LFTC - Letter From The Capitol

Index 2/29/08

2 posts: (1) 2008: "Style" Election?--The Home Front; (2) Economy: Bad to Worse; Worse To Come?--"It's the Earth Stupid!".

2008: "Style" Election?

Pundit Tony Blankley counsels Republicans to avoid the trap into which the Clintons fell, throwing heavy punches at Obama, who slips them, writes Blankley, like Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) slipped roundhouse punches thrown by Sonny Liston in their first heavyweight fight (1964).  Blankley suggests lighter sword thrusts, focusing on specific weaknesses of Obama.  "He's too liberal," says Blankley, will not works.  And perhaps, nothing will.  Blankley writes:

America may be going through one of our episodic style shifts. In 1932, FDR's conversational style trumped Hoover's old oratory. In 1960, JFK's coolness and wit caught the emerging post-World War II sophistication of our culture. Twenty years later America, tired of sophisticated cynicism, was ready to return to Mr. Reagan's old-fashioned sentiments and values.

Mort Kondracke warns that "experience" will work no better for McCain this fall than it has for Hillary.  WSJ columnist Dan Henninger echoes the style theme; Obama is the best possible dream salesman for a party that has moved leftward, and is seeking a post-Great Society package.  DH writes that he has four films in mind re Hill's imminent fall: "All About Eve" (undone by all-consuming ambition), "Sunset Boulevard" (fading star dreams of revival), "A Star is Born" (established star eclipsed by rising star) and "Bonnie and Clyde" (killing casually and promiscuously).  With Hill, Anne Baxter, Judy Garland and Faye Dunaway do not come to my mind; Gloria Swanson, perhaps.

Lionel Chetwynd--that rare oxymoron, a Hollywood conservative--divines a sinister historical parallel to Obamamania: Trudeaumania.  Pierre Trudeau was a socialist, multi-culturalist, neo-pacifist Lefty who posed as Canada's JFK.  He danced around specifics, and was a spellbinding orator.  He was Canada's PM from 1968-1979 and 1980-84.  He destroyed the robust Canada that had sent the highest per capita share of its population (an incredible 1.4 out of 11 million--13 percent) of its population to fight World War II.  A proud, confident nation was reduced to a mere shell of its former self (albeit Canadian troops still shine, being on the firing line in Afghanistan).

All of which brings to mind the Cahn-Van Heusen song "Style", from the 1964 film "Robin and the Seven Hoods."  Sung by Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, the lyrics include this:

You've either got or you haven't got style.
(If you got it, you stand out a mile.)
A flower's not a flower if it's wilted,
(A hat's not a hat till it's tilted.)
[You either got or you haven't got class.]
[How it draws the applause of the masses.]

My assumption has been that Obama will peak March 5, after vanquishing Hillary.  But the public may well prove attracted to change above all else.  Style has made JFK an American icon forever, despite a presidency that was mediocre at best.  Reporters fell in love with JFK, in a way they never did with Reagan.  Their 2000 love affair with McCain was predicated on his being a closet liberal.  McCain will be in press cross-hairs through November.  Obama may, with their help, just be able to "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee."  McCain's stern call to duty may simply meet with deaf ears.  Then again, perhaps not: an LA Times - Bloomberg poll shows, unlike other recent national polls, McCain beating Obama (44 - 42) and Hill (46 - 40).  It will be up to Big Mac to remind voters that style alone hardly wins wars; "style" did not help JFK in the Bay of Pigs fiasco.

Leave us pray that Obamamania, like "Robin and the Seven Hoods," proves just a movie.

Economy: Bad to Worse; Worse to Come?

Economist Irwin Stelzer assesses the worsening news, and reminds us that in the 1970s we saw 15% inflation, 9% unemployment and 3 recessions.  The Wall Street Journal editors attribute bond market woes in part to the oligopoly enjoyed by the top credit-rating agencies.  From 1992 to 2002 the Securities and Exchange Commission refused to allow a single firm into the credit rating industry.  In 2002, Moody's rated 95% of corporate bonds, Standard and Poor's rated 93 percent and Fitch rated 37%.

One Wall Street economist argues that the inflation numbers are too low, because the wrong measure is being used, a measure of price inflation that excludes energy and food prices.  Economist Richard Rahn adds that as inflation is a rise in the general price level, changing goods baskets make measuring inflation harder; Rahn notes that food price rises are largely attributable to the ethanol craze, which raises the price of corn as crops are used for automobile fuel (instead of people fuel).  Factor in widely divergent price trends overseas and what is needed, writes Rahn, is a new monetary unit of value.  Rahn cautions against a return to gold, because its supply grows too slowly for the global economy, and thus using gold as a price yardstick can have a deflationary effect.

WSJ columnist Holman Jenkins sees Washington's housing bailout plans as exacerbating the problem.  US News & World Report editor-in-chief Mort Zuckerman offers depressing (literally) numbers on domestic housing:  After 50 years of rising house values, with an 85 percent jump from 1997 to 2006, housing has lost $1 trillion in value.  At a median price of $206,500 (the middle item in a statistical distribution, not an average), housing values have returned to November 2003.  In the past year, the average time needed to sell a home has risen from 4.3 to 6.3 months; in the same period, housing starts have fallen 40 percent.  A Merill Lynch estimate has housing starts falling from 1 million to 700,000 in 2008, to an all-time low since World War II.  Consumers are less likely to buy than at any time since 1994, while mortgages are harder to get than in the past 17 years.  Merrill Lynch sees housing prices falling another 20 to 25 percent in the next three years, falling $5 trillion in value.  Loan defaults are the largest since World War II.  In all, home values may fall from 3.9 times family income to 2.8 times, the historical norm, a level last reached in 2000 (adjusted for inflation).

Newsweek columnist Robert Samuelson anticipates the return of the dread disease of the 1970s, stagflation, a plague that Gerard Baker of the Times of London writes the Fed is trying to ward off.   Stagflation, Samuelson writes, is not simply a mix of high inflation and high unemployment; it is those two, plus slow economic growth, that is sustained for a long period of time.  WSJ editors label the Bernanke reflation the Fed's easy money policy; aimed at alleviating recession, which Bernanke regards as a grater danger than inflation, it is the wrong medicine.  Alan Greenspan reflated in 2002-2003, after the dot.com bust, leading to the housing bubble and credit excess; now Bernanke will compound the error.  The Fed's job is price stability; fiscal policy is the tool to use to spur non-inflationary growth, by creating incentives for productive investment (not unproductive investment like targeted ethanol subsidies--whatever happened to the wonderful term, "lemon socialism," used to describe politically-driven subsidies?).  Thus, the proper way to fight recession, when money is easy, is to use fiscal policy--tax cuts for all brackets, not to redistribute income--but a pro-growth a policy is impossible with this Congress

The WSJ editors note that gold (under $300 a few years ago) is now $975; oil, $70 per barrel last September, is now $102; and the Euro has topped $1.50.  MarketWatch columnist Mark Hulbert says that the gold price has plenty of room to rise further, and that gold market sentiment is bullish.
Economist Allen Meltzer observes that a monetary authority that goes overboard in fighting the onset of a small recession will eventually get a big recession.  Harvard economist Martin Feldstein anticipates a recession longer than recent ones.  He notes that house prices are already down 10 percent from their high and sees a further 10 percent fall.  Each 5 percent fall slices $1 trillion off market values;  each 10 percent cut reduces consumer spending by $100 billion.  Feldstein blames the Fed for failing to supervise the banks, in allowing them to keep off their books structured investment vehicles (SIVs), huge investments whose risk the banks grossly under-priced.

Monetary expert Steve Hanke argues that the Fed's monetary excess will lead to an "Austrian business cycle" in the US.  This is not good.  We are not talking Countess Maria von Trapp yodeling in the Alps.  We are talking what the Austrian school of economics calls "secondary deflation": banks call in loans and take a hard line on extending new credit.  Think Japan in the 1990s.  As for the "stimulus" package, Hanke calls it (accurately) a Keynesian nostrum that ignores the reality: consumers spend in accordance with what Milton Friedman called "permanent income," which includes asset wealth; consumers who see collapsing asset values (housing, stock, bonds) are hardly likely to spend promiscuously.

More worrisome in the long run is that, as economist David Hale explains in depressing detail, America's role as driver of the world economy is eroding, with the developing countries (DCs) moving to take over (at last, after 50 years of hype, they really are developing).  DCs have run a $2.5 trillion current account surplus in the past four years, with another $625 billion due in 2008.  DCs were 37% of global economic growth in the 1990s, but in 2007 hit 52%;  China's 17.8% share of global growth (not GDP, growth) topped the 14,6% US share.  DCs, who provided 18% of global GDP in 1995,  now account for 29%.  They have 75 percent of global monetary reserves--$4.5 trillion out of $6 trillion.  DCs have seen their stock market cap soar from $2.2 trillion in 2000 to $17.8 trillion, an 8-fold jump.  The latter figure tops current US stock market cap of $17.5 trillion.  DC sovereign wealth funds control $2.5 trillion.  In 2000, the 17 largest DCs' combined aggregate consumer spending was 48% of America's total; now it is 65%; total DC consumer spending is expected to pass the US in 2015.  While America's global export share has fallen from 20% of world exports in 2000 to 14% in 2007, DCs saw their export share increase from 33% in 2000 to 40.6% in 2007.

WSJ columnist Kimberley Strassel cites elders among the Demcorats who are distressed that both Hill and Barack are preaching the protectionist snake-oil gospel in Ohio, ISO votes.  "Fair trade"--imposing labor and environmental standards on foreign countries as part of trade pacts--has long been Democratic gospel.  But outright protectionism has failed in earlier election cycles--witness Richard Gephardt and Bob Kerrey TV ad,  his 1988 primary "Let's pay defense!" with Kerrey in hockey garb?); Republican protectionism backfired in the 1980 Presidential campaign, when John Connnally spent $6 billion for one delegate (dubbed "the $6 million dollar man" after the Lee Majors TV series), and bashed Japanese exports by stating that he, as President, would sit on the dock and watch on a Sony TV set Japanese cars being kept on ship.  Turns out, Americans liked those Japanese cars.  President Bush the Elder didn't save his re-election by pressuring the Japanese to buy GM cars with the steering wheel on the wrong side (Japan, like Britain, is a left-side drive country).  No less than the Los Angeles Times editors, hardly bastions of right-wing dogma, urge preserving NAFTA, and fighting trade imbalances by pushing for lower tariffs on US exports, and more training and education for US workers.

In all, not a happy picture.  Even Julie Andrews would sing the blues.  Or, as Tony Bennett might have sung: "The worst is yet to come...."

Index 2/28/08

4 posts: (1) America's Foremost House of Cards--Cyber-Serendip; (2) Obama and Racial Preferences--The Home Front; (3) Israel's Rocket Capital--and Europe's Sickening Stance--Weenie Watch; (4) William F. Buckley: Exit A Titan--The Home Front.

America's Foremost House of Cards

LFTC readers, check out this YouTube video of the re-creation, in 2 minutes, 36 seconds, of America's foremost house of cards, and how it all ends.

Obama and Racial Preferences

The National Journal's superb legal correspondent, Stuart Taylor, examines Barack Obama's record of actions and advocacy on racial preferences, and finds little to support the idea that Obama is ready to start the country moving beyond preferences.  It would, Taylor writes, enrage his African-American constituents, albeit it might win him more white support.  Taylor cannot see Obama moving against the real obstacles to poor K-12 performance by black students: inability to fire bad teachers, and inability to remove disruptive students from the classroom.  Add to that: poor parenting in underclass homes.

More evidence comes from urban historian Fred Siegel, who notes what the governor Obama calls his political twin, Deval Patrick, has done in Massachusetts since being elected:

In one area, however, Patrick has achieved some of his goals. In thrall to the state’s teachers’ unions, he has partly rolled back the most successful educational reforms in the country. Most states gamed the federal testing requirements that were part of President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act. But Massachusetts, thanks to Republican governors William Weld and Mitt Romney, created the Office of Educational Quality and Accountability to ensure that the state’s testing methods conformed closely to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)—federal tests that are the gold standard for measuring educational outcomes. In 2007, Massachusetts became the first state to achieve top marks in all four categories of student achievement. One of Patrick’s first efforts as governor was to eliminate the Office of Educational Quality and Accountability.

Ideology trumps achievement for true believers like Patrick, a quota king in the Clinton years when he held a senior civil rights post in the Justice Department.

Israel's Rocket Capital--and Europe's Sickening Stance

WSJ editor Bret Stephens writes of the 2,500 Kassam rockets (named for a 1930s Arab terrorist) that the Palestinians in Gaza have showered upon the southern border town, Sderot, since the beginning in Sept. 2000 of the Second Intifada.  Withdrawal of Israeli settlers (evicted by the IDF) led to a 6-fold jump in rockets fired.  A New York Sun editorial adds further details establishing anew Europe's moral dishonesty on the Palestinians, including a demand by the European Parliament that Israel "fulfill its international obligations, as an occupying power, in the Gaza Strip."  (Italics mine.)  The Sun editors drolly suggest that George Orwell's estate be paid royalties.

Stephens sums up the attitude in Europe:

Should Israel pick off Hamas leaders who are ordering the rocket attacks? The European Parliament last week passed a resolution denouncing the practice of targeted assassinations. Should Israel adopt purely economic measures to punish Hamas for the Kassams? The same resolution denounced what it called Israel's "collective punishment" of Palestinians. Should Israel seek to dismantle the Kassams through limited military incursions? This, too, has the unpardonable effect of resulting in too many Palestinian casualties, which are said to be "disproportionate" to the number of Israelis injured by the Kassams.

Yet Israel's options are stark.  Israel could mount a punitive expedition, await missile defense technology for short-range rockets, or cut off power.  It could, should it wish, flatten Gaza, but is not prepared internally even to stomach such a venture, let alone is the international community.  Stephens opts for a punitive expedition akin to that mounted in 1916 by President Wilson against Mexican bandit Pancho Villa, a massively disproportionate effort that ultimately failed.  But, Stephens notes, it would be another 85 years before a major attack was carried out inside the continental United States.

Oh yes, the Washington Post reports that the Turtle Bay Tortoise has weighed in, too, with the UN "special coordinator" for the Mideast (don't laugh) "peace process" warning that deteriorating living conditions in Gaza imperil the Annapolis initiative.  Has the envoy said that Palestinian rocket attacks imperil the process?

William F. Buckley: Exit A Titan

An Internet-era measure of the impact William F Buckley had on conservatism and politics was provided yesterday, when several times I tried to access tributes on National Review Online's server, without success.  Put simply, WFB gave modern conservatism a nonpareil trifecta of substance, style and sunshine.  The flinty conservatism of Barry Goldwater was not enough, out of the ruins of the 1964 election, to lay the groundwork for Ronald Reagan's 1980 election.  Millions of readers and viewers were moved by WFB's telegenic performances and his mighty pen.  Add to that patrician elegance, a gracious manner, and an optimistic cast.  Few matched evenly against WFB in live debate; his writing style gently taught vocabulary neglected in the schools.  It would be wrong to say that WFB single-handedly created modern conservatism; no movement that broad and deep could have sprung from one wellspring alone.  But WFB gave it a patina of class, partly by charm and partly by purging the movement of fringe rightist elements mired in paranoid politics and anti-Semitism.  The latter is now more on the Left, and scolds are more to be found on the Left as well--think feminists, multi-culturalists, health nazis, enviro-absolutists, etc.

WFB is of course irreplaceable.  But the movement he did so much to advance has, in great measure due to WFB's efforts, become capable of continuing and growing in his wake.  Its adherents will win and lose elections, but remain a feature of the American political landscape for a long time.  As the legendary Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, himself a towering figure, once put it: "When men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe that the ultimate good is better reached by free trade in ideas."  WFB's life vocation exemplified fealty to that credo.

A high-toned artistic sensibility was another WFB hallmark.  As I write this I am listening to Johann Sebastian Bach's Brandenberg concerti, one of which was Firing Line's theme, celestial music that embodies the glorious Western civilizational heritage that WFB so deeply cherished and so brilliantly defended.

Index 2/27/08

3 posts: (1) Iraq: Update From a Converted Skeptic--Us v. Them; (2) 2008: Global Warming's Coldest Winter--"It's the Earth Stupid!"; (3) Campaign Finance: "Baracked" Press Bonbs McCain--The Home Front.

Iraq: Update From a Converted Skeptic

CSIS Mideast and military expert Anthony Cordesman has a Feb, 13, 2008 Iraq Situation Report (48 detailed PowerPoint slides) and a related interview describing the positive changes in Iraq.  Cordesman, a longtime critic of the Iraq venture, now says "there is a very real chance that Iraq will emerge as a secure and stable state.  Cordesman, whose work is absolutely first-rate, provides detailed charts and statistics to show the great progress made since the surge began in early 2007, plus historical metrics for comparison.  Great risks remain, and at least 5 years presence is needed for America to have the best chance of winning.  Withdrawal must be phased, and allies in the region must be assured that the US will stay around and protect them from Iran.  In Afghanistan patience is also required.  Cordesman notes that the continental European countries "helping us" in Afghanistan do not put troops "in harm's way"--thanks, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

Columnist Charles Krauthammer, for his part, believes that the Democrats have such a vested stake in defeating President Bush's hopes that they cannot admit of progress.  Political progress, local and even national, is largely ignored by Democrats.  CK asks: "Are the Democrats so intent on denying George Bush retroactive vindication for a war they insist is his that they would deny their own country a now-achievable victory?"  Another sign of progress: pro-Iran thug-cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has extended for six months his Mahdi Army truce, despite calls from followers to resume fighting.

Pete Hegseth, director of Vets for Freedom (for Iraq and Afghan vets), reports on lessons from Iraq, where he served as a combat commander in 2005 - 2006.  Here is the latest report (Feb. 26) from soldier-blogger Michael Totten, on the ground in Iraq.

Add in a retrospective on Iraq, 2 years ago, when (Feb. 22,2006) the Golden Mosque (a Shia shrine in a Sunni town) was bombed in Samarra.

2008: Global Warming's Coldest Winter

The latest weather news shows record cold this winter: an Arctic ice pack 10 to 20 percent larger than normal (records date only to 1972), China's coldest winter in a century, snow records for Toronto, that had stood since 1950, record cold in parts of the the northern USA.  Overall snow cover in the northern hemisphere is the highest since 1966.  One scientist tracking sunspot activity warns that if the action doesn't pick up soon, we may be in for a repeat of the Little Ice Age, the 500-year period (1350 - 1850) that gave us shivers in summertime and frozen canals in Venice.  The surest sign re impending cooling: consensus among the globe's bien pensant class that warming is inevitable.  WSJ reporter John Fund informs us that a major conference of global warming skeptics to be held in New York City next week is being (naturally) studiously ignored by all three major presidential candidates.

Campaign Finance & Ethics: "Baracked" Press Bombs McCain

A Wall Street Journal op-ed exposes how the Democrats are tying up nominations to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), which currently has only two of six commissioners in office.  A package deal for the other four, two Rs and two Ds, is being held up by Senate Democrats, that once included Obama (Fox News reports Obama dropped his opposition in December), thus preventing McCain's campaign from getting a key ruling on financing, without which McCain will have no public funds this fall.  The reason for the hold-up?  Stop one hand-picked holdover commissioner re-nominated by President Bush.  This seems a precursor of the way Obama would reach across the aisle if elected President.   (McCain, to be fair, is hoist by his own petard here, having made campaign finance laws--"reform" in his lexicon--a touchstone of his political life the past decade or so.  Once again, the old Chinese admonition of being careful what one wishes for, lest one get it....)

That said, David Brooks offers a record that shows McCain bucking lobbyists on major matters and taking unpopular stances--more than most of his colleagues, to be sure.  Of course, as to the "special interests" are, per cartoonist Walt Kelley's Pogo, "We have met the enemy and he is us."    Want to cure special interest lobbying?  Get the Nanny State's fingers out of every pie in our lives.  Don't hold your breath for the "Baracked" press to latch onto that idea.

Meanwhile, Politico.com reports that the Hollywood film-maker, Alex Gibney, who won an Oscar Sunday for best documentary, about an allegedly fatal interrogation of an Afghan cab driver, plans to release a film this fall "documenting" McCain's and Jack Abramoff's money and lobbying connections, tentatively titled "Casino Jack and the United States of Money."  Hollywood never made a film about spectacularly corrupt Democratic leaders in the 1980s like former Speaker Jim Wright, and former House Whip Tony Coelho (the "star" of Wall Street Journal reporter Brooks Jackson's 1990 book, "Honest Graft: Big Money and the American Political Process", which recounted how Coelho--who was forced to resign after being caught using his position as a House bigwig to get preferential insider allocations of plum Wall Street IPOs--literally shook down corporations by selling access.  Now Tinseltown wants to take on a true American hero?  Bring it on.

Index 2/26/08

3 posts: (1) Iran's Nuclear Protector--Us v. Them; (2) Michelle's Senior Thesis: Princeton and Race--The Home Front; (3) The Rain in Spain Falls Mainly on the Vain--Weenie Watch.

Iran's Nuclear Protector

No, not Russia, which is Iran's nuclear enabler.  Iran's protector, two top AEI scholars argue, is IAEA inspector Muhammad el-Baradei, who is using his Nobel Peace Prize credential and his power as top inspector to water down reports on Iran.  Inspector el-Baradei hates the West, and wants Iran to succeed.  He has even shilled for North Korea over Israel's September 6, 2007 Syrian raid, claiming the facility targeted was not nuclear, despite having not visited the site.  Michael Rubin and Danielle Pletka warn that the more el-Baradei does to frustrate inspections and sanctions, the more likely it becomes that the US or Israel takes military action against Iran.

Michelle's Senior Thesis: Princeton and Race

Michelle Obama's 98-page senior thesis (64 pages of text, plus title pages, index, charts and bibliography) at Princeton (she graduated in 1985), entitled Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community (authored under her maiden name, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson), has been posted (by politico.com) in four parts: Part I (25 pages), Part II (25 pages), Part III (25 pages), Part IV (23 pages).  In reading Michelle's thesis it is essential to do so, both from a perspective of seeking clues to inform us about the young woman who may, in mature adulthood, become America's next First Lady, and from simple fairness.  Not many of us would wish to be judged today by anything we wrote at age 21 (Michelle graduated a year earlier than most of us).

Michelle's topic was how racial attitudes of black graduates of Princeton changed, during and after their Princeton years.  Her sample was small--89 of 400 alumni responded to hear survey, and thus not scientific (a fact she concedes).  Her overall conclusion was that proximity to whites made blacks less likely to identify with blacks, and less concerned about the "lower class" blacks (her term).  But it is other clues in her paper that are of interest.

First (p. 2), her personal attitude:

My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my "Blackness" than ever before.  I have found that at Princeton no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my White professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong.  Regardless of the circumstances under which I interact with Whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be a black first and a student second.

Second (p. 3), the impact of Princeton on her:

{I}t is conceivable that my four years of exposure to a predominantly White, Ivy League University has instilled in me certain conservative values.  For example, as I enter my final year at Princeton, I find myself striving for many of the same goals as my White classmates--acceptance to a prestigious graduate or professionals hool or a high paying position in a successful corporation.  Thus, my goals after Princeton are not as clear as before.

Finally (p. 8), she quotes black militant Stokely Carmichael (and a co-author, one Charles Hamilton) on Black Power:

"The concept of Black Power rests on the fundamental premise that before a group can enter the open society, it must close ranks.  By this we meant that group solidarity is necessary before a group can operate effectively from  bargaining position of strength in a pluralist society."

To which Michelle adds immediately after: Thus, Carmichael and Hamilton define separatism as a necessary stage for the development of the Black community before this group integrates into the "open society."

What does all this tell us of 21-year-old Michelle, in 1985?  (1) She was highly race-conscious; (2) she regarded as "conservative values" the get-ahead ethos of her White classmates; (3) she was hospitable to racial separatism as a possible intermediate stage in race relations evolution in America; (4) she felt alienated from her White classmates and White faculty.

None of this makes Michelle today necessarily a risk, nor can we discount that she may have changed.  People often do, as they mature.  But her "chip-on-shoulder" attitude, exposed last week, suggests otherwise.  At the least, her thesis raises legitimate questions for America's possible next First Lady.  Does she think that violent black radicals like Carmichael were good for the civil rights movement, or did they hijack the moderate movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King?  Does she share their radical leftist views today?  And does her husband share such views?

The Rain in Spain Falls Mainly on the Vain

AEI scholar Mark Falcoff uses two books he reviews to inform Americans of a lamentable reality: the people of Spain overwhelmingly do not like Americans and likely never will, as they "Remember the Maine" and other strongly perceived slights from America.  Spain, which was excluded from the Marshall Plan (due to Generalissimo Franco's fascist regime, which stayed out of WW-II), is a modern democracy, but one whose sensibility will always differ greatly from ours.  So, enjoy touring there, avoid politics, talk only about Ernest Hemingway, Ava Gardner, Artur Rubinstein, and the great matadors (Belmonte Joselito, Manolete, Ordonez Sr., Dominguin), and savor wonderful cuisine and great music and the Prado.

Index 2/25/08

5 posts: (1) Sharia Hijacked in the West--Weenie Watch; (2) Kosovo: Russia's Serbian Energy Power Play--"It's the Earth, Stupid!; (3) After Fidel: Cuba Libre?--Us v. Them; (4) Barack + Michelle: Who Are They?  Who Are We?--The Home Front; (5)  Africa: Bush Delivers; Few Notice--"It's the Earth Stupid!"

Sharia Hijacked in the West

Islam scholar Stephen Schwartz uses the Archbishop of Canterbury (Mecca) mess to explain what is little understood by the Archbishop, or many others in the West: Islamic law has been hijacked by radicals who try to use sharia to supplant the legal systems in Western countries to which they have emigrated.  Schwartz explains that this is a consequence of the radicalization of Islam that took root in the late 1970s, and runs contrary to traditional sharia, which holds that Muslims who move to non-sharia countries live under the laws of those countries.  Western leaders, and publics, need to learn this lesson.

Kosovo: Russia's Serbian Energy Power Play

A Weekly Standard article details Russia's energy design, in which Serbia plays a part: two Balkan pipelines to shut out European alternative pipelines, and thus maximize European dependence upon Russia for its energy.  The silver lining in this very black cloud: Russia is unlikely to provoke a military confrontation over Kosovo, as its energy power play would thus be undermined.  However, a cloud as black as growing energy dependence will haunt Europe, unless it can muster the will to pursue energy independence from Mother Russia.

After Fidel: Cuba Libre?

MercoPress reports that Raoul Castro has asked Brazil's leader, Luis Ignacio Lula de Silva, for advice on the transition from Fidel's rule.  This is a positive sign, because it signals Raoul's willingness to distance himself form Venezuela's loudmouth thug Hugo Chavez.  A factor in Raoul's choice is a desire to open up relations with Tio Sam.  Lula, a moderate man of the left, asked Raoul to make some moves on human rights.  Policy maven Robert Kagan suggests that the administration offer to lift the economic embargo if Cuba holds free and fair elections.  A crisp editorial in The Australian sums up 49 years of Fidel's tyranny:

Deprived of the ballot box, Cubans have voted with their feet, or rather their flippers. About two million Cubans have fled across the water to Florida since 1959 in search of political freedom and economic opportunity. More than 70,000 drowned in shark-infested waters in the attempt. To the best of our knowledge, only one person has so far swum in the opposite direction, Australia's own Susie Maroney - and she stayed long enough only to collect a medal and catch a plane home.

Cuba freed from Fidel.  It's enough to make one lift a Cuba Libre in a toast.

Barack + Michelle: Who Are They? Who Are We?

Peggy Noonan draws from Michelle's gaffe last week a portrait of the (very) possible next First Couple.  She asks two mega-questions:  Who are they?  And who are we, to them?  Of the first, she writes:

Are the Obamas, at bottom, snobs? Do they understand America? Are they of it? Did anyone at their Ivy League universities school them in why one should love America? Do they confuse patriotism with nationalism, or nativism? Are they more inspired by abstractions like "international justice" than by old visions of America as the city on a hill, which is how John Winthrop saw it, and Ronald Reagan and JFK spoke of it?

Have they been, throughout their adulthood, so pampered and praised--so raised in the liberal cocoon--that they are essentially unaware of what and how normal Americans think? And are they, in this, like those cosseted yuppies, the Clintons?

Of the second, she writes:

Michelle Obama seems keenly aware of her struggles, of what it took to rise so high as a black woman in a white country. Fair enough. But I have wondered if it is hard for young African-Americans of her generation, having been drilled in America's sad racial history, having been told about it every day of their lives, to fully apprehend the struggles of others. I wonder if she knows that some people look at her and think "Man, she got it all." Intelligent, strong, tall, beautiful, Princeton, Harvard, black at a time when America was trying to make up for its sins and be helpful, and from a working-class family with two functioning parents who made sure she got to school.

That's the great divide in modern America, whether or not you had a functioning family, and she apparently came from the privileged part of that divide. A lot of white working-class Americans didn't come up with those things. Some of them were raised by a TV and a microwave and love our country anyway, every day.

If the Obamas are members of the transnational new class who gather at Davos every year, they may harbor transnational loyalties, clearly part of the Clintons' world-view.  And re who has advantages, Michelle's family advantage may well trump any disadvantage race carries--albeit, with affirmative action her color may also have worked to her advantage, at the expense of white women from similar backgrounds.

Africa: Bush Delivers; Few Notice

Joel Leconte, a professor and author, shows how President Bush has topped all in help actually given to the 15 neediest nations in Africa.  His administration hasn't simply showered billions, it has gotten results, including: a 50-fold reduction in malaria cases, between 2004 and 2007, in Tanzania; (2) a 30-fold increase in aids funding, with much more money on the way.  Bush is more popular in some parts of Africa than in many parts of America.  The Islamists are finding less fertile ground for terror recruiting.

Bob Geldof, the Irish rocker who organized the 1985 Live Aid concert, praised Bush, and scolded the press for not giving credit where credit is due.  Geldof noted that there is "absolutely nothing" in it for 43.  Nice to see a celebrity who is honest and serious.

Meanwhile, an LA Times op-ed tells a lovely story from Ghana.  A new 6-lane highway being built there will bear the name George Bush Motorway.  Here is the official announcement from the grateful recipients.  The 14-kilometer (8-3/4 miles) road will expand access to Accra, Ghana's capital and export hub.  The US will send $101 million to help complete the project.

It goes without saying that 43's domestic unpopularity precludes naming a road after him in, probably, a majority of states here.

2008 Race: Mac's World

I had no intention of posting anything more re the Times hit-job on John McCain.  but Times columnist David Brooks writes that "this fine man" may be consumed by a poisonous inner-circle rivalry, between his senior staffer and a former staffer of co-equal rank.  It is disturbing reading.  The moral is that candidates are vulnerable, when they fail to resolve certain kinds of staff rivalries.  Such holds true, in even greater measure, of presidents.

Index 2/22/08

6 posts: (1) Michelle 2008, Meet Barack 2004--The Home Front; (2) Gray Lady's "Mac" Grenade Explodes Early--MSM Murders; (3) North Korea: Nukes and Music--Us v. Them; (4) Satellite Shootdown: Arms Control Escape Velocity--The Home Front; (5) Iran: A Hawk's Case to Engage--Us v. Them; (6) Campaign Songs: ABBA Not Smorgasbord--Class & Crass.

Michelle & Barack 2008, Meet Barack 2004

With his 2004 Democratic Convention address Barack Obama leaped to national prominence.  In a speech notable for its grace, Obama said:

My parents shared not only an improbable love, they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or ”blessed,” believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success. They imagined -- They imagined me going to the best schools in the land, even though they weren’t rich, because in a generous America you don’t have to be rich to achieve your potential.

After noting that his parents had passed on, but would have pride in his success, Obama continued:

They stand here -- And I stand here today, grateful for the diversity of my heritage, aware that my parents’ dreams live on in my two precious daughters. I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that, in no other country on earth, is my story even possible.

Obama 2008 is puzzling, often sounding different in 2008 than he did in his 2004 oration.  Start with Obama being almost certainly, barring a disaster, his party's nominee, Hillary having lost last night's debate in Austin, simply by failing to score a knockout.  WSJ's Dan Henninger sees Obama 2008 prospering because he holds promise that a new generation of African-American politicians can break the cycle of despair in urban ghettos, by moving from racialist confrontation to pragmatic problem-solving, and promoting Bill Cosby's and Oprah's values.  But Karl Rove sees a turning point Tuesday, when Obama went into full liberal mode in his victory speech.  The WSJ calls "Teamster diplomacy" Obama's attempt to modify the US - Korea Free Trade Accord, to mollify union supporters.  The New York Sun's Eli Lake profiles Obama's foreign policy brain trust, and finds Clinton retreads and mostly liberals, some drawn from the Iraq Study Group, which recommended withdrawal from Iraq and negotiations with Syria and Iran.  Terry Eastland revives an earlier incarnation of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick--Obama's soul-mate, from whom he plagiarized a riff and with whom he talks daily--as chief "quota king" in the Clinton administration.  Simply put, Patrick never met a racial quota he didn't like.  Such a close friendship does not square with Obama's popular image as a post-racial African-American politician.

Talk-show host Michael Medved says that the lesson from Wisconsin for McCain is to make his battle with Obama one over issues, and not over experience and persona, as Hillary did.  Medved notices a clever ploy by Obama, in praising McCain's 50 years of service, thus pointing out that Big Mac is much older.

Michelle said that she is "really proud" of her country, and that she was quoted out of context--arguably true, in that she was speaking re politics at the time.  Let's cut her slack this time, chalk her gaffe up to campaign fatigue, and compare her future words to those of her husband in 2004.  For that matter, let's compare Barack's 2008 future words to his 2004 platinum standard.

Gray Lady's "Mac" Grenade Explodes Early

The New York Times front-pager alleging ethics violations by John McCain comes weeks after the Gray Lady endorsed him for the Republican nomination, in a January 25, 2008 editorial praising him as a coalition-builder who "has the character to stand on principle."  The paper recounts the reprimand McCain received for writing letters on behalf of Charles Keating, the central figure in the Keating Five scandal.  But McCain and John Glenn never crossed the line in their efforts.   Three other senators did: Alan Cranston, Donald Reigle and Dennis De Concini, all Democrats. They actively tried to pressure regulators to go easy on their S&L pals, for which Cranston was censured by the Senate, and the latter two nailed for "questionable conduct."  To drag a GOP senator in, the Democrats had to name Glenn as well--Glenn, like McCain, had merely met with constituents and written a latter or two, without trying to ward off the regulators.  McCain and Glenn paid the price of cynical Democratic politics, because the Democrats feared the S&L scandal would be used against them in 1992 if Democrats alone were fixed in the public mind as guilty in the S&L mess, which had cost taxpayers $250 billion.

The Gray Lady's second item was an allegedly improper relationship McCain had with a comely lobbyist who represented Paxson Communications, a broadcasting firm under McCain's jurisdiction as Senate Commerce Committee chairman.  McCain wrote a couple of letters to the FCC, doing nothing illegal or improper; he merely urged that the FCC act on a matter that had been pending too long--expressly declining to recommend how the FCC decide the matter.  The Times is left with the old chestnut "appearance of impropriety" as its big gun.  Incredibly, the Times began requesting interviews with McCain on this in December 2007--before the editors endorsed the senator as the GOP nominee.

In sum, a 7-page bucket of slime.  True, it could have been worse.  The Times could have aired this days before the November vote.  It seems that the reason they released the story now was because The New Republic was about to release a story of the in-fighting at the Times over the McCain story; TNR released "The Long Run-Up" at its website yesterday, in response to the Times having gone forward with its article.  The Gray Lady, it seems, cared more about being partially scooped than in being fair to the GOP's 2008 presidential nominee.  Said Times executive editor Bill Keller: "On the substance, we think the story speaks for itself."  Indeed, Mr. Keller, it does.

North Korea: Nukes and Music

The Washington Times reports that the US is pressing North Korea for more information on its nuclear activity in Syria, about which US and Israeli intelligence services have gathered lots of worrisome information.  Meanwhile, conductor supreme Lorin Maazel writes about his upcoming concert with the New York Philharmonic in Pyongyang, ISO cultural enrichment.  The public is supposedly going to be allowed to come, although who has money to attend is beyond yours truly.  In the event, the audience will hear Dvorak's "New World Symphony" and Gershwin's "An American in Paris."  In 1994, Jimmy Carter praised Pyongyang's charms during his 1994 appeasement adventure. Perhaps Maazel should go to Paris with his troupe.  Even in the City of Light's diminished state, long past its great glory, tops Pyongyang.  As for Jimmy...well, too bad he did not decide to stay in Pyongyang.

Satellite Shootdown: Arms Control Escape Velocity

This week''s successful shootdown of a decaying military surveillance satellite shows, say the Wall Street Journal editors the wisdom of our 2002 exit from the ABM Treaty, which barred deploying technology sufficient to accomplish this shot, and gave a boost to missile defense.  The main target, the fuel tank with highly toxic hydrazine fuel, was hit, reports the New York Times.  To accomplish this feat the Navy spent several weeks modifying its Standard-3 missile, part of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System carried on its Aegis cruisers, to kill a low-Earth orbit satellite, instead of a ballistic missile.  Kudos to the Navy team, including the Aegis cruiser Lake Erie.  Kudos also, to President Ronald Reagan for his 1983 Strategic Defense initiative (SDI) that he pushed despite ferocious domestic opposition, which helped convince Mikhail Gorbachev that the former Soviet Union couldn't keep technological pace with the US, and thus helped lead to the end of the Cold War.  Enjoy the video released by the military.

Iran: A Hawk's Case to Engage

AEI scholar and ex-CIAer Reuel Marc Gerecht, often cited in LFTC and generally hawkish, proposes that the Bush administration offer to engage in direct dialogue, without preconditions.  Gerecht argues that trade sanctions can't succeed, due to Russia, China, Britain and Germany.  Gerecht believes Iran's mullah's will refuse, handing us a propaganda win.  We should, he writes, call for what Muhammad Khatami, a former Iranian President, in 1997 called "a dialogue of civilizations."  We would, RMG writes, "have the unquestioned moral and political high ground."

Gerecht's is a serious voice, and he harbors no illusions re the mullahs, or militant Islam, or the Mideast as a whole.  Seductive thought his call is, I fear he harbors illusions about the impact our offer would have on "world opinion."  Anti-US feeling is so rife, and appeasement sentiment so deep, that any "high ground" we won would be gone in month, at the latest.  Look how long Israel held the "high ground" before "world opinion" after vacating Gaza--about 5 minutes.  At which point the world would press us to make (as it does Israel) yet more concessions (think Annapolis).

Campaign Songs: ABBA Not Smorgasbord

The Times Online, from across The Pond, reports that John McCain finds ABBA's copyrighted music too expensive to use as his theme song.  Songs, from various pop and rock genres, are being used, the article notes, by other candidates.  No one is using songs by the likes of Gershwin, Rodgers, Berlin, Kern, Arlen, Carmichael, Porter, etc.  Alas, there will be no "Of Thee I Sing" in 2008.

Herewith LFTC's songs for the candidates, and a family member or two:

John McCain - "Over There"
Mike Huckabee - "You're Gonna Hear From Me"

Hillary Clinton - "All of Me"
Bill Clinton - "I'm All Shook Up"
Barack Obama - "Something's Gotta Give"
Michelle Obama - "God Bless the USA"

Index 2/21/08

5 posts: (1) Pakistan's Political Quake Shakes Islamists--Weenie Watch; (2) Democratic Convention Kicker: Faithless Pledgors?--The Home Front; (2) Intel Incoherence: Iraq & Iran/Russia--The Home Front; (4) Kissinger: Bush Ahead of Europe--Weenie Watch; (5) Kosovo Cometh: Others to Follow?--Weenie Watch.

Pakistan's Political Quake Shakes Islamists

Pakistan's election earthquake offers, one Pakistani general told the New York Times, a chance for the US to get a fresh start with moderate forces there.  Of 242 seats in the new Parliament, 80 went to martyred former PM Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), 66 to the Pakistan Muslim League-N, headed by ex-PM Nawaz Sharif and but 38 to Musharraf's party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q.  In round figures, a coalition of the two largest parties can command 60 percent of seats, four times the 15 percent won by Musharraf's supporters, with 25 percent allocated to other parties.  The Washington Post reports that with a few extra votes added to votes from the top two parties, the new Parliament could muster the 2/3 super-majority to impeach Musharraf and reverse the constitutional changes rammed through by him last fall.

Islamic world maven Amir Taheri gives the good news: (1) the United Assembly for Action (MMA) Islamist coalition won 3 percent of the votes, versus 11 percent in 2002; (2) all major MMA leaders were defeated, and it lost control of the one Pakistani province  (of four total: Punjab, Sind, Baluchistan, NWF--Northwest Frontier) it controlled; (3) the  MMA was totally shut out in Sind, the province of the late Benazir Bhutto's birth; (4) a pro-Iran Shia party got about one percent in the voting, despite strong backing from Iran; (5) the pro-military rule party lost 2/3 of its seats, plus the three provinces it held.  In a second piece, Taheri cites heartening evidence that Islamist parties do poorly when reasonably clean and fair elections are held in the Muslim world.

All of which underscores the wisdom of the US reaching out last fall to Bhutto, and not putting all our eggs in one basket, Musharraf, a sometime ally at best in the war, although pundit Robert Novak reports that the US is still backing Musharraf, by pressing the two victor parties not to impeach Musharraf.  We must now find ways to work with the victors.  Given that military dictatorship and militant Islam were the two biggest losers, this is a task we  should be able to manage.

Democratic Convention Kicker: Faithless Pledgors?

Contrary to popular opinion (including mine), "pledged delegates" are not, Roger Simon informs us on Politico.com, actually bound at the Convention, even on the first ballot.  Like faithless electors of Electoral College fame (or infamy, depending upon your view), they can decide to switch.  No one expects switches en masse, but in a very tight squeeze there would be some room for maneuver.  Politics maven Jay Cost argues cogently that the Democrats are on to something with supers: such delegates have the requisite independence, experience and flexibility to resolve close calls more efficiently than do ordinary delegates.  Columnist David Broder argues that the rules on caucuses, proportionality, supers and seating convention delegates should stand, as having been accepted by the candidates beforehand.

George Will echoes this line, pointing out that pure democracy is neither our form of government, nor an unalloyed good; caucuses and supers leaven popular sentiment with informed judgment and superior commitment.  Will also neatly eviscerates Team Clinton over its argument that Hill's experience should win votes:

She is 60. She left Yale Law School at age 25. Evidently she considers everything she has done since school, from her years at Little Rock's Rose law firm to her good fortune with cattle futures, as presidentially relevant experience.

The president who came to office with the most glittering array of experiences had served 10 years in the House of Representatives, then became minister to Russia, then served 10 years in the Senate, then four years as secretary of state (during a war that enlarged the nation by 33 percent), then was minister to Britain. Then, in 1856, James Buchanan was elected president and in just one term secured a strong claim to the rank as America's worst president.

Abraham Lincoln, the inexperienced former one-term congressman, had an easy act to follow.

All this may well--likely will--prove moot.  Dick Morris writes that Obama's surge in the polls is in no small measure attributable to voter disgust with Team Clinton's machinations.  A Reuters/Zogby poll released Wednesday showed Obama up 14 points, 52-38, compared to a similar poll a month ago that showed Obama & Hill in a statistical dead heat.  The poll was taken Wednesday, Feb. 13 through Sat. Feb. 17--before Wisconsin's wipeout, which will inevitably shift poll numbers further in Barack's favor.   Rasmussen Markets now calls Ohio & Texas toss-ups, with Obama a 49% probable winner in OH and 68% in TX.  Overall, Rasmussen sets the odds at 79 - 20 Obama over Hill.

Intel Incoherence: Iraq & Iran/Russia

Mideast maven Michael Rubin explains how the CIA stepped outside its boundary into politics, in both Iraq and Iran, damaging America's efforts.  Rubin includes personal experiences while in Iraq.  If policy types aren't supposed to "politicize" intel, than, asserts Rubin (rightly), intel types shouldn't make policy.  They have, in fact, been doing so.  Proliferation expert Henry Sokolski exposes glaring inconsistency in our seeking to block Iran while continuing to cooperate on nuclear and space projects with Russia, which is transferring the technology to help the Iranians.  His 3-pager reveals a tangle of intel and policy conflicts unresolved by the administration.

Kissinger: Bush Ahead of Europe

Henry Kissinger told Der Speigel that Europe is not ready to fight the Islamists, and that their distaste for Bush partly accounts for this.  But the fight is inevitable.  HK credits Bush with grasping the existential challenge posed by radical Islam to the West.  HK thinks that Bush's presidency will be more favorably evaluated in the not too distant future.  HK sees three main challenges facing the world: (1) disintegration of the nation-state; (2) rise of India & China; (3) emergence of transnational problems too vast for states alone to confront.  HK has endorsed John McCain.  The interview is an excellent 4-pager worth a full read.

Kosovo Cometh: Others to Follow?

Kosovar independence has been declared.  Anne Applebaum sees the Law of Unintended Consequences in this: Serbia's hyper-nationalist aggression instead has given birth to a new aspiring nation.  She fears that Russia may stir up trouble in Georgia, where ethnic enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia threaten to secede with Russian backing.  Putin, Applebaum suggests, might wish to heed the Law Milosevic ignored.  A Wall Street Journal editorial notes that unlike Milosevic, who sent tanks to enforce Serbian supremacy, the Serbs today are all talk so far.  So far.  WSJ suggests that the EU condition admission of Serbia on non-violence, and handing over fugitive war criminals.  Ralph Peters divines a dynamic at work: Western idealists envision multi-ethnic, tolerant states, in a world where tribal separatism is on the rise; we are, he warns, fighting a mostly futile battle.  Iraq may sunder, as may Pakistan.  Add to that Applebaum's warnings about the Catalans and Basques in Spain, and the mess in Cyprus.  Then stir in the assessment of author and Euro-politics maven Timothy Garton Ash, that while the  EU can shepherd Kosov0 and Serbia to safety, there are 68 other breakaways waiting in the wings, all members of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization and you have a recipe for....

As for Foggy Bottom, yesterday it implored Europe to help sustain Kosovo as a Muslim pluralist democracy, by sending aid.  If history is any guide, Uncle Sucker will be sent the bill; our "allies" prefer to comment from the peanut gallery, most of the time.  We sent $77 million last year, and will ramp up to $335 million this year; Europe plans a donors' conference, ISO $1.5 billion to send.  We shall see.  BTW 17,000 NATO and 1,600 American troops remain in Kosovo.  They may be needed, to protect the 100,000 Serbs still living in Kosovo.  We might have conditioned Kosovo's recognition in ceding the Serbs to Serbia, but that would have contradicted politically correct dogma about Islamic pluralism.  Stay tuned--and keep your powder dry.

Index 2/20/08

4 posts: (1) Democrats After Wisconsin--and After Michelle--The Home Front; (2) McCain and the War Power--The Home Front; (3) "Lawfare" Ascendant: Homeland Beware--9/11, 3/11 & N/11; (4) Egypt's Best Product: Minting Terrorists--Weenie Watch.

Democrats After Wisconsin--and After Michelle

First, Michelle.  Begin with the money quote from Michelle Obama:

For the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction. And just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment I've seen people who are hungry to be unified around some basic, common issues and it's made me proud.

On a second take, Michelle said that her new-found pride as because the people are at last ready for change (close paraphrase).  Pundit John Podhoretz's reaction stressed Michelle's impressive resume: raised in the middle-class South Shore neighborhood of Chicago, Michelle went on to Princeton '85, Harvard Law '88, associate at Sidley & Austin (a top-drawer Chicago-based mega-firm) and a senior post at the University of Chicago.  Oh, she marries a husband who eventually is elected to the United States Senate in 2004, and now is perhaps the favorite to win the Presidency.

Consider, too, that her husband's father was Kenyan.  Further consider the tribal carnage that erupted after a disputed election at the end of 2007--the last numbers I saw were over 1,000 dead and 250,000 homeless.  Middle-class Michelle, in this land of opportunity, goes to the very top of the educational and job pyramid.  And yet, like the San Francisco Democrats famously nailed by Jeane Kirkpatrick at the 1984 Republican convention (the Democrats met in San Fran that summer), apparently Michelle has always been blaming America first.  Cindy McCain fired back that she is "very proud" of her country.  Even Clintonistas were ticked off, wondering why she wasn't proud of the Clinton years.  Fox News All-Star Juan Williams, whose riveting 1987 PBS series "Eyes on the Prize" told the story of the 1950s & 1960s civil rights struggle, chastised her, also citing her resume, but in the end gave her the benefit of the doubt.  Pundit Jonathan Last plumbs Michelle's gloomy view, quoting her from another day: "Barack Obama is the only person in this race who understands that, that before we can work on the problems we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation."

Everyone who speaks often in public will say things he (she) wishes had been left unsaid.  Likely she will hear about this, and be more careful in the future.  The Obama spin is that Michelle was thinking of "her country" in the personal terms of her hubby's campaign.  But Michelle's "soul" quotation suggests that her view of America is indeed a gloomy one.  And her sending out flacks to clarify, instead of doing so herself, didn't help her cause, either.

The blooper's prime political impact might be that Michelle turns out more of the Republican base, which is neuralgic over this already, as Cindy McCain's remarks indicates.

Second, Wisconsin.  With 67 percent of the vote in, Obama led the state 57-42.  On two-hour earlier numbers, Clinton won only 51-49 with women, but Obama won men 66-32.  Obama beat Hill 53-46 with voters making less than $50,000.  Obama won all classes of issues voters, and even beat Hill 50-48 in "best commander-in-chief" ranking.  He won all education levels and all age groups under 65.  He won electability 63-37.  All this was, however, in a 94 percent white state, the kind of state where Obama's crossover appeal has been strongest (Juan Williams estimated he won 90 percent of blacks).  Obama creamed Hill among crossover primary voters, both Republicans and independents (which may have been strategic voting aimed at deep-sixing Hill).

Obama apparently had a far better ground operation.  Hill, it seems, did not bother to organize a first-class ground operation for states after Tsunami Tuesday, when she anticipated winning the nomination.  Obama was in Texas last night, holding up a vote card, asking voters to start taking advantage of Texas's early voting law and start first thing in the morning, and then vote separately in the Texas caucus, to be held with the regular vote on March 4.  He then gave a Castro-length dump.  Hill, in Ohio, hyped herself.

So, Hill's next date on the presidential primary 2008 schedule is March 4, when two small states, Vermont and Rhode Island, join two monster states, Ohio and Texas, in holding primaries for both parties.  If, as appears likely later this evening (after I finish posting), Hill loses Hawaii (Obama's home state), she enters March 4 with a 10-primary losing streak, and on the 4th will not have won anywhere for four weeks.  As noted yesterday in LFTC, figure that if Hill wins both OH & TX she's back in the race; if she splits she is hanging by a thread, awaiting Pennsylvania, the last Big Kahuna state; and if she loses both OH & TX she bows out, or the guillotine (wielded by the "supers") falls.

McCain and the War Power

Apropos of John McCain, the GOP nominee in all but official name, Greg Sheridan pays tribute from Down Under, in an eloquent column in The Australian.  And George Will, who sees McCain making national security his campaign centerpiece, poses five astute questions as to McCain's views on the constitutional distribution of war powers, and the role of Congress, politically as well, in same.  Will's prime focus is Iran, where he has taken (not discussed in his piece) the position that a declaration of war by Congress is necessary to authorize any major pre-emptive military action. 

Will's position only holds if one concludes that Iran is not already making war on us.  But they are: hostage-taking, mass killing Marines, supplying lethal ordnance to Iraqi insurgents, these all are forms of making war upon us.  Indeed, the US military said this past Sunday that pro-Iranian Shia militias inside Iraq were utilizing secret weapons caches provided by Iran, with 212 captured in the preceding week.  The president, as commander-in-chief, holds the "make war" power, such role having been denied Congress at the 1787 Grand Convention that produced the Constitution (see James Madison's Friday, August 17 notes from his Notes on the Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787).  Congress may declare war, but the president can make war against those already at war with us.  The War Powers Resolution (1973) (of debatable constitutionality) authorizes the President to commit military forces for up to 60 days without prior authorization from Congress.  Thus the Gulf War, which ran 44 days (Jan. 16 - Feb. 28, 1991) could have been conducted by Bush the Elder without going to Congress.  (Troop positioning took five months; presidents can do that without asking Congress, unless they need supplemental funding to do so.)  But Presidents prefer to act with such approval, for obvious--and valid--political reasons.

Will also asks the Senator if the pending status-of-forces agreement the Bush administration is pursuing requires approval by Congress. Here Will is on firmer ground.  A long-term US troop presence inside Iraq probably does require ratification by Congress, pursuant to treaty.  But if 43 pursues instead an executive agreement that evades ratification, he will have numerous precedents set during the Clinton years to rely upon, as would candidate McCain, should he agree.

"Lawfare" Ascendant: Homeland Beware

Lawyers have succeeded in tying the administration's war effort in knots.  A Wall Street Journal editorial details the arguments now being made by the Left, on behalf of securing added rights for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, whose trial starts today.  Ace terrorism prosecutor Andy McCarthy explains the Senate version of surveillance reform, while good in protecting telephone companies from civil liability for cooperating with the government in warrantless surveillance of communications, fails to protect the president's constitutional authority to tap anyone without obtaining a warrant, if the surveillance is overseas.

McCarthy explains why the president agreed to this.  Because otherwise, if Congress fails to pass a law, and the president taps upon his constitutional authority, without endorsement by Congress, telephone companies will insist on a warrant to shield themselves from lawsuit liability.  The result will bring surveillance to a grinding halt, as warrants per search are too cumbersome--just as they are at the airport.  So Nancy Pelosi has blocked a conference on the House and Senate versions.  And if we get hit, whom to you think Nancy will blame?  Bush, and Republicans, of course.  This despite a plea from Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, a career professional who for part of the Clinton era headed the National Security Agency.  Columnist Robert Novak reports that fear of angering the trial bar, whose dollars are vital to Democratic fund-raising, trumped fear of undermining protection against terror strikes.  A Wall Street Journal editorial scolds John McCain for ignoring this issue so far.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reported last week that a major case (Gates v. Bismallah) on  detainee access to evidence--precisely the kind of case that risks disclosure of information that can help our adversaries--is headed for the Supreme Court, the lower court having ruled that all information available to the tribunal below, whether or not used at trial, must be given defendant.  The administration wishes the case delayed until the habeas corpus issue now before the Court is resolved.

The process of boxing in the administration with a passel of lawsuits proceeds apace, with the cooperation of a Congress dedicated to tying the hands of a president they detest, no matter what.  Sympathy is due the administration, ambushed shortly after 9/11 with questions about due process and how it would treat detainees.  The administration should have stood strong from the start, and stated that unlawful combatants are not entitled to legal process, which is denied lawful combatants, and thus that there would be no trials, only limited inquiries into whether a given detainee was in fact a member of a terrorist group.  Such would have settled the issue early, win or lose.

The administration is now trapped in a lose-lose process that will further sully America's image among the globe's bien pensants.  Damned if we convict, damned if we deny political speech rights, whose denial will be spun negatively in the non-Western world, and in the Western world as well, and damned if we acquit, for detaining without cause the acquitted defendant, despite that acquittal does not equal a finding of innocence--as such it will be taken by world media and much of the planet's population.

Judge Andrew Napolitano, a serious liberal, argues that the new surveillance bill--and the Patriot Act--are both unconstitutional violations of privacy rights of everyone on the planet, vis-a-vis a US government search, and that warrants are required.  But the Framers lived when overseas taps were impossible.  There is no reason to believe they intended that anyone residing outside the US should be entitled to constitutional protection.  Ending this post on a positive note, the Supreme Court yesterday declined to hear a challenge (by the ACLU) to the NSA surveillance program.

Lawyers and judges can lose this war; they cannot win it.

Egypt's Best Product: Minting Terrorists

The Sunday Washington Post informs us that the young and unemployed in Egypt are turning to Islam for solace.  The trend mirrors what goes on elsewhere in the Mideast, a region with 60 percent of its population under the age of 25.  Nationalism, pan-Arabism, socialism are being supplanted by Islamic fervor.  In 1986 there was one mosque per 6,031 Egyptians; now there is on for every 745, and the population has doubled, to 80.3 million as of July 2007.  This makes for 107, 785 mosques, up from around 13,300 in 1986.

The article frames the problem neatly: "Like most religious young people, Mr. Sayyid is not an extremist. But with religious conservatism becoming the norm — the starting point — it is easier for extremists to entice young people over the line. There is simply a larger pool to recruit from and a shorter distance to go, especially when coupled with widespread hopelessness."

Marry education to economic and social frustration, and you create a perfect recipe for a turn towards a religious salvation that offers solace in Earthly life and reward in the afterlife.  Now stir in a religion in turmoil, not fully embedded into the fabric of modern life, whose votaries--in Egypt alone--include countless thousands embracing violent rejection of modernity and the West, and you have more recruits for Islamist terror.

Index 2/19/08

3 posts: (1) 2008: Primary Progress; "Supers" Await--The Home Front; (2) Death of an Intelligent Intelligence Idea--Us v. Them; (3) Death of an Essential Human Idea--Cyber-Serendip.

2008: Primary Progress; "Supers" Await

Begin with a politically incorrect aside: Vladimir Putin, into whose "soul" President Bush famously said he could peer, and find someone he trusted, of whose soul McCain said that he saw three letters, "KGB."   Hillary, asked of this in New Hampshire, said that Tsar Vlad the Bad "doesn't have a soul."  To which Putin replied with a notable lack of chivalry last Thursday--Valentines' Day, no less: "At a minimum, a head of state should have a head."  Dare any American, or even European, politician to try that one.  Add, for more laughs, the inimitable Mark Steyn's witty send-up of Barack Obama.  And for more laughs still, add this from one wag: America's problems are illegal immigration, hurricane recovery & alligator attacks in Florida.  Solution: Build a moat along the border with Mexico, truck the dirt to New Orleans and raise the city, and fill the moat with Florida's gators.

Now, to the chase: The 2008 presidential primary schedule is thinning out.  Because of the "Giuliani effect," Hill might need a win in Wisconsin, which pundit Jeff Greenfield notes is no longer the home of liberal progressivism; it is now a moderate liberal state, with a crossover primary for independents, and demographics that give Hill a decent shot.  A Feb. 14 Rasmussen poll has Obama ahead, 47 - 43.  Wisconsin votes tomorrow.  Ominously for Hill, a January 2008 Fox News/Opinion dynamics poll asked respondents which candidate "is most likely to do anything to win the election?"  Hill led with 44 percent, followed by Romney at 11 percent, McCain at 9 percent and Obama at 8 percent.  Hill thus quadruples the number for a candidate (Romney) who had as a perception problem voter perception of his insincerity.  Even 27 percent of Democrats thought Hill would do anything necessary, as did 40 percent of independents (Republicans, predictably, were at 67 percent).

ABC reported Friday that Bill Clinton, despite a pledge to refrain from attacking Obama. fell off the wagon in Tyler, Texas.  Clinton unleashed this "remember the 1990s" tirade--herewith the transcribed notes of ABC's Sarah Amos:

"There are two competing moods in America today," Clinton said. "People who want something fresh and new -- and they find it inspiring that we might elect a president who literally was not part of any of the good things that happened or any of the bad things that were stopped before. The explicit argument of the campaign against Hillary is that 'No one who was involved in the 1990s or this decade can possibly be an effective president because they had fights.  We're not going to have any of those anymore.' Well, if you believe that, I got some land I wanna sell you."

But in the loose cannon department, Michelle Obama has a topper video clip featuring her saying: "For the first time in my adult lifetime I am really proud of my country."  She turned 44 in January (thanks, Google).  Thus she has been a legal adult for 26 years, since January 1982.  So we may conclude that Michelle Obama was not "really proud" of America when the Berlin Wall fell--bringing freedom after a half century to the more than 100 million people of Eastern Europe, the USSR dissolved, Saddam was expelled from Kuwait, Serbian butcher Slobodan Milosevic was stopped (if belatedly), America united after the 9/11 atrocities, and unhorsed the Taliban and Saddam.  She was not "really proud" of the world's foremost wealth-creating economy during those 26 years.  She wasn't "really proud" when we helped victims after the 2004 tsunami, while the UN dithered, or during countless other humanitarian missions led by the US.  She wasn't "really proud" of undeniable overall racial progress made in America.  She would be well advised not to repeat that line after Labor Day.  David Brooks asks what will happen to Obama when the magic wears off, and voters discover that he is the most liberal senator.  (Brooks also refers to Hillary's peregrinations on the campaign trail as her "sitting Shiva for America tour"--does Brooks know that Shiva is the Destroyer in Hindu mythology?  And does this make Obama America's Vishnu--the Preserver?)

Back to the numbers: The largest states remaining, Texas & Ohio (March 4) and Pennsylvania (April 22) total 492 delegates.  Using 2/14/08 revised figures from Real Clear Politics, Obama leads Hillary in pledged delegates, 1,120 - 991.  This means that 2,111 delegates, 52 percent of the 4,049 total, are now allocated for the first ballot at the Democratic convention.  Now, subtract the 796 super delegates from the total, plus the 26 delegates won by John Edwards, and 65 percent of the 3,227 pledged delegates have been allocated.  The 492 delegates in the big three upcoming states represent 44 percent of the 1,116 pledged delegates to be won.  Thus, to reach 2,2025 from pledged delegates alone would require Obama to win 904 (81 percent), or Hillary to win 1034 (93 percent), to sew up the nomination without recourse to super delegates.

In simple statistical shorthand, Obama needs slightly over 80 percent and Hillary well over 90 percent of unallocated pledged delegates, in the Democratic primaries, which run through June 7 (Puerto Rico).  Factor in that in contested primaries (Obama skipped Florida & Michigan), Obama has won 9.3 million votes, versus Hill's 8.6 million out of nearly 18 million votes split between them.  Obama's 52-48 lead in popular votes is slightly less than his 53-47 lead in pledged delegates.

Now, extrapolate these numbers to the remaining contests, offsetting Hillary's perhaps better voter demographics in the remaining contests, against Obama's momentum; for bar-napkin calculation purposes, assume they roughly cancel out.  At 52-48 Obama - Hill--using the split for popular votes, conservative for Obama, whose leads 53-47 among actual delegates allocated--Obama wins 580 to Hillary's 536.  Add to their present totals, and Obama would stand with 1,700 to Hill's 1,527 pledged delegates.

Assume Edwards follows the super delegate trends, and thus treat the remaining 822 delegates (796 supers + 26 Edwards) as up for grabs, assuming that Edwards releases his delegates before the first ballot.  Obama would need 325, or 40 percent; Hillary would need 498, or 60 percent.  Edwards is however, thought more likely to throw his support to Obama.  If he does, Obama would then need 299, or 3/8 of the 796 supers, while Hill would need 498, or 5/8 of the supers.

Proportional allocation rules make Hill's chances of a big comeback slim.  If she trails Obama in popular votes and delegates the race is over; the supers will surely choose Obama.  Hill's best hope seems to be to win the popular votes in Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania, by a large enough margin to win the overall popular tally, and thus have bargaining leverage with the supers.  But Hill has more hope: Charles Krauthammer compiles skeptical comments from reporters, that Obama's mystique may be wearing a bit thin, and that Obamamania may soon have run its course.  Yet Michael Barone foresees a tussle that will leave supporters of the loser resentful, no matter who wins, a problem for the Democrats come November, with no one named Bush on the ballot.  Barone gives Hill a decent best-case shot, but if Hill fails to win either Texas or Ohio she is done for, the day after; if she carries both she has a decent chance in Pennsylvania (April 22), and if she splits TX & OH, Obama is the solid favorite to prevail.

Death of an Intelligent Intelligence Idea

A Sunday Los Angeles Times front-pager describes how a CIA effort to establish front companies abroad for the purpose of improving ability to infiltrate radical Islamic groups has collapsed.  Partly the failure was practical--how does a businessman ostensibly pushing widgets infiltrate a mosque?  Partly it was the CIA's perennial fear--to be fair--with much justification in bitter experience--that compromise of a single agent would cause entire pseudo-firms to collapse.  Perhaps things might have worked better, the article suggests, had student groups been created.

But perhaps the failure is more fundamental: unlike Israel and France, for example, the US lacks the cultural, media and legal environment necessary for successful operations of this kind.  We can't keep secrets, we ask lawyers for permission with regard to everything, and we pride ourselves on our moral scruples.  This does not strike this observer as ideal traits for success in strategic intelligence.

Death of an Essential Human Idea

On December 4, 2007, the London Times published an extraordinary lament by Anne Whitfield, brought to my attention by an alert LFTC reader, on the demise of common sense.  It was written with wit and wistfulness, and should not be missed.

Index 2/18/08

4 Posts: (1) Pakistan Election Eve: Pervez on the Edge--Weenie Watch; (2) The Legacy of Hezbollah's Departed Number Two--Us v. Them; (3) Kosovo Bolts: Serbia Screams; Russia Rants--Weenie Watch; (4) A Soldier's Iraq Tale for Presidents' Day--The Home Front.

Pakistan Election Eve: Pervez on the Edge

On Monday Feb. 18 Pakistan's delayed parliamentary elections will be held.  Mideast expert Amir Taheri argues that unfair elections will undermine order in Pakistan and that Musharraf should resist the temptation to rig the outcome.  Otherwise ethnic resentments against the 100 million (out of 170 million total) Punjabis could fracture the Pakistani state.   A Washington Times report states that food shortages cold undermine the ruling party.  Mort Kondracke of Roll Call reports that Musharraf's poll numbers are so low that Pakistanis will believe any election his party wins to have been rigged.

The Legacy of Hezbollah's Departed Number Two

Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick writes that the true legacy of mass murder genius Imad Mugniyeh was proving, by his collaboration with diverse terrorist groups, that there is a "global nexus" of transnational terror.  IM's loss was a heavy blow to Hezbollah, and he was too much the genius to be replaced by any one successor.  Charles DeGaulle famously observed that the graveyards are filled with "indispensable men"--yet some men (yes, and women) are indeed indispensable.  A fine 6-pager by terrorism analyst Thomas Joscelyn sheds more light on this huge event, and touches elements largely ignored by the media: IM's ties to Sunni groups like al-Qaeda (IM was Shia), to Iran, and to 9/11.

The AP denied such contacts outright, and NY Times reporter James Risen, eager to expose secrets when it damages the administration, wrote that contacts between IM and al-Qaeda were at least one meeting in the 1990s, possibly to discuss a terrorist relationship.  (Nah, Jim, they merely wanted to discuss their favorite Broadway shows.)  Joscelyn mined the 9/11 Commission report, plus legal documents from court cases, all accessible to reporters everywhere, but passed up by the vast majority.  Joscelyn explains that before Osama met IM, al-Qaeda lacked the expertise to launch coordinated multiple attacks.  Ironically, the CIA put the kibosh on tracing links between Iran + Hezbollah & 9/11, by relaying denials of joint sponsorship from senior al-Qaeda detainees.  Yet top al-Qaeda commander Ramzi Binalshibh spent the month of February 2001 in Iran, ostensibly for tourism or pilgrimage.  Right.  The 9/11 Commission report suggested that further investigation of relationships between al-Qaeda and Iran was warranted; no such investigation has been launched.  (Congress, it seems, is more interested in Roger Clemons, and New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, than in pursuing this.)

One added tidbit: Fox Cable News quoted an ex-CIA agent to the effect that the US couldn't even contemplate assassinating IM, due to the executive orders barring assassination.  One of our deadliest enemies, 'twas an open legal question as to whether we could have targeted him.

Kosovo Bolts: Serbia Screams; Russia Rants

A Sunday present for us, just what we need in a world gone to Hell with strife: Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia, styling itself a multi-ethnic state.  Uncle Sam and Europe helped midwife Kosovar aspirations, a step Serbia denounced (as predictably, Russia did).  Fasten your seat belts....

A Soldier's Iraq Tale for Presidents' Day

From: Ciotola, Neil CSM
Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 3:59 AM
Subject: Going Home

Family and Friends,

In less than 23 hours my tenure here in Iraq will come to a close.  In
less than a day I, and many others, shall board a transport and head to
Kuwait and then ultimately back home to all of you. 

To be honest it's almost surreal, all we've known for the last  15
months is this place called Iraq.  We've experienced so many highs and
so many lows.  We've endured (regardless of locale) days on end of
mortar and rocket fire.  Countless days of "Big Voice" wailing
"Incoming, Incoming, Incoming".  Running for cover, waiting out the
impacts, holding one's breath; listening for the sirens or yells of
Medic.  We've endured the almost constant thunder of IEDs, RPGs, Car and
truck bombs, the staccato of small arms fire.  If someone had asked me
in June or July if there was any hope of turning this thing around I
don't know what I'd have told them.

For those that traversed the roads, trails and fields of Iraq there was
the constant threat of IEDs, RPGs, suicide bombers, small arms  fire,
land mines, Houses rigged to explode and all the indigenous people
looking for a way to escape the violence, the sectarian murders, the
foreign fighters, and the ever present criminal element.

Something happened in June, I (and many others) don't know what it was,
cannot quite put our finger on it, but something changed.  Good people
in Iraq started to stand-up, good people began to join with us.   The
back of Al Qaida began to break.  We achieved a tipping point of sorts,
the Iraqi Security forces, long berated for a lack of ability began to
take a pre-emptive role in security operations.  Good people starting
coming forward and telling coalition forces where the bad guys and their
tools of war were hidden.  We began to roll-up mid and high level AQI
and Special Groups leadership, and the more we did, the more the good
people of Iraq came forward with even more information.

There are countless thousands of Iraqi's on the streets of the country
from Baghdad to points west and north. 24 hours a day, seven days a week
the people of Iraq provide us the freedom of maneuver we have been
looking for in our effort to hunt down and capture (or kill) those that
want nothing but chaos for this country.

Along the way, the manner and method our troops employed in the
operating  environment  evolved as well.  Instead of standing for anyone
particular person and or group we began standing for everyone.  We
planted ourselves squarely in the middle of those who would do one
another harm.  We became the arbitrators and the honest brokers. We (the
coalition), in the eyes of the Iraqi people, became the "go to guys". In
their effort to end the violence and create an environment conducive to
rebuilding and pursuing a "normal life", the Iraqi people began a grass
roots movement of running the evil out and governing themselves.  There
is a litany of things, large and small that turned the tide in our favor
last summer, far too many for me to elaborate on here.  Suffice to say
it was all contingent on the efforts of our youth and the quality and
character of our leadership.

Our men and women committed themselves to the fight every day.   When
they lost a comrade they mourned the same, donned their armor and
weaponry and marched back out onto the streets and fields.  While small
when compared to previous conflicts, our losses where, in the end,
debilitating.  Our sacrifices took their toll on our soul(s); we will
never be the same.

In our fifteen months we have lost nearly 900 Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen
and Marines; we've endured over 10,000 wounded in action.  So many sent
home for the last time, so many others sent home less than they left.
And countless others that will bear the emotional scares of this war for
many years to come.

Great progress has been realized over the past year. All attributable to
the sacrifice, courage, devotion, persistence and spirit of the American
Soldier and Marine.  Many of us questioned the resolve, determination
and character of our youth. Many of us wondered if we possessed the
depth of moral courage to close with evil.  Heck, there was a time when
I wondered if we could find it in ourselves to simply squeeze the
trigger.  All those doubts have been addressed, every question answered.
I truly pity anyone foolish enough to confront the might of our military
and the resolve of our men and women in uniform.

Everything we have accomplished has been made possible by and through
the support we've received from all back home. In ways too many to
count, you lifted us each day, you sustained us; you encouraged us.
You gave us something to set our sights on; the prospect of once again,
coming home.

There is so much to say, so many people to thank, so many to give thanks
for. To each of you who receives this you have either inspired me,
taught me, led me, loved me, sustained me or thankfully made me laugh
when I needed it.  We, yes all of you included, have achieved a great
thing here in Iraq.  We shall talk of it for years to come and thank God
it appears there will be time enough for it.  For now suffice to say,
I'm coming home and I owe it all to you.

With great love, respect and admiration,

Neil