-out.

Bet The Bettors (They're Better)

John Tierney bettors v. pundits in the Presidential election.

Ethical Killer Robots

Suppress the nagging sense that The Onion is everywhere - the Times has an article abut the possibilities and ethical implications of autonomous battlefield robots:

ATLANTA — In the heat of battle, their minds clouded by fear, anger or vengefulness, even the best-trained soldiers can act in ways that violate the Geneva Conventions or battlefield rules of engagement. Now some researchers suggest that robots could do better.

“My research hypothesis is that intelligent robots can behave more ethically in the battlefield than humans currently can,” said Ronald C. Arkin, a computer scientist at Georgia Tech, who is designing  software for battlefield robots under contract with the Army. “That’s the case I make.”

And so he does:

In a report to the Army last year, Dr. Arkin described some of the potential benefits of autonomous fighting robots. For one thing, they can be designed without an instinct for self-preservation and, as a result, no tendency to lash out in fear. They can be built without anger or recklessness, Dr. Arkin wrote, and they can be made invulnerable to what he called “the psychological problem of ‘scenario fulfillment,’ ” which causes people to absorb new information more easily if it agrees with their pre-existing ideas.

His report drew on a 2006 survey by the surgeon general of the Army, which found that fewer than half of soldiers and marines serving in Iraq said that noncombatants should be treated with dignity and respect, and 17 percent said all civilians should be treated as insurgents. More than one-third said torture was acceptable under some conditions, and fewer than half said they would report a colleague for unethical battlefield behavior.

Troops who were stressed, angry, anxious or mourning lost colleagues or who had handled dead bodies were more likely to say they had mistreated civilian noncombatants, the survey said (PDF). (The survey can be read by searching for 1117mhatreport  at www.globalpolicy.org.)

“It is not my belief that an unmanned system will be able to be perfectly ethical in the battlefield,” Dr. Arkin wrote in his report (PDF), “but I am convinced that they can perform more ethically than human soldiers are capable of.”

Yes, but - what about the situation where a clever adversary engages the ethical killer in conversation and persuades it to self-immolate in satisfaction of its operating Code of Honor?  C'mon, it's the oldest trick in the book.

Melt-Up Blogging: The Citi Rescue

The NY Times describes the Citi bailout.

Mark Thoma provides the definitive roundup.  General reaction is negative, so let me stake out a contrary position.  Negative first:

James Kwak says the bailout is "Weak, Arbitrary, Incomprehensible." I think he has it right:

Citigroup Bailout: Weak, Arbitrary, Incomprehensible: According to the Wall Street Journal, the deal is done. Here are the terms. In short: (a) Citi gets another $27 billion on the same terms as the first $25 billion, except that the interest rate is now 8% instead of 5%, and there is a cap on dividends of $0.01 per share per quarter; and (b) the government (Treasury, FDIC, Fed) agrees to absorb 90% of losses above $29 billion on a $306 billion slice of Citi’s assets, made up of residential and commercial mortgage-backed securities. (If triggered, some of that guarantee will be provided as a loan from the Fed.) There is also a warrant to buy up to $2.7 billion worth of common stock (I presume) at a staggeringly silly price of $10.61 per share (Citi closed at $3.77 on Friday).

The government (should have) had two goals for this bailout. First, since everyone assumes Citi is too big to fail, the bailout had to be big enough that it would settle the matter once and for all. Second, it had to define a standard set of terms that other banks could rely on and, more importantly, the market could rely on being there for other banks. This plan fails on both counts.

As to the bailout being big enough to settle this once and for all - why?  Sufficient unto the day are the rescues thereof.  If (Heaven help us) the economy begins recovering late in 2009 Citi's problems may resolve themselves.  If not, the principle that we will still (and always!) have Citi to kick around has been firmly established and the Treasury ca re-dip then in Holy Water next year.

As to the notion that the rescue should provide a template for other rescues - again, why?  An ongoing counterpoint to these orchestrated rescues is the notion that some semblance of market discipline should be preserved.  If investors continue to wonder and worry about other firms, well, that is a good thing.   Or at least, so some at Treasury and the Fed would argue.  Personally I think one Lehman was one too many and we won't be seeing any more failures but I don't think the Federales can formally announce that - they must Keep Pretense Alive and let us imagine that somewhere out there is a firm not too big to fail.

Finally, I am liking the new approach that is being criticized as unfair to taxpayers.  With the AIG rescue current shareholders were taken out and shot. That example of market capitalism in action was meant to serve as an inspiration to the others but it has had the effect of creating its own equity investment freeze.  Except in the rare cases (the politically powerful confluence of Warren Buffet with Goldman and GE) it has been difficult for afflicted financial firms to lure in new investors.  By not punishing Citi management and disemboweling the bold Sheik who shook loose with some change (and hope) as Citi plunged last week, the government may make it possible for other management teams to assure prospective investors of management continuity and government sympathy.  Maybe.

So that's my table-pounding conclusion - this package may not be nearly as stupid as it looks. 

A PEDANTIC QUIBBLE: Boy, do I question this from Kwak:

...a cap on dividends is a nice touch but shouldn’t affect the value of equity any.

Hmm...  I have a real problem with applying the Miller-Modigliani arguments to a firm like Citi that is teetering on the brink of being something other than a going concern.  In the current environment, cash dividends paid by Citi increase the risk of Citi's debt and increase the option value of the common equity.  I would be surprised if those two effects did not more than offset the cash value of the dividend; if that is in fact the case, then paying dividends does increase shareholder value (as a transfer from bondholders and, in this case, the government).

FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF THE OBVIOUS:  Billions for banks but not one cent for tribute to Detroit?  Hands up if you think the automakers won't get their cash, which at $25 billion as a down payment seems like a pittance by Citi standards.

I don't see any hands... (Waddya mean, I need to try video-blogging?)

How Green Was My Jobs Program?

Obama is going to bail out the economy by spending on a combination of public infrastructure and alternative energy and I am all in favor of it.  We need a new bubble to bail us out of the housing bubble which bailed us out of the tech bubble and the great thing about infrastructure spending is that there is a very limited after-market.  Right now people are looking at what were once $500,000 homes and re-valuing them at $300,000, just as a few years ago they looked at ditches fiiled with fiber-optic cable operating at 1% utilization and re-valued them.  It is harder for such skeptics, cranks and non-believers to revalue a waste treatment plant, a bridge, or a better road.  I hope.

On the green side I have noproblem with subsidizing alternative energy ideas.  My one plea - Congress should toss in subsidies for ground source heat pump systems.  This is a proven, energy saving technology with a useful conumption pattern - without getting into details, electricity usage is higher in the winter and lower in the summer (when the system is useful as an air conditioner), which would be a helpful switch for the electric utilities in the Notheast.

As with other green systems, the objections seems to be that builders prefer not to trade a higher upfront cost for lower operating costs.

Turkeys At The Times

The Captain trounces the Times' turkey-talk - apparently the Old Grey Lady was shocked to learn, courtesy of Sarah Palin, that turkeys are slaughtered before being consumed.  And here I thought the old birds just died of boredom after a few hours of forced exposure to NPR.

Time to update Bismark - if you like laws or sausages or turkey, don't watch them being made.

Hillary At State - I Get It!

I still think it made little sense for Hillary to exchange her Senator for Life role for a walk-on spot at State but I'll tell you why Obama offered it to her - soon enough he will be pulling the rug out from under the "anti-war" Dems by making clear the already obvious, namely, all his talk and posturing about deadlines and forced troop withdrawals from Iraq is no longer operative.  And when he provides this clarification, Hillary at State will be obliged to defend it; Hillary the Senator might have been in a position to cluck-cluck and rally some Dems against him.

Now, Hillary's view on troop withdrawals was probably even phonier and more politically calculated than Obama's so it is possible that she would have been a repsonsible voice of reason even in the Senate.  And reason would have said that the situation in Iraq has improved to the point that Dems, given their own uneven history on national security, can't be saddled as the party that snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq, even if it is under the pretense of committing to victory in Afghanistan.

Reason may also note that withdrawing US troops does not "end" the war in Iraq, it simply ends (or scales back) US involvement in the war.  Or should the world applaud the absence of US troops from Darfur and declare it pacified?

Well.  Hillary at State makes the suspension of deadlines less politically problematic.  My advice to anti-war lefties mirrors that to uneasy righties: Obama is your President - suck it up.

Hillary At State?

I am nonplussed by this from the Times:

Hillary Rodham Clinton has decided to give up her Senate seat and accept the position of secretary of state, making her the public face around the world for the administration of the man who beat her for the Democratic presidential nomination, two confidants said Friday.

James (Not Earl) Jones As National Security Adviser

From The Politico:

President-elect Barack Obama is close to landing James L. Jones (Times bio), the well-known retired Marine Corps general, as his national security adviser, sources said.

Folks hoping for victory in Iraq should be heartened.  A bit of background:

“At the request of the U.S. Congress, Jones recently chaired the Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq.”

So he did.  Let's cut to Times coverage of their report, issued in Sept 2007:

For Mr. McCain, the report provided powerful support for his long-held position that it would be a mistake for Congress to set a firm deadline for withdrawing troops from Iraq. When retired Gen. James L. Jones of the Marines, who led the commission, told the committee, “I think deadlines can work against us and I think a deadline of this magnitude would be against our national interest,” Mr. McCain could not have been more satisfied. “I thank you,” he said.

Jones has also been pushing on Afghanistan and briefed Obama on same; from the Times bio:

As head of NATO forces, he served in the military’s most diplomatic of war-fighting assignments. The job required finding consensus for military action among squabbling member governments when the alliance took over significant portions of the war in Afghanistan.

The briefing book. Before President-elect Obama traveled to Afghanistan during the campaign, General Jones briefed him on the American and the Atlantic alliance security and assistance mission there. He also has briefed Mr. Obama on energy policy issues.

OK - if folks don't like this choice, tell me why not.  My only yellow sign is an absence of howling at DKos, but the day is young.  And that said, Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly is supportive for reasons that do not trouble me.

MORE:  Hawks are circling at Powerline and the Campaign Spot.  Geez, good news - now if I could just remember how to smile...

WISTFUL THINKING: From Salon's War Room:

Jones was an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's policies in the Iraq war.

As was John McCain.

THAT'S MORE LIKE IT!  Whinging we can believe in at Open Left.

Bringing The War On Terror Home

The NY Times front-pages (below the fold) a dispute on eavesdropping between the Justice Dept and the NYPD.  New York's Finest think that the Feds are too cautious in presenting and approving FISA applications for surveillance of terrorism suspects, thereby endangering the greatest city in the world.  The Times duly notes that the Feds are unlikely to become more aggressive in their use of surveillance under Obama.  Hey - extremisim in the defense of civil liberties is no vice, yes?  And if the cost is a few thousand dead New Yorkers, well, freedom has its price.  Here we go:

WASHINGTON — An effort by the New York Police Department to get broader latitude to eavesdrop on terrorism suspects has run into sharp resistance from the Justice Department in a bitter struggle that has left the police commissioner and the attorney general accusing each other of putting the public at risk.

The Police Department, with the largest municipal counterterrorism operation in the country, wants the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to loosen their approach to the federal law that governs electronic surveillance. But federal officials have refused to relax the standards, and have said requests submitted by the department could actually jeopardize surveillance efforts by casting doubt on their legality.

Much later in the story the gist of that dispute is fleshed out.  The NYPD thinks that the Justice Dept. ought to take even the "close call" warant applications to the FISA court; if some are turned down, so be it. 

Arguing the other side, Justice claims that FISA approvals come quickly because the judges know that the applications have been carefully vetted and are of the highest standard; if judges have to pause and reflect on the close calls, eventually they will pause and reflect on everything, thereby slowing the well-oiled process and jeopardizing us all.  Bureaucracy in action. 

The Obama mention comes early:

New York’s department, as a local police force, cannot apply directly [to the FISA court], but must seek warrants through the F.B.I. and the Justice Department. The police want those agencies to expedite their requests, and say that the federal agencies unfairly blocked the city’s applications for surveillance warrants, first in June and then in September. The disagreement, in which the Bush Justice Department has taken a more cautious approach than police officials, is something of an unexpected twist for an administration that has more often seemed willing to stretch legal boundaries to fight terrorism.

...

Even in the best of times, the police and the F.B.I.’s New York office can be quarrelsome partners, and current and former officials say the dispute between the two — which share overlapping responsibilities for security in New York — has brought the relationship to a new low.

The inability of the Justice Department to resolve the conflict may mean that the matter ends up in the hands of Eric H. Holder Jr., who is expected to be nominated by President-elect Barack Obama to become the next attorney general. Based on Mr. Obama’s statements during the campaign, it appears unlikely that his administration would adopt a more permissive attitude toward eavesdropping than the Bush administration.

Change we can believe in.  Suck it up. 

ERRATA:  Those with a long memory will recall that when the Times first broke the warrantless eavesdropping story the high approval rate of FISA applications was cited by Bush critics as proof that the FISA process was a rubber stamp upon which Bush should have relied; others explained that a high approval rate may mean something else entirely, which appears to be the case.  Sorry, just now my memory exceeds my Googling time...

Negotiating With Pre-Existing Conditions

The NY Times opens the latest round of coverage of the health care debate with one for the "no kidding" file:

WASHINGTON — The health insurance industry said Wednesday that it would support a health care overhaul requiring insurers to accept all customers, regardless of illness or disability. But in return, the industry said, Congress should require all Americans to have coverage.

Groan - Hilary and Obama waltzed around this topic endlessly at debate after debate.  Hillary's view was that she would require everyone to have coverage (see the Massachusetts plan) but she coyly (more votes for "disingenuously"?) refused to specify the "or else" that she would inflict upon non-compliers.

Obama promoted an alternative fantasy - his subsidy plan would make health care so appealing that the working poor would buy subsidized insuarance rather than simply wait until they were seriously ill and then avail themselves of their new ability to buy insurance (presumably still subsidized) regardless of pre-existing conditions.  It is not yet clear to me whether Obama really thinks people are that stupid or simply figured this packaging was more politically expedient.

A bit from the current Times story:

The new policy statements [from the insurance associations] are silent on two important issues: how to enforce an individual mandate and how to regulate insurance prices, or premiums.

While insurers would be required to sell insurance to any applicant, nothing would guarantee that consumers could afford it. Rate regulation promises to be a highly contentious issue, since it pits the financial interests of insurers against those of consumers.

...

“Insurance works best when everyone is in the pool,” Ms. Fox said. “You need healthy people in the insurance pool to help pay for sicker individuals who are much more motivated to buy coverage.”

Insurers did not say how the government should enforce an individual mandate: whether through fines, tax penalties or other means. Politicians have also been reluctant to specify details of enforcement, which could prove highly unpopular.

I Am What I Write

By way of Talk Left we come to some intriguing blog analyzers which tell me that I am probably a guy writing at a college level (or even postgrad!).

It is these little validations and affirmations that keep me going. 

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano To Head Homeland Security

From the WaPo:

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D), whose handling of immigration issues brought her accolades from fellow governors, is President-elect Barack Obama's choice to serve as secretary of homeland security, Democratic sources said late Wednesday.

As a border state governor you know she has some thoughts on immigration reform, but what are they?  Over to the Politico as the suspense mounts:

Arizona Demcratic Gov. Janet Napolitano has been chosen to serve as secretary of the vast and troubled Department of Homeland Security for President-elect Barack Obama, Democratic officials said. Napolitano is a border governor who will now be responsible for immigration policy and border security, which are part of Homeland Security’s myriad functions.

...In 2005, Time magazine named her one of America’s five best governors, calling her “A Mountaineer on the Political Rise.”

Time wrote: “The one issue Republicans think they can use against the popular Napolitano is illegal immigration, because the huge number of border crossings have left many Arizonans feeling overwhelmed and powerless. Her critics claim she came to the problem late, but she seems to have navigated it deftly. … Napolitano opposed … several bills that targeted illegal immigrants. Instead, she looked to the systems and people that make illegal immigration possible: She ordered state contractors to ensure that their employees are legal [and] set up an undercover unit to catch forgers of identity documents … In mid-August she declared a state of emergency in Arizona to direct more funds to protecting border areas from illegal crossings.”

Ms. Napolitano opined in favor of comprehensive reform in 2007 and cleverly (or do you prefer "disingenuously") tagged the "enforcement first" crowd as favoring a silent amnesty:

On the subject of immigration, my plea to Congress is loud and clear: You can't quit now. Last week the Senate was on the verge of addressing our broken immigration system. No, the compromise bill wasn't perfect. But our current system is a disaster. I implore lawmakers to go back to the table, iron out their differences and give us an immigration system that is enforceable, and the resources to enforce it.

Opponents of the Senate immigration bill -- those who really want to do nothing -- merely yelled "amnesty" in place of reasoned opposition. They were -- and are -- just plain wrong. Don't let them derail your efforts.

...For 20 years our country has done basically nothing to enforce the 1986 legislation against either the employers who hired illegal immigrants or those who crossed our borders illegally to work for them. Accordingly, our current system is, effectively, silent amnesty.

If we have no comprehensive immigration reform this year, and if we do not deal rigorously and openly with those already here, silent amnesty will continue. As a border-state governor who has dealt with immigration issues more than any other governor I know of, I am certain that continued inaction by Congress -- silent amnesty -- is the worst of all worlds.

Hmm.  I had no idea that those favoring a fence as well as the border controls and workplace enforcement promised in 1986 favored "really want to do nothing".  Live and learn!

Immigration reform looked like a better issue for the Republican dead-enders if McCain lost, since it gives the party an opportunity to unite around something other than McCain's comprehensive reform.  Looks like we will find out.

More from Ms. Napolitano circa 2006, when she teamed with Arnold and other governors to promote comprehensive reform.

 

Pretty Big Talk

Trash talk from Al Qaeda:

The second-in-command of Islamic militant network al-Qaeda has called on Muslims to harm "criminal" America.

In a message purportedly from Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda deputy accused US President-elect Barack Obama of betraying his Muslim roots.

He likened him to a "house slave" - who had chosen to align himself with the "enemies" of Islam.

That "house slaves" translation may be a bit of the old Brit politesse:

In al-Qaida's first response to Obama's victory, al-Zawahri also called the president-elect—along with secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice—"house negroes."

Speaking in Arabic, al-Zawahri uses the term "abeed al-beit," which literally translates as "house slaves." But al-Qaida supplied English subtitles of his speech that included the translation as "house negroes."

The message also includes old footage of speeches by Malcolm X in which he explains the term, saying black slaves who worked in their white masters' house were more servile than those who worked in the fields. Malcolm X used the term to criticize black leaders he accused of not standing up to whites.

Hmm.  Considering Zawahiri's likely hiding places I wonder if there is an Arab phrase for "cave slave".  And considering how dangerous a neighborhood he inhabits (Major Al-Qaeda operative killed in US missile strike) perhaps Zawahiri ought to forget about Malcom X and take some paraphrased advice from the civil rights movement - Keep your eyes on the skies.

Take Your Vitamins... And Toss 'Em

The NY Times tells us that Vitamins C and E had no effect on either cancer or heart disease in men.  But there is a bit of a caveat.  More about the studies:

Scientists enrolled 14,641 male physicians in the study, dividing them into four groups of roughly 3,600 each. The first took 400 international units of vitamin E every other day and 500 milligrams of vitamin C daily; the second, vitamin E and a placebo vitamin C; the third took vitamin C and placebo vitamin E; and the last only placebos. Neither the subjects nor the scientists knew which groups were taking the active vitamins.

After eight years, the researchers found no difference among the groups in the incidence of heart attack, stroke, congestive heart failure or angina. And taking the vitamins did not reduce the need for cardiac revascularization, a surgical operation to restore adequate blood flow to the heart.

And from the cancer article:

A large clinical trial of almost 15,000 male doctors taking vitamins E and C for up to 10 years has found that neither supplement had any effect on cancer rates, including cancer of the prostate.

But are doctors really representative of the general population?

Dr. Andrew Shao, vice president for scientific and regulatory affairs at the Council for Responsible Nutrition, a trade association representing the supplement industry, said the group of physicians who participated in the trial were not necessarily representative of the general population. If they were healthier overall and ate a more nutritious diet, he said, it would be hard to detect a clear difference between the supplement users and those taking a placebo.

“Do we really have a placebo group — people with zero exposure? None of these physicians had zero vitamin C and E,” he said.

Here is their truly eye-opening conclusion:

“At the end of the day,” he added, “this serves as a reminder that we should get back to basics: keeping your body weight in check, being physically active, not smoking and following a good diet.”

Unacceptable. America wants salvation in a bottle.  Or jar.

A Medal of Freedom For Stephen Hadley?

William McGurn, former speechwriter for George Bush, offers an interesting idea that won't happen:

I suppose it's possible that George W. Bush would award Stephen J. Hadley the Medal of Freedom. Certainly the president's national security adviser has earned it, for work that made possible the success we are now seeing in Iraq. And it would be within the president's prerogative to see that work acknowledged with this honor before they both leave the White House come Jan. 20.

But how much better it would be all around -- for the country, for the recipient, and even for Barack Obama -- if Mr. Hadley were to receive this honor from the hands of the 44th president of the United States.

Now, Mr. Hadley is a former colleague of mine from the White House. We did not always see eye to eye, and I know this self-effacing man well enough to know he would be appalled to find anyone putting his name forward for a medal. Yet one fact trumps everything else: Without this good man's courage and persistence, there would have been no surge.

After explaining Hadley's role in developing the surge option, McGurn continues:

...At bottom, Mr. Obama's war stance boils down to reducing our presence in Iraq and increasing our presence in Afghanistan. The success of the surge permits him to carry out this strategy from a position of strength. In fact, the security pact just approved by Iraq's cabinet suggests that Mr. Obama is now in a position to achieve most of his Iraq aims without jeopardizing the hard-won gains our troops have made -- provided he keeps his word to listen to our commanders on the ground.

Awarding Steve Hadley the Medal of Freedom would cost Mr. Obama nothing, save possibly a few howls from the Daily Kos. Surely it is not beyond a candidate who has already conceded that the surge has "succeeded beyond our wildest dreams" to bestow the Medal of Freedom on the public servant who made that success possible.

Hmm.  I suspect the howls would come from more than the Daily Kos and would run at least 16 Words.  Just as a warm-up.  And don't get bogged down in logic, facts, or alternative explanations - Bush lied people died, vote Obama.

I don't see Obama engaging in that kind of leadership or statesmanship.  If Bush wants this he will have to do it himself.  And he probably ought to.

Hillary At State?

Hillary as Secretary of State?  Hillary has or has not been offered the job and will or will not accept (the Guardian is more definitive but are they credible?).

As always with the Clintons the first question is, does this advance their political interests?  Hard to see how - Peter Beinart argues that Hillary that at State Hillary will rank third in influence behind Vice President and Fo-Po Guru Joe Biden (We'll score that a 'hmm') and a National Security Adviser to be named later (likely).  And what does she do for an encore?  Eventually her time at State will end, after which she will do what - hit the lecture circuit with Bill and attempt to amass a fortune of comparable worth? Why is that better than Senator for Life from New York?

Curious.  But this at least makes more sense than the idea of nominating her for the Supreme Court. That wold provoke a confirmation scuffle which would have folks waxing nostalgic for the collegiality of the Bork and Thomas days, as dead-end righties (myself included) would demand a page by page review of the Ray report, which found "inconclusive" evidence of wrongdoing by the First Couple.  Hard to believe that Obama thinks that re-fighting that craziness from the nineties will advance hope, change, and a post-partisan agenda. 

Well.  Since State is not a lifetime appointment and is more of a political than legal job I would be shocked if her confirmation hearing for that would swirl around Whitewater.

Ayers Interviewed (Again) By Ignorant Reporter (Again)

Here's another one for the "What Else Is New" file - a Salon writer "interviews" Bill Ayers without first educating himself as to the most basic of facts.  The (presumably desired) result - another Ayers apologia.

From the lead:

Proving yet again that there are indeed second and even third acts in American lives, Bill Ayers had transformed himself over a quarter of a century from an on-the-run-from-the-law member of the Weather Underground to a Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. But because of a single event -- a 1995 coffee that he and his wife gave for fledgling state Senate candidate Barack Obama -- Ayers again found himself in the cross hairs of history.

Please - the "met at the coffee" excuse was offered in May (succeeding the "kids in the same school" and "guy in the neighborhood" classics) and dropped by August when the Obama campaign, bitten by reality, acknowledged that Obama had met Ayers earlier during their work on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. 

Let's hear from Ayers on when the two men met - he volunteers that "I met [Obama] sometime in the mid-1990s" and a bit later expands on that:

Do you have a strong sense of what his views are on your subject -- education?  

I don't have a strong sense of his views on education ... The only foundation that we were active in together was the Woods Fund in Chicago, which is a small foundation that is focused on supporting community organizing. Which is a grand tradition in this country. The Woods Fund in particular is interested in supporting democracy, interested in the participation of people in issues like job creation, housing, against predatory lending. Things like that. Those were the issues that we talked about in those board meetings. And the board included Republicans, conservatives, me. But we came to a consensus around the idea of supporting marginalized poor people in their efforts to get organized and get the things that they need and deserve.

I have not reviewed the tape of the interview to track the missing ellipsis.  I suppose it is possible that Ayers said "I don't have a strong sense of his views on education even though I worked hand in glove with him on education reform for five years on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge", and Salon elected to drop that as irrelevant.  But I will Boldly Aver that it is more likely is that Ayers decided to drop the Annenberg Awkwardness and the reporter, by ignorance or choice, gave Ayers a pass.

This bit of Obama's Otherworldly Innocence is a comic gem:

The Obama campaign insisted that when you and your wife gave a coffee for Obama in 1995, he had no idea of your radical background, he just thought that you were a leading educator in Chicago.  

I'm certain that's true.

Why are you certain that's true?  

This morning I was on "Good Morning America." I got a phone call from a student an hour afterward saying, "I had no idea." I said, "You didn't notice the political campaign?"

The issue of my past in the Weather Underground or my past in the student movement has become so big in the last few months that people think it's a sign that I wear on my chest. That's not true. My students don't know this about me and it's not what I talk about. I talk about education, I talk about youth, I talk about social justice. These are all the issues that I write about and talk about all the time.

Twenty-somethings don't know about the Weather Underground so why would a forty-seven year old who went to Columbia and grew up in thrall to radicals and activists have heard of the SDS and its offshoot?  Sure, that follows.  And Obama's first full time job was with the most SDS-oriented firm in America, but Obama never heard about them there, either.  No problem.  And I'm a Yankees fan who never heard of Billy Martin.

Whatev.  How willfully ignorant is the Salon writer?  When Obama offered the "Ignorance is bliss" defense, he actually cited his work with Ayers on the Annenberg Challenge (but not by name.)  To be fair, the Obama campaign was a bit more protective of their fan base's ignorance and mentioned Obama's oblivion in the context of coffees.

Someday historians may sort this out.

Today's Photo Du Jour

The photo du jour comes from Baghdad by way ot the Times and Karim Kadim of the AP:

And the caption:

Iraqi policemen danced with a United States Army soldier in Baghdad on Sunday, the day Iraq’s cabinet approved a security pact.

As Bush has said for years, when the Iraqis shake it up we will shake it down.  Story here.

The Hunt For A Red-Hot October

NO, we aren't looking for a red-hot October here!  Not yet, anyway.  We are mocking NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), as explained in the Torygraph:

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.

Hmm.  On the flip side, the NY Times was telling us in late October that, at least in parts of the Northeast including the greatest city in the world, it was one of the warmer Octobers on record, so the news of a globally warm October may not have come as a cold slap in the face to plenty of media types.  But let's press on:

So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

Ouch.  But the story only starts there - at Watts Up With That, mentioned above, weather anomalies from Russia are getting a long look.  Let's just say that questions have been raised - this is taken from Watts Up:

In most Russian cities,  district-level combined heat and power plants (Russian: ТЭЦ, Тепло-электро централь) produce more than 50 %  of the nation’s electricity and simultaneously provide hot water for  neighbouring city blocks.

And that heat is passed around the city by above-ground steam pipes, not all of which are insulated.  Hence, it is *possible* that warm weather anomalies in Russian reporting are simply picking up man-made heat.  From Watts Up:

Maybe it’s the steam pipes. We need to send somebody to Russia to find out. Of the many station lat/lons I looked at, Verhojansk was the only one I found with enough Google Earth resolution to see the steam pipes. Maybe the heart of our Russian temperature anomaly lies in central heating.

I suspect the question has occurred to them, but I wonder what would "global" warming data look like if the Russian data were discarded?

Backpedaling Towards Reality

Team Obama may embrace (cooly!) preventive detention for some of the alumni after they close Gitmo.  How this can legally be done on US soil is a mystery to me - I thought that was why the prison was out of the US - but then I wasn't smart enough to fully grasp Obama's nuance during the campaign.  Now the explanation is crystal clear:

Even some liberals are arguing that to deal realistically with terrorism, the new administration should seek Congressional authority for preventive detention of terrorism suspects deemed too dangerous to release even if they cannot be successfully prosecuted.

“You can’t be a purist and say there’s never any circumstance in which a democratic society can preventively detain someone,” said one civil liberties lawyer, David D. Cole, a Georgetown law professor who has been a critic of the Bush administration.

Although the nation has long had limited legal procedures for detaining dangerous people who have not been convicted of a crime, the issue has become particularly controversial in the context of Guantánamo, where some detainees have been held for almost seven years without being charged.

Whether the Obama administration should push for a preventive detention law has inspired “a very hot and serious debate,” said Ken Gude, a national security scholar at the liberal Center for American Progress, adding, “I’ve had conversations with progressives who think it is a good idea and conservatives who think it’s a terrible idea.”

So this new Dem-dominated Congress is going to pass a preventive detention law that Bush never tried to run through a Republican controlled Congress in the heat of war?  Hmm, and I'm the Queen of May.  Yes, I get that Bush was not interested in pushing for such a law and in expanding Executive Branch authority, but still - there is no way a preventive detention law gets through this Congress. 

The Captain tees of on this and related Obama re-positioning on enhanced interogation, which will never, ever be called torture after Jan 20 2009.

PRINCIPLE OVER POLITICS: Will Attack Reps run the international equivalent of Willie Horton ads after some of the Gitmo alumni resume their life of terror?  Sure, but principled Dems can endure the consequences of their principled decisions, yes? 

Turnabout Is Something Or Other

Mormons tipped the balance in the passage of Prop 8 in California?  Interesting - per this Times story they did come up with some late useful cash and as a proselytizing religion it should surprise no one that they were capable of putting boots on the ground, but...

Surely this article ought to remind readers of the Obama effect on Prop 8:

The Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, a pastor in Sacramento and president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, said the campaign to pass Proposition 8 had begun with white evangelical churches but had spread to more than 1,130 Hispanic churches whose pastors convinced their members that same-sex marriage threatened the traditional family.

“Without the Latino vote,” Mr. Rodriguez said, “Proposition 8 would never have succeeded.”

Frank Schubert, the campaign manager for Protect Marriage, the leading group behind Proposition 8, agreed that minority votes had put the measure over the top, saying that a strategy of working with conservative black pastors and community leaders had paid off.

“It’s a big reason why we won, no doubt about it,” he said.

And after all the controversy Mormons have endured about polygamy their role in Prop 8 has the appearance of the bitten biting back.

Ayers On GMA - Still Lying

Chris Cuomo of Good Morning America delivers a faux-tough interview of Bill Ayers but hadn't done enough homework to know when Ayers was lying to him.

I lack a transcript but early in the interview (from -5:52 to -5:30) Ayers avers that he first met Obama at a campaign kick-off which occurred in the second half of 1995.  That bit of posturing had briefly been the official Team Obama position as well but was abandoned when it became clear that Obama and Ayers had worked together on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge in the first half of 1995.

A bit later in the interview Ayers backpedals and volunteers that he had served on a board to with Obama prior to the campaign event but at no point did "reporter" Chris Cuomo challenge him with specific facts.  Cuomo limited his toughness to an abstract defense of the public's right to understand Obama's friendships as part of evaluating Obama's character.  (Ayers claimed that this was guilt by association.)

One day Ayers may encounter a reporter who has researched the material and is interested in pushing for the truth.  But this was not that day.

If You Are Having Trouble Finding Things To Worry About...

Here's a gloom-inducer - as of Election Eve in 2004 it became obvious that Bush would get a second term and we would elect a new President in November 2008.  That gave Al Qaeda (and anyone else who likes long lead times) four years to plan a transition or inaugural surprise.

Well, Joe Biden guaranteed that Obama would be tested.

STILL NOT WORRIED?  Given the fragile state of the US and world economies, can we endure another 9/11 scale attack just now?  Not that there is ever a good time...

Al Gore For What?

Al Gore says no to "Climate Czar"?

What with Bill Ayers lurking about I guess "Weather Man" was out of the question.

Obama, The Fresh Prince of Bill Ayers

"Reporters" from the WaPo and the New Yorker chat will Bill Ayers.  Since they seem to know nothing about the likely relationship between Ayers and Obama there is a notable dearth of tough questioning, but it's all good - Ayers denied a substantive relationship, so they got the story they came for.

Steve Diamond had a lot more, but naturally the sourcing is far too thin for modern journalists:

The relationship between the Democratic Party’s Presidential candidate Barack Obama and Bill Ayers, the founder and leader of the now defunct terrorist organization Weather Underground, is deeper and closer than currently understood, according to an individual who has had a senior role in the Obama candidacy that has included direct contact with the candidate.

...

The source has stated that Obama and Ayers have a direct personal relationship that extends back to the 1980s and that there are now close ties between both Michelle and Barack Obama and Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, also a former leader of the Weather Underground. Global Labor believes the source to be highly credible but has not been able to confirm independently the comments made by the source.

The source has said that either Obama himself or his wife Michelle communicate with Ayers or Dohrn on a regular basis, up to “several times a week,” including discussions about the “vetting” of potential advisors to the campaign as well as potential appointments to staff positions in the new administration should Obama win the presidential race.

Oh, well.  We say "Bill Ayers", they say "Who cares?"  A reporter with access to the Obama camp would need to educate his or her naughty self as to the outlines of the Obama/Ayers relationship (why didn't they meet in 1988 when Ayers was coordinating the school reform coalition of which Obama was a part?  Why, after Ayers worked for a year on launching the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, was he cut out of the loop when Obama became chairman?).

Then this intrepid paragon of journalism would have to risk that access by asking the Obama people a bunch of awkward, off-message questions that would probably force them to invent yet another new story to cover the Obama-Ayers tangle, as they did in February, April, May, and August.  Awkwardness all around.

The Obama campaign has changed their Ayers story repeatedly and the story currently on offer makes no sense.  David Axelrod, who has told some of the stretchers himself, teamed up with Obama in the early 90's so he probably knows the truth as well as the motivation for the cloud of lies.  Oh, well - maybe historians will sort this out in fifty years.

Making Me Nervous

Jonathan Cohn of TNR frightens me with this catalog of the Obama agenda:

Like Bush, Obama is pursuing an ambitious agenda: Re-organizing the country’s economy and infrastructure to fight climate change and achieve energy independence; overhauling its massive health care system; undoing all of the tax changes Bush signed into law and, in the process, addressing the country’s long-term fiscal crisis; beginning unprecedented levels of investment in young children’s education and well-being; repairing America’s image in the world and, in the process, finishing the fight against Islamic extremism.

"Finishing" the fight against Islamic extremism?  Obama has repeatedly promised to "end" the war in Iraq without ever committing to win it.  Is this idea of "finishing" the war against Islamic terrorism cut from the same rhetorical cloth?

At Obama's website the summary "Issues" page includes this:

Obama will refocus our resources on al Qaeda in Afghanistan and finish the fight with the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11.

I am not reassured. 

And dare we ask - does Obama have a plan for finishing US involvement in Kosovo?  Currently we are slated to be there for at least late 2009:

(AP) The United States will continue its troop presence in Kosovo until at least late next year, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said just before he arrived here Tuesday, reaffirming U.S. support for the world's newest nation in the face of stern opposition from Russia.

From The Department of "As If"

The WaPo looks at Obama's new stance on Afghanistan and delivers this laugh line:

Some NATO military officials said enhanced U.S. leadership would be welcome, as long as it was not seen as a "takeover bid," said one senior European officer whose country has troops fighting as part of the NATO coalition in Afghanistan. While the U.S. military has long criticized some NATO members for lacking combat zeal and expertise in Afghanistan, many European officers resent what they see as U.S. arrogance.

The NATO officer suggested that Obama, whose election was greeted with wide approval in Europe, may have more success than Bush in persuading other alliance members to increase their fighting forces in Afghanistan. "I think you'll find the new president would then be able to persuade a number of European nations who have not liked this administration's way of doing business to come in behind them," he said.

Uh huh.  Obama will be able to persuade European leaders to come up with a new list of excuses, but, with a few exceptions,  European troops don't fight any more.

Back in reality, this was very interesting:

But conversations with several Obama advisers and a number of senior military strategists both before and since last Tuesday's election reveal a shared sense that the Afghan effort under the Bush administration has been hampered by ideological and diplomatic constraints and an unrealistic commitment to the goal of building a modern democracy -- rather than a stable nation that rejects al-Qaeda and Islamist extremism and does not threaten U.S. interests. None of those who discussed the subject would speak on the record, citing sensitivities surrounding the presidential transition and the war itself.

Ahh!  What did Mickey highlight from Obama's victory speech?  Here we go:

Grant Park: I was struck by two lists of virtues used by Obama in his acceptance speech--or rather by two omissions on those lists. [Emphasis added]

1.  To those who would tear this world down – we will defeat you.  To those who seek peace and security – we support you.

 

"Peace and security." Not "democracy" or "freedom." This is someone who doesn't want to seem in any way a neocon idealist.

Uncanny.  Maybe I should go back and look through that victory speech for other tea leaves.

And back in Iraq:

Some military leaders remain wary of Obama's pledge to order a steady withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq, to be completed within 16 months -- an order advisers say Obama is likely to give in his first weeks in office. Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has called a withdrawal timeline "dangerous." Others are distrustful of a new administration they see as unschooled in the counterinsurgency wars that have consumed the military for the past seven years.

Gosh - a very public order to commence withdrawals followed by very quiet back-pedaling as conditions are evaluated and re-evaluated would be awfully cynical and manipulative, wouldn't it?  On the other hand, Obama has said a million times that we must be as responsible in leaving Iraq as we were careless in entering, so of course there will be constant evaluation and re-evaluation of the withdrawal timetable.

I smell a photo-op and defeat celebration soon after the inauguration - why should Obama break the hearts of his base by declaring his intention to win in Iraq, even if that goal is eventually foisted upon him by dead-enders in the Pentagon and Congress?  Of course, "win" ought to mean leaving Iraq as a stable, unified democracy, although if this Afghanistan talk can be believed Obama might well settle for something that is stable and unified.

History With A Tilt

CNN reports that Bush is making history:

Bush leaving office more unpopular than Nixon

WASHINGTON DC (CNN) -- On the day that President-elect Barack Obama is visiting the White House, a new national poll suggests that the current occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is the most unpopular president since approval ratings were first sought more than six decades ago.

Seventy-six percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday disapprove of how President Bush is handling his job.

That's an all-time high in CNN polling and in Gallup polling dating back to World War II.

"No other president's disapproval rating has gone higher than 70 percent. Bush has managed to do that three times so far this year," says CNN polling director Keating Holland. "That means that Bush is now more unpopular than Richard Nixon was when he resigned from office during Watergate with a 66 percent disapproval rating."

   Before Bush, the record holder for presidential disapproval was Harry Truman, with a 67 percent disapproval rating in January of 1952, his last full year in office.

Hmm, there's something about Harry - despite a high number of undecided Truman once held both the highest disapproval rating ever and the historic ebb tide for approval.  Gallup explained this last April:

Harry Truman's 22% approval rating was accompanied by a 64% disapproval rating, leaving 14% of those interviewed who did not offer an opinion about his job performance. Richard Nixon's two 24% job approval ratings in 1974 were paired with 63% and 66% disapproval ratings, leaving 13% and 10% with no opinion.

In the most recent poll for Bush, his approval rating is 28% while his disapproval rating is 69%, leaving only 3.5% (rounded to 4%) who don't have an opinion.

That said, per CNN Bush's current *disapproval* rating is 76%.  With no undecideds, that leaves room for a 24% approval rating.  Hey, did Bush manage to take out Harry's 22% mark?  And why can't I find that seemingly simple number?  These reports indicate that there were no undecideds at all - how odd. 

I Know we Have Some Pilots Out There...

Ann Althouse (Sept 25) mentions Mickey mentioning Tom Wolfe on jet fighter pilots.  I am left thinking that what may come across as impulsive and erratic in the context of politics and the economy may simply reflect the very short decision cycles a pilot deals with routinely.

That doesn't mean McCain should not appreciate the subtle differences between a campaign and a carrier landing, but is is worth remembering.  By way of contrast, Obama seemed to have little trouble adapting the languid professorial style of endless discussion to the campaign trail, but does he actually have any facility for making decisions and seeing them through?  Time will tell, we have little doubt.  Or maybe Newsweek.

But why ask me when we have some live pilots in the audience?  Who, I must add, seem the opposite of impulsive and erratic.

Sunday Open Thread

Via Glenn, an article on mini-nuclear reactors in the backyard that apparently can double as a barbecue pit.  Early April Fool's, or game-changer?  [More here, here, here.]

And saving General Motors - yea or nay?

In a different world I would say pull the plug.  But there is no way Obama lets GM fail in the first six months of his Presidency, nor should he.

The people who thought the Lehman bankruptcy would provide a salutory lesson of capitalism in action where surprised by the consequences (a money market fund broke the buck, every other money fund fled to T-bills and the commercial paper market froze - who coulda guessed!?!).  There is no way that the President's advisers can assure him that a similar surprise won't follw a GM filing, and right now we are not in a position to endure another surprise.  Throw 'em a rope.

Obama Picks Up A Belated Jihadist Endorsement

The NY Times reports that Obama has picked up a jihadist endorsement:

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The leader of a jihadi group in Iraq argued Friday that the election of Barack Obama as president represented a victory for radical Islamic groups that had battled American forces since the invasion of Iraq.

The statement, which experts said was part of the psychological duel with the United States, was included in a 25-minute audiotaped speech by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella organization that claims ties to Al Qaeda. Mr. Baghdadi’s statement was posted on a password-protected Web site called Al Hesbah, used to disseminate information to Islamic radicals.

In his address, Mr. Baghdadi also said that the election of Mr. Obama — and the rejection of the Republican candidate, Senator John McCain — was a victory for his movement, a claim that has already begun to resonate among the radical faithful. In so doing Mr. Baghdadi highlighted the challenge the new president would face as he weighed how to remove troops from Iraq without also giving movements like Al Qaeda a powerful propaganda tool to use for recruiting.

Well.  I deplore this next example of unimaginative reporting:

Intelligence officials working in the region said that they did not see Mr. Obama’s election as having any fundamental effect on Al Qaeda, and that any talk of a truce was likely to go nowhere. But two intelligence officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the nature of their work said that they were concerned that any step that could be perceived as a victory for Al Qaeda, like pulling troops out of Iraq right away, would only strengthen its ability to recruit.

“If he withdraws the soldiers from Iraq before the country gets really stable, Al Qaeda will see it as their victory, and they might get stronger again,” one regional intelligence official said. That dynamic was already beginning to play out on Al Hesbah.

For heaven's sake.  Sure, Bin Laden cited Reagan's withdrawal from Lebanon and Clinton's withdrawal from Somalia as jihadist success stories, but can't a commited Obama press organ like the Times dredge up some intelligence or military official somewhere who is not recyling the stale Bushian talking point that an American defeat in Iraq will embolden Al Qaeda?  Geez, don't they even know that Al Qaeda scarcely had a presence in Iraq in 2003?  (No, I am not sure either why that is relevant to Al Qaeda's presence there in 2008, but surely the Times can span that logical chasm.)

What the Times needs to do is find some source to explain (on deep background) that Al Qaeda welcomed the Awakening and the surge and that Al Qaeda recruiting benefited when they had their action kicked up and down Anbar and Baghdad.

Then the Times can segue to an explanation of Obama's "strategy" for the region:

1.  Blame the local Iraqis for having failed to resolve their ancient differences;

2.  Blame Bush for starting a stupid war and withdraw US troops precipitously.

3.  Re-deploy these troops to the "real" war in Afghanistan

4.  Explain to the locals in Afghanistan and Waziristan that, even though no government has pacified and ruled this region since Alexander the Great, Obama the One has every intention of maintaining a US troop commitment until the region is stabilized.

5.  This is the genius part which illustrates why the One is The One and the rest of us are just whatever we are.  The locals in Afghanistan will look at the chaos in Iraq (yes, news travels) and conclude that the eternal commitment of The One has a shelf life of about twelve months.  As they watch Anbar Sunnis who allied with the US wave goodbye to US troops today (and their heads tomorrow), they will fall down helplessly with laughter at the idea of aligning with the US.  And while everyone in the region is thus incapacitated, US troops will swarm in (*NOT* surge in) and pacify the region.

It can't miss.

Reality, Tiptoeing...

Let's see - voter turnout was roughly what it was four years ago.  Part of the explanation is obvious - enthused Dems were offset by discouraged Reps - and part of the explanation is less obvious:

Several large states, including California and New York, had no statewide races and virtually no advertising or get-out-the-vote efforts by either presidential campaign.

Add to the turnout stats the fact that anti-gay marriage bills passed in three states, including California, and the evidence of a new and enduring progressive majority becomes pretty slim.  Two troubling wars and a disastrous economy vault the Dems to a full 52% in the Presidential election - this is a mountain conservatives can climb.

And I will assert, based on hints such as the Rahm Emanuel appointment, that Obama and Company are well aware of their tenuous hold on power.  The House incudes plenty of new swing seat Dems who replaced Republicans and could in turn be replaced by Republicans if Obama and Pelosi stagger too far to the left.

A Message Of Congratulations And Reconciliation

The IowaHawk graciously salutes Obama's historic victory.  A sampler:

It's also heartening to realize that as president Mr. Obama will soon be working hand-in-hand with a former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard like Senator Robert Byrd to craft the incoherent and destructive programs that will plunge the American economy into a nightmare of full-blown sustained depression. As Vice President-Elect Joe Biden has repeatedly warned, there will be difficult times ahead and the programs will not always be popular, or even sane. But as we look out over the wreckage of bankrupt coal companies, nationalized banks, and hyperinflation, we can always look back with sustained pride on the great National Reconciliation of 2008. Call me an optimist, but I like to think when America's breadlines erupt into riots it will be because of our shared starvation, not the differences in our color.

Steal Read it all.

Dynamic Revenue Analysis Comes To The Times

The NY Times discovers dynamic revenue analysis, a staple of supply-side economists who argue that properly structured tax cuts can spur economic growth and be partially self-financing.  Maybe.

However, the Times has had this epiphany on the spending side, and you can only imagine my surprise.

“The only way to prevent a deepening recession,” Mr. Feldstein wrote last week in The Washington Post, “will be a temporary program of increased government spending.”

That means starting work on new construction projects that government agencies have already deemed worthy but that lack financing. It also means sending money to state governments to close their budget shortfalls, in addition to softening the blow of the downturn by extending jobless benefits (as flawed as the unemployment insurance system is).

All this will worsen the deficit. But the true cost won’t be as large as the price tag on the bill will suggest. Every dollar in new government spending tends to increase the gross domestic product by about $1.50 on average, according to Moody’s Economy.com. This $1.50 results in about 40 cents of additional tax revenue. So a well-written stimulus bill can pay about 40 percent of its own cost.

We will be hearing a lot of this I have no doubt.

Flexible Standards

I love this headline from the lightly-edited Salon:

It's official: AP calls North Carolina for Obama

I am not an authority on the North Carolina constitution but I will take a stand and Boldly Assert that the AP is not enshrined there as the arbiter of election results.

Still, it was Mission Accomplished for Johnny Mac, all right. Of six key states - Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida - McCain took the collar.

The Love To Come

The Democrats have 54 Senate seats plus two independents, with modest prospects of picking up as many as four more, if and when we have resolution in Alaska, Georgia, Minnesota, and Oregon.  Getting to sixty is highly unlikely, which means that centrist Republican mavericks may play a key role as filibuster-busters.

Libs who loathe him now will be loving McCain within a year.  Here's a start.

Well.  Conservatives currently frustrated with McCain will be tearing their hair out.  But if he uses his position of influence to hold Obama to a tougher line on Iraq, he ought to be allowed a bit of latitude on other issues.

NOW They Tell Us!

From Reuters:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Iraqi government is confident that president-elect Barack Obama will not jeopardize Iraq's improving security by hastily withdrawing U.S. troops, Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said on Wednesday.

Obama has "reassured us that he would not take any drastic or dramatic decisions," Zebari told BBC television.

"He will consult with the Iraqi government and the U.S. military in the field, but believes strongly that a phased withdrawal of U.S. forces in Iraq will put more responsibility on the shoulders of the Iraqi government."       

We last heard from and about Mr. Zebari when the controversy before the house was whether Obama had been interfering with negotiations between the Bush Administration and the Iraqis on the Status of Forces Agreement.  For nostalgia buffs, here is some classic NY Times election-style coverage of same.

More from Zebari:

In another interview Zebari said he believed Obama would take conditions on the ground into account before any withdrawal.

"When there is a reality check, I think any U.S. president has to look very hard at the facts on the ground," he told Al-Jazeera television. "The gains that we have attained and won with hard struggle and a great deal of sacrifice need to be sustained."

We can only hope.

   

 

Turn Left, And Across The Universe

Stuck in my head:

William Ayers and Tony Rezko
And what about the Reverend Wright?
They slither while they pass
They slip away across the universe

Harry Reid and Nancy too
And what about the Lieber-guy?
Possessing and distressing me
Across the universe

I still have El Rushbo...

Nothing's gonna change my world  (Everybody!)
Nothing's gonna change my world  (I can't hear you...)
Nothing's gonna change my world   ('Cause my thumbs are in my ears)
Nothing's gonna change my world

Congratulations to Obama and company; that was some can of whup-ass he opened last night.  Take a disastrous global economic crisis, two unpopular wars, a cheerleading media and a Republican candidate unloved by his own base et voila - Obama sails to 52% in the popular vote.  It's a new and enduring Dem majority!  Whatever.  My personal playlist will get to "I Get Knocked Down" soon enough.

Now, things I am not worried about include the absurd non-performance of the press during recent events.  The press is instinctively liberal and reflexively opositional.  During periods of Democratic misrule, such as under Bill Clinton, this leads to weird schizophrenia such as the treatment of Al Gore.  During periods of Republican misrule, this leads to RatherGate and the recent Obamania.  And tomorrow?  Dems will possess Washington, a thousand flowers will bloom, and each will leak to the press that the other 999 are pretenders to the true Democratic agenda. No worries - in Pressworld, its always a period of misrule.  What, you think HappyTalk sells papers?

Keeping Suspense Alive! (9 PM Edition)

It's 9 o'clock - do you know where your candidates are?

McCain has lost Pennsylvania but networks have yet to call Virginia, North Carolina or Ohio.  Not to mention Florida and Indiana.

OOPS - Obama takes Ohio, per Fox, at 9:20.  My "Over by 10" call is coming together.  That said, some blonde Fox analyst just said its over for McCain.

EERILY PRESCIENT: Apparently Fox was the first to call Ohio.  That jibes with my Bold Prediction that Fox would be the first to call the night for Obama.

Early Election Open Thread!

The big night!  A day of decision.  An evening of euphoria.  A night of fright.

We will be blogging for Johnny Mac until the last dog dies, which I expect will carry us to about 10 PM Eastern.  After that, listen for whimpering...

STRAY THOUGHTS:  Let's assume for a moment that Congressional Dems reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine and crush talk radio, aided and abetted by President Obama.  Weave into that thought the talk that Sarah Palin will serve out her term as Governor and end up with an Oprah-like gig on television (television remains the home of the free-speakers, since no one will be saying boo to Oprah, Olby and Maddow, nor to the journalistic heroes of NBC, ABC, CBS, and CNN; the existence of Fox, while burdensome, is a small price to pay).

So, does Ms. Palin leverage her television spot into a 2012 run?  Does she even need a television gig to do that, or can she go back to Alaska, get re-elected as Governor, and run from there?

Maximum History

What if McCain wins?

I often kid my kids that they have been living through too much history with the Clinton impeachment (remember the House vote while Baghdad was being bombed?), the Florida recount and 9/11?

But where would a McCain victory rank relative to that trifecta? 

For maximum history, if McCain wins the Electoral College while losing the popular vote by a few million, the Gates of Chaos will open wide.  I do not look forward to this outcome, but it certainly would be interesting.

If McCain wins both the popular vote and the Electoral College, I will personally be honored, since that makes me the Queen of May.

An epic Obama landslide followed by a Dem attempt to recreate the New Deal will keep historians and pundits chattering.

This Is The Worst Trip I've Ever Been On

Comic gold from Obama's now famous San Fran Chronicle "bankrupt the coal industry" interview: 

"I do think that I have tried to conduct my political career and my campaign in a way that is honest and candid and straightforward and minimizes spin.

"It doesn't mean that I have no political sense about me, and that I'm above modulating my tones or positions as I go through ... my career. But generally speaking, I tell the truth.

"And that's part of the reason why I think we have been getting people who are turned off to politics attracted to my campaign. ... They sense that I don't try to trim my sails.

Jim Geraghty documents Obama's non-sail trimming on the surge, public finance of elections, Iran, the Wrong Reverend Wright, and much more.  Mary Katharine Ham works the same theme with video clips.

Let me add to the list the shifting explanations from the Obama campaign about the Obama/Ayers relationship.  Obama is a young man, Presidentially speaking, so the truth may be buried for decades, if it emerges at all. Based on their current track record, there is no reason to expect full and fair disclosure from the Obama side anytime soon.

What does Obama really believe? Let's elect him and find out!