JustOneMinute

James O'Keefe, With "A More Sleazy Persona Than Normal"

Far be it from me to attempt to defend ACORN prankster James O'Keefe, whose latest stunt - the CNN Love Boat - was not fully thought through.  As I understand it the intended punking of CNN was sexist, but not nearly as ghastly as some imagine.  Think of it as metaphor madness.

Here is CNN:

Lusby, Maryland (CNN) -- A conservative activist known for making undercover videos plotted to embarrass a CNN correspondent by recording a meeting on hidden cameras aboard a floating "palace of pleasure" and making sexually suggestive comments, e-mails and a planning document show.

Tracy Clark Flory of Salon takes a guess at the intended plot:

It isn't entirely clear what James O'Keefe hoped would happen when he invited CNN reporter Abbie Boudreau onto his floating "sex den." But the conservative prankster, who gained notoriety through his undercover ACORN sting, has certainly provided plenty of laughs this afternoon based on his proposed props for the stunt: dildos, lube, fuzzy handcuffs, Viagra and a mirrored ceiling. What, no edible undies or penis straws? O'Keefe says his plan was to "seduce her, on camera, to use her for a video," as payback for "trying to seduce me to use me, in order to spin a lie about me." A planning document obtained by the network reads, "The joke is that the tables have turned on CNN. Using hot blondes to seduce interviewees to get screwed on television, you are faux seducing her in order to screw her on television." If you can follow that logic, congrats: You must be a young conservative.

Hmm - the calendar says I am not so young, but I can follow that.  Maybe I'm young at heart!  And maybe Ms. Clark-Flory has a future as a young conservative, too, since she is close to my wavelength:

At first, I assumed O'Keefe's bizarre collection of sex-store sundries was a genuine, albeit tone-deaf, attempt to actually seduce Boudreau. However, I am going to generously credit O'Keefe with being smarter than that. So what was the purpose of these props? Maybe he wanted to trick Boudreau into believing she had happened upon a salacious story about another conservative with a sordid secret life just begging to be exposed. Given that O'Keefe sees CNN as wildly biased -- which is funny, given that the network is "allergic to opinion to the point of occasional incoherence," as Alex Pareene put it -- it could be that he assumed Boudreau would run wild with the story and then O'Keefe would humiliate her by revealing it as a hoax.

This young conservative agrees that O'Keefe had no intention or expectation of physically seducing Ms. Boudreau.  In fact, the excerpted planning document released by CNN and quoted above makes clear that we are dealing with metaphor madness.  Per the plan, CNN's hope is that a hot blonde reporter will "seduce" some young conservative guys into dishing dirt on, e.g., Sarah Palin; the crafty young men in question plan to dangle some juicy (but bogus!) Sarah Palin story, thereby "seducing" the reporter, while hitting on her and making the sexual subtext a bit more (OK, a lot more) obvious.

As stunts go, uhh, har de har.  It does seem to be an extraordinary coincidence that all female television reporters are hot.  But contrary to the premise of these young conservatives, hot people can be smart and professional, too (But enough about me!).  O'Keefe could have come up with an amusing video of Boudreau cajlong and flattering him into divulging some absurd Sarah Palin vignette without the Love Boat angle.  Actually, I would have paid extra to watch a CNN reporter who thought she had Pulitzers, Emmys, and some game-changing dirt on Sarah all within her grasp, and it would have made O'Keefe's point (I am presuming he had one) just as nicely.

Put it nother way - wouldn't you love to see the video of Mary Mapes, the Dan Rathergate producer, as she got ahold of the documents "proving" Bush had gone AWOL?  O'Keefe hoped to bring an updated version of that moment, but with a kinky angle thrown in that was both sexist and hypocritical.

Hypocritical?  Yes - the O'Keefe's ACORN videos got a big boost from the shapely Hannah Giles.  Dressing a hot college chick as a hooker made great, marketable video, O'Keefe knew it, and he was happy to exploit it.  For his group of pranksters to now decide that television news sells itself with sex is a bit rich, and unfair to the many hardworking (and hot) newsbabes.

ERRATA:  A key point informs my thinking here.  First, as a blushing young high schooler I went with friends to see a hot Italian film, The Seduction of Mimi.  Spoiler Alert - Mimi was a male metalworker seduced by the Communist Party.  I have been wary of leaping to conclusions about the use of that word ever since.

 

Arguments That Don't Persuade Me

Kevin Williamson at NR opposes the concept of Presidential assassinations in wartime.  That is certainly a justifiable position, but I don't like this particular justification:

So, set aside the legal questions for a second. The Awlaki case speaks to something even more fundamental than law: Decent nations do not permit their governments to assassinate their own citizens. I am willing to give the intelligence community, the covert-operations guys, and the military proper a pretty free hand when it comes to dealing with dispersed terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and its affiliates. But citizenship, even when applied to a Grade-A certified rat like Awlaki, presents an important demarcation, a bright-line distinction in our politics.

If Awlaki were to be killed on a battlefield, I’d shed no tears. But ordering the premeditated, extrajudicial killing of an American citizen in Yemen or Pakistan is no different from ordering the premeditated, extrajudicial killing of an American citizen in New York or Washington or Topeka — American citizens are American citizens, wherever they go.

Now, hold on - if Awlaki were in Topeka we would expect the police to arrest him, and they would presumaby have the physical resources to do so (although David Koresh comes to mind as a failed attempt).  The only reason we are thinking about killing Awlaki with a Predator drone is that the US lacks the resources to arrest/kidnap him from the wilds of Yemen.

The comparison doesn't work. 

Incoming Fire

Yike!  Eliot Cohen, a Johns Hopkins prof and dreaded neocon, blasts the Team Obama depicted in Woodard's new book.

Before doing any excerpting, let's clarify the literary device:

But the [Administration leaker to Woodward] do not control their audiences, and the following fictional interior monologues, as plausible as any recorded by the author of "Obama's Wars," suggest some of the unintended consequences that may result.

Here we go, as imagined:

-- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: "I come from a culture that understands storytelling. The president's advisers do not understand that a convincing tale can have only one plot. They say, on the one hand, that this book shows the president as brilliant, in command, dominating -- and then they tell a story of his military boxing him in, denying him any real choice, until he yields to their wishes. I believe the latter story. I do not know how smart he is, but I know that he cannot impose his will. They think he is wise; I think he is weak."

-- Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: "I agree with President Ahmadinejad."

Nice of him to give props to Obama for bringing unity to the Middle East on at least one topic.

Zywicki v. Warren

The battle at the end of the alphabet continues as Todd Zywicki questions the unconfirmed appointment of Elizabeth Warren as consumer protection czarina:

The Obama administration has promised that the Federal Reserve's new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will be independent from politics, a model of regulatory expertise grounded in sound data and economics. Naming Harvard Law Prof. Elizabeth Warren as de facto agency head undermines both goals.

By appointing another White House czar to avoid Senate confirmation, the administration politicized the powerful new bureaucracy from its birth. And by appointing an individual with a track record of using questionable research to advance policy ends, it has jeopardized the second goal as well.

And his Big Finish:

The head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is one of the most powerful bureaucratic positions ever created in the American political system. It can regulate or ban almost every consumer credit product in the country, yet it is beyond Congress's power of the purse because its budget is guaranteed as a percentage of the Fed's annual revenues. Under normal circumstances, the Senate would have the opportunity to ask Ms. Warren to explain the way in which she has sometimes interpreted data in her research before entrusting her with control of the agency.

By doing an end-run around the confirmation process, the Obama administration has eliminated our opportunity to find out. And by installing the head of the agency as an assistant to the president inside the White House, it has insulated her from meaningful congressional oversight.

One of his appraisals of Ms. Warren's 2005 bankruptcy study is here.

We won't be looking for these criticisms in the mainstream media - when the advocacy journalists cover the advocacy academics the results are predictable.

I Deplore This Pre-Election Fear Mongering

One more for the 'Thank Heaven Bush is no longer President or libs would be leaping from tall buildings and the sidewalks would not be safe for real Americans' file (and yeah, I need to work on my file names...):

'Credible But Not Specific' Threat of New Terrorist Attack

Officials in Europe, US on High Alert for Commando-Style Raids After Capture of Suspected German Terrorist

What's next - an increase in the color coded alert system?

As the day unfolds we will see whether the usual suspects on the left that howl about this the way they howled for years about Bush.

That said, I wonder how much an announced increase in the terrorist threat would help Congressional Democrats.  First, it is Obama that is Commander-in-Chief, not our Congress critters.  Secondly, I don't think many among the Great Unwashed have an image of Obama as a resolute war leader.  Against that, there would probably be an inevitable rally round the flag effect - even Jimmy Peanut got a spike in approval at the outset of the Iranian hostage debacle in Nov 1979.  On net, a terrorist threat or attack would probably help Barack, but not Nancy or Harry.

As to the threat itself, this is troubling:

US law enforcement officials say they have been told the terrorists were planning a series of "Mumbai-style" commando raids on what were termed "economic or soft" targets in the countries. Pakistani militants killed 173 people with guns and grenades during the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India.

Hmm - that more or less topped my list of things I would do if I were a terrorist mastermind.  A few terrorists, a shooping cart filled with weapons, body armor - would it be that hard to bring the infamous LA bank robbery to a major shopping mall?  But who am I?  Richard Clarke, former security czar, had the same worries.

We Don't Trust The Media

But we trust Captain Ed.

Nancy Pelosi, Right Again

From The Hill we learn that Nancy Pelosi''s confidence is unwavering:

'I fully expect to be speaker of the House five weeks from now'

Her confidence is no doubt shared by everyone familiar with our constitutional system, since the new Congress won't be sworn in and pick a new Speaker (or not) come January.

Good to know that Nancy doesn't expect to be dumped during a lame duck session in November.  But let's keep hope alive!

Inconsistent Arguments

Obama spoke to a backyard gathering about his religious faith but also his economic faith:

The unusual exchange came as Mr. Obama continued his tour of American backyards, dropping in at the home of a disabled veteran and a schoolteacher here. He used his opening remarks to warn that Republicans would “cut back our education spending by 20 percent,” while spending $700 billion to give tax breaks to the rich – money that he said the United States would have to borrow from China, Saudi Arabia or some other wealthy nation.

Really?  The normal objection to "tax cuts for the rich" is that it will be saved rather than spent, thereby faling to stimulate the economy.  But of course, if it is saved then the tax cut is self-financed (NO, not in a Laffer curve sense!) since the rise in public indebtedness is offset by the rise in private saving. 

 

Down But Not Out

The Times reports on the resilience of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia:

Insurgent Group in Iraq, Declared Tamed, Roars
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS

BAQUBA, Iraq — This spring, United States military commanders said that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia was a group in disarray, all but finished as a formidable enemy after American and Iraqi troops had killed or captured more than three-quarters of its leaders.

But even as officials in the United States and Iraq made public pronouncements that reveled in Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia’s demise, the Sunni insurgent group vowed “dark days colored in blood.”

This summer, as if to make good on its pledge, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia embarked on a wave of terror that managed to shake even an Iraqi public inured to violence: during the past two months, Iraq has witnessed some of its highest casualty tolls in more than two years, according to the government.

How Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has managed this unlikely turnaround — from a near spent force to a reinvigorated threat to Iraq’s democracy in a little more than two months — is a puzzle to both the Americans and Iraqis who study the insurgent group, some of whom now wonder whether the organization in Iraq can ever be entirely defeated.

Troubling - the resurgence of the Taliban was also something of a longer-term surprise.  Although Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia never governed the country, like the Taliban it is mostly home grown at this point:

The group, thought to be made up almost entirely Iraqis because the stream of foreign jihadists into the country has been cut to a trickle in recent years, is overseen by its third generation of leaders, who by all accounts are as ruthless as their predecessors, and possibly more cunning and capable.

Obviously, the plan is that Iraqi security forces will be able to deal with this level of insurgency.  That still seems likely.

STEADY ON, LADS:  Excitable Andy,or whoever is writing at the Daily Dish, decries the failed Petraeus surge. Hmm.  Petraeus' role in the surge was to stave off a civil war and buy time for the Iraqi "leadership" to stand up a government and some security forces.  As Thomas Ricks (and no doubt others) noted, Petraeus implemented some awkward trade-offs.  For example, empowering local Sunni chieftans was helpful in the short run against Ao Qaeda in Mesopotami but not helpful with the longer run goal of empowering a strong central government.

Years later, the Iraqi elites have yet to form a government, and they may yet fritter away the opportuity the surge created.  But it is far to early to declare the surge a failure, and not appropriate to blame Petraeus (I think it is Petraeus' boss who is keen to get US troops out of Iraq post-haste).

And since the current level of violence looks nothing like a civil war, let's reprise Michael Yon's declaration of victory from July 2008:

The war continues to abate in Iraq. Violence is still present, but, of course, Iraq was a relatively violent place long before Coalition forces moved in. I would go so far as to say that barring any major and unexpected developments (like an Israeli air strike on Iran and the retaliations that would follow), a fair-minded person could say with reasonable certainty that the war has ended. A new and better nation is growing legs. What's left is messy politics that likely will be punctuated by low-level violence and the occasional spectacular attack. Yet, the will of the Iraqi people has changed, and the Iraqi military has dramatically improved, so those spectacular attacks are diminishing along with the regular violence. Now it's time to rebuild the country, and create a pluralistic, stable and peaceful Iraq. That will be long, hard work. But by my estimation, the Iraq War is over. We won. Which means the Iraqi people won.

It took a long time to subdue the IRA in Northern Ireland, but there was never a danger of their overthrowing either the British or Irish government. 

Ever More Popular...

As the uninformed electorate understands the health bill it will become more popular, or so Barack Obama explained.  Of course, all he has is the bully pulpit of the White House and the legacy media in his pocket, so he can't compete with Sarah's Facebook pages.

Meanwhile, the Dem candidate for the Senate seat in West Virginia wants to repeal "the things that are bad" in the health care bill. 

Maybe the bill's popularity will increase after the election.

Now Go Out And Get Yourself Some Big Black Frames

This may not defeat future technology, but here is the way to confound current facial recognition software - cheap sunglasses.  Phony mustaches and beards won't work for the guys (or the ladies, we presume.)

Maybe If They Climb Out Of A Clown Car...

Here comes another failed liberal initiative:

Liberal Groups Planning to Rally on National Mall
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Hoping to overshadow last month’s large rally led by Glenn Beck that drew many Tea Party advocates and other conservatives, a coalition of liberal groups plan to descend on Washington on Saturday to make the case that they, and not the ascendant right, speak for America’s embattled middle class.

Predicting a crowd of more than 100,000, some 300 liberal groups — including the N.A.A.C.P., the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the National Council of La Raza and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force — are sponsoring a march on Saturday in the hope of transforming the national conversation so it focuses less on the Tea Party. The groups sponsoring the rally, which is called “One Nation Working Together,” say they hope to supplant what they say is the Tea Party’s divisiveness with a message of unity to promote jobs, justice and education.

First, no worries - whatever size crowd they get, Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann will claim it was bigger than Beck's, so lefties will think they won.

Secondly, timing is everything, or in this case, nothing.  By early October kids are back in school, soccer moms are taking the kids to (you guessed it!) soccer, and high school sports and other activities are in full swing.  There is no chance of getting a crowd that looks like America's middle class, although a clown show is a distinct possibility.

Finally, they need to revise their catchphrase - "One Nation Working Together" ought to be "One Nation Looking For Work Together".

But A Lot Of The Flags Are Hung Correctly

The bright lights in Hillary and Barack's State Department cause a bit of a stir by hanging the Philippine flag upside down at an Asean meeting.

The Weasel Zippers note that the Myanmar flag is also upside down.  Solidarity with dissidents?

The magnification is not quite clear enough but I suspect Barack's flag lapel pin is also upside down.

Well.  We had an excuse to apologize to the Filipinos, so Obama was in his comfort zone there.  On to Myanmar!

Who Knew?

The NY Times answers the question no one is asking:

Boehner’s Top Aide Is Little Known

Bohner's top aide?  Off the top of my head, I couldn't hazard a guess as to Nancy Pelosi's chief of staff, and she is Speaker of the House, not the Speaker in waiting.  But maybe my ignorance is a matter of reading the Times with insufficient diligence - searching on "John Lawrence" from 2006, I do find this expansive bio from January 2009:

January 1, 2009

Postscript

An article in some editions on Dec. 24 about Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s hiring of Howard Wolfson as a top campaign aide reported that Mr. Wolfson’s wife, Terri McCullough, is the chief of staff to the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi. In fact, Ms. Pelosi has two chiefs of staff: Ms. McCullough, who heads her Congressional office, and John Lawrence, who heads the House speaker’s office.

How did I miss that on a fine New Year's Day? 

And that's their coverage.  Pelosi's Top Aide is Little Known - hold the presses.

Absence Of Malik

Big Government has a question for the White House - just what Malik Shabazz visited the White House on July 2, 2009, during the controversy over the New Black Panther Party dismissal?

I applaud their spirit of trust but verify.  However, if I am using this White House data base of the visitor logs correctly (IF!), the visitor in question on 7/25/2009 was a Malik H. Shabazz who showed up with 311 people as part of a group tour.

The middle initial is wrong, since the man of the moment is Malik Zulu Shabazz.  And a group tour seems innocuous enough, although the deeply distrustful may wonder whether a person could leave the tour to chat with White House officials privately (thereby hiding in plain sight on the visitor logs).

Presumably this data base search is not news to the Big Government team.  And a clarification from the White House couldn't hurt.  Still, this seems like a risky strategy for Breitbart, since this may end up right back in his face.  Then again, following the rule of no such thing as bad publicity, even a discussion of how Breitbart went off half-cocked will lead to a discussion of the New Black Panther Party.

This may be a lovely screenshot of the White House visitor log database, if I haven't exhausted my computer luck for the day:

GONNA WALK BEFORE THEY MAKE ME RUN:  JOM sleuths inform us that a Malik H Shabazz of Charlottesville, VA completed a local ten mile race in both 1999 and 2000. 

Is This A Congressional Hearing Or Have I Blundered Into A Comedy Club?

Colbert goes to Congress.  The Politico headlines David Corn's reaction - "Colbert 'Made Mockery' Of Congress" - but of course, it was the committee chairchick who was making the mock.

Still, this stunt shows a bit of Congressional creativity.  Maybe the next time they hold a hearing on automobile efficiency and CAFE standards all the Congressmen can surge out of a clown car.

An Ayers-Kennedy Rift

An interesting detail on Bill Ayers:

In a very unusual move, University of Illinois trustees today denied giving emeritus status to controversial retired professor William Ayers.

The vote, at a U. of I. board meeting in Urbana, was unanimous and came after a passionate speech by board chair Christopher Kennedy, who invoked the 1968 assassination of his father, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in saying that he was voting his "conscience."

The other trustees, without comment, also voted against the appointment.

...

But in an emotional statement, Kennedy discussed his reasons for voting against Ayers' request.

"I am guided by my conscience and one which has been formed by a series of experiences, many of which have been shared with the people of our country and mark each of us in a profound way," Kennedy said.

He said he could not confer the title "to a man whose body of work includes a book dedicated in part to the man who murdered my father."

Kennedy was referring a 1974 book co-authored by Ayers, "Prairie Fire," which was dedicated to a long list of people including Robert Kennedy assassin Sirhan Sirhan and "all political prisoners in the U.S."

Ayers became a controversial figure in Barack Obama's presidential campaign because they worked on a school-reform initiative together, leading opponents to say Obama was linked to a "terrorist."

They worked on a school reform initiative together.  Well, that's one way of putting it.  Bill Ayers led the creation of the Chicago Ammenberg Challenge and Obama parachuted in from nowhere to chair it.  That just added another layer to the confusion and misinformation regarding the truth of the Obama/Ayers relationship.

But that is old news!  The new news is of this rift between Kennedy and Ayers.  Since Obama was adopted by Ted Kennedy during the 2008 race, one wonders whether he will still have the once-vaunted Kennedy machine firmly in his corner in 2008.  We presume so, but our hope is that this will prod someone into probing for the real truth behind the phony truth currently on offer from team Obama.  Obama biographer David Remnick did include this head-scratcher, which contradicts the current Team Obama position:

“Ayers helped bring Obama onto the Annenberg board.”

For the current fog from ObamaLand, here is Scott Shane of the Times, reporting as of Sept 2008:

In March 1995, Mr. Obama became chairman of the six-member board that oversaw the distribution of grants in Chicago. Some bloggers have recently speculated that Mr. Ayers had engineered that post for him.

In fact, according to several people involved, Mr. Ayers played no role in Mr. Obama’s appointment. Instead, it was suggested by Deborah Leff, then president of the Joyce Foundation, a Chicago-based group whose board Mr. Obama, a young lawyer, had joined the previous year. At a lunch with two other foundation heads, Patricia A. Graham of the Spencer Foundation and Adele Simmons of the MacArthur Foundation, Ms. Leff suggested that Mr. Obama would make a good board chairman, she said in an interview. Mr. Ayers was not present and had not suggested Mr. Obama, she said.

Unlikely, and contradicted by Remnick, but that's their story, for now.

Back To The New Black Panthers

The lonely voice of J. Christian Adams, former DoJ attorney who resigned over the DoJ handling of the New Black Panthers Party case, gets support from former Department of Justice Voting Section Chief Christopher Coates.

Just a flavor of Coates' testimony, from his prepared statement:

"I do not believe these representations [from senior DoJ officials] to this Commission accurately reflect what occurred in the New Black Panther Party case."

The basic theme is that the Civil Rights Division under Obama and Holder will only prosecute white people.

It's Like Two Departments Of Justice In One

Competing news from the DoJ: first, the tenth anniversary of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act offered an opportunity to indirectly talk up Obama's side in the Ground Zero mosque controversy.  That generated this insight:

While our nation has achieved great progress in advancing civil rights, many individuals and communities continue to face discrimination and hate. For example, nearly a decade after the attacks of September 11, 2001, Muslim Americans continue to struggle for acceptance in many communities, and still face discrimination. Of 18 RLUIPA matters involving possible discrimination against Muslims that the Department has monitored since September 11, 2001, eight have been opened since May of 2010. This fact is a sober reminder that, even in the 21st century, challenges to true religious liberty remain.

A sober reminder indeed.  But has nothing happened in the ten years after 9/11?  And are libs now promoting the regime of warmonger Bush and torturer Cheney as the halcyon period of Muslim relation in the US? 

Meanwhile, the head of the FBI (also part of the DoJ), had this to say about the terrorist threat facing America:

"Groups affiliated with al Qaeda are now actively targeting the United States and looking to use Americans or Westerners who are able to remain undetected by heightened security measures," Mueller said. "It appears domestic extremism and radicalization appears to have become more pronounced based on the number of disruptions and incidents."

Troubling!  What incident do they have in mind?

The attacks cited [by National Counterterrorism Chief Michael Leiter] included:

The disruption of a plot to bomb the New York City subway by Najibullah Zazi, a naturalized U.S. citizen, last September.

The attack at Ft Hood Texas by gunman Army Maj. Nidal Hassan which resulted in 13 people killed and over 30 wounded.

The attempted Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Airlines flight 253 by alleged al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula operative Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

The averted May 1 bombing in Times Square by Faisal Shahzad.

Not a lot of Buddhists or Catholics on that list. 

Taking The Pledge

The House Republicans have put forth their 21 page "Pledge To America", mainly to have a prop to wave at critics who claim they have no agenda and no ideas.

Eric Erickson of Red State thinks the program is "ridiculous".  Marc Ambinder explains why it is redundant:

Thirdly, Republicans don't need a Contract or a Pledge. Their base is energized. The Democratic base is not. The folks who are going to vote arguably know Republicans stand for the stuff in the pledge because Republicans have been talking about this stuff since the beginning of the cycle. Arguably, it gives Democrats more of a defined target, something that they can redirect attention to.  Arguably, had the Republicans been able to produce a more substantive governing document, they would have made it harder for Democrats to demagogue.

I can't believe this document will change many votes or even many news cycles.  If they wanted us to read it, it wouldn't be so long.

That said, the National Review editors are even more energized:

It is also a shrewd political document. Do the Democrats really wish to campaign on the proposition that bills should not be available for public inspection and should not have to cite their constitutional authority? That Social Security and Medicare should not be fully accounted for? That TARP should be continued indefinitely? Republicans looking to the elections should hope so.

Feeling Stronger Every Day

The NY Times and the WaPo get sneak peeks at the new Woodward book probing Obama's plan for Afghanistan.

Here is an eye-catcher from the WaPo:

Woodward's book portrays Obama and the White House as barraged by warnings about the threat of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil and confronted with the difficulty in preventing them. During an interview with Woodward in July, the president said, "We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever . . . we absorbed it and we are stronger."

We are stronger?  Huh?  Surely he isn't talking about the overall US outlook, since we are stuck in a ditch with the Republicans sucking down Slurpees.  Does he mean that our military, after the grim effort in Iraq and the multiple rotations through Iraq and under-resourced Afghanistan, is stronger than ever?  Could he mean that our international alliances our stronger than ever, even as NATO flees Afghanistan?  Is Obama admitting that the Bush years weren't so disastrous, or is he claiming to have undone the imagined damage so swiftly?  Well, maybe closing Guantanamo turned everything around.

Ann Althouse picks up on this from the Times:

IN THE COMMENTS: Palladian writes:

"I can’t lose the whole Democratic Party."

He doesn't mind losing the war or the country, however.

ADDED: My response to that quote — "I can’t lose the whole Democratic Party" — is: The President is saying — can it be true? — that there isn't even a small fragment of the party that would support fighting the war with a serious commitment to victory. How damning!

The goal is victory!  Oh,what am I saying?  Back to the WaPo:

According to Woodward's meeting-by-meeting, memo-by-memo account of the 2009 Afghan strategy review, the president avoided talk of victory as he described his objectives.

"This needs to be a plan about how we're going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan," Obama is quoted as telling White House aides as he laid out his reasons for adding 30,000 troops in a short-term escalation. "Everything we're doing has to be focused on how we're going to get to the point where we can reduce our footprint. It's in our national security interest. There cannot be any wiggle room."

How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for wiggle room?

SCARIEST MOMENT:  The floor is open for suggestions, but IMHO this is either the scariest scene or the funniest.  Maybe we will see it when "Scary Movie - The White House" is made:

Frustrated with his military commanders for consistently offering only options that required significantly more troops, Obama finally crafted his own strategy, dictating a classified six-page "terms sheet" that sought to limit U.S. involvement, Woodward reports in "Obama's Wars," to be released on Monday.

Well, Obama got a lot of the asbestos out of Altgeld Gardens, so I guess he is ready to make his own Afghan strategy.  I assume we are talking about the "Surge and retreat", which Obama announced and then retreated from.

Reality 1, Obamacare 0

Via Glenn we see that health insurers are doing what common sense said they would:

Some of the country's most prominent health insurance companies have decided to stop offering new child-only plans, rather than comply with rules in the new health-care law that will require such plans to start accepting children with preexisting medical conditions after Sept. 23.

The companies will continue to cover children who already have child-only policies. They will also accept children with preexisting conditions in new family policies.

Nonetheless, supporters of the new health-care law complain that the change amounts to an end run around one of the most prized consumer protections.

Well, it is an end-run around the fantasy being promoted when the ambiguous health bill was signed this spring.  Let's cut back to the NY Times from March 31:

WASHINGTON — Under pressure from the White House, health insurance companies said Tuesday that they would comply with rules to be issued soon by the Obama administration requiring them to cover children with pre-existing medical problems.

“Health plans recognize the significant hardship that a family faces when they are unable to obtain coverage for a child with a pre-existing condition,” said Karen M. Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group. Accordingly, she said, “we await and will fully comply with” the rules.

...

The White House immediately claimed victory.

In a Twitter message, Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, scored the tug of war as “Kids 1, insurance 0.”

The Administration announced this as a big win at the time, although normally an announcement that companies will comply with the law is not the stuff of headlines.  Skeptics (including yours truly) duly noted that the insurance companies were simply avoiding an awkward public scuffle, with the rug-pulling to come some time in the future.  Apparently, the future is now.

Rick Ungar at Forbes ponders the issue; outrage grows on Capitol Hill, where legislators are shocked, shocked!

Joining The One-Sided Debate

The NY Times presents a "debate" on whether the firing of an off-duty NJ Transit worker for burning a Koran was legal.  The debate is a bit one-sided, since all the legal eagles agree that the fired employee is protected by the First Amendment.  However, the Times did find one person to take the other side, however unconvincingly:

Salam Al-Marayati is executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, a public policy organization that focuses on U.S.-Muslim world relations, Middle East peacemaking, counter-terrorism and faith-based initiatives.

...Burning the American flag is also protected by the First Amendment. But I certainly would fire any of my employees who would consider flag-burning as an act of defiance. It's not. It's childish and immature behavior, and those who would do such a thing would be unworthy of public employment.

"Unworthy"?  Is that the new requirement?  I will agree that if I ran a public relations firm I would probably fire an employee who made it to the evening news by burning a flag, or a Koran - that is not the kind of public relations in which I would choose to engage.  However, we are talking about a state employee here.

My original question about whether the employee is covered by a union contract and grievance procedures remains unanswered.  And let me toss in two cents - dare we analogize to the ban on cross-burning which was upheld by the Supreme Court?  It is not a good analogy, since the history is very different, as is the intended meaning (cross-burners aren't expressing disdain for Christianity, although they do lack certain Christian principles.)

And secondly, let's boo Gov. Christie, who apparently supports the firing.

Another Sunday

Away we go.

That Old Black Magic

Christine O'Donnell dabbled in witchcraft?  So she said on Bill Maher's old "Politically Incorrect", which attempted to be a comedy show years ago.

I'd have a hard time taking her seriously as a Senator, but then, I have a hard time taking the Senate seriously.  If she is into witchcraft, she needs a seat on the budget committee.

On a related odd position of hers, she ought to turn her "no masturbation" policy into a positive by promising to end self-pleasuring in Congress.  Earmark reform - that's what she was talking about!

Saturday Morning

Tough night for scoreboard watchers in Tampa:

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP)—Brandon Wood(notes) is sharing the spotlight for one day with A-Rod.

Wood hit his first homer since June 27, a tiebreaking shot leading off the ninth inning that lifted the Los Angeles Angels over Tampa Bay 4-3 on Friday night and knocked the Rays out of first place in the AL East.

...Moments after Wood connected, Alex Rodriguez(notes) hit a three-run homer with two outs in the ninth to send the Yankees to a 4-3 victory at Baltimore, pushing New York a half-game ahead of Tampa Bay.

A-Rod connected in the top of the ninth, which made his homer a Mariano-off rather than a walk-off.  And yes, I am bitterly aware of the recent reminder that that is not exactly the same.

Obama And Petraeus

The Times tells us about the evolving and improving relationship between Gen. Petraeus and his Commander-in-Chief.

I like the reason the General is so well respected:

Like no other figure today, General Petraeus has stepped into Gen. Colin L. Powell’s shoes as the face of the military to ordinary Americans, particularly as the White House extols the end of the combat mission in Iraq, which was largely made possible by the troop surge that General Petraeus orchestrated.

General Petraeus orchestrated the surge, but who ordered it?  A mystery!  But Bush did get mentioned earlier, when we were told that Petraeus was one of his favorites.

The Times almost gets snide here:

General Petraeus has a history of early optimistic assessments that proved largely correct; one dates back to the Iraq surge, over which he and Mr. Obama first butted heads. Military officials say that during the early days of the surge, General Petraeus cited what his staff termed “leading indicators” of progress, even when much of the private and public discussion of the war effort was still negative. (During one Senate hearing with General Petraeus, then-Senator Obama accused the Bush administration of setting “the bar so low that modest improvement in what was a completely chaotic situation” was considered success.)

I stand by my earlier snarkery on the topic of Petraeus and Obama - one of these men has made history and changed a nation with his transformative leadership; the other got a lot of the asbestos out of Altgeld Gardens.

Give 'Em Hell, Michelle! (It's Been Tough On All Of Us)

Who believes the First Whiner actually said this?

In an authorized biography written by French journalists Michael Darmon and Yves Derai, Bruni recalls that during her March visit to the White House with French President Nicholas Sarkozy, she asked the first lady about her post.

“Don’t ask,” Obama said, according to Bruni. “It’s hell. I can’t stand it.”

This is totally in keeping with the attitude of the woman who never in her adult life had been proud of the US, not to mention the attitude of the woman who hit the campaign trail whining about the high cost of piano lessons for her daughters.

However!  I am sure White House spinmeisters will restore the missing context, in which we will learn that Michelle's life is hell because she is so worried about disabled soldiers and unemployed workers, as well as Gitmo remaining open, and a lack of a public option in the health bill.

Meanwhile, Back In Delaware

Ben Domenech at Red State is ready to get behind O'Donnell but has kind words for Dan McLaughlin, who took the other side.  The Ace tries to perk us up with five reasons O'Donnell could win, and Jim Geraghty has an excellent "Come together" post.

I would love to see the Republicans take control of the Senate this fall (more precisely, I would love to see the Democrats lose control of the Senate), but a few more years in the wilderness may build their character.

Waiting For The ACLU

Derek Fenton, a NJ Transit worker, was fired for burning the Koran as part of a 9/11 demonstration outside the proposed site of the Ground Zero mosque:

NJ Transit said Fenton was fired but wouldn't give specifics.

"Mr. Fenton's public actions violated New Jersey Transit's code of ethics," an agency statement said.

"NJ Transit concluded that Mr. Fenton violated his trust as a state employee and therefore [he] was dismissed."

First, let's wonder whether Mr. Fenton is part of a union that might file a grievance. He was:

an assistant train-consist coordinator, sources said - a job that entails ensuring there are enough train cars positioned to be put into service. He previously worked as an NJ Transit conductor.

I don't know if that makes him management, but I doubt it.

Secondly, let's note that he was detained and questioned by the police but never charged with a crime.

Finally, the NY CLU is quoted:

If Fenton was fired for burning the Koran while off-duty, his First Amendment rights probably were violated, Chris Dunn of the New York Civil Liberties Union said.

"The Supreme Court has recognized a constitutional right to burn the flag. As reprehensible as it may be, burning the Koran would be protected as well." 

I don't see how this holds up, and I assume some enterprising lawyer is already planning to make a name for himself winning this layup drill.

A long discussion of free speech, shouting fire in theaters, and its application to annoying Muslims can be found up in Canada.

But the Obamas Don't Go To China. Ahh, Metaphorically.

James Taranto points out that maybe Obama could quit apologizing for America and start defending us.  Well, he is a bit more gracious:

Obama's election was supposed to be a corrective to Bush's bellicosity. In a sense, Bush played against type by exhorting Americans to rise above their suspicions of Muslims. But the Nixon-to-China principle goes both ways. As Bush the cowboy had moral authority with Americans, Obama the conciliator has moral authority with Muslims. So far, he hasn't done much but pander to them--most notably at last month's iftar dinner, where he endorsed the right to build the Ground Zero mosque--further alienating Americans.

What if he made it his mission to understand Americans' feelings on the matter and challenged Muslims to respect those feelings by building the mosque elsewhere? That would be an act of reconciliation worthy of George W. Bush at his most admirable.

I'm not holding my breath.  But I am remembering a comparable anecdote about Michelle Obama, back in her days directing the University of Chicago clinics:

In the mostly black neighborhoods around the hospital, Mrs. Obama became the voice of a historically white institution. Behind closed doors, she tried to assuage their frustrations about a place that could seem forbidding.

Like many urban hospitals, the medical center’s emergency room becomes clogged with people who need primary care. So Mrs. Obama trained counselors, mostly local blacks, to hand out referrals to health clinics lest black patients felt they were being shooed away.

She also altered the hospital’s research agenda. When the human papillomavirus vaccine, which can prevent cervical cancer, became available, researchers proposed approaching local school principals about enlisting black teenage girls as research subjects.

Mrs. Obama stopped that. The prospect of white doctors performing a trial with black teenage girls summoned the specter of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment of the mid-20th century, when white doctors let hundreds of black men go untreated to study the disease.

“She’ll talk about the elephant in the room,” said Susan Sher, her boss at the hospital, where Mrs. Obama is on leave from her more-than-$300,000-a-year job.

As I ranted at the time, one might have thought that she would put her high-priced education and street cred to work rebuilding trust between the white doctors and the neighborhood population.  But she lacked the impulse, as does her hubby.

Newt Gingrich On Obama's "Kenyan, Anti-Colional" Worldview

Newt Gingrich, citing this Forbes cover story by Dinesh D'Souza, talks to NRO:

Citing a recent Forbes article by Dinesh D’Souza, former House speaker Newt Gingrich tells National Review Online that President Obama may follow a “Kenyan, anti-colonial” worldview.

Gingrich says that D’Souza has made a “stunning insight” into Obama’s behavior — the “most profound insight I have read in the last six years about Barack Obama.”

“What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?” Gingrich asks. “That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.”

Hmm - why can't we just describe Obama as an utterly banal lib who hasn't offered one insight that wasn't a Columbia University bull session staple in 1981?  Why can't we agree that Obama is a classic Blame America Firster as described by Jeanne Kirkpatrick back in 1984 (when Obama was forming his worldview)?

Ramesh Ponnuru is unconvinced, yet unconvincing:

I didn’t find Dinesh D’Souza’s cover story in Forbes as “stunning” or “profound” in its insight into the president as Newt Gingrich did.

D’Souza argues that President Obama’s “strange behavior” is explicable by his adoption of his father’s anticolonialist ideology. Among the alleged “oddities”: “The President continues to push for stimulus even though hundreds of billions of dollars in such funds seem to have done little.” Does this mean Paul Krugman has a “Kenyan, anti-colonialist worldview”?

Another “oddity”: The president used the Gulf spill to talk about his general approach to oil policy and decry America’s “addiction” to oil. You know who else used that (inapt) word? George W. Bush. Another Kenyan?

And another one: Obama’s comments about religious freedom and the Ground Zero mosque are “utterly irrelevant to the issue of why the proposed Cordoba House should be constructed at Ground Zero.” Basically every liberal journalist or blogger has made comments similar to Obama’s–except that they have gone further than he has.

Yes, but...in principle, D'Souza ought to lay out a smorgasbord of positions held by Obama.  His challenge would be to argue that some of Obama's views may be held by both conservatives and anti-colonialists, others may be held by both liberals and anti-colonialists, but only anti-colonialists hold Obama's full range of views.

With such an argument, it would not be a rebuttal to note (as Ramesh does here) that specific views held by Obama are also held by libs such as Krugman or conservatives such as Bush.  The motivated rebutter would have to pin down all of D'Souza's points and identify other groups that might hold that mix of views.

But why bother?  There is a superficial daftness and complexity to D'Souza's view that Ramesh correctly identifies:

I think that it is a mistake to imagine that Obama is a deeply mysterious figure, as opposed to a conventional liberal. He is no stranger than contemporary liberalism is.

A more diligent rebuttal can be found at The Fourth Branch.  D'Souza's facts don't withstand a whole lot of checking.

However, an Iron Law of Blogging is that weak arguments will reliably spawn even weaker rebuttals.  Adam Serwer of TAP illustrates this:

Forbes Embraces Birtherism Lite.

Sometimes it's best to think of racism as intellectual laziness. That is, it reflects a failure to evaluate people for who they actually are, because it's easier to slip them into a familiar, predetermined category that doesn't upset other related conclusions a person might have come to as a result.

If racism is sometimes a symptom of intellectual laziness, what are charges of "birtherism-lite"?  I would exhort Mr. Serwer to have a self-awareness moment here.  Let's press on:

In an essay for Forbes, [Dinesh D'Souza] concludes that the animating philosophy of the president is "Kenyan anti-colonialism." The purpose of the essay is to synthesize the most idiotic conservative criticisms of Obama into one handy term:

A casual reader might infer that the phrase in quotes, ""Kenyan anti-colonialism", is taken from the D'Souza article (to which Serwer did not link).  The casual reader would be wrong, although that mis-impression is reinforced a bit later:

This is birtherism with big words. This is the witchdoctor sign without Photoshop, WorldNetDaily without the exclamation points. D'Souza doesn't need to stare at Obama's birth certificate for hours to come to the same conclusion as the birthers, which is that the president is a foreigner. But neither is "Kenyan anti-colonialism" a superficial term. At once, it engages all the racialized elements of the conservative critique of Obama -- not just that having an African father means he isn't really an American but that his inner life consists of a deep anger toward white people, and the office of the presidency is merely the means to secure a collective payback.

All this baggage with a phrase D'Souza never used.  Oh, well.  Apparently, noting that the author of "Dreams From My Father" has a father from Kenya who influenced his - dare I say it - "dreams" is now "birtherism-lite".  Maybe we can find other examples:

With a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, President Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961.

or from 2008:

Four years ago, I stood before you and told you my story - of the brief union between a young man from Kenya and a young woman from Kansas who weren't well-off or well-known...

I deplore this dog-whistling by Obama and his Administration.

Who Can Surrender First?

House Republican leader John Boehner is prepared to yield on extending the Bush tax cuts for "the rich".  But vulnerable House Dems are exhorting Nancy Pelosi to throw them a rope and extend all the tax cuts.

9/11 Open Thread

It looks like a beautiful day today.

Another Way To End 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'

A Federal judge in California pre-empts Congress and our Commander in Chief and leads the way on military readiness:

The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy toward gay members of the military is unconstitutional, a federal judge in California ruled Thursday.

Judge Virginia A. Phillips [Wiki-bio] of Federal District Court struck down the rule in an opinion issued late in the day. The policy was signed into law in 1993 as a compromise that would allow gay and lesbian soldiers to serve in the military.

The rule limits the military’s ability to ask about the sexual orientation of service members, and allows homosexuals to serve, as long as they do not disclose their orientation and do not engage in homosexual acts.

The plaintiffs challenged the law under the Fifth and First Amendments to the Constitution, and Judge Phillips agreed.

“The 'don’t ask, don’t tell' act infringes the fundamental rights of United States service members in many ways,” she wrote. “In order to justify the encroachment on these rights, defendants faced the burden at trial of showing the 'don’t ask, don’t tell' act was necessary to significantly further the government’s important interests in military readiness and unit cohesion. Defendants failed to meet that burden.”

The rule, she wrote in an 86-page opinion, has a “direct and deleterious effect” on the armed services.

It will be interesting to see how what we politely but implausibly refer to as our "leaders" in Congress and the White House react to this. I assume the Administration will appeal - Obama can insist that the courts can't compel him to do what he has already set out to do, which is logical but probably won't soundbite well.

Apparently the topic was not raised at Obama's press conference.

THEN AGAIN:  The blogprof thinks Obama let the judge do his dirty work and had the DoJ go into the tank:

Obama promised to overturn it but it became a political hot potato for him. The military certainly wasn't going to change it. So Obama had a federal judge of the ruling class overturn it for him? How did he do that since the branches are supposed to be separate? Easy - refuse to defend it. From Ben Smith's blog via memeorandum: Federal judge overturns 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'. Here was Obama's part in the story:

"[D]efendants called no witnesses, put on no affirmative case, and only entered into evidence the legislative history of the act," she wrote.

I have no idea whether that is common or appropriate.  As to the foundation of the decision, back to the blogprof:

A Federal Judge in California has ruled that the ban on gays in the military violates the Constitutional rights of gay and lesbian soldiers to due process and to freedom of expression.

District Court Judge Virginia Phillips -- a Clinton appointee -- also wrote that the policy has had a "deleterious effect" on the military and issued an injunction restraining the military from enforcing the policy, though the government may appeal.

Excuse me, but do soldiers have the right of "free expression" in the military? Really? When did that happen?

Here is how the NY Times explained that:

First, they said, it violates their guarantee of substantive due process under the Fifth Amendment. The second restriction, the plaintiffs said, involves the free-speech rights guaranteed under the First Amendment. Although those rights are diminished in the military, the judge wrote, the restrictions in the act still fail the constitutional test of being “reasonably necessary” to protect “a substantial government interest.”

So neither Congress nor the Commander in Chief are capable of correctly judging the importance of this issue to our military?  I would have thought that national defense was one of their prime responsibilities.

Well.  I don't have a problem with the result, but the process is deplorable and will lack the legitimacy that would have followed from a push from the Administration and votes in the House and Senate.  Instead, we got a mini-push, a House vote, and then the back-burner.

Waiting For Nobody

Brent Budowsky of The Hill delivers what must be the unlikeliest lead ever, or at least, today:

Within hours and possibly minutes I expect the president will name Elizabeth Warren to lead the new consumer protection agency, and if he does, the Democratic base will erupt and turn out to vote in far greater numbers than any current poll suggests.

Uh huh - nominating a Harvard prof no one has heard of to a post no one has heard of will turn this whole thing around.  And I'm leading the Jets to the Super Bowl.  Personally.  After I bat clean-up for the Yankees in the World Series.  

I think Mr. Budowsky has lost the distinctions between "the base", live voters, and people with whom he Tweets, i-chats, and chirps.  I have no doubt the nomination of Elizabeth Warren will prompt lefty bloggers to swoon, for a day anyway.  But over in reality, the economy will still be what it is, and Obama will still be talking about something else and preparing his imminent pivot to jobs, jobs, jobs.

FROM A MORE BITTER PERSPECTIVE:  Talk about a cheap date - no public option in the health care bill, Gitmo still open, Don't Ask Don't Tell still in force, no trial of Dick Cheney, no end to warrantless wiretapping, an additional 60,000 troops in Afghanistan, but if they get Elizabeth Warren the left will rally like its 2008 and Bush is in the White House waterboarding them.  Who would have guessed their aspirations had come to this?

What If They Gave A Quran Burning And Nobody Came?

President Obama follows Sarah Palin's lead in condemning the Quran burning slated for Sept 11.

Left unremarked in the Times coverage - just what is the culpability and responsibility of the media in covering this stunt?  The church hosting the Quran bonfire has all of fifty members and is not anyone's idea of mainstream.  Why are these Quran crackpots being given a platform to hold our national security hostage and endanger our troops?   

OK, part of the answer is that this started as a lovely opportunity for the liberal media to bash some crazed righties.  Fun's fun, but if the media is so worried about this, they might wonder why they feel obliged to cover it.  Will CNN be broadcasting live from the bonfire?  I bet they will.  But if fifty people gathered to demand a look at Obama's birth certificate (or Kerry's military records!), they would be ignored as crazy but not incendiary.  Or, closer to home, this is the same media that refused to publish the Mohammed cartoons that started riots in Europe.  Deep-sixing stories that don't fit their narrative is what these people do for a living - why not bury this one?

Some crackpot dreamed up a stunt that the liberal media loved, and now they don't know how to get off the tiger.  Well done.

FWIW, my recollection is that many sports broadcasters have a policy of cutting away from the field when some fool of a "fan" runs onto it, in order not to reward that misbehavior with attention.  A similar judgment would be appropriate here.

UPDATE:  Fox News and the AP join my boycott!  [OK, maybe this is the Howard Kurtz-led boycott, since I see he had a similarly-themed column at 6AM).    As does their website host, which raises new issues.  My view is that the church is free to be offensive and the media is free to ignore it.  As to their right to engage in offensive speech on the internet, I would lean to an expansive view.

HUH?  Now the pastor says he will cancel the burning because the imam has agreed to move the Ground Zero mosque.  Hard to believe.  Clever positioning, though - now he can blame the burning on that sneaky imam who reneged on their deal (whether they had one or not.)

MY LACK OF ORIGINALITY CONTINUES...  Mike Thomas of the Orlando Sentinel had the same "ignore this nobody" notion last night.

Betrayed By The Blank Slate

Peter Beinart takes us back to 2008, when Obama fans looked into the Mirror of Desire and saw a bold new course on foreign policy.  What it was in Obama's personal history that evidenced boldness is one more for the history books.

Buried Lead du Jour

The Times reports on an interfaith group of religious leaders who deplore the rise in anti-Muslim sentiment.  In the final paragraphs we learn that this same group could not agree to endorse the Ground Zero mosque.  Oops!

Concern Is Voiced Over Religious Intolerance
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

WASHINGTON — Prominent Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders held an extraordinary “emergency summit” meeting in the capital on Tuesday to denounce what they called “the derision, misinformation and outright bigotry” aimed at American Muslims during the controversy over the proposed Islamic community center near ground zero.

“This is not America,” said Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, the emeritus Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington, flanked by three dozen clergy members and religious leaders at a packed news conference at the National Press Club. “America was not built on hate.”

No, we built this city on rock and roll.  Sorry, back to the conclusion:

They did not take a stand on whether to support the proposed mosque and community center near ground zero in Manhattan, saying, “Persons of conscience have taken different positions on the wisdom of the location of this project, even if the legal right to build on the site appears to be unassailable.”

But some groups at the meeting, like the National Council of Churches, an umbrella group representing 100,000 churches, have come out in support of a mosque near the World Trade Center site, said the Rev. Michael Kinnamon, general secretary of the council.

Wait, "persons of conscience" oppose the mosque, not just intolerant haters?  No kidding.

Burning The Quran

The Rev. Terry Jones remains intent on exercising his Constitutional right to be offensive:

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) - The leader of a small Florida church that espouses anti-Islam philosophy said Wednesday he was determined to go through with his plan to burn copies of the Quran on Sept. 11, despite pressure from the White House, religious leaders and others to call it off.

"We are still determined to it, yes," the Rev. Terry Jones told the CBS Early Show.

This is a worse idea than 'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day', which Ann Althouse argued against persuasively.

I also quarrel with the analogy to the Ground Zero mosque as made by the brilliant James Taranto:

Assuming that the Florida pastor complies with applicable fire codes, he has a perfect legal right to burn Korans that are his private property. That he has a right to do it, however, does not mean it is the right thing to do. In our view, he should call off the event for the same reason that the mosque developers should choose a site a respectful distance from Ground Zero: because the plan is obnoxious and (figuratively as well as literally) inflammatory.

Well, yes, but...  The mosque plan is arguably meant as something other than a deliberate provocation; if we take the Imam seriously (I say "If"!), it is intended as a unifying gesture (which seems to have failed).  One could at least imagine a dialogue in which either side could be persuaded of the wisdom of the other's course.

But burning the Quaran is not anything other than an attempt to provoke Muslims, a small minority of whom no doubt richly deserve it.  The pastor surely has the right to deliver a wholly negative message, but he is not trying to change minds and I would not compare that to the mixed message of the Ground Zero mosque.

A New WaPo Poll

Registered voters can't pull the lever for Republicans fast enough, per a new WaPo poll.  Among likely voters in the upcoming Congressional elections, 40% lean left and 53% are inclined to vote Republican.

By way of comparison, in early November 2006 (prior to the Dem housecleaning) the margin among likely voters favored Dems by 51-45.

Another question has a longer history:

4.  Overall, which party, the (Democrats) or the (Republicans), do you trust to do a better job in coping with the main problems the nation faces over the next few years?

Currently Dems lead among all respondents by 40-37.  By way of comparison, in Sept 2006 the Dems led by 47-38; in the September before the Republican sweep in 1994, Dems led by 43-40.

I don't imagine many voters look back to our experience from 1995-2000 and fear a divided government.  Especially if, as seems likely, Barack can keep his pants on in the Oval Office.

Every Dog Has Its Day

Glenn has a great round up about poor, unloved Barack.

She's Back!

The angriest, most entitled woman in the White House will hit the campaign trail in a desperate bid to help Dems:

WASHINGTON — After 18 months of careful image-making and bipartisanship, Michelle Obama is shifting course as first lady, stepping up her policy agenda and dipping into election-year politics to campaign and raise money for Democrats.

Despite stinging criticism of her summer vacation to Spain with daughter Sasha — aides warned her not to go, and the backlash was fiercer than they had imagined — Mrs. Obama is the most popular member of her husband’s administration. Having worked to build good will through nonideological causes like fighting obesity and assisting military families, aides say, she is ready to spend some of her political capital to advance President Obama’s agenda — and her own.

Interesting that aides are willing to toss her under the plane to Spain, anonymously of course.  Loyal aides would have insisted that she raised concerns but everyone gave her the green light.  

Michelle's scripted talks (delivered by the LOTUS?) will be positive and upbeat.  I know this:

Her schedule and stump speech are still being developed, but aides insist she will not attack Republicans. She will be positive and upbeat.

Uh huh.  She is one unscripted comment away from telling the Great Unwashed what she really thinks about the rest of us.  The only suspense is whether her gaffes will be swept under the rug (not that rug!) by the attending press.  I am betting she will be ratted out - if her aides can turn on her, the press can.

Fact Checking The Oval Office Carpet

My goodness - the new White House Oval Office carpet press kit misattributes a quotation to Martin Luther King:

A mistake has been made in the Oval Office makeover that goes beyond the beige.

President Obama's new presidential rug seemed beyond reproach, with quotations from Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. woven along its curved edge.

"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." According media reports, this quote keeping Obama company on his wheat-colored carpet is from King.

Except it's not a King quote. The words belong to a long-gone Bostonian champion of social progress. His roots in the republic ran so deep that his grandfather commanded the Minutemen at the Battle of Lexington.

For the record, Theodore Parker is your man, President Obama. Unless you're fascinated by antebellum American reformers, you may not know of the lyrically gifted Parker, an abolitionist, Unitarian minister and Transcendentalist thinker who foresaw the end of slavery, though he did not live to see emancipation. He died at age 49 in 1860, on the eve of the Civil War.

This story will scramble the rankings, but a moment with Google shows this old Salon story on the first search page, with a hint in the blurb:

Jan 19, 2009 ... Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Dr. King's words echo those of the 19th-century ...

From Salon:

On April 4, 2008, Senator Barack Obama, speaking on the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, declared:

"Dr. King once said that the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. It bends towards justice, but here is the thing: it does not bend on its own. It bends because each of us in our own ways put our hand on that arc and we bend it in the direction of justice...."

It is fitting that we remember Dr. King by considering this favorite phrase of his and President-Elect Obama's and its place in our nation's history.  These words evoke mystic chords of memory, stretching back to the dawn of the American revolution and foreseeing the promise of tomorrow.

...

Dr. King's words echo those of the 19th-century Unitarian minister Theodore Parker.  In his 1853 sermon on "Justice and the Conscience," Parker declared:

"I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience.  And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice."

In borrowing from Parker, Dr. King drew inspiration from a source that reaches back to our nation's birth. 

Theodore Parker was born in Lexington, Massachusetts in 1810.  His grandfather, John Parker, commanded the Minute Men at the Battle of Lexington.  As an adult, Theodore Parker hung on the wall of the library in his house in Boston the musket his grandfather had fired at the start of the revolutionary war. 

An abolitionist, Parker secretly raised money for John Brown's assault on Harper's Ferry and sheltered runaway slaves, even writing some sermons with a loaded pistol at his desk to protect the fugitives in his care. 

The arc of the moral universe is long.  When Parker first spoke of the arc of the moral universe bending towards justice 155 years ago, he did so to share a dream of a nation that few then held.  When Dr. King echoed these words four decades ago, he did so to comfort and encourage those who were dedicated to making that dream a reality.  When Senator Obama used these same words, he did so as a call to action to perfect that nation.

Hmm.  It does not seem that Obama or the White House geniuses spent a lot of time researching what David Remnick describes as Obama's favorite quote.

Well, as Bob Hope said, "It's not what we know, but what we know that ain't so that gets us into trouble."  Or was that Will Rogers?

FWIW:  Based on this picture of the carpet itself, none of the quotations are attributed, so the carpet won't be sent back to rewrite.

Move The Mosque

NY Times editors contemplate their poll of New Yorkers and discover they are surrounded by hate-filed bigots even in their own backyard.

Who's Afraid Of 1995?

Charles Cook claims the Senate is now in play.  A Republican takeover of both houses would bring us back to 1995, an era probably remembered fondly by most voters.  If, as seems likely, Obama can keep his pants zipped in the Oval Office, what's not to like?

Faster Flailing

Team Obama weighs the merits of posing as Republicans Lite with a package of tax cuts that will only provide talking points in the next two months:

With just two months until the November elections, the White House is seriously weighing a package of business tax breaks - potentially worth hundreds of billions of dollars - to spur hiring and combat Republican charges that Democratic tax policies hurt small businesses, according to people with knowledge of the deliberations.

Just to gauge the reaction of Obama's base, we note that Matt Yglesias is not throwing up on the idea. 

The AllahP thinks it may charm a few independents:

Why not? Policy-wise, he’s tried Keynesianism, and politically, there are no other options for wooing back a few independents to the Democratic side before November. The left will forgive him if it helps to preserve the congressional majority in the Senate, and since the majority in the House is a lost cause, he’d probably be pushed by the GOP into doing something like this next year anyway. Might as well do it now and take as much of the credit as he can.

Well, maybe this lets Obama burnish his bipartisan credentials and at least display some awareness that the Summer of George went poorly.

An Inconvenient Hostage-Taker

Police: Man holds hostages in Discovery building

Another angry Tea Partier run amuck?  Not exactly:

SILVER SPRING, Md. – A man upset with the Discovery Channel's environmental programming took several people hostage at the company's headquarters Wednesday, officials said.

Police were negotiating with the gunman, who burst into the suburban Washington building about 1 p.m. wearing what seemed to be metallic canisters strapped to his front and back and waving a handgun.

...

A law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing said authorities have identified James J. Lee as the likely suspect. Police believe he has a handgun but have not confirmed that he has explosives, the official said.

A different official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for the same reason, said Lee previously protested outside the building.

According to a story in The Gazette, which covers Montgomery County, Lee was arrested there in 2008 after throwing thousands of dollars in the air outside the building.

Lee said he planned the protest because Discovery's programming had little to do with saving the planet.

...At the trial, he said he began working to save the planet after being laid off from his job in San Diego. He said he was inspired by "Ishmael," a novel by environmentalist Daniel Quinn and by former Vice President Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."

He presented demands online.  I like this:

Saving the environment and the remaning species diversity of the planet is now your mindset. Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.

Of course, the squirrels.  Although my impression is that the squirrels can fend for themselves pretty well.

And lefties can rally to his immigrant-bashing:

5. Immigration: Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find solutions to stopping it. Call for people in the world to develop solutions to stop it completely and permanently. Find solutions FOR these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US and the world to seek jobs and therefore breed more unwanted pollution babies. FIND SOLUTIONS FOR THEM TO STOP THEIR HUMAN GROWTH AND THE EXPORTATION OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH! (The first world is feeding the population growth of the Third World and those human families are going to where the food is! They must stop procreating new humans looking for nonexistant jobs!)

Sometimes a nutjob is just a nutjob.  [Or at least, Atrios thinks so when the nutter is coming from the left.  H/t HotAir, which has lots.]  But nothing from Dave Weigel linking Lee to Sarah Palin or Orly Taitz?  The day is young.

Tax Cuts Coming?

The WSJ reports that the Administration is considering some tax cuts as part of a "Don't Just Stand There, DO Something" domestic surge.

Times business columnist David Leonhardt uses his space to plug tax cuts that are more likely to be helpful.  His criteria is quick bang for the buck, which leads to odd advice:

The question, then, is what kind of cut can put people back to work quickly.

The last 30 years offer some pretty good answers. For one thing, a permanent reduction in tax rates focused on the affluent — along the lines of those 2001 Bush tax cuts — does little to lift growth in the short term. An across-the-board, one-time cut — like the one that Mr. Bush signed in 2008 or that Mr. Obama signed last year — does more.

Hmm.  One-time tax rebates don't induce permanent changes in investment or consumption behavior.  On the other hand, like matches and lighter fluid they can help get a barbecue started.

But the most effective tax cut for putting people back to work quickly is one that businesses and households get only if they spend money. Last year’s cash-for-clunkers program was an example.

Last year's cash for clunkers was a classic example of cannibalizing future sales, rather than improving long-term demand.  But of course, the long run is a series of short runs - I suppose we could subsidize cars now in the hope that something else will take off in a year; that is the same sort of logic that led the Fed to puff up the housing bubble in 2005, but still.

Let's note that even Paul Krugman recently admitted that not all tax cuts are the devil's spawn.

Combat Operations Are Over In Iraq; Combat Pay Is Not

The Times has an interesting detail from Sec Def Gates' visit to Iraq:

One soldier did ask if the end of combat operations meant the end of extra combat pay. Mr. Gates said that as far as he was concerned, combat pay still applied in Iraq, where troops are still being killed by homemade bombs, sniper fire and mortar attacks.

Fred Kaplan pans the "strange muddle" delivered by Obama.  Bill Kristol figures that it was a fair effort from an anti-war President.