SUNDAY,  NOVEMBER 16,  2008

UPDATE AT 6:51 P.M. ET:   They don't call Henry Kissinger a seasoned diplomat for nothing.  The former secretary of state and veteran of Republican administrations said today that Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, under consideration for secretary of state in the administration of Democratic President-elect Barack Obama, would make "an outstanding appointment'' and display "great courage'' on Obama's part.

COMMENT:  It's hard to see how Obama could not offer Clinton the job, with all the publicity.  He can't risk offending her constituency again.  The question is, does she want it?  Remember, in 2016 she'll only be 68.

UPDATE AT 6:45 P.M. ET:   A captured Iraqi terrorist known as the "mother of the female suicide bombers" has taunted interrogators that her network of volunteers is too big to be destroyed by her arrest.   Itisam Adwan, who is accused of grooming young and vulnerable women for bomb attacks, has told police in Baquba that so many others are following her lead that they will not be able to stop them.

COMMENT:  Please notice that mom never volunteered herself for one of the glorious missions.

UPDATE AT 2:51 P.M. ET:   From AP:  WASHINGTON — Top Republican senators said Sunday they will oppose a Democratic plan to bail out Detroit automakers, calling the U.S. industry a “dinosaur” whose “day of reckoning” is coming. Their opposition raises serious doubts about whether the plan will pass in this week’s postelection session.

COMMENT:  This is a painful discussion we must have.  These companies have had decades to get their acts together, and have failed.  True, there are legions of workers involved.  But we'd better go about these bailouts with two eyes.  The reports on the handling of the $700-billion bailout passed only weeks ago should reinforce our skepticism.

THE HILLARY THING

Posted at 8:58 a.m. ET

Another fine British journalist, Phil Sherwell, has a good take on all the chatter that Hillary Clinton is headed for the State Department.  There's a little problem, Sherwell notes, and its name is Bill. 

The President-Elect has reportedly sounded out his former bitter rival to be the international face for his new administration - just months after she mocked his foreign policy inexperience and criticised his plans to talk to America's enemies.

But the ex-First Lady would first have to go through a gruelling confirmation process on Capitol Hill at which, The Sunday Telegraph has learned, Republican senators will raise her husband's secrecy-shrouded business deals and fund-raising for his glitzy presidential library and foundation.

Are those right-wing primitives suggesting that our Bill Clinton would do something shady?  Those people never learn.

Former President Bill Clinton has consistently refused to provide the names of the donors, but newspaper investigations have identified a slew of foreign contributors, many from oil-rich Gulf states. His lucrative consultancy work for a friend's investment group has also involved dealings with Arab partners.

Republican strategists are dusting off plans to expose Mr Clinton's financial ties, which they will argue represent a serious conflict of interest for his wife as the country's top diplomat.

Question:  Hillary knows this is ahead of her.  Does she really want to go through an interrogation when she has a great career in the Senate?  And the conflict-of-interest issue is serious.  Could it affect her view of Middle East terrorism, or the Arab-Israeli conflict?

His (Obama's) aides consistently urged Sen Clinton to provide full details of financial transactions which made the couple rich after they left the White House in debt - and separately helped turn the Clinton Foundation into one of the world's leading philanthropic organisations. Mr Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe once dubbed Mrs Clinton "one of the most secretive politicians in America today."

Unlike Barack "I never knew my pastor believed that" Obama. 

New Mexico governor Bill Richardson and Massachusetts senator John Kerry are also on Mr Obama's short list for Secretary of State. But after Mrs Clinton flew to Chicago for talks with the president-elect on Thursday, aides to both briefed that he had asked her if she would be interested in the job and that she said she would consider it.

Other problems:

Her appointment would also cast fresh doubt over the direction of Mr Obama's foreign policy after he said during the primary campaign that he would be willing to meet with the leaders of countries such as Iran and North Korea without preconditions.

Mrs Clinton heavily criticised that view as proof that he did not have the experience or knowledge to run oversee American foreign policy. So, if nominated, she would have to implement a policy that she ridiculed just earlier this year. 

She's a Clinton.  That's what life is about.

Look, it's fascinating.  We certainly don't want Kerry in that job.  He'd never speak English to us again.  And Richardson, despite much experience, doesn't come across as a heavyweight.  At least with Clinton we'll get some entertainment, and four year of rumors.

November 16, 2008.      Permalink          

IT'S TOO DARNED HOT.  NOT.

Posted at 7:51 a.m. ET

Well, there's trouble in River City.  More precisely, there's trouble at NASA.  Haven't seen too much about it in the American press, which is still in the tank.  But Britain's Telegraph picks up a story that raises the most troubling questions about the global-warming craze:

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

Notice the affectionate connections.

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand.

Hmm.  You think there was a mistake?

So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

The people who did this produce the figures that Gore and his co-religionists use to demand that we spend trillions of dollars and dislocate our entire economy.

A GISS spokesman lamely explained that the reason for the error in the Russian figures was that they were obtained from another body, and that GISS did not have resources to exercise proper quality control over the data it was supplied with. This is an astonishing admission.

Houston, we have a problem.  A real big one.

If there is one scientist more responsible than any other for the alarm over global warming it is Dr Hansen, who set the whole scare in train back in 1988 with his testimony to a US Senate committee chaired by Al Gore.

Ah yes, I remember.  We're going to a fiery hell.

Yet last week's latest episode is far from the first time Dr Hansen's methodology has been called in question. In 2007 he was forced by Mr Watts and Mr McIntyre to revise his published figures for US surface temperatures, to show that the hottest decade of the 20th century was not the 1990s, as he had claimed, but the 1930s.

And he keeps his job.

The conclusion, obvious:

..whether, on the basis of such evidence, it is wise for the world's governments to embark on some of the most costly economic measures ever proposed, to remedy a problem which may actually not exist, is a question which should give us all pause for thought.

Thought is not what it's about.  Trendiness is what it's about.

November 16, 2008.       Permalink          

UPDATE AT 7:02 A.M. ET:  From The Politico:  Gregory B. Craig, a well-known Washington lawyer who quarterbacked President Bill Clinton’s impeachment defense, has been chosen White House counsel by President-elect Barack Obama, according to Democratic officials. 

COMMENT:  And Rahm Emanuel is chief of staff.  And Hillary may go to the State Department.  You know, all they need is that chubby girl with the blue dress...  No, no, no, I did not write that.  I absolutely did not. 

NOTE AT 6:47 A.M. ET:   As readers know, we search the world each day for something absurd.  It takes about a minute to find it.  So, drumroll please, here is the most absurd quote for today, thus far:  "Feel like you know Michelle Obama already? That's because the first black First Lady in history is just like the people she represents. Namely, every one of us."

COMMENT:  Really?  She's just like every one of us?  When have I ever worn those dresses?  If any of you remembers, let me know by e-mail.     

SATURDAY,  NOVEMBER 15,  2008

UPDATE AT 5:27 P.M. ET:    COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Even as Detroit's Big Three teeter on collapse, United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger said Saturday that workers will not make any more concessions and that getting the automakers back on their feet means figuring out a way to turn around the slumping economy.

COMMENT:  Great sense of timing.


UPDATE AT 2:15 P.M. ET:  From, surprisingly, The New York Times, on Mr. Obama's transition team:  "Among the full roster of about 150 staff members being assigned to government agencies between now and Inauguration Day are dozens of former lobbyists and some who were registered as recently as this year. Many more are executives and partners at firms that pay lobbyists, and former government officials who work as consultants or advisers to those seeking influence."

COMMENT:  More of that change we can believe in.  If things get any worse, the anthem of the new administration will be "The Way We Were." 

UPDATE AT 1:58 P.M. ET:  From Breitbart:  A website launched Friday with the backing of technology industry and Hollywood elite urges people worldwide to help craft a framework for harmony between all religions.  The Charter for Compassion project on the Internet at www.charterforcompassion.org springs from a "wish" granted this year to religious scholar Karen Armstrong at a premier Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference in California.

COMMENT:  When you see the name Karen Armstrong I suggest that you run, not walk, in the other direction.  She is one of the great frauds of our time - a professional America- and Israel-hater, and a flak for the worst elements of Islam.   She apparently suckered some in the tech industry, and, of course, in Hollywood.  (Hollywood can be suckered by a five-year-old.)  If you want the truth about Armstrong, who is a favorite of Bill Moyers (convinced?), go here.

REAL WORLD

Posted at  9:02 a.m. ET

It's easy to get wrapped up in the name game being played about possible cabinet choices, especially with Hillary Clinton's name now in the mix.  But there are more serious matters the president-elect must deal with.  Terror attacks tend to come in the first year of a presidency, or in the months before, and Mr. Obama has been warned, as The Times of London reports:

Barack Obama is being given ominous advice from leaders on both sides of the Atlantic to brace himself for an early assault from terrorists.

General Michael Hayden, director of the CIA, this week acknowledged that there were dangers during a presidential transition when new officials were coming in and getting accustomed to the challenges. But he added that no “real or artificial spike” in intercepted transmissions from terror suspects had been detected.

Reminds us of the continuing threat.  Not only could a new attack cause horrible human damage - the most important fact - but it could devastate an already weakened economy.

Lord West of Spithead, the Home Office Security Minister, spoke recently of a “huge threat”, saying: “There is another great plot building up again and we are monitoring this.”

Intelligence chiefs on both sides of the Atlantic have indicated that such warnings refer more to a general sense of foreboding than fear of an imminent or specific plan.

The fact is that our human intelligence on terror groups remains spotty.  We are depending on technical intelligence, which, you can be sure, will be targeted by leftist groups when the new administration comes in.

"AlQaeda, operating from its safe haven in Pakistan’s tribal areas, remains the most clear and present danger to the safety of the United States,” General Hayden said.

The hunt for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden “is very much at the top of CIA’s priority list,” he added. “Because of his iconic stature, his death or capture clearly would have a significant impact on the confidence of his followers.”

And...

In Britain, security officials say that there is genuine concern that alQaeda will attempt a “spectacular” in the transition period, but suggest that it may be aimed more at Mr Bush than Mr Obama.

“As far as we know there is nothing from the intelligence world to indicate that anything has changed dramatically in recent months to put us on alert for an attack at the moment,” a source said. The present threat level is “severe”, which is the second-highest alert status. But a senior counterterrorism official suggested last month that this should be regarded as “the severe end of severe."

One thing about the Brit security services - they take these threats seriously, which is difficult in a country whose political and intellectual classes are obsessed with political correctness.

Britain and the US are sharing all intelligence on suspected terrorist activity because of the high risk of a plot involving transatlantic flights. Al-Qaeda is understood still to be obsessed with mounting an attack using passenger airliners.

It worked for them before.  It's logical.

James Lewis, a security expert with the Centre of Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that al-Qaeda may wish to provoke a reaction from the next US Administration designed to show the rest of the world that “America is still the evil crusader."

Obama is getting briefings on this, as the story says.  It's got to have a sobering effect on his choices for key security positions.  No time for fooling around or naming symbols, like Chuck Hagel.  If we get hit on Obama's watch, there'll be the immediate comparison with President Bush "keeping us safe," and Obama knows it.

November 15, 2008.      Permalink          

RACIAL SENSE

Posted at 8:25 A.M. ET

John McWhorter is one of the most thoughtful African-American scholars writing today.  He has a terrific take on the meaning - the real meaning - of Obama's election to the black community.  Published in Forbes, I hope this is taken seriously:

We have heard much about what the election of Barack Obama as president means for America, but less about what it means for black America specifically, beyond surprise and vague notions of hope.

Very vague notions. 

The issue is not only the emergence of the new but the eclipse of the old. Here are some traits of pre-11/4 black America that are now history.

The studious black teen will no longer be tarred as "thinking he's white."

This has had a devastating effect on the black community, but McWhorter sees change coming.

From now on, however, there is a ready riposte to being tarred as "acting white" for liking school: "Is Barack Obama white?"

It's the perfect smackdown--not even the most hardened black teen will disown the heroism of the first black president, in all of his nerdiness.

Good, good, good.  Other things to go out the window:

The illusion that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are black America's leaders is now officially dispelled.

Time to celebrate. 

Potshots that Jackson's tears during Obama's acceptance speech were over his own eclipse are petty: Jackson was surely as touched as the rest of us. However, the fact remains that his most memorable moments of late have been calling Obama "white" for not protesting in Jena, La., and later suggesting that he be separated from his reproductive organs for warmly advising black men to help raise their kids.

And the other one?

This year, there was no routine with Obama seeking Sharpton's "endorsement." Sharpton's initial harrumphs about Obama's black bona fides, along with warnings that he had yet to "make up his mind," were passing news at best.

It was revealed yesterday that Sharpton owes the federal government $500,000 for campaign improprieties.  He'll be kept busy.

The idea that for black people, underdoggism is higher awareness is obsolete.

No matter how successful many blacks are, no matter how many interracial couples there are, no matter how few "firsts" are left, we always have much longer to go than we have come. A shoe still hasn't dropped.

Well, it just did.

A black man is president, and black Americans seem to feel like it really means something. As such, we will expect a sea change in the tone of what is considered the authentic black voice. Pollyanna, no. But it will be positive and constructive--as Obama has been on the topic of race--in the way that anyone would assume of a group that truly seeks progress.

Finally...

Many have supposed that what black America needs was a second revolution in how white people think. Barack Obama's election showed that white people's thoughts weren't so retrograde after all. White people voted with those thoughts--and now, even without a revolution, much of what black America needs to happen will be a reality.

That is very good stuff.  This column did not support Mr. Obama, but, as Americans, we hope good things will happen on his watch.  John McWhorter has named some of them.

November 15, 2008.      Permalink