We have a new audio clip up:  "Obama's First Month."  You can hear it here.

WEDNESDAY,  MARCH 4,  2009

MAKING AMENDS - AT 11:07 P.M. ET:  We've noted here that President Obama hardly went out of his way to make Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown, feel welcome on Brown's visit to Washington this week.  And indeed, Obama's attitude toward things British has seemed aloof.  British discontent, and some serious sniping by American observers, has apparently produced some soul searching, as The Politico reports:

After taking flak for returning a bust of Winston Churchill, President Obama is giving some British mementos prominent homes in and near the Oval Office.

In a 10-minute phone call Wednesday, Obama thanked British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for dropping off the gifts Tuesday when he visited the White House, according to an official release. The unusually-detailed readout on the call said Obama has put a pen holder taken from the HMS Gannet on his Oval Office desk, known as the Resolute desk. The statement also said a first-edition biography of Churchill, the legendary World War II British premier, has been placed in the president’s private study just outside the Oval.

COMMENT:  We hope a lesson has been learned.  We expect the president to treat our friends better than he treats our enemies.

March 3, 2009  Permalink

TOUGH WORDS ON IRAN - AT 7:41 P.M. ET:  From The Jerusalem Post:

WASHINGTON - Israel is seriously considering taking unilateral military action to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, according to a report by top US political figures and experts released Wednesday.

The report also says Israel's time frame for action is growing shorter, not only because of Iranian advances, but because Teheran might soon acquire upgraded air defenses and disperse its nuclear program to additional locations.

The report, "Preventing a Cascade of Instability," was put out by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). It also argues that international sanctions against Iran need to be intensified urgently for the engagement the Obama administration is planning with Teheran to be effective.

COMMENT:  This comes as we're learning that Iran has far more fissionable material than we'd thought.  The White House talks a good game on Iran, but there really doesn't seem to be a great sense of urgency.  If Iran gets the bomb, it will be on Obama's watch, but he'll blame Bush.

March 4, 2009.  Permalink

MORE DEM QUESTIONS - AT 7:32 P.M. ET: 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama's proposal to limit itemized tax deductions for high earners is running into opposition from key Democrats in Congress who worry that charities and the housing market would be hurt.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus questioned Wednesday whether the proposal was viable, a day after his House counterpart also expressed reservations.

COMMENT:  This follow our earlier reports of Democratic discontent.  The more thoughtful Democrats, the ones who actually read bills, own calculators and know how to use them, are raising serious questions.  So far there has been no response from the White House.

March 4, 2009.  Permalink

THEY ARE BUZZING - AT 1:43 P.M. ET:  ...about the shabby treatment British Prime Minister Gordon Brown received at the hands of President Obama in the last few days during Brown's trip here.  Dana Milbank of The Washington Post reviews the carnage:

Our British cousins are getting the feeling that the new administration doesn't fancy them.

The murmurs began when President Obama returned to the British Embassy the Winston Churchill bust that had been displayed in the Oval Office since Tony Blair lent it to George W. Bush.

The fears intensified when press secretary Robert Gibbs, announcing British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's visit to the White House, demoted the Churchillian phrase "special relationship" to a mere "special partnership" across the Atlantic.

And the alarm bells really went off when Brown's entourage landed at Andrews Air Force Base on Monday night. Obama, breaking with precedent, wouldn't grant the prime minister the customary honor of standing beside him in front of the two nations' flags for the TV cameras. The Camp David sleepover that Blair got on his first meeting with Bush? Sorry, chaps. 

COMMENT:  Smart, real smart of President Obama.  Punish our friends, reward our enemies.  A few days ago a letter leaked in which Obama essentially offered to scrap missile defense for Eastern Europe if Russia would hold our hand on Iran.  Must have made the Czechs and Poles feel all warm and fuzzy. 

You'll notice that foreign countries, including allies, aren't exactly falling over themselves to praise the Obama foreign policy.  I suspect that numbness is more their attitude.  The One isn't the messiah after all

The Telegraph's Ian Martin, who is stationed in Washington, is so angry that he's ready to pull up the drawbridge: 

We get the point, sunshine: we're just one of many allies and you want fancy new friends. Well, the next time you need something doing, something which impinges on your national security, then try calling the French, or the Japanese, or best of all the Germans. The French will be able to offer you first rate support from their catering corps but beyond that you'll be on your own.

When it comes to men, munitions and commitment you'll soon find out why it pays to at least treat the Brits with some manners.

Hear!  Hear!

March 4, 2009.  Permalink.

       

DOW STILL UP - AT 1:30 P.M. ET:  The Dow is up 135, to 6861.  It's a modest rally, not quite the lightning bolt that some had hoped for. 

DOW UP - AT 9:40 A.M. ET:  The Dow is up 114, to 6841, at least initially confirming predictions of some strength today.  We'll see how long it lasts.

IRAN - THE TICKING CLOCK

Posted at 8:18 a.m. ET:

With all the "negotiations" talk filling the air, and soaking up space in the in-the-tank-for-Obama press, you'd never know there's a real world out there.  My friend Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi alerts us to a Wall Street Journal editorial that reminds us that the Iranian clock is always moving forward, never back, with grave implications for those who don't notice:

Mr. Obama is already trying to lure Russian help on Iran by offering to trade away hard-earned missile defense sites in Eastern Europe. Russia's President claims to be unimpressed. And now it turns out that the rate at which Iran's nuclear programs are advancing may render even negotiations moot.

Oh, but negotiations are never moot.  Even the League of Nations stayed in business during World War II.  Those were the days.

That's a fair conclusion from the latest report by the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency. Among other disclosures, the IAEA found that Iran has produced more than 1,000 kilograms of low enriched uranium (LEU), enough for a single bomb's worth of uranium after further enrichment. The IAEA also found that Iran had underreported its stock of LEU by about 200 kilograms, which took the agency by surprise partly because it only checks Iran's stockpile once a year. This is the basis for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Michael Mullen's weekend acknowledgment that the U.S. believes Iran has enough fissile material to make a bomb.

Not too many people seem overly concerned. 

That's not all. The IAEA says its inspectors have been denied access to a heavy water reactor in Arak, and that Iran has put a roof over the site "rendering impossible the continued use of satellite imagery to monitor further construction inside the reactor building." Most proliferation experts agree that the Arak reactor, scheduled for completion in 2011, can have no purpose other than to produce weapons-grade plutonium.

We're sure there's a mistake here.  They just wanted indoor tennis courts.

The report contains much more of this. It is the latest in a long line of reports that should have sounded alarms but instead have accustomed the world to conclude that a nuclear Iran is something we'll just have to live with.

Well, dearies, our Middle East Studies departments aren't expressing worry.  Why should we?

Well, not the entire world: Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned last week that "time is slipping through our fingers" when it comes to stopping Tehran. "What is needed," he added, "is a two-pronged course of action which includes ironclad, strenuous sanctions . . . and a readiness to consider options in the event that these sanctions do not succeed."

Those alarmist Israelis again.

Nobody -- Mr. Obama least of all -- can doubt what Mr. Barak means by "options." Nor should the Administration doubt that an Israeli strike, however necessary and justified, could put the U.S. in the middle of a broader Middle East war. If Mr. Obama wants to avoid a security crisis in the first year of his watch, he will have to get serious about Iran now.

Well, let future generations take care of it, while they're paying off the debts we're handing them now.  What's one more problem?

March 4, 2009.      Permalink          

FREEMAN NOT HOME FREE - AT 7:30 A.M. ET:  As readers know, we've been following the bizarre appointment of Charles Freeman Jr. to head the National Intelligence Council, which prepares the sensitive National Intelligence Estimates.  Among other sins, Freeman approved China's Tiananmen Square Massacre, but said it wasn't tough enough, and has an ongoing love affair with Arab dictatorships, especially Saudi Arabia.  Some Republican members of Congress have spoken out.  Now another joins the dissenters.  From Fox News:

The ranking Republican on the House intelligence committee called on the Obama administration to withdraw its pick for the top intelligence analyst post, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Charles Freeman, a veteran diplomat and former senior Pentagon official, is expected to assume his new job as chairman of the National Intelligence Council in the coming weeks.

He has stirred controversy with several statements, including one in which he said the Chinese government acted too slowly to crack down on protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Mr. Freeman has also criticized American policies supporting Israel.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R., Mich.) said in an interview, "I hope that this is one that's withdrawn."

COMMENT:  This is an insane appointment.  It violates fundamental American values of support for democracy and opposition to dictatorships.  There are so many qualified people available for this post, so why choose this one?  That's the question that Congress should be asking.  What message does the administration want to send?  By the way, so far only the Murdoch-owned news organizations are giving the story any serious play.  Zip in The New York Times or the Washington Post.  What message does that send?

March 4, 2009  Permalink

SOME DEMS WORRY - AT 7:22 A.M. ET:  Not all Senate Democrats are sold on the president's economic plans.  Moderate Dems are starting to worry about the costs, and they often come from states where reelection can be tough.  The Politico reports:

Moderate and conservative Democrats in the Senate are starting to choke over the massive spending and tax increases in President Barack Obama’s budget plans and have begun plotting to increase their influence over the agenda of a president who is turning out to be much more liberal than they are.

A group of 14 Senate Democrats and one independent huddled behind closed doors on Tuesday, discussing how centrists in that chamber can assert more leverage on the major policy debates that will dominate this Congress.

Afterward, some in attendance made plain that they are getting jitters over the cost and expansive reach of Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget proposal.

COMMENT:  This is a major story.  Fourteen Democrats are almost a quarter of all the Dems in the Senate.  If they start defecting from the Obama plan, they can have a decisive influence.  The numbers don't lie.

March 4, 2009  Permalink

 
NOSTRADAMUS TYPE BULLETIN - AT 7:12 A.M. ET:

MOSCOW (AP) -- If you're inclined to believe Igor Panarin, and the Kremlin wouldn't mind if you did, then President Barack Obama will order martial law this year, the U.S. will split into six rump-states before 2011, and Russia and China will become the backbones of a new world order.

Panarin might be easy to ignore but for the fact that he is a dean at the Foreign Ministry's school for future diplomats and a regular on Russia's state-guided TV channels. And his predictions fit into the anti-American story line of the Kremlin leadership.

COMMENT:  And Britney Spears will become secretary of defense.  And a conservative will win an Oscar.

March 4, 2009  Permalink

PERFECT WAY TO PUT IT - AT 7:01 A.M. ET:  From Michael Goodwin, in the New York Daily News:

For sheer chutzpah, it would be hard to top the scene on Capitol Hill yesterday. As Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner vowed to go after wealthy Americans who shield money in tax havens, the man wielding the chairman's gavel in the House Ways and Means hearing was Democrat Charlie Rangel.

Perfect together. Geithner and Rangel are two peas in a pod when it comes to dodging their own taxes, and neither is embarrassed about demanding others pay up.

Their certainty about what's good for the rest of us, combined with their sense of privilege about their own shady conduct, perfectly illustrates the real deficit in Washington. More than the budget gap, the trust deficit is causing doubts about President Obama's big-government grab.    

COMMENT:  Some new polls show increased concern about the Obama economic policies, although the president himself remains immensely popular.  We saw something of the same poll pattern during the Reagan administration.  Popular presidents tend to get reelected, even if the public has doubts about their policies.

March 4, 2009  Permalink

TUESDAY,  MARCH 3,  2009

NO PRESS BIAS HERE; JUST MOVE ALONG - AT 7:11 P.M. ET:  You don't think there's press bias?  Just read this:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama's push to reset U.S.-Russian relations took a huge stride when he signaled the Kremlin he might forgo an anti-missile system in Eastern Europe if Moscow uses its clout with a troublesome Iran and its nuclear ambitions.

The back-channel diplomatic gambit was one of the few tools Obama had for unknotting the stalemated relationship -- one that suffered under former Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin.

Details of the Obama proposal, a letter responding to one from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, have not been disclosed, but the U.S. president has clearly enticed the Kremlin into a dialogue that could pay significant benefits to both sides.

COMMENT:  Has clearly enticed the Kremlin?  Really?  Where is the evidence of that?  In fact, the Kremlin today ridiculed the president's advance.  And, of course, the writer must get in the obligatory dig at former President Bush. 

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DOW CLOSE - AT 4:01 P.M. ET:  Preliminary figures - The Dow closed down 18, to 6745.

THE ORACLE SPEAKS - AT 3:55 P.M. ET:

March 3 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. President Barack Obama said falling share prices may mean bargains for investors with a “long-term perspective.”

COMMENT:  Taking advice on economics from Barack Obama is like taking advice on abstinence from Bill Clinton.

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CURIOSER AND CURIOSER - AT 3:48 P.M. ET:  Now the president himself is denying the story widely circulated in the press that the U.S. offered Russia a deal - help us neutralize the Iranian nuclear program, and we won't deploy missile defense in Eastern Europe.  (See our first story of the day.):

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday denied offering Russia a deal in which Washington would slow deployment of a missile defense shield in Europe in exchange for Moscow's help in a nuclear stand-off with Iran.

The New York Times reported that Obama had sent a letter to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev last month suggesting he would back off deploying a new missile defense system if Russia helped stop Iran from developing long-range weapons.

"The report that was in The New York Times didn't accurately characterize the letter," Obama said after meeting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for talks at the White House.

"What I said in the letter is what I have said publicly, which is that the missile defense that we have talked about deploying is directed toward, not Russia, but Iran," he said.

"And what I said ... was that, obviously, to the extent that we are lessening Iran's commitment to nuclear weapons, then that reduces the pressure for, or the need for a missile defense system."

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signaled on Tuesday that Moscow was willing to talk to Washington about the missile defense shield but that Iran's nuclear program, which it is involved in, was a separate issue.

COMMENT:  It seems to me that the president's denial needs a denial.  His characterization of the letter pretty much confirms what the press has been reporting, so why the denial?  Also, Medvedev's reply essentially negates the whole suggested deal.  Mass confusion.

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DOW LETHARGIC - AT 3:33 P.M. ET:  The Dow is indecisive today, and is down 20, a half hour before the close.

DOW NOT WOW - AT 11:15 A.M. ET:  The Dow has moved into negative territory, and is now down 16.

SCHOOL GAMES

Posted at 10:35 a.m. ET

This is one of those stories that just outrages us.  From William McGurn in the Wall Street Journal:

Dick Durbin has a nasty surprise for two of Sasha and Malia Obama's new schoolmates. And it puts the president in an awkward position.

The children are Sarah and James Parker. Like the Obama girls, Sarah and James attend the Sidwell Friends School in our nation's capital. Unlike the Obama girls, they could not afford the school without the $7,500 voucher they receive from the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program. Unfortunately, a spending bill the Senate takes up this week includes a poison pill that would kill this program -- and with it perhaps the Parker children's hopes for a Sidwell diploma.

An absolute obscenity.  And liberals claim they're all for "the people."  Right -  as long as "the people" are members of education unions.

Known as the "Durbin language" after the Illinois Democrat who came up with it last year, the provision mandates that the scholarship program ends after the next school year unless Congress reauthorizes it and the District of Columbia approves.

Here's a program that seems to work.  Let's kill it.  There are endangered species to save in Nancy Pelosi's district!  Let's get our priorities straight.

Deborah Parker says such a move would be devastating for her kids. "I once took Sarah to Roosevelt High School to see its metal detectors and security guards," she says. "I wanted to scare her into appreciation for what she has at Sidwell." It's not just safety, either. According to the latest test scores, fewer than half of Roosevelt's students are proficient in reading or math.

Nonsense!  We must stop these involved parents.  Soon they'll be asking questions about their kids' educations. 

That's the reality that the Parkers and 1,700 other low-income students face if Sen. Durbin and his allies get their way. And it points to perhaps the most odious of double standards in American life today: the way some of our loudest champions of public education vote to keep other people's children -- mostly inner-city blacks and Latinos -- trapped in schools where they'd never let their own kids set foot.

Well, look, there are better families, you know.  Let's not carry this equality thing too far.

As for Sidwell, the school has welcomed the Opportunity Scholarship program. Though headmaster Bruce Stewart declines to get into either politics or the Obamas, he says that a program that gives parents more educational options for their children is not only good for their kids, it's good for the community.

This man is clearly a security risk.

All of which leaves the First Parent with a decision to make: Will he stand up for those like his own children's schoolmates -- or stand in front of the Sidwell door with Mr. Durbin?...

...This, after all, is a man who has written of the "anger" he felt as a community organizer, when his attempts to improve things for Chicago school kids ran up against an "uncomfortable fact."

"The biggest source of resistance [to reform]," he said, "was rarely talked about . . . namely, the uncomfortable fact that every one of our churches was filled with teachers, principals, and district superintendents. Few of these educators sent their own children to public schools; they knew too much for that. But they would defend the status quo with the same skill and vigor as their white counterparts of two decades before."

This is an important story.  Let's see if the private-school parents who run the nation's media will do anything with it, or even notice it. 

March 3, 2009.      Permalink          

DOW OPENING - AT 9:41 A.M. ET:  The Dow opened up 72 points, to 6835.

END OF THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP? - AT 8:57 A.M. ET:  President Obama is going out of his way to snub Great Britain, our closest ally.  First, he unceremoniously returned a bust of Winston Churchill that Britain had loaned to President Bush, even though the Brits never asked for it back.  According to some accounts, Obama still can't get over Churchill's affection for the British Empire.

Now Prime Minister Gordon Brown is in Washington, and is getting less than the full treatment, as The Telegraph explains:

Strange goings on surrounding the programme for the first day of Gordon Brown's visit to Washington.

No sooner had the Prime Minister's plane touched down at Andrews Air Force on Monday evening when word was passed to travelling Westminster correspondents that the press conference they'd been told to expect had been called off "because of snow."

Someone apparently left the windows open at the White House.  They're still digging out the East Room.

Mr Brown might lament that despite the so-called "special relationship" Britain is now getting the same treatment as the President of Uruguay, but he need not despair. I'm told there's a chance he might get drinks with Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday evening.

COMMENT:  One thing about Obama - he's sensitive and seems to hold grudges.  Thus, he won't even give President Bush credit for the success of the surge in Iraq.  If he still harbors resentment over Britain's colonizing of Kenya, land of his father, that's too bad.  We were able to reconcile with Japan and Germany after World War II.  Maybe it's time Obama understood the relationship between Britain and America, and how important it's been to the very system that made Barack Obama possible.  No such luck.

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McCAIN STRIKES - AT 8:40 A.M. ET:  From The Politico:

Long delayed but not shrunken with time, a nearly $410 billion omnibus spending bill is fast becoming a great bone in the throat for Democrats and the White House, just when each hoped to put the past behind them and move onto President Barack Obama’s new 2010 budget.

Minutes after hitting the Senate floor Monday, the bill touched off a fierce, emotional attack from the president’s old rival, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who lectured Obama for failing to do more to stand up against the thousands of spending earmarks in the 1,132 pages.

At the same time, Democrats admitted privately that the White House itself has hurt their cause by frightening off Republicans, who negotiated the bill in December but are now in “sticker shock” after seeing the full cost of the new president’s agenda.

COMMENT:  The White House is oblivious to the fact that 46% of voters cast their ballots for McCain.  And there is no indication that the great majority of Americans voted for the kind of crazed spending that we see before us.  The Obama honeymoon may soon require marriage counseling.

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NO KIDDING - AT 7:57 A.M. ET:  Actual headline at the Washington Post's website today:

Government Actions Fail To Reassure Investors

COMMENT:  They figured it out?

WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL - AT 7:41 A.M. ET:  Andrew Malcolm of the L.A. Times's "Top of the Ticket" blog, examines the latest literary news - that former Governor Rod Blagojevich is writing a book, and that Hot Rod's flack says it "will at times be embarrassing to himself and to others."  To which Andrew Malcolm replies:

First of all, it is impossible for Illinois politicians to be embarrassed.

Indicted? Yes, of course. Convicted? Oh, for sure. Often. Imprisoned? You bet. But "embarrassed"?  Gimme a break!

Yes, of course, Blagojevich needs the six-figures for his defense attorneys. But he's gonna write a tell-all book about his alleged crime before his federal trial for same?

Maybe this publicist guy really is from Illinois.

COMMENT:  "Top of the Ticket" is a rarity on the web - a political blog that's actually well written.  Check it out.

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DOW ANGST - AT 7:29 A.M. ET: 

NEW YORK (AP) - Wall Street is headed for a mixed open Tuesday as investors recover from a massive selloff and await data on home and auto sales.

The Dow Jones industrial average on Monday plunged far below the 7,000 mark to end at 6,763—the lowest close for the Dow since April 25, 1997. The Dow has fallen more than 52 percent since hitting a record high of 14,164.53 in October 2007.

COMMENT:  The lack of confidence in the Obama economic plan is remarkable.  All those chic Wall Street types who contributed to the Obama campaign probably want their money back.

STRANGE - AT 7:11 A.M. ET:  The biggest story this morning, other than the financial meltdown, is the suspicious leak of a letter sent by President Obama to the president of Russia.  We started reporting on this last night.  From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — President Obama sent a secret letter to Russia’s president last month suggesting that he would back off deploying a new missile defense system in Eastern Europe if Moscow would help stop Iran from developing long-range weapons, American officials said Monday...

...The officials who described the contents of the message requested anonymity because it has not been made public. While they said it did not offer a direct quid pro quo, the letter was intended to give Moscow an incentive to join the United States in a common front against Iran. Russia’s military, diplomatic and commercial ties to Tehran give it some influence there, but it has often resisted Washington’s hard line against Iran.

COMMENT:  Note the plural - "officials."  This is a strange leak.  Did the Obama people want the letter leaked.  If so, why?  Or are these anonymous officials opposed to the policy, and are mobilizing to stop it by releasing the letter?  This is a major story because East European allies of the United States went out on a limb to join us on missile defense, and now the Obama crowd seems to be knifing them in the back.  We'll follow this closely.  Right now there are not enough details to draw firm conclusions. 

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