THURSDAY,  JANUARY 8,  2009

DEMS VS. THE ONE

Posted at 7:22 p.m. ET

Lesson of the week:  In Washington, all business is business as usual.  President-elect Obama is running into trouble in his own party over his stimulus package.  Some objections may be valid.  Others seem to be the same old story - put my pet project first, or else.  The Wall Street Journal reports:

The Democratic-led Congress is moving to assert control over President-elect Barack Obama's plan to revive the U.S. economy, posing an early challenge that could define his relationship with Capitol Hill, where the resurgent Democratic Party has strengthened majorities in the House and Senate.

The Obama magic wand isn't having much effect on Congress.

Some of the strongest objections can be found within Mr. Obama's own party. Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (D., N.D.) raised doubts Thursday about the job-creating value of Mr. Obama's proposed $500 payroll tax holiday, which he scoffed would only put $20 a week in a worker's paycheck.

He might have a point on amount.  But putting any money in peoples' pockets can help...rather than earmarking it for federal spending programs.

Also Thursday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) questioned Obama proposal to reward businesses with a $3,000 tax credit for every job they create. "There's just not a lot of history of that working very well," said Sen. Wyden, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, which will be a starting point for the stimulus package on Capitol Hill. He suggested that infrastructure spending would have a "much bigger economic" impact, and cited a specific need for investments in high-speed rail.

Dud.  Infrastructure spending takes too long to work because projects have to be planned, approved and contracted.  Tax cuts work because the money quickly goes to the people.

As concerns are coming to the forefront, the timetable for action on the broader plan is slipping, with party leaders and Mr. Obama now aiming for enactment by mid-February.

How long have they had to plan this?

For Mr. Obama, who takes office on Jan. 20, the doubts emerging on Capitol Hill pose an immediate challenge, with somewhat conflicting goals. Not only must he rein in lawmakers who want to add potentially costly items to the package, as the expense of his own initiatives, but he must win over deficit hawks aghast at its cost and fearful of the long-term implications for U.S. fiscal policy.

Again, the way you win over deficit hawks is with tax cuts.  Tax cuts stimulate the economy, and, in the end, that adds to federal revenue, reducing the deficit.  But members of Congress want stuff for their districts and states, which is a big part of the budget problem.

But now we're into governing.  Fading away are the mass Obama rallies - the last one will be the inaugural bash - and a week from Tuesday Mr. Obama will have to earn his paycheck.  He'll find that the "historic moment" of his election will live on only in the smitten media and among the party-line multiculturalists in academia.  For the rest of us, he must produce.

January 8, 2009.       Permalink              

CAUGHT BY A FOX - AT 3:41 P.M. ET:  From Fox News: 

A high-profile Norwegian doctor who has said the September 11 terrorists were justified in their attack is now treating patients in Gaza and is being accused of presenting "hard-core propaganda" to TV interviewers in his telling of the conflict between Hamas and Israel.  Dr. Mads Gilbert has become an unofficial advocate of the Palestinian cause, his critics say.

International media reports, including those from the BBC, CBS, CNN and FOX’s sister station Sky News, present Gilbert as an ordinary doctor.  But a look at his record shows that Gilbert, 61, is a political activist and member of the Norwegian Maoist "Red" party, and he has been involved in solidarity work for the Palestinians since the 1970s. He has criticized the international aid organization Doctors Without Borders for refusing to take sides in conflicts.

COMMENT:  It's utterly typical of today's journalism.  People are featured in stories, and we're given only a sliver of information about them.  It would be like having Adolf Hitler interviewed, describing him as a German politician, and leaving it at that.  But I've noticed that the problem exists almost exclusively when leftists are featured.  If someone on the right is the subject, we get details about that person.  If the person is on the left, the background is kept vague.

OBAMA JAWBONING - AT 3:29 P.M. ET - From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday urged Congress to act quickly to pass sweeping economic stimulus measures, including a tax cut and an infusion of as much as $800 billion, or face the likelihood that “this recession could linger for years.”

In making an unusually direct and high-profile appeal in remarks at George Mason University in northern Virginia, Mr. Obama was building on a campaign for swift economic action that he has conducted for weeks — each time in ever-sharper terms.

COMMENT:  Perfectly proper to warn about the economy, which continues downward.  But news reports say that even Democrats on Capitol Hill are having trouble figuring out exactly how the money will be spent.  Obama must refine his program, make it completely clear.  I wouldn't be surprised, by the way, if he reinstitutes FDR's practice of evening, "fireside chats," on TV.

WARNING ON IRAN - AT 3:22 P.M. ET:  From AP: 

WASHINGTON -- William Perry, who headed the Pentagon during a 1994 nuclear standoff with North Korea, predicted on Thursday that President-elect Barack Obama will soon face a nuclear crisis with Iran.  Iran is "moving inexorably toward becoming a nuclear power," with ominous implications for the Middle East, Perry said.

COMMENT:  Sooner, rather than later.  With the American economy in turmoil, it's logical for Iran to assume we'll be focusing on that.  I doubt that the free fall in the price of oil will deter Iran.  Even economically challenged countries can develop the bomb if they focus their resources.

MINNESOTA CRAZY

Posted at 9:12 a.m. ET

Professor Steven E. Schier of Carleton College has a remarkable take on the U.S. Senate election, recount, and upcoming court challenge in Minnesota.  The race has incumbent Republican Norm Coleman challenged by rarely funny comedian Al Franken.  Published in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, this will not increase your reverence for democracy:

Will of the people? Er . . . no. Accidental Senator? Absolutely. That’s the certain result of the recount nightmare currently occurring in our state.

The basic problem can be simply stated. The margin of error that Minnesota’s election system provides is simply larger than that margin of victory in the 2008 Minnesota Senate race. That means the winner of the race is certainly the product of chance error.

And that also carries a particularly disturbing implication. The counties and localities where our election system functioned most poorly – through lost ballots, newly found ballots, and wrongly rejected absentee ballots – created a disproportionately large number of the random errors that produced the outcome.

It’s as if we decided that the Senate race should be determined by the worst election procedures in the state, because, at the end of the day, that is what has happened.

Nothing like laying it on the line.

It’s no wonder that the last close statewide recount in 1964 wasn’t decided until more than four months after Election Day, and that it was decided in court, not by the canvassing process. We have to look forward to a similar dragged out process in 2009.

Well, Franken has waited in the wings before.  It won't hurt him.

There are procedural solutions to avoid recount nightmares like this in the future. One, now on track to be employed in Minneapolis city elections this year, would have avoided our current Senate election uncertainties. In this system, voters rank order their preferences among several candidates, and if their first choice falls below a threshold of votes, their second choice would then be counted. This allows all voters to express a preference that counts in the final vote; no wasted votes result. Imagine if the over 437,000 votes garnered by Dean Barkley had their second choices allocated among Coleman and Franken. Their votes would count, whereas in the recount they are ignored, and the outcome in all probability would be clearer.

Another alternative is to have a runoff election if the margin between the top two candidates is small – say, under 5,000 votes – or if either candidate fails to get 50 percent of the vote. Georgia, with its 50 percent threshold law, held a runoff election in early December, producing a decisive winner from among the top two candidates.

We have lived with the legacy of elections so close that we can never be sure of the outcome. 

In 1960, John F. Kennedy narrowly won the presidential election over Richard Nixon despite disputed vote totals from several states, particularly Alabama and Illinois. Allegedly, when Kennedy met Nixon for the first time after Election Day, he said: “Well Dick, we’ll never really know who won the election, will we?”

We Minnesotans will never really know, either. Whether he’s Senator Franken or Senator Coleman, the winner is surely Senator Accidental.

I recall walking with friends through the streets of Chicago at 5 a.m., the day after the 1960 election.  The Chicago Sun-Times came out with a headline:  

IT'S KENNEDY 

An hour later the paper came out with a new headline:

IS IT KENNEDY?

And that's the way it's been left for almost half a century. 

Professor Schier makes good sense.

January 8, 2009.      Permalink          

PLANNING FROM THE LEFT - AT 8:02 A.M. ET:  From The Politico:

It's no secret Barack Obama plans to enact the biggest economic stimulus package in history next month.  What's less known is that he plans to quickly follow it with a sweeping re-regulation of the U.S. economy.

One of the leading ideas would combine the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission into a super-regulator that would be like another Federal Reserve as a cornerstone of the U.S. financial system.

This plan, still in draft form, is likely to include tough new rules for stock trading, banks and the broader financial sector — as well as greater transparency for how government money is spent cleaning up the entire system, according to Democrats familiar with the plans.

COMMENT:  We're free marketers here, but I can't deny that Wall Street brought this on itself.  There is simply a limit to the abuse people are willing to take.  My great fear is that the creeps who created a lot of these problems will, with their army of lawyers, figure out a way around the new rules, and that the average guy who puts some of his savings in the market will again be left holding the bag.  That's not free enterprise.

MATTHEWS TINGLES OUT - AT 7:40 A.M. ET:  From The New York Times:

Chris Matthews, the host of the MSNBC program “Hardball,” told his staff on Wednesday night that he would not run for the Senate in 2010 from Pennsylvania.

COMMENT:  A great loss to the nation.  How will we survive without his calm reasoning and exquisite statesmanship.

MIDEAST UPDATE - AT 7:33 A.M. ET:   Rockets were fired into northern Israel for the first time since the Gaza flareup began.  From The New York Times:

JERUSALEM — Israel’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza threatened to broaden on Thursday as at least three rockets were fired into the north of Israel from Lebanon.

The rockets, presumably launched in support of Hamas, could presage the opening of a second front. The Israeli Army, in a brief statement, said it “responded with fire against the source of the rockets,” which landed near the town of Nahariya. Two Israelis were slightly wounded, the police said.

COMMENT:  Now watch the usual suspects come out of the journalistic woodwork to say, "But no Israelis were killed, right?  Why should Israel be angry?"

THE COUNTDOWN

12 DAYS TO THE COMING OF OBAMIUS

Posted at 7:30 a.m. ET

We begin a new feature - the countdown to the new age, when peace will cover the Earth, the oceans will recede, and Chryslers will sell again.  This is the coming of the age of Obamius.

With 12 days to go, we can report the following developments:

 -  CIA director designate Leon Panetta was seen, with fake beard, and nose and glasses set, sneaking out of a video store with old DVD's of "I Spy."  In addition, it is known that Panetta has written to Sean Connery, asking for advice.

-  Chris Matthews was rushed to Washington's Georgetown University Hospital suffering from acute leg tingle.  Matthews, who once reported a tingle up his leg whenever he heard Obama speak, alarmed co-workers when he complained of a sharper tingle up the other leg.

-  Some five million people are expected at the inauguration, 95 percent of whom are personal friends of Roland Burris.

-  The president-elect, after reviewing the work of Governor Rod Blagojevich, is set to announce that he is no longer from Illinois, but from Kansas.  He will say, "We only have one state at a time."

-  After seeing the latest Senate polls from New York, Mr. Obama denied knowing Caroline Kennedy, but said he understood that she was a campaign volunteer.

- Mr. Obama profusely apologized to the living former presidents, who met with him at the White House, after learning they'd been stripped searched and drugged before being allowed near him.  But Jimmy Carter bit him anyway.

More bulletins coming each day 'til January 20th, the day of Obamius. 

January 8, 2009.      Permalink          

WEDNESDAY,  JANUARY 7,  2009

FUND DRIVE? - at 6:31 p.m. ET:  We are seriously considering a fund drive here at Urgent Agenda to send Chris Matthews to an appropriate mental-health facility.  The latest has Matthews commenting on NBC reporter Chuck Todd's first-time questioning of Barack Obama:

On MSNBC minutes later, Chris Matthews noted that it was Todd's first time in what's essentially a prelude to the White House briefing room.

"I noticed the familiarity between you and the President-elect," Matthews joked, adding that Obama called the rookie correspondent "Chuck" a few times.

Matthews then said that Todd had "just lost his virginity" by asking his first question.

COMMENT:  Lost his virginity?  Matthews is the same guy who said he got a tingle up his leg whenever he heard Obama speak.  This man has issues, and only a trained person can deal with them.  We extend our sympathies and stress that there is no shame in having unusual feelings.

 
ACTUAL HEADLINE AT THE WASHINGTON TIMES - AT 6:11 P.M.:

Busy Gupta performs brain surgery, reports for CNN

COMMENT:  We have standards here, and will avoid CNN jokes.  But I can't control what you're thinking.

OF COURSE, I ALWAYS INTENDED - AT 4:49 P.M. ET: 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the incoming chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Wednesday she intends to support President-elect Barack Obama's choice for CIA chief, Leon Panetta, despite earlier comments that she had reservations about the choice.

COMMENT:  You know, as Obama's inauguration approaches, things are getting more cynical by the hour.  Suddenly Di-Fi is supporting a man she doubted, even before hearings are held.  Such change we can believe in.  Such change.

BE SEATED - AT 4:48 P.M. ET: 

WASHINGTON (CBS) —

Senate leaders began to clear the way for Roland Burris to take over President-elect Barack Obama's vacant seat, saying they wanted the issue resolved quickly.

Burris met Wednesday with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Dick Durbin, a day after his paperwork was rejected at the opening of the 111th Congress.

They called the meeting ''positive'' and indicated that the Senate would be open to seating Burris once legal hurdles are resolved and Burris clears the air over his appointment.

COMMENT:  This is a sordid affair.  Apparently, the law is on Burris's side, but his blatant playing of the race card - surrounded by African-American supporters whenever he appeared - was sickening.  I repeat an earlier comment:  The president-elect should have intervened to prevent this racially charged spectacle.  You'd also think that black leaders would have wanted to insure that this appointment to the Senate, to fill the seat of the first black president, would be pristine.  For some, though, this "moment in history" is just business as usual. 

DOW NOW - AT 4:35 P.M. ET:  The Dow closed down 245 points, to 8770, erasing most of 2009 gains.

GREETINGS FOR OBAMA - AT 1:26 P.M. ET:  From The New York Times: 

Worries about falling profits and soaring unemployment dragged Wall Street lower on Tuesday, damping some of the optimism that had crept back into the markets in the new year.

Stock markets dropped sharply on Wednesday as warnings from the media company Time Warner and the computer chip maker Intel foreshadowed a bleak season for fourth-quarter corporate earnings.

COMMENT:  Obama will hit the ground spending, but a quick tax cut would be the best way to move forward.  The money goes immediately back to the people, rather than to programs that can take years to implement.
 

BERNARD LEWIS

Posted at 8:14 a.m. ET

It's always a pleasure to quote Bernard Lewis, who probably knows more about the Mideast than any other Westerner.  Of course, the new academic crowd has tried to destroy Lewis and replace him with the usual anti-American "scholars," but Professor Lewis (Princeton) fights on, brilliantly:

One approach to peace is exemplified by the policies of Anwar Sadat, president of Egypt until his assassination in 1981. He sought peace and publicly declared his willingness even to go to Jerusalem. Sadat did not take these measures because he was suddenly persuaded of the merits of Zionism. His reason was more practical and immediate -- his awareness, shared by a growing number of his compatriots, that Egypt was rapidly becoming a Soviet colony. Already the Soviet presence in Egypt was more widespread and more obtrusive than the British had been.

And...

In several Arab countries at the present time, and in wider Arab circles, there is a growing perception that once again they face a danger more deadly and menacing than Israel at its worst: the threat of militant, radical Shiite Islam, directed from Iran.

The Arab dilemma:

During the war in Lebanon in 2006 between Israel and the Iranian-supported Shiite militia Hezbollah, the usual Arab support for the Arab side in a conflict was strikingly absent. It was clear that some Arab governments and Arab peoples were hoping for an Israeli victory, which did not materialize. Their disappointment was palpable.

We see similar ambiguities over the situation in Gaza.  On the one hand, pan-Arab loyalty demands support for Gaza, under whatever type of Arab rule, against the encroaching Israelis. On the other, many see the Gaza enclave -- ruled by Hamas, a Sunni group but increasingly controlled by Iran -- as a mortal threat to the Sunni Arab establishment all round.

The plot thickens:

In this situation, it is not impossible that some consensus will emerge, along the lines of Sadat’s accommodation with Israel, for the maintenance of the status quo. Such a peace, like that between Egypt and Israel, would be at best cool, and always threatened by radical forces both inside and outside. But it would certainly be better than a state of war, and it could last a long time.

The second hope for change would be the growth of real democracy in the Arab world. Though unlikely at the present time, there are signs that such a development is not impossible.

Some Arabs have even been willing to speak out and welcome Israel as a pioneer of democracy in the region, a model that could help them to develop their own democratic institutions.

And...

In the past, any assessment of the prospects for peace in the region would have assigned a major, perhaps decisive, role to outside powers. This is not true today.

The U.S., no longer confronting the challenge of a global rival, and amply provided with cheap oil, is unlikely to involve itself in the messy politics of the region. Russia, no longer resigned to being marginalized, has resumed some role in the Middle East. But it remains minor, and Russia is seriously impeded by its own Islamic problems at home.

In earlier times one would have assigned a major role to Europe, but at the present day what matters is not so much the European role in the Middle East as the Middle Eastern role in Europe. A prominent Syrian intellectual recently remarked that the most important question about the future of Europe is: Will it be an Islamized Europe, or a Europeanized Islam?

Lewis is always worth reading.  He brings vast knowledge, something in short supply in the chattering classes.

January 7, 2009.      Permalink          

SLEAZE COMES TO TOWN - AT 7:53 A.M. ET:  It appears that no-self-respect Roland Burris, appointed by disgraced Governor Rod Blagojevich to the Senate seat vacated by the president elect, will get to sit down after all.  From AP: 

WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats are looking for ways to defuse the standoff that has denied Roland Burris the vacated Senate seat of President-elect Barack Obama of Illinois, but maybe not much longer...

...Knowledgeable Senate officials in both parties said the saga was widely expected to end with Burris being seated.

COMMENT:  It's sad that the Senate seat held by the first African American to be elected president should be filled in such a sleazy manner.  Illinois Democrats should have made every effort to fill this seat in accordance with the highest ethical standards and with the best possible candidate, as a tribute to the president elect.  But Illinois Democrats don't know from high ethical standards. 

MORE FOOD FIGHTING - AT 7:23 A.M. ET:  From The New York Times, on the competition for the Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton:

Even as Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo insisted he was staying out of the competition for New York’s soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat, a top Cuomo aide urged labor leaders and upstate officials to refrain from embracing Caroline Kennedy for the job, according to several people with direct knowledge of the conversations.

Now, for those of you who don't follow the gossip, Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo is the son of former Governor Mario Cuomo.  He is also the ex-husband of Kerry Kennedy, daughter of the late Robert Kennedy.  Their divorce was spectacular, a real juicy mess.  So there's a family feud at work here in New York.  This can get very ugly very fast.

THE SAME-OLD STORY - AT 7:15 A.M. ET:  Israel will call a three-hour cease-fire in Gaza today to allow in humanitarian supplies.  I don't recall any country calling a cease-fire so its enemy can be fed and treated.  But the press is, as usual, turning increasingly against Israel.  After all, Israel wants to win against Hamas terrorism, and the concept of victory is considered beneath the high-minded level of intellectual elites.

At the same time, Hamas bluntly rejected any permanent cease-fire with Israel:

Despite mounting international pressure for an end to hostilities between Israel and Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip, Hamas declared on Wednesday that they would not accept any permanent cease-fire with Israel.

Let's see how much criticism they get.  Don't hold your breath.

FOOD FIGHT - AT 7:06 A.M. ET:   So Paul Krugman, reliably leftist columnist for The New York Times, and, to be fair, Nobel laureate in economics, doesn't like Obama's apparent pick for surgeon general of the United States, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, of the equally leftist CNN.  Oh, it's so much fun to see them fight:

So apparently Obama plans to appoint CNN’s Sanjay Gupta as Surgeon General. I don’t have a problem with Gupta’s qualifications. But I do remember his mugging of Michael Moore over Sicko. You don’t have to like Moore or his film; but Gupta specifically claimed that Moore “fudged his facts," when the truth was that on every one of the allegedly fudged facts, Moore was actually right and CNN was wrong. 

Oh, I love it, I love it.  They will battle over the intellectual honesty of Michael Moore.  That's like fighting over the long-term vision of Fannie Mae.