JustOneMinute

WikiLeak du Jour

Today the Times takes their WikiLeak tour to Gitmo:

Cables Depict U.S. Haggling to Find Takers for Detainees

More witnesses to the sausage making.  But I like their picture of a setting sun:

Mr. Obama won praise from around the world when, shortly after taking office in 2009, he ordered the Guantánamo Bay prison closed within a year, saying it was contrary to American values and a symbol for terrorist propaganda.

By then, the Bush administration already had transferred more than 500 of the detainees it had sent to Guantánamo, and the Obama administration has since winnowed the population to 174 from 240, with help from Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and other countries. But Mr. Obama missed his deadline, and the goal has faded as a priority, with domestic opposition to moving some detainees to a prison inside the United States and with other countries that condemned the Guantánamo prison reluctant to take in detainees.

While Mr. Obama went to Norway to collect a Nobel Peace Prize, for example, the Norwegians called resettling Guantánamo detainees “purely a U.S. responsibility.” Germany and several other European countries that had criticized the prison eventually accepted a few detainees but balked at taking as many as the United States had hoped.

Obama won praise for agreeing to quit smoking, too.  I guess the international community cooled to that as well.

Vitamin D - Just Hype?

The NY Times covers some pushback against the latest "it" vitamin, but I don't buy it:

Extra Vitamin D and Calcium Aren’t Needed, Report Says
By GINA KOLATA

The very high levels of vitamin D that are often recommended by doctors and testing laboratories — and can be achieved only by taking supplements — are unnecessary and could be harmful, an expert committee says. It also concludes that calcium supplements are not needed.

The group said most people have adequate amounts of vitamin D in their blood supplied by their diets and natural sources like sunshine, the committee says in a report that is to be released on Tuesday.

“For most people, taking extra calcium and vitamin D supplements is not indicated,” said Dr. Clifford J. Rosen, a member of the panel and an osteoporosis expert at the Maine Medical Center Research Institute.

Dr. J. Christopher Gallagher, director of the bone metabolism unit at the Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha, Neb., agreed, adding, “The onus is on the people who propose extra calcium and vitamin D to show it is safe before they push it on people.”

Over the past few years, the idea that nearly everyone needs extra calcium and vitamin D — especially vitamin D — has swept the nation.

Hmm. We are talking about a vitamin whose role in bone health was discovered a long time ago, but which has recently been linked [or here, or here] to diabetes, obesity, cancer, brain development (maybe!), athletic performance and other things.  Yet the Times is quoting two bone guys to tell me there is nothing to the hype.  Unconvincing!

Secondly, I am applying a bit of common sense here (often risky when science is involved, but away we go).  The first humans to leave Africa were dark-skinned.  In the higher latitudes and reduced sunlight of Northern Europe, selective evolutionary pressure favored white skin.  Was that exclusively about bone health?  And more importantly, could modern urban blacks in northern latitudes really be getting enough Vitamin D strictly from food supplements? And is it just poverty that explains the many grim health statistics for the black community?

I am continuing to back the hype.

ERRATA:  The report will be released and available online at 10 AM Tuesday.  The brief is here.

AHEAD OF THE PUSHBACK CURVE: Ms. Parker-Pope of the Times had a 'not-so-fast' story expressing skepticism about the Vitamin D fad last February.  However, let me pluck this:

But don't start gobbling down vitamin D supplements just yet. The excitement about their health potential is still far ahead of the science.

Although numerous studies have been promising, there are scant data from randomized clinical trials. Little is known about what the ideal level of vitamin D really is, whether raising it can improve health, and what potential side effects are caused by high doses.

And since most of the data on vitamin D comes from observational research, it may be that high doses of the nutrient don't really make people healthier, but that healthy people simply do the sorts of things that happen to raise vitamin D.

The absence of studies is not the same as the study of absence.  Or something like that... Anyway, telling us that a theory has not been confirmed is different from saying it has been refudiated.

THE FUTURE IS NOW:  But where is the Future Pundit on this?  Without my go-to guy I am nowhere.

 

Direct Action In Tehran

OK, this escalation is making me nervous:

Blasts target Iranian nuclear scientists

Reporting from Beirut —

Two separate explosions killed a nuclear scientist and injured another in the Iranian capital Monday morning, official news outlets reported.

Both scholars' wives and a driver were also injured in the attacks, according to the news agencies. The slain scientist, Majid Shahriari, was a member of the nuclear engineering team at the Shahid Behesti university in Tehran, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency, or IRNA.

No one claimed responsibility for the attacks and no arrests have been made, Iranian officials said. But they prompted a stern warning by the normally cool-headed head of Iran's atomic energy agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, who described Shahriari as a former student.

"Do not play with fire," he said, according to IRNA. "There is a limit to the Iranian nation's patience and if we run out of patience the enemy will suffer adverse consequences. Of course we still maintain our patience."

The injured scholar, Fereydoun Abbas, also taught at Shahid Beheshti, one of Iran's most prestigious institutions of higher learning.

And the method was right out of the movies:

The assassins, riding motorcycles, tossed bombs at -- or attached them to -- vehicles of the two Shahid Behesti University professors as they drove with their spouses en route to work between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m..

"A Pulsar motorbike drove close to Dr. Shahriari's car and stuck a bomb on his car which after a few seconds exploded," Tehran police chief Hossein Sajednia was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars news agency.

"Experts are examining the incidents," Sajednia said. "The type of the bombs and explosive materials and the extent of damage have not been determined yet."

I suppose that some dissident Iranian faction could have pulled this off but the money bet has to be the Israelis.  (Hmm, might the Russians be on the board?  They could be playing both sides, publicsly sorta-supporting Irana while privately getting worried about a nuclear crazy on their border.)

Compounding the puzzle:

A powerful and still mysterious Jan. 11 explosion killed Iranian physicist Massoud Ali Mohammadi near his home. The attack led to speculation that Iran's international adversaries were targeting scientists as a way of slowing its nuclear research program. But others said he might have been killed for supporting the political movement opposed to the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

 

Wikileaks

Yikes!  The spies have taken over.

Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has an interesting twist on the leaked documents - this is a subtle ploy by Obama to undermine Iran.  Geez, is Obama that good?

TEHRAN — In Iran’s first official reaction to leaked State Department cables quoting Arab leaders as urging the United States to bomb Tehran’s nuclear facilities, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed the documents as American psychological warfare that would not affect his country’s relations with other nations, news reports said.

The documents seemed to show several Arab nations, notably Saudi Arabia, Iran’s rival for influence in the Persian Gulf, displaying such hostility that King Abdullah repeatedly implored Washington to “cut off the head of the snake” while there was still time.

Nonetheless, Mr. Ahmadinejad said at a news conference on Monday that Iran’s relations with its neighbors would not be damaged by the reports.

“Regional countries are all friends with each other. Such mischief will have no impact on the relations of countries,” he said, according to Reuters.

“Some part of the American government produced these documents,” he said. “We don’t think this information was leaked. We think it was organized to be released on a regular basis and they are pursuing political goals.”

Maybe Obama and Hillary are that crafty.  As if. 

I think the era of frank discussions with the rest of the world has now ended.  I just thank Heaven we don't that moron cowboy in the White House antagonizing people.

In Case You Missed It (As I Almost Did...)

The Saturday Times is a must-read because it is the graveyard for stories that the editors feel obliged to cover without vexing their Upper West Side readership.  Yesterday's treat was this:

Health Law Faces Threat of Undercut From Courts
By KEVIN SACK and ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON — As the Obama administration presses ahead with the health care law, officials are bracing for the possibility that a federal judge in Virginia will soon reject its central provision as unconstitutional and, in the worst case for the White House, halt its enforcement until higher courts can rule.

The judge, Henry E. Hudson of Federal District Court in Richmond, has promised to rule by the end of the year on the constitutionality of the law’s requirement that most Americans obtain insurance, which takes effect in 2014.

Although administration officials remain confident that it is constitutionally valid to compel people to obtain health insurance, they also acknowledge that Judge Hudson’s preliminary opinions and comments could presage the first ruling against the law.

“He’s asked a number of questions that express skepticism,” said one administration official who is examining whether a ruling against part of the law would undermine other provisions. “We have been trying to think through that set of questions,” said the official, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case freely.

While many newly empowered Republican lawmakers have vowed to repeal the health care law in Congress, a more immediate threat may rest in the federal courts in cases brought by Republican officials in dozens of states. Not only would an adverse ruling confuse Americans and attack the law’s underpinnings, it could frustrate the steps hospitals, insurers and government agencies are taking to carry out the law.

The Times eventually gets to the vexing severability question:

Virginia’s attorney general, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, a Republican who filed the Richmond lawsuit, argues that if Judge Hudson rejects the insurance requirement he should instantly invalidate the entire act on a nationwide basis.

Mr. Cuccinelli and the plaintiffs in the Florida case, who include attorneys general or governors from 20 states, have emphasized that Congressional bill writers did not include a “severability clause” that would explicitly protect other parts of the sprawling law if certain provisions were struck down.

An earlier version of the legislation, which passed the House last November, included severability language. But that clause did not make it into the Senate version, which ultimately became law. A Democratic aide who helped write the bill characterized the omission as an oversight.

Without such language, the Supreme Court, through its prior rulings, essentially requires judges to try to determine whether Congress would have enacted the rest of a law without the unconstitutional provisions.

The Justice Department, which represents the Obama administration, acknowledges that several of the law’s central provisions, like the requirement that insurers cover those with pre-existing conditions, cannot work unless both the healthy and the unhealthy are mandated to have insurance. Otherwise, consumers could simply buy coverage when they needed treatment, causing the insurance market to “implode,” the federal government asserts.

The challenge to the individual mandate recently survived a Federal judge's scrutiny in Ohio, as well.

 

Sunday Morning Open Thread

Away we go.

And In Honor Of Tiger Woods...

As a special first anniversary tribute to Tiger Woods' infamous Thanksgiving fat lip, Barack Obama himself takes the thumping across the face.

Too Subtle For The TSA

I know the TSA has a difficult job, what wth patting down nuns and six year olds and all.  I am contemplating the difficulty of constructing a terrorist profile that would successfully pick out a guy like this:

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Federal agents in a sting operation arrested a Somali-born teenager just as he tried blowing up a van he believed was loaded with explosives at a crowded Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, authorities said.

The bomb was an elaborate fake supplied by the agents and the public was never in danger, authorities said.

Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, was arrested at 5:40 p.m. Friday just after he dialed a cell phone that he thought would set off the blast but instead brought federal agents and police swooping down on him.

Yelling "Allahu Akbar!" — Arabic for "God is great!" — Mohamud tried to kick agents and police after he was taken into custody, according to prosecutors.

"The threat was very real," said Arthur Balizan, special agent in charge of the FBI in Oregon. "Our investigation shows that Mohamud was absolutely committed to carrying out an attack on a very grand scale,"

I assume this incident will have zero impact on the ongoing production of Security-Diversity Theater.

(Red) America's Sweetheart

Sarah Palin wishes all 57 states a Happy Thanksgiving, as do I.

Traditional Thanksgiving Open Thread

I hope everyone arrives safely, eats heartily (drinks sensibly!) and has much for which to be thankful.

I Trample On Jim Geraghty's Thanksgiving

Jim Geraghty of NRO points out that the latest Federal Reserve forecast of continued high unemployment bodes poorly for Obama's re-election chances in 2012.

To which I gloomily reply, not so fast.  Prof. Ray Fair's model, which we have kicked around for years, tries to predict Presidential vote share based on inflation and GDP growth.

Unemployment is not a variable in this model (nor are unpopular wars), so the gist is this: if the economy manages to average a paltry 1% growth through the first three quarters of 2012, the model forecasts an Obama win with a razor-thin 50.06% of the popular vote (I put inflation at 1.5% and gave Obama the two quarters of growth above 3.2% that were booked in 2009).

I suspect Ray Fair would be the second to say that his model might not apply in quite that scenario (I am hereby the first), since no prior elections in the sample are based on four years of high unemployment, low growth and a grim war.  However, Prof. Fair no doubt included unemployment as a predictive variable and (we presume) concluded that it is not as important as one might guess.

I am more suspicious of the model than of Mr. Geraghty's political instincts, but still...

ERRATA:  Fed minutes and forecasts here.

 

Hammer Time

At least Tom Delay was crafty enough to get convicted on a slow news day.

He will appeal, not without reason:

Mr. DeLay was initially charged with breaking campaign finance law. But prosecutors later switched strategies because it was impossible under the law at the time to accuse someone of conspiring to break campaign finance rules, prosecutors said.

Instead, prosecutors used a novel legal theory never before tried in Texas: They argued that Mr. DeLay and two of his political operatives — John Colyandro and Jim Ellis — had violated the criminal money-laundering law.

They were charged with conspiring to funnel $190,000 in corporate donations to state candidates through the Republican National Committee.

...Mr. DeGuerin said Mr. DeLay would try to convince an appeals court that the money-laundering statute should never had been applied to the money swap — because the original donations were legal and also because the donations to the state candidates came out of a different account than the one in which the corporate donations were deposited.

 

 

North Korea, Then And Now

They told Glenn that if he voted for McCain we would contiue the Bush policy of refusing to enter bilateral negotiations with North Korea - and they were right!

The Times reports on the latest from North Korea and includes this summary of Obama's diplomacy to date:

While Mr. Obama was elected on a promise of diplomatic engagement, his strategy toward the North for the past two years, called “strategic patience,” has been to demonstrate that Washington would not engage until the North ceased provocations and demonstrated that it was living up to past commitments to dismantle, and ultimately give up, its nuclear capacity.

The provocations have now increased markedly, and it is not clear what new options are available. Beijing’s first reaction on Tuesday was to call for a resumption of the six-nation talks involving North and South Korea, Russia, Japan, China and the United States. The last meeting was two years ago, at the end of the Bush administration.

Mr. Obama’s aides made it clear in interviews that the United States had no intention of returning to those talks soon. But its leverage is limited.

Hmm.  Back in October 2008 the Council on Foreign Relations provided an overview of the candidates' positions on North Korea and the Six Party talks.

President Obama advocates for developing an “international coalition” to handle nuclear North Korea, calls the Six-Party Talks “ad hoc,” and says he supports “sustained, direct, and aggressive diplomacy.” In a September 2008 presidential debate, Obama said a lack of diplomatic engagement with North Korea led the country to significantly increase its nuclear capacity, and said the Bush administration's eventual reengagement with the regime led to "some progress."

Within weeks of Pyongyang’s October 2006 nuclear test, Obama appeared on Meet the Press and said the United States had no leverage over North Korea because of Washington’s refusal to hold bilateral negotiations. He also clarified a passage from his book Audacity of Hope (in which he posed the question “Why invade Iraq and not North Korea or Burma?”) and said he did not consider invading the communist country an option to resolving the nuclear issue.

Bilateral talks with North Korea had been a staple of the left for years (here is John Kerry in a 2004 Presidential debate.)  And for a while in 2007, Candidate Obama was famously prepeared to meet any leader anywhere without preconditions, preconceptions, or even a clue.

Obviously, that was a long time ago; folks who actually hoped the Bush policy would change can send their aggrieved letters to Gitmo.  The rest of us can chalk this up as one more triumph of real world experience over Bush-bashing expedience.

I APPLAUD THIS 'OUTSIDE THE BOX' THINKING:

Sarah Palin, mis-spreaking with Glenn Beck:

“We Gotta Stand With Our North Korean Allies”.

Well, she has admirers everyhere...

IF IT WERE BUSH THIS WOULD BE DENOUNCED AS 'STRATEGIC PETULANCE':

The Obama administration is “not looking to escalate” this situation, the official said. “We don’t see this as North Korea wanting to go to war.”

One step you may not see that has happened in the past is “rushing into six party talks,” the official said, trying to get North Korea back at the table with other superpowers. “We see that as rewarding bad behavior.”

 

The Buck Stops Elsewhere

James Fallows is a smart guy but this is not a smart suggestion:

A Way Out of the Security Theater Impasse?

Nov 23 2010, 7:45 PM ET

I mentioned earlier today that I was fatalistically resigned to the security-theater "ratchet." Politicians or security agencies can keep loading on extra "security" features, but politically they can't afford to take them away.

...

From reader Don Friedman, a suggestion that might initially seem trivial but that appeals to me more as I think about it. It's a way to have the public share responsibility for setting the right balance in "security" measures, rather than complaining about measures the government introduces and then blaming politicians if anything goes wrong. He says (emphasis added): 

>>As you suggest, the controversy over the new security measures gives us the opportunity to think about what level of risk we are willing to bear, recognizing that risk can never be reduced to zero....

The outcry against the new search techniques creates an opportunity here for the Administration to start a process to educate the public about the risk equation. Were I the President, I would immediately arrange for polling of air travelers in order to get some data as to just how unpopular these measures are. If the polling shows that these measures are actually supported by the majority of travelers, then the Administration should announce that fact and state that, since air travelers want this additional level of security, we'll keep the measures in place. If, on the other hand, polling shows these to be unpopular, the President should make a speech to the country in which he announces the suspension of these security measures by popular demand and then discusses the risks of terrorism, talks about the fact that the country is not prepared to take every possible precaution (since to do so would turn the country into an environment akin to the old Soviet Union), and we need to balance the efficacy of security measures against the impact on quality of life and the rule of law.

This can, and should, be used by the President as a "teaching moment" which we badly need.

Please.  Leaders lead; pollsters poll.  The public is not interested in yet another teachable moment from the First Talker in which he shares his enlightenment with the Great Unwashed, and  anyway, a President who punted this problem to his pollsters would be laughed off the stage.

Bonus Tirade:  Did Obama do a lot of polling before deciding that what we really needed was a civilian trial in New York City for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?  Did he do a lot of polling before backing (and then backing away) from the Ground Zero Mosque?  Did his pollsters tell him that Americans would feel safer if we gave Miranda warnings to captured terrorists?

It might not be a bad idea for Obama to reflect a bit on public opinion and break away from his 'Obama Knows Best' mentality.  But he doesn't have the credibility for it.  So we get these ongoing productions of Diversity Security Theater.

She's Cute When She's Angry

Elizabeth Wurtzel of Prozac Nation is partly poignant and mostly dumb on the subject of Sarah Palin.  However, she had an amusing theme with one howler, so here we go:

To paraphrase Lillian Hellman, I don't agree with a word that Sarah Palin says, including "and" and "the." And as a liberal feminist, it drives me absolutely bonkers that Palin is the most visible working mother and female politician in America, that she is the best exemplar of a woman with an equal marriage, that she has put up with less crap from fewer men than those of us who have read The Second Sex and marched in pro-abortion rallies and pretty much been on the right side of all the issues that Palin is wrong about.

So I suppose I should confess: I like Sarah Palin.  I like her because she is such a problem for all these political men, Republicans and Democrats alike, with their polls, and their Walter Dean Burnham theories of transformative elections, and their economy this and their values that--and here comes Palin, and logic just doesn't apply.

Ms. Wurtzel goes on to note that even though the left has Rachel Maddow it's not quite the same, and if I got a nickel for every time Ms. Maddow sneered I would probably pocket five bucks for watching a half hour show which is barely minimum wage and totally insufficient compensation for my pain and suffering but still, that is a lot of sneering.  I digress:

But it doesn't matter.  It will never matter and I bet it never has mattered, because Sarah Palin is hot.  She has sex appeal.  That's why people like her.  That's the whole story.  Everyone has to stop trying to deconstruct and decode it, because there is no accounting for chemistry, and Sarah Palin has lots of it going on with her public.

Well, OK.  But on to the howler:

The Democrats are total morons for not finding their own hot mama before the Republicans did so first, or maybe I should have left off the qualifiers and called it straight: the Democrats are just plain morons, at least where women are concerned...

I know, I know: all of you are saying that it's a good thing it's like that, it's a sign that liberals have integrity and blah blah blah. But I think you are kidding yourselves.  It's a sign of another thing: that liberal men are wimps who can't handle the hot potato that is a combination of feminine sexuality and female political brilliance.

Why blame liberal men?  Where is the evidence that the Girl Power on the left has any interest at all in promoting a hot policy babe?  I have this vague memory that back in the 70's the truly earnest and committed protest babes were showing their solidarity with the Viet Cong and their disdain for the corporate patriarchy by not showering for two weeks.  Well, that was a long time ago.  And I guess Jane Fonda was pretty smokin'.

Besides, the left has Madames Pelosi and Clinton, so quit whining.

The Freedom Ride

Don Sensing is putting the pedal to the metal and the terrorists on the run.

Are These The High Level Peace Talks Or Have I Blundered Into A Comedy Club?

Back In Laughghanistan:

KABUL, Afghanistan — For months, the secret talks unfolding between Taliban and Afghan leaders to end the war appeared to be showing promise, if only because of the repeated appearance of a certain insurgent leader at one end of the table: Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, one of the most senior commanders in the Taliban movement.

But now, it turns out, Mr. Mansour was apparently not Mr. Mansour at all. In an episode that could have been lifted from a spy novel, United States and Afghan officials now say the Afghan man was an impostor, and high-level discussions conducted with the assistance of NATO appear to have achieved little.

“It’s not him,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul intimately involved in the discussions. “And we gave him a lot of money.”

Right, then - as soon as I finish Thanksgiving dinner, I am flying to Afghanistan.  It is past time for Mullah Muckwuck Muffinbottom to negotiate peace with honor.  And I take credit cards.

FOCUSING LIKE A LASER ON  THE ECONOMY: 

In other news, the Administration hopes to balance the budget by helping a Nigerian widow invest her billions.

PILING ON:

Well, this explains what's going on with the voice-activated stereo in my car. When I say, "Beethoven's Ninth" it starts playing Ode to Joy. Or if I say, "Let it be," it plays the Beatles song of the same name.

The other day another driver cut me off in traffic. "You clown!" I yelled.

And the stereo played, "Hail to the Chief."

We'll be here all week.

 

He's Not Giving It Back

The Politico can write all they want about how Obama is the problem in the Middle East (and so can Jackson Diehl), but Obama won't be returning that Nobel Peace Prize.

TSA Prepares To Opt Out

TSA Chief John Pistole releases a stament signaling their eventual climbdown on their latest staging of security theater:

"We welcome feedback and comments on the screening procedures from the traveling public, and we will work to make them as minimally invasive as possible while still providing the security that the American people want and deserve. We are constantly evaluating and adapting our security measures, and as we have said from the beginning, we are seeking to strike the right balance between privacy and security...".

Meanwhile, our tone-deaf President presents himself as a hapless bystander watching, like the rest of us, as the Security Train rumbles by.

Finally, there is a simple technological fix to the privacy issue raised by the new scanners; it is already patented and implementation would reportedly be EZ:

A cheap and simple fix in the computer software of new airport scanners could silence the uproar from travelers who object to the so-called virtual strip search, according to a scientist who helped develop the program at one of the federal government's most prestigious institutes.

The researcher, associated with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, said he was rebuffed when he offered the concept to Department of Homeland Security officials four years ago.

The fix would distort the images captured on full-body scanners so they look like reflections in a fun-house mirror, but any potentially dangerous objects would be clearly revealed, said Willard "Bill" Wattenburg, a former nuclear weapons designer at the Livermore lab.

...

Wattenburg said that when news reached Livermore in 2006 that the TSA planned to buy the new generation of "backscatter" full-body scanners, the problem seemed clear. "We knew what was going to happen," he said. "People are immediately going to scream like hell because they're taking the clothes off everybody."

Livermore engineers have been deeply involved in enhancing airport security.

Wattenburg said a Livermore colleague, Ed Moses, turned to him and said, "There must be some way to modify the scanner images so that they do not reveal embarrassing things about a person's body profile."

Wattenburg, whose long resume includes designing anti-terrorist devices, sketched out a possible solution and delivered it to Moses, whose computer experts refined the concept.

"Materials you were looking for would still be there, but body shapes wouldn't be apparent," Moses, the principal assistant director of the Livermore lab said on Saturday. "From the point of view of imaging it's very straightforward. Someone should do a quick study of it in an operational setting."

The Livermore laboratory sent off a final application to the U.S. Patent Office on Nov. 23, 2006, and about three weeks later Wattenburg said he called the Department of Homeland Security to share the good news. The patent application is on appeal, according to government records, but the federal government owns the rights to the idea.

"These guys usually come to us when they have a huge problem," Wattenburg said on Thursday. "If it's something simple, we tell them and they don't listen."

Wattenburg says the program is so simple that "a 6-year-old could do the same thing with Photoshop."

Well, six year olds don't vote.  And this wouldn't offer relief to those worried about excessive x-ray exposure, or people with prosthetic devices that trip the alarms and prompt a pat-down.

Fair Enough

Prof. Ray Fair of Yale has been refining econometric predictions of Presidential votes for years.  The Times tells us that he has offered his first stab at the 2012 elections, and he thinks the economy will be recovering enough for Obama to sail to victory.

I will offer two caveats.  First, this is not a Guns and Butter model, it is a Butter model, with no variables for foreign policy.  It called George Bush's winning margin in 2004, but the race was closer than predicted.  If Afghanistan is a quagmire in 2012 (and what are the odds?), that may hurt Obama in a way the model overlooks.

Secondly, in his discussion of the model I sense a trend here that I can't explain, but which ought to worry Democrats:

Looking at Table 3, the ex post error for 2008 for the presidential election is 1.5 percentage points (Obama got 53.7 percent and was predicted to get 55.2 percent).

For the 2008 on-term House election, the ex post error is 1.9 percentage points (the Democrats got 55.5 percent and were predicted to get 57.4 percent).

For the 2010 mid-term House election, the ex post error is 2.9 percentage points (the Democrats got 45.9 percent and were predicted to get 48.8 percent).

Democrats underperformed the last two cycles.  If that is not just statistical noise, it may reflect something fundamental (national security?) that will drag them down in 2012.

The model is here, so anyone can plug in variables and see the interplay of economic performance and the Presidential election.  The Times included this:

His model forecasts real annualized growth in gross domestic product of 3.69 percent for the first three quarters of 2012. A survey of leading economists by Blue Chip Economic Indicators shows an average forecast of 3.2 percent growth in real G.D.P. in 2012, while the Congressional Budget Office estimates 3.4 percent. Plug either of these estimates into his election algorithm and the result is the same: President Obama wins.

In the quarter that just ended, however, the economy was growing at a rate of just 2 percent. If that sluggish pace continued — or, more ominously, if there were a double-dip recession or a steep plunge in the markets — that forecast would change.

Under those circumstances, regardless of other issues or the identity of President Obama’s opponent, the model shows the president losing.

Time will tell.

THE CAKE IS BAKING:

Here are the three model inputs:

 

growth rate of real per capita GDP in the first 3 quarters of 2012 (annual rate) (G)

growth rate of the GDP deflator in the first 15 quarters of the Obama administration, 2009:1-2012:3 (annual rate) (P)

number of quarters in the first 15 quarters of the Obama administration in which the growth rate of real per capita GDP is greater than 3.2 percent at an annual rate (Z)

Seven of those quarters have already passed, I presume (Obviously, the fourth quarter of 2012 is not realized as of Nov 2012, so I assume he uses the first quarter of 2009 for a total of fifteen).

From this GDP chart (and table) I discern that Obama has scored two quarters above 3.2%.

The implicit price deflator is at the bottom of this table.

Red And Green

Sherwood Boehlert, a former House Republican and chair of the Science Committee, deplores the current Republican party line on global warming:

Watching the raft of newly elected GOP lawmakers converge on Washington, I couldn't help thinking about an issue I hope our party will better address. I call on my fellow Republicans to open their minds to rethinking what has largely become our party's line: denying that climate change and global warming are occurring and that they are largely due to human activities.

...

Why do so many Republican senators and representatives think they are right and the world's top scientific academies and scientists are wrong? I would like to be able to chalk it up to lack of information or misinformation.

I can understand arguments over proposed policy approaches to climate change. I served in Congress for 24 years. I know these are legitimate areas for debate. What I find incomprehensible is the dogged determination by some to discredit distinguished scientists and their findings.

I doubt it is misinformation.  I think the statists who were always looking for new excuses to expand the role of government hijacked the environmental movement a long time ago.  Unfortunately that doesn't change the science. 

Republicans ought to focus on opposing daft policy measures, which is easy enough to do (E.g., Kyoto, which excluded India and China, never made sense.)

Let's Hear From Another Hard Money Advocate

Even as Paul Krugman questions the patriotism of Republicans who question the efficacy of the Fed's QEII, we hear other voices fretting about deficits, monetized debt, and hyper-inflation in the US:

[L]ast week I switched to a fixed-rate mortgage. It means higher monthly payments, but I'm terrified about what will happen to interest rates once financial markets wake up to the implications of skyrocketing budget deficits.

...How will the [fiscal] train wreck play itself out? ...[M]y prediction is that politicians will eventually be tempted to resolve the crisis the way irresponsible governments usually do: by printing money, both to pay current bills and to inflate away debt.

And as that temptation becomes obvious, interest rates will soar. It won't happen right away. With the economy stalling and the stock market plunging, short-term rates are probably headed down, not up, in the next few months, and mortgage rates may not have hit bottom yet. But unless we slide into Japanese-style deflation, there are much higher interest rates in our future.

So even with rates low and headed lower, we were being warned to expect hyper-inflation down the road, once markets woke up to a reality discernible only by a few.  Of course, that was Paul Krugman writing in 2003 during a weak recovery and just before the Iraq War; Patriot Paul was opposed to the Bush War and the Bush tax cuts, so he was also opposed to looming deficits and the monetization thereof regardless of current labor or credit market conditions.

Now we flash forward to 2010 and in KrugWorld the temptation of politicians to inflate our debt problems away has evaporated and anyone who opposes the monetization of government debt or worries about inflation that no one can yet see (unless they look at commodity prices) is a scoundrel.  Good to know.

HOW WEAK A RECOVERY?  Here is the NY Times describing the jobs report that came out a few days before Krugman's March 2003 column:

The nation suffered job losses in February that were the worst since the two months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the government reported yesterday. Bad weather and war fears combined to prolong the economy's malaise, and the unemployment rate nudged up to 5.8 percent from 5.7 percent in January.

The numbers from the Labor Department showed the disappearance of 308,000 jobs from the nation's payrolls. The Bush administration called the figures disappointing but said they showed the need for quick action on the president's plan to cut taxes.

Apparently Krugman believed the report showed the need for government to focus on our structural deficit and avoid an expansion in the money supply that might debase the currency.

GDP had grown by a mere 0.1% in the quarter ending December 2002; for the quarter then underway, growth was eventualy reported at 1.6%.  What an odd (yet politically convenient!) time for Krugman to be preaching austerity.

Even The Times Deplores The TSA. Sort Of.

The NY Times can't quite admit that the Administration goofed and the Repubicans have a point about the new TSA pat-downs, but they go this far:

Americans understand the need for security screenings at airports and are remarkably patient. So there is no excuse for the bumbling, arrogant way the Transportation Security Administration has handled questions and complaints about its new body-scanning machines and more aggressive pat-downs.

It's a messaging problem?  I don't think any number of explanations will suffice, and one wonders why the Times thinks so:

The Times reported on Friday that civil liberties groups have collected more than 400 complaints since the new pat-downs began three weeks ago. That is a minuscule number compared with all the people who flew. But there are far too many reports of T.S.A. agents groping passengers, using male agents to search female passengers, mocking passengers and disdaining complaints.

Here is their bold call for action:

The government could start by making their screening guidelines clear. And they should respond to the concerns of people like the woman who told The Times that she is patted down every time because of an insulin pump.

...

The federal authorities need to take customers’ complaints seriously. And while they’re at it, they should be hard at work filling in the really huge hole in the security of air travel: the inadequate screening of cargo.

Truth to power.  Darn it, we wouldn't be reading tepid editorials like this if Bush were President!

 

Traditional Saturday Morning Time-Waster With Charles Blow

Charles Blow, the NY Times very own Bob Herbert in waiting, pleads for his possibly-precarious professional position and calls for renewed respect for the race hustling business.  Seriously:

The quote helps support a broader sentiment that the current racial discontent is being fueled by a black liberal grievance industry that refuses to acknowledge racial progress, accept personal responsibility, or acknowledge its own racial transgressions. And that the charge of racism has become a bludgeon against anyone white and not in love with President Obama, thereby making those whites the most aggrieved — victims of the elusive reverse-racism Bigfoot.

Hmm - "the elusive reverse-racism Bigfoot"?  Does that mean we can't actually find examples of reverse racism? So the New Haven firefighters case exemplified what?  And since we have drifted there, Jeffrey Rosen in TNR told us that Sonia Sotomayor had a "compelling" personal biography:

A judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Sonia Sotomayor’s biography is so compelling that many view her as the presumptive front-runner for Obama's first Supreme Court appointment. She grew up in the South Bronx, the daughter of Puerto Rican parents. Her father, a manual laborer who never attended high school, died a year after she was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of eight. She was raised by her mother, a nurse, and went to Princeton and then Yale Law School. She worked as a New York assistant district attorney and commercial litigator before Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan recommended her as a district court nominee to the first President Bush. She would be the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, if you don’t count Benjamin Cardozo.

I take away the notion that being Hispanic is part of what makes this biography so compelling.  Isn't that reverse racism?

Let's press on:

The argument of these whites minimizes the victimization of others while magnifying their own victimization. While their argument may hold for some individuals, when you look at blacks writ large, the argument falls apart.

The next passage strikes me as gibberish, but have at it:

According to an ABC News poll conducted last year, blacks are even more likely than whites to admit that they “have at least some feelings of racial prejudice.” Thirty-eight percent of blacks admitted to those feelings while only 34 percent of whites did. I use the word admit because people notoriously underreport negative behaviors on polls, and knowing which groups may underreport and to what degree is impossible to gauge. For more objectivity, we need more scientific measures like Project Implicit, a virtual laboratory maintained by Harvard, the University of Washington and the University of Virginia that has administered hundreds of thousands of online tests designed to detect hidden racial biases. Tests taken from 2000 to 2006 found that a whopping three-quarters of whites have an implicit pro-white/anti-black bias, while 40 percent of blacks had a pro-black/anti-white bias, about the same amount as those admitting racial prejudice in the poll.

Furthermore, a January poll by the Pew Research Center found that most blacks agree that blacks who can’t get ahead are most responsible for their own condition. Only about a third said that racial discrimination was the main reason.

This whole hollow argument is further evidence that many whites are exhibiting the same culture of racial victimization that they decry.

The Project Implicit site is interesting.  Since (I have read) the human brain is hard-wired to prefer its own group, that "whopping three quarters" may reflect basic neurology rather than conscious discrimination.  Consequently, it may have no predictive power as to hiring decisions and the like.

In the interests of full disclosure, I should add that I took the test and apparently have a tendency to lean slightly in favor of African-Americans.  No pictures of Charles Blow were included in the test, however.

More weirdness:

There’s a mound of scientific evidence a mile high that documents the broad, systematic and structural discrimination against minorities. Where’s the comparable mound of documentation for discrimination against whites? There isn’t one.

Huh?  Are affirmative action and the EEOC "structural"?  General Motors (p. 22) made a special attempt to keep minority-owned car dealerships afloat - structural?

As to the science, I am sure some of it is impressive.  I am also sure some of it looks like the silly study from 2002 that liberals like to cite - the theme is that "equal" resumes with black sounding names got fewer call-backs.  The objections are obvious, but not to libs.

OK, I will end rather than conclude.  Dismal time management...

START ME UP!

OK, I am back for a Big Finish.  Blow concludes his comfort food for the left with a bit more righty-bashing:

In fact, some on the right seem to be doing with the race issue what they’ve done with the climate-change issue: denying the basic facts and muddying the waters around them until no one can see clearly enough to have an honest discussion or develop thoughtful solutions.

I had thought that the reflexive denials and defenses of many on the right were simply an overreaction to, in their view, being unfairly accused of racism on too broad a scale. My present worry is that denial may be the new normal and that the hot language of the past summer has cooled and hardened into a permanently warped perception of the very meaning of discrimination and racism. I worry that the last bit of distance between where we are and where we want to be on racial reconciliation is being drawn through an ever-narrowing, ever-more-treacherous terrain.

Blow has a tiny audience on the right and even less credibility, so there is zero chance of him winning converts from that side.  But speaking as a person who instinctively favors blacks (albeit slightly), I have some constructive advice - Blow might actually be able to change minds and change behavior if he identified behaviors among his audience on the left that could be changed for the better. 

He gives tiny nods in that direction (e.g., by identifying, but not affirming, the possibility that some accusations of racism are overdone), but Blow has no apparent interest in providing leadership or challenging his readership.  His goal is to bang out a column that libs can enjoy over their coffee, sagely bemoning those wacky Tea-Partiers and deplorable righties.  He only falls short by failing to bash Sarah Palin; otherwise, it's Mission Accomplished.

He closes with a chorus of Kumbaya:

Racism isn’t everywhere we imagine it, but it is in far more places than we admit. If we can start from common points of agreement, we can come much closer to common ground. But to do that, everyone must step out of the shadows of denial and into the brutal light of honesty.

Booker T. Washington was right that there are some who may not “want the patient to get well.” Those people exist on all sides of the debate, and they will always be there. But they’re a minority. Cast them aside. Let the rest of us start with this point of agreement: The patient is doing better but is still sick.

To be clear - everyone on the right must step forward into the brutal light of honesty and confess their shortcomings, after which Mr. Blow and the left will offer forgiveness and redemption.  Maybe.  Nobody on the left has to do anything more difficult than look into their heart to find forgiveness.

NOT REALLY RELATED:  The deplorable racism of Adam Serwer, who lives under the illusion that only blacks join criminal gangs, has not to my knowledge been addressed by The American Prospect.

TRUST BUT VERIFY:

A Harry Potter Moment

This is the scariest Harry Potter video yet.

And my spies tell me the movie is great.  OK, my spies were exhausted after the midnight showing and I had to waterboard them, but I believe the intel.

Is It The Times, Or The Onion (Ongoing...)

It looks like the Times but delivers like the Onion:

Obama to Reassure Europe at NATO Gathering

How, by resigning?  Brandishing his Nobel?

Body language mavens will marvel at this photo of our reassuring Prez:

Defensive or arrogant?  I deplore these false choices - both!

On The Road

I have issues with this Yglesian economics, but time does not permit.  Just to start it off, however, I am skeptical of this:

On the labor market it’s similar. Someone like Greg Mankiw or myself who has the opportunity to do freelance writing work really should respond to transient tax cuts with increased output. But given that the tax cuts will be transient, our current increased output will be reduced in the future with reduced output with taxes are raised. The money has to be repaid, after all, out of tax revenue and with interest. And rational agents making long- or medium-term plans about their own human capital and life decisions should be basically indifferent to transient changes in tax rates. The issue is the long-term tax burden which is determined by the level of spending.

Just for starters, it may be true that an entrepeneur looking at a ten year plan may not choose to focus on tranisent tax rates.  But if Mankiw and Yglesais passed on big book advances in 2010 because they figured that an advance in 2011 would be just as valuable, well, that was not very astute economic planning.

And I have lost all the links, but an NRO observer made the same point yesterday that I made in 2003 - many of the Bush tax cuts may have been admirable (such as the family tax credit) but they couldn't be characterized as "supply-side".

Dennis the Peasant has issues, too.

Throwing Another Log On The Fire

Folks contemplating the latest TSA security procedures don't seem to care for the latest Big Government idea of subjecting their mother, wife or daughters to a sexual assault.

But if your ire flags, remember this - no one will be groping Michelle, Sasha or Malia.  These new procedures only apply to the little people.  Just one more disconnect between our President and the people he "serves".

NOT QUTE A MAN OF THE PEOPLE:  Incoming Speaker John Boehner will fly commericial but his security arrangements do not include the standard lines and pat downs.

FILE THIS UNDER "DON'T ASK, DON'T ASK...":  It has been widely reported that the TSA patdowns are done on a same-sex basis (and we can only imagine Al Gore's disappointment), so presumably they acknowledge that there are some sexual issues in play.

However, I assume the TSA does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.  So put this on our list of Frequently Unasked Questions - does the flying public really not care whether they are being groped by a gay person?  Do they not mind if their child is being groped by a person who might be gay?  I applaud America's broad-mindedness.

As to possible comparisons to doctors and nurses who keep intimate contact very professional, please - I don't think the TSA people have quite that background or level of training.

My Bold Prediction as to where this non-debate is headed - yesterday, you were a homophobe if you didn't support gay marriage.  Today, you are a homophobe if you don't support the right of gay TSA workers to grope same-sex passengers.

 

In Which I Implore The American Prospect To Remove The Beam From Their Own Eye...

Adam Serwer, an utterly earnest lib bleating at the American Prospect, reveals his own casual racism while deploring Rush Limbaugh and the bald dog whistle noted by Andrew Sullivan:

What's clear, though, is that conservatives deploy racially tinged rhetoric against liberal policy priorities and Democratic politicians, and that Obama being president has a lot to do with these arguments being used. Rush Limbaugh wouldn't be comparing [Obama] to gang members if he weren't black.

Hello?  Only blacks are members of criminal gangs?  What about the Mafia, or the Russian Mafia, or Hell's Angels?  Or the Molly Maguires?  Yeah, come get some!

My goodness.

Fortunately, we have assurance that not all libs have so low an opinion of the black community and are able to maintain their color-blindness in pursuit of colorful metaphors - a quick Google search coughs up many references linking George Bush to gangs.  Maybe it was because they thought George Bush was black?  Doubtful!  I am going to climb on a limb and argue that people use "gang" to connote criminal conspiracy with no racial overtones.

I have confidence that The American Prospect will promptly treat Mr. Serwer with the same dispatch they would hope to see any righty treated who wrote so offensively.  Enjoy the re-education camp!

JUST ONE MINUTE AT THE MOVIES:  Robert Downey Jr. portrayed a black man in "Tropic Thunder".  Perhaps Mr. Serwer believes Leonardo DiCaprio performed a similar feat in "Gangs of New York"?

Long Slog In Afghanistan

The LA Times previews Obama's meeting with NATO leaders this weekend.

U.S. appears ready to acknowledge a long haul in Afghanistan

As NATO leaders meet in Lisbon this weekend, the U.S. is expected to endorse a plan for slow withdrawal and gradually handing over security responsibility by 2014.

Reporting from Washington —

President Obama built his Afghanistan strategy around the bet that he could quickly turn around a "must win" war by narrowing his goals and sending more troops. This weekend he will make his clearest acknowledgement yet that doing so will actually take years.

At a summit in Lisbon this weekend, Obama and other NATO leaders will endorse a plan to gradually turn combat responsibility over to the Afghan army and police by 2014, a timetable that will keep tens of thousands of U.S. combat troops in Afghanistan well beyond the end of Obama's first term.

U.S. and Afghan officials previously have made it clear that Afghanistan will need U.S. help against the insurgency for many years, but the transition plan being presented in Lisbon will be the first time Obama publicly backs such a time frame.

"Reality is starting to set in," said retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen David Barno, who commanded U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005. "There's a better appreciation by the administration that you can't have instantaneous results."

Reality will set in when an anti-war Democrat challenges Obama in the primaries.  My full (but not yet fully baked!) theory is that Howard Dean or Russ Feingold will play the role of Eugene McCarthy, the 1968 stalking goat.  If (IF!) Obama's vulnerabilty is demonstrated then Hillary (playing the part of Bobby) will allow herself to be cajoled into running as the respectable, electable adult.

Set against that - Hillary talked herself out of running in 2004 because, at the time of decision in 2003, Iraq was unpopular with the left (as was her vote) but not an obvious debacle.  Consequently, Bush looked tough to beat, so she abandoned the field to such heavyweights as John Kerry and Howard Dean.

In late 2011 the economy is unlikely to look so good that Obama's triumph will appear inevitable.  But Hillary's inclination will be to do the cautious thing and wait until 2016.  Hence the need for a stalking goat.

I Take Exception

Here is a willfully (or woefully) ignorant column from Matt Miller at the WaPo:

Oooh, you're so strong, baby, so handsome. You're the greatest.

I'm talking about you, America. You're . . . why, you're exceptional!

Does anyone else think there's something a little insecure about a country that requires its politicians to constantly declare how exceptional it is? A populace in need of this much reassurance may be the surest sign of looming national decline.

And Mr. Miller goes on to bash needy Republicans and their pandering leaders.

My outraged rebuttal is in two parts.  First, Ronald Reagan certainly invoked American excptionalism on occasion.  Of course, when he took over after gasoline lines, hostages in Iran, our bold Olympic boycott, and stories that America was too complicated to be led by one man (especially if that man was Mr. Peanut), it was not obvious that America's best days were still ahead.   That notwithstanding, plenty of contemporary Republican politicians figure that emulating Reagan is probably not a bad strategy.

But more importantly, this is an attack point for Republicans because we have a President who doesn't seem to have any sense at all of American exceptionalism.  Obama's intellectual development ended on the Columbia campus in the early 80's and he is a generic "Blame America Firster".  C'mon - the first time in her adut life his wife was proud of this country was when he ran for President.  And Obama's explanation of why he loves America amounts to "It produced the Wonder of Me".

That Went Well!

The NY Times reports on Eric Holder's big idea:

Detainee Acquitted on Most Counts in ’98 Bombings

By BENJAMIN WEISER

The first former Guantánamo detainee to be tried in a civilian court was acquitted on Wednesday of all but one of more than 280 charges of conspiracy and murder in the 1998 terrorist bombings of the United States Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

The case has been seen as a test of President Obama’s goal of trying detainees in federal court whenever feasible, and the result may again fuel debate over whether civilian courts are appropriate for trying terrorists.

The defendant, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, 36, was convicted of one count of conspiracy to destroy government buildings and property. He was acquitted of six counts of conspiracy, including conspiring to kill Americans and use weapons of mass destruction.

When the judge’s clerk asked how the jury found on counts 11 to 223, which were all counts of murder, the jury foreman replied, “Not guilty.”

Mr. Ghailani faces a sentence of 20 years to life in prison.

 

Speaking Truth For Power

Kidding?  Tom Friedman waxes about Anderson Cooper (video), who bravely rose to defend the honor (and thrift!) of Barack's White House when talk radio lit up with the bogus report that the President's trip to India was costing $200 million a day.

That's speaking up for the powerless, all right.

Meanwhile, I am having utter brain lock here.  If folks could help me out with comparable lefty folk tales that neither Tom Friedman, Anderson Cooper nor anyone on the left attempted to refudiate, that would be great.  From an eternity ago I have in my mind an absurdly phony "study" which proved that abortions rose under George Bush.  Lefties lapped it up, natch, and where was Anderson Cooper then?

More recent examples would be helpful.  As would some ginkgo biloba.

An Ambush That Wasn't, Yet Was

Politico tried to explain why Republicans are delaying their summit with Obama until Nov 30, in a story that merited, and has since received, a correction (thereby spoiling my fun).

Josh Marshall, who picked a bad day to give up caffeine, decides that the sloppy reporting is yet more evidence that Republicans are stupid liars who lie stupidly.

The truth was actualy quite accessible, as we will see.

From Josh Marshall we get the original Politco bit:

The roots of the partisan standoff that led to the postponement of the bipartisan White House summit scheduled for Thursday date back to January, when President Barack Obama crashed a GOP meeting in Baltimore to deliver a humiliating rebuke of House Republicans.

Obama's last-minute decision to address the House GOP retreat - and the one-sided televised presidential lecture many Republicans decried as a political ambush - has left a lingering distrust of Obama invitations and a wariness about accommodating every scheduling request emanating from the West Wing, aides tell POLITICO.

"He has a ways to go to rebuild the trust," said a top Republican Hill staffer. "The Baltimore thing was unbelievable. There were [House Republicans] who only knew Obama was coming when they saw Secret Service guys scouting out the place."

Dr. Marshall then notes many reports (incuding a Republican press release) that President Obama accepted a Republican invitation to address their retreat two weeks prior to the event.  Oh, those dastardly Republicans!  Back live to Josh Marshall:

Honestly, I'm not even sure what to make of this. Not only does this version of events seem preposterous on its face, I didn't even realize this was their storyline.

Let's start with this whole idea that Obama somehow just showed up and blew up their retreat. Crashed, ambushed, etc. This was definitely not my recollection. I thought that the House Republicans invited Obama. And he accepted. Indeed, I remember for what I think were several days in advance our Eric Kleefeld telling me how excited he was to see a US equivalent of the Brits' question time.

So was it an ambush? Well, My God, not even close.

Well, I don't have much of a recollection one way or another, but fortunately, I have the ability to search the NY Times website for their fine reporting.

Let's see - From mid-January. Obama to meet at Republican retreat in a few weeks, as advertised.

And now, what is this, from the day of the event?

For Mr. Obama, the lion’s-den strategy of addressing a Republican audience reinforced his effort in the State of the Union address this week to reclaim a more bipartisan image and reach out to disaffected independents. Although he and other presidents have addressed opposition caucuses before, they usually close the doors for questions, but this time the White House insisted on letting the news media record the give and take.

That worked to his benefit as he took advantage of the staging that comes with being president. He commanded the lectern with the presidential seal and the camera was trained mainly on him, while his interlocutors were forced to look up to him from the audience. Moreover, Mr. Obama gave long, confident and informed answers and felt free to interrupt questioners, while it is typically harder for others to interrupt a president.

So the staging worked to Obama's benefit.  Well, wait a second - when did the Republicans agree to give up the home court advantage like that?

Traditionally at annual party retreats, the president gives a short speech that is open to the public and media, then the doors are shut for a more candid question-and-answer session. Republicans said they initially did not ask the White House if the president’s entire appearance could be public since they did not expect it would consent.

But late Thursday, the White House asked if the exchange with the lawmakers could be televised. Republicans decided this morning that they would allow media coverage, rather than be portrayed as wanting to keep the session private since they have been promoting themselves as advocates of government transparency.

So the idea that the full session would be televised was raised by the White House the evening before the event and only agreed to by Republicans on the morning of the event.  My goodness, that sounds almost like... an ambush.  The White House presumably did not surprise themselves with their request, so they had several weeks to prepare Obama's remarks and staging.

Regardless of the botched Politico coverage, figuring out what was vexing the Republicans wasn't so hard, even if it was too hard for the Talking Points team.  And lest you doubt me, here is the Politico correction of the substantially revised story:

CORRECTION: President Barack Obama’s decision to accept the invitation of House Republicans in Jan. 2010 was announced in advance; the decision to televise it was made at the last minute.

The non-ambush ambush.  One imagines that Republicans are not keen to experience a similar surprise in their November summiit with Obama, whenever it may be.

As to what Republicans said to Politico and what Politico heard, who knows?  Obviously, people should have known Obama would appear; the surprise was that the camera crews stayed.

Oil And Gas - Not About To Pass The Baton

Today's Times has a special section on energy.  It includes an article on oil and natural gas which utterly confounds the conventional wisdom of the left (as exemplified by Obama's campaign speech on energy in 2008).

Some snippets:

Just as it seemed that the world was running on fumes, giant oil fields were discovered off the coasts of Brazil and Africa, and Canadian oil sands projects expanded so fast, they now provide North America with more oil than Saudi Arabia. In addition, the United States has increased domestic oil production for the first time in a generation.

Meanwhile, another wave of natural gas drilling has taken off in shale rock fields across the United States, and more shale gas drilling is just beginning in Europe and Asia. Add to that an increase in liquefied natural gas export terminals around the world that connected gas, which once had to be flared off, to the world market, and gas prices have plummeted.

Energy experts now predict decades of residential and commercial power at reasonable prices. Simply put, the world of energy has once again been turned upside down.

Drill, baby drill:

For the last two decades, the United States has produced less oil each year and been increasingly dependent on imports than the year before. As recently as a decade ago, most experts predicted that the country had only 25 years of gas reserves, and that it would need to import at least half of its needs in the future.

Today the country has reversed both trends, chiefly because of new drilling techniques that have opened world-class oil and gas resources. In 2009, domestic production began to reverse its annual decline for the first time since 1991. The Energy Department expects domestic supplies to grow through 2035, absent a significant decline in oil prices.

Energy independence for the US:

Add up the shale, the deepwater drilling and Canadian oil sands, says Edward L. Morse, the head at commodity research at Credit Suisse, and what you get is less dependency on OPEC and hostile countries like Venezuela. Synthetic oil made from Canadian oil sands has become the largest single source of imported oil this year, far more than from any OPEC country.

Mr. Morse said the demand side of the equation also helped. He noted that American demand for gasoline appeared to have peaked in 2007 and could decline by 15 to 20 percent by 2020 because of increasingly efficient cars and a federal mandate requiring that renewable fuels, like ethanol, blended into transportation fuels must increase to 36 billion gallons in 2022, from nine billion gallons in 2008.

“When you add it up,” Mr. Morse noted, “you get something that very closely approximates energy independence.”

Iraq a "potential game-changer":

The biggest wild card, and a potential game-changer, is Iraq, which now produces a modest 2.5 million barrels a day. With Saddam Hussein out of the picture, international oil companies have rushed there. If all the projects they have agreed to develop pan out, and if Iraq can contain its political turbulence enough to pump, production could mushroom to 12 million barrels a day by the end of the decade — well above what Saudi Arabia produces today.

But even if Iraq’s production does not rise to this level, IHS CERA predicts “it will eventually join Saudi Arabia and Russia as one of the largest global producers, with increasing influence on OPEC and world oil markets.”

This does not endorse 'blood for oil', but it does mean that Iraq could afford its own reconstruction and contribute to the world economy in a way that Afgfhanistan, to pick an example at random, cannot.

Obama's 2008 speech, like most of his ideas, is a recycling of the conventional wisdom of the Columbia campus in the early 80's.  He rails about our addiction to oil controlled by dictators and the desperate importance of alternative energy.

NO PEAKING: Steve LeVine at Foreign Policy contrasts the Times vision with some gloomier peak oil views.

 

Separating The Men From The Manly Men

OK, this has me steamed - Bryan Fischer, who is very coy about his own military service (if any) , tells us that the Medal of Honor has been feminized:

The Medal of Honor will be awarded this afternoon to Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta for his heroism in Afghanistan, and deservedly so. He took a bullet in his protective vest as he pulled one soldier to safety, and then rescued the sergeant who was walking point and had been taken captive by two Taliban, whom Sgt. Giunta shot to free his comrade-in-arms.

This is just the eighth Medal of Honor awarded during our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Sgt. Giunta is the only one who lived long enough to receive his medal in person.

But I have noticed a disturbing trend in the awarding of these medals, which few others seem to have recognized.

We have feminized the Medal of Honor.

According to Bill McGurn of the Wall Street Journal, every Medal of Honor awarded during these two conflicts has been awarded for saving life. Not one has been awarded for inflicting casualties on the enemy. Not one.

Gen. George Patton once famously said, "The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other guy die for his."

When we think of heroism in battle, we used the think of our boys storming the beaches of Normandy under withering fire, climbing the cliffs of Pointe do Hoc while enemy soldiers fired straight down on them, and tossing grenades into pill boxes to take out gun emplacements.

That kind of heroism has apparently become passe when it comes to awarding the Medal of Honor. We now award it only for preventing casualties, not for inflicting them.

So the question is this: when are we going to start awarding the Medal of Honor once again for soldiers who kill people and break things so our families can sleep safely at night?

I have a different question - when is someone going to kick Fischer's rear area into the next county?  Oh, I withdraw the question.  I have neither the time nor patience to reprise old Audie Murphy movies and do a full study of our fortunate nation's 3,400 Medal of Honor winners in order to refudiate this nonsense.

However, I happened to look at Medals of Honor awarded in Vietnan (A-L) and quit after the first four:

*ADAMS, WILLIAM E.

Maj. Adams distinguished himself on 25 May 1971 while serving as a helicopter pilot in Kontum Province in the Republic of Vietnam. On that date, Maj. Adams volunteered to fly a lightly armed helicopter in an attempt to evacuate 3 seriously wounded soldiers from a small fire base which was under attack by a large enemy force. He made the decision with full knowledge that numerous antiaircraft weapons were positioned around the base and that the clear weather would afford the enemy gunners unobstructed view of all routes into the base.

And he died in the attempt.

Despite his valiant efforts, the helicopter exploded, overturned, and plummeted to earth amid the hail of enemy fire. Maj. Adams' conspicuous gallantry, intrepidity, and humanitarian regard for his fellow man were in keeping with the most cherished traditions of the military service and reflected utmost credit on him and the U S. Army.

Next:

*ALBANESE, LEWIS

Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life and beyond the call of duty.

...Pfc. Albanese, disregarding the danger to himself, advanced 100 meters along the trench and killed 6 of the snipers, who were armed with automatic weapons. Having exhausted his ammunition, Pfc. Albanese was mortally wounded when he engaged and killed 2 more enemy soldiers in fierce hand-to-hand combat.

That's the kind of killing Fischer's talking about!  And the conclusion of the citation:

His unparalleled actions saved the lives of many members of his platoon who otherwise would have fallen to the sniper fire from the ditch, and enabled his platoon to successfully advance against an enemy force of overwhelming numerical superiority. Pfc. Albanese's extraordinary heroism and supreme dedication to his comrades were commensurate with the finest traditions of the military service and remain a tribute to himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.

Saving lives certainly got a nod.  Next:

*ANDERSON, JAMES, JR.

As the fire fight continued several of the men were wounded by the deadly enemy assault. Suddenly, an enemy grenade landed in the midst of the marines and rolled alongside Pfc. Anderson's head. Unhesitatingly and with complete disregard for his personal safety, he reached out, grasped the grenade, pulled it to his chest and curled around it as it went off. Although several marines received shrapnel from the grenade, his body absorbed the major force of the explosion. In this singularly heroic act, Pfc. Anderson saved his comrades from serious injury and possible death. His personal heroism, extraordinary valor, and inspirational supreme self-sacrifice reflected great credit upon himself and the Marine Corps and upheld the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

Next:

*ANDERSON, RICHARD A.

...Undaunted, he continued to pour a relentless stream of fire at the assaulting unit, even while a companion was treating his leg wounds. Observing an enemy grenade land between himself and the other marine, L/Cpl. Anderson immediately rolled over and covered the lethal weapon with his body, absorbing the full effects of the detonation. By his indomitable courage, inspiring initiative, and selfless devotion to duty, L/Cpl. Anderson was instrumental in saving several marines from serious injury or possible death. His actions were in keeping with the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and of the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life in the service of his country.

I have a suggeston for Mr. Fischer - if he is lucky enough to meet a Medal of Honor winner, just salute and say 'thank you.'

I CAN QUIT ANYTIME... The first four entries from WWI are the sort of heroism described by Mr. Fischer.  The next three recipients won medals for assisting their comrades.  Is this back when men were men?

IF YOU CAN'T TRUST YOUR MOTHER:  I may never again take the same side as Adam Weinstein of Mother Jones, but folks who want more Fischer-bashing can look there.

FIRE IN THE HOLE:  McQ at BlackFive cuts loose.

Sullivan's Metaphor Mangler Has Me Losing My Hair

When is a "bald case" not a bald case?  When the Andrew Sullivan Metaphor Mangler is in overdrive.  Here we go:

The Bald Racism Of Rush Limbaugh

The image above appears on Rush Limbaugh's Web site. Is any American more adept at exploiting racial dog whistles? It's always egregious enough to be calculatingly offensive, but never quite an open and shut case, because most of all the talk radio host revels in being called a racist so that he can throw up his hands and complain about liberal race-baiting.

Set aside the actual image for a moment and riddle me this - if the image is a "bald" example of racism, how can it also be a "dog whistle" that is not quite "open and shut"? Isn't a bald example totally exposed and unconcealed?

IMHO, the image is not racist at all, but I am a caveman troglodyte righty, not an enlightened lib whatever Sully is calling himself these days.

It must be Groundhog Year if we have recycled back to the notion that all criticism of Obama is racist.

MAYBE THE GREEKS HAVE A WORD FOR IT.  As best I can guess, Sully seems to be spinning up the "racist" charge from Limbaugh's suggestion that ""Barack Obama's presidency is graffiti on the walls of American history."

Are all (or even most) graffitti artists black?  Taki 183, the granddaddy of them all, seems to be Greek.

More Brooks v. Krugman

Davidf Brooks comes out swinging against liberal technocrats.  He doesn't name Paul Krugman, but he could have!

Many of the psychologists, artists and moral philosophers I know are liberal, so it seems strange that American liberalism should adopt an economic philosophy that excludes psychology, emotion and morality.

Yet that is what has happened. The economic approach embraced by the most prominent liberals over the past few years is mostly mechanical. The economy is treated like a big machine; the people in it like rational, utility maximizing cogs. The performance of the economic machine can be predicted with quantitative macroeconomic models.

These models can be used to make highly specific projections. If the government borrows $1 and then spends it, it will produce $1.50 worth of economic activity. If the government spends $800 billion on a stimulus package, that will produce 3.5 million in new jobs.

Everything is rigorous. Everything is science.

I especially like this:

Other [critics and skeptics] get moralistic. This country is already too profligate, they cry. It already shops too much and borrows too much. How can we solve our problems by borrowing and spending more? The liberal technicians brush this away, too. Economics is a rational activity detached from morality. Hardheaded policy makers have to have the courage to flout conventional morality — to borrow even when the country is sick of borrowing.

That's right - Obama needed to find the courage to let Nancy and Harry buy every bit of pork that had accumulated on the Democratic wish list during the darkness of the Bush years.  Bold!  The economy may yet limp into recovery in time to give Obama some oxygen for 2012.  However, unlike Reagan in the depths of 1982 or Clinton in 1994, Obama can hardly run as the man with a plan who made the tough choices.  Flipping the keys to Nancy and Harry was the opposite of leadership.

RESPONSE:  Krugman fires back:

Second, David would have us believe that the Obama people were misled by their excessive faith in models. But we actually know what happened when the stimulus was being discussed: the modelers, who said that we needed something much bigger, were dismissed in favor of gut feelings about market psychology.

We will never know whether a bigger stimulus would have been effective.  One might wonder about the availability of even more shovel-ready projects, and of course, Krugman would have experienced terminal apoplexy if the stimulus was made larger by way of tax cuts.

On the other hand, Krugman is correct in saying that some economists, himself included, thought the stimulus was too small at the outset.  Krugman has less to say about Keynes' "animal spirits", upon which Broks harped; I don't think many people believe that Barack, Nancy and Harry inspired the confidence of the business community.

 

An Interesting Assessment Of What's His Name

Nate Silver on the Presidential prospects of the Republican you forget before you hear his name. 

If You Can't Count On Dave Weigel...

Normally I can count on Dave Weigel (formally of Journolist, now at Slate) to provide an utterly banal bashing of Sarah Palin or some other - OK, any other - Republican.

Today he crosses me up with a very funny media-basher.

My Quick Foray Into Psycho-Babble

The American Narcissus has been my guilty pleasure of the weekend (and who among us does not enjoy a good Obama-basher?), and now I see there have been follow-ups.

Let me offer the following contribution - here is the WaPo description of Obama's changed tone in Presidential humor:

Barack Obama, the Insult Comic President, was up to his old shtick Saturday night.

Breaking with presidential punch line tradition for the second consecutive year, Obama dropped zinger after zinger on his opponents and allies alike at the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner [transcript]. Obama went all Don Rickles on a broad range of topics and individuals: Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, presidential advisers David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel, the news media, Jay Leno, and Republicans Michael Steele, Scott Brown, John McCain and Sarah Palin.

Except for a mild joke pegged to his falling approval ratings, Obama mostly spared Obama during his 14-minute stand-up routine.

Big Snip, and:

The outer-directed tone of the material, which was credited to Axelrod, White House speechwriter Jon Favreau and ex-Hillary Clinton speechwriter Jon Lovett, was in keeping with Obama's inaugural voyage as presidential joker last year. Making the rounds of the traditional spring dinners, the president cracked wise on just about everyone but himself.

...

Obama's derisive tone surprises and dismays some of the people who've written jokes for presidents past.

"With these dinners you want the audience to like you more when you sit down than when you stood up," says Landon Parvin, an author and speechwriter for politicians in both parties, and a gag writer for three Republican presidents (Reagan and Bushes I and II). "Something in [Obama's] humor didn't do that," he said Sunday.

Parvin advises his political clients to practice a little partisan self-deprecation when they make lighthearted remarks: "If you're a Democrat, you make fun of Democrats and go easy on the Republicans; if you're a Republican, you do the opposite," he says.

Presidents past have generally hewed to that tradition, even when they were under intense criticism or were deeply unpopular.

At the height of the media frenzy over Bill and Hillary Clinton's involvement in the Whitewater real estate deal, Clinton opened his remarks at one of the press dinners by saying: "I am delighted to be here tonight. And if you believe that, I have some land in northwest Arkansas I'd like to sell you."

So, is that consistent with narcissistic behavior?  I don't know, but based on this quick Mayo Clinic overview, let me ask a different question - what behavior is not consistent with narcissistic personality disorder?

I especially like this, from the symptoms:

Narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by dramatic, emotional behavior, in the same category as antisocial and borderline personality disorders.

Unless the person makes an effort to:

[Appear] as tough-minded or unemotional.

So either a total drama queen, or Mr. Spock.  Or in-between.  Got it.

I think the symptoms they list would apply to most politicians.  However, it is pretty easy to look at this list and think of Barack:

Narcissistic personality disorder symptoms may include:

• Believing that you're better than others
• Fantasizing about power, success and attractiveness
• Exaggerating your achievements or talents
• Expecting constant praise and admiration
• Believing that you're special and acting accordingly
• Failing to recognize other people's emotions and feelings
• Expecting others to go along with your ideas and plans
• Taking advantage of others
• Expressing disdain for those you feel are inferior
• Being jealous of others
• Believing that others are jealous of you
• Trouble keeping healthy relationships
• Setting unrealistic goals
• Being easily hurt and rejected
• Having a fragile self-esteem
• Appearing as tough-minded or unemotional

AS AN ASIDE:  The symptom that made me laugh is "Fantasizing about power, success and attractiveness".  I suspect I am not alone in remembering Michael Jordan's appearance on Saturday Night Live with Al Franken as Stuart Smalley, the self-affirming shrink.  A highlights:

Stuart Smalley: Well, good for you! Good for you! Um, Michael.. I know there must be a lot of pressure for you to play very well, and I can imagine that the night before a game, you must lie awake thinking, "I'm not good enough.. everybody's better than me.. I'm not going to score any points.. I have no business playing this game.."

Michael Jordan: Well.. not really.

Stuart Smalley: Michael, denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

Enough already.  We'll be here all week.

 

Back To The Midterms!

The head honcho at Planet Moron thinks we need another election so Congress can remember what they never learned.  Too bad he won't live long enough to see it.

A Mea Culpa From Obama

The Times tells us that Obama is shouldering a bit of responsibility for the partisan tone in Washington:

Just 20 days after his inauguration, with Republicans trying to block his stimulus bill, President Obama refused to acknowledge that he had underestimated how hard it would be to change the way Washington works.

But as the president returned home on Sunday to face an even more rigidly divided capital, Mr. Obama went even further by blaming himself for failing to do what he had repeatedly promised — change the tone in Washington.

He said his own “obsessive” focus on implementing the right policies had led him to ignore a part of the reason voters handed him a mandate in 2008.

“I neglected some things that matter a lot to people, and rightly so: maintaining a bipartisan tone in Washington,” he told reporters in a brief question-and-answer session aboard Air Force One as he returned from a 10-day trip to Asia. “I’m going to redouble my efforts to go back to some of those first principles,” he promised.

Is it his claim that he was "obsessive" about having policies that were right rather than bipartisan?  This notion that the other side is stupid and wrong wrong but needs to be humored ocassionally is part of the tone that needs to be changed.

And the level of denial here is staggering:

Among the things he neglected, he told reporters on Sunday: “Making sure that the policy decisions that I made were fully debated with the American people and that I was getting out of Washington and spending more time shaping public opinion and being in a conversation with the American people about why I was making the choices I was making.”

Uh huh - he only made about a thousand pleas for health care reform, when really he needed to be more involved communicating with the public.  Why does he suppose pollsters were asking whether Obama was over-exposed?  Why does he suppose people just didn't believe what he was saying? (My guess?  Because his health care cost bending looked a lot llike Uru Geller's spoon bending - cool, but you know it's a trick.)

Sign Me Up

From Politico:

A gay conservative group and some Tea Party leaders are campaigning to keep social issues off the Republican agenda.

In a letter to be released Monday, the group GOProud and leaders from groups like the Tea Party Patriots and the New American Patriots, will urge Republicans in the House and Senate to keep their focus on shrinking the government.

I don't know if the big tent is ready for this, but I am.

And I am curious what the social conservatives really are looking for.  I imagine they would be comfortable with the sort of judges any likely Republican nominee would appoint (OK, except Harriet Miers), so how hard would it be for them to resume their seat at the back of the bus, as it were?

THEN AGAIN:  I guess stem cell research is up in the air - Obama reversed Bush's executive order, and a Federal judge rejected Obama's order.

And on Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the courts have already thrown it out; we are waiting on Obama's appeals and attempt to overturn it by way of the legislative process.

Good Lib-Bashing From Dionne And Krugman

EJ Dionne:

The lame-duck session of Congress that kicks off this week will test whether Democrats have spines made of Play-Doh and whether President Obama has decided to pretend that capitulation is conciliation.

P Krugman:

The obvious point is the contrast between the administration’s current whipped-dog demeanor and Mr. Obama’s soaring rhetoric as a candidate. How did we get from “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” to here?

"Here" is "Take off the pink tutu".

Deliberators Deliberate

John McCain wants the world's greatest deliberative body to actually talk about the Pentagon report on Don't Ask, Don't Tell before lifting the ban on gay troops.  That is not unreasonable unless his real goal is to talk this to death.  I am going to excerpt Ann Althouse, then close with my own hopeful profundity:

McCain seems to be gearing up to say it wasn't the right kind of study. I can understand thinking the study group was result-oriented in its research and that the lame duck Congress doesn't have the moral authority to make this decision, but it's sad to see McCain making this issue his legacy.

It is possible this is genius at work.  If the repeal is not harmful, as this new study is being spun to suggest, McCain specifically and Republicans generally will get more credit (or at least, deny Obama some credit) if the repeal occurs after Republicans take over the House and Senate. 

Of course, that also means the House has to pass a new bill.  If House Republicans are ambivalent or opposed to this repeal, they might prefer to see the lame duck Senate take this chalice from them.

Or, the Republican Party may just be determined to stand on the wrong side of history and prevent repeal altogether.

What Time Is It? (And A Bonus Photo Caption Contest)

The WaPo picks through the White House webs site and delivers "Behind The Scenes With Obama In August And September".

My fave so far is Obama meeting with Abbas, Mubarak and Netanyahu:

There is only one possible caption: "What time is it?  It's time for him to go".

However, the White House artistes go in a more conventional direction:

Prior to the start of their working dinner with President Barack Obama, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority check their watches to see if it is officially sunset, in the Blue Room of the White House, Sept. 1, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Words fail me on this next one.  As Ann Althouse routinely notes, the White House chose to make this available in order to make some point or other about our leader; pehaps his alleged aloofness was being addressed here.  Suggested captions are welcome:

FWIW, I can't find that picture at the White House site; it may have been removed, or I may not be on top of their search functions. Or both, of course.

DAWN BREAKS OVER MARBLEHEAD:  Ahh!  When the WaPo said they got these photos from the White House Flickr account they meant the Flickr account, not the White House website.  Your 21st century technology frightens me...

Retired CIA Officer To Plame Fantasists: Move On

Via Newsbusters we see this letter to the WaPo:

In 1978, my CIA affiliation was exposed by Philip Agee in his book "Dirty Work II." I'm nothing special; more than a few colleagues have been exposed at one time or another. I went on to serve nearly 34 years.

As luck would have it, I was at one point charged with looking into possible damage in one location caused by Valerie Plame's outing. There was none.

So enough with the overwrought claims of injury that "Fair Game" suggests. Those claims devalue the resolve of the officers who have overcome truly dangerous exposure, and they cheapen the risk from laying bare their very real achievements.

It was wrong to expose Plame. It was ludicrous for her to claim that the exposure forced an end to her career in intelligence. In the words of my favorite poet, A.E. Housman: " 'Tis sure much finer fellows have fared much worse before."

R.E. Pound, Reston

The writer served in the CIA from 1976 to 2009.

We can hear the apologists already - absence of damage in one site does not prove absense of damage everywhere.

So let's crack the archives and pile on with other reporting:

Dana Priest, Pulitizer winner for her work on secret prisons:

Nov 3, 2005: "I don't actually think the Plame leak compromised national security, from what I've been able to learn about her position."

May 4, 2006: "It was reported before that she worked on proliferation issues for the CIA. The leap in this new round of information is that her outing significantly impacted our current intel on Iran. I don't buy it. First, no one person who quit clandestine work four years ago is going to make that big of a dent in current knowledge. But also, nothing like this came up at the time of her outing and I believe it would have. Think we need some actual details. At present it just doesn't smell right."

Andrea Mitchell, Oct 28 2005:

I happen to have been told that the actual damage assessment as to whether people were put in jeopardy on this case did not indicate that there was real damage in this specific instance.

Bon Woodward, Oct 27 2005:

They did a damage assessment within the CIA, looking at what this did that [former ambassador] Joe Wilson's wife [Plame] was outed. And turned out it was quite minimal damage. They did not have to pull anyone out undercover abroad. They didn't have to resettle anyone. There was no physical danger to anyone, and there was just some embarrassment. So people have kind of compared -- somebody was saying this was Aldrich Ames or Bob Hanssen, big spies. This didn't cause damage.

Folks who want to believe the Hollywood version are of course free to do so.  Just don't call it reality-based.

With the Plame movie coming out I expect another stroll down memory lane on this topic any day now.

 

 

Meanwhile, Away From Air Force One...

Obama continues to cement his bond with the American people: the same Administration that can't quite decide whether the 9/11 mastermind deserves a full civilian trial with the attendant legal rights remains intent on groping granny and her grandkids at airport security.

MORE BONDING:  A detailed account of an airport security check after a traveler got balky and the TSA clown car arrived.  Kafkaesque highlight - if a passenger refuses to be searched they still can't leave the security area and go home.  That is not logic-free, of course, since we don't want terrorists just going home to try again later.  Still.

"Take Off The Pink Tutu"

Put this in the 'Not sexist or homophobic becasue he's a lib' file: Michael Moore, with Bill Maher, tells Obama to "take off the pink tutu" and fight for the little guy.  Thanks for the tip, doughnut boy.