SECOND EVENING UPDATE:  JUNE 17,  2008

Posted at 7:58 p.m. ET

A REALITY CHECK

Continuing on the theme of Barack Obama's vast knowledge of counterterrorism, former Federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy has a few things to say.  This is from a man who's walked the walk:

This is June 2008. That means it marks the ten-year anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s indictment.

He was first charged by my old office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, in June 1998. That was before the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (hundreds killed), before the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole (17 U.S. members of the U.S. Navy killed), and before 9/11 (nearly 3000 Americans killed). So it’s fair to ask: How is that strategy of prosecuting him in the criminal-justice system working out?

That’s a question Sen. John McCain ought to be putting to Sen. Barack Obama every day.

Sen. Obama, the Democrat’s presumptive nominee, made some astounding statements yesterday which provided his views on confronting the most urgent challenge facing the American people — that of radical Islam.

Taking aim at the Bush approach of regarding our terrorist enemies as, well, enemies, rather than criminal defendants clothed in all the rights and privileges of those American citizens whom these enemies pledge to kill, Obama asserted:

"What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks — for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated.

"And the fact that the administration has not tried to do that has created a situation where not only have we never actually put many of these folks on trial, but we have destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all around the world, and given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries that say, 'Look, this is how the United States treats Muslims.'

"So that, I think, is an example of something that was unnecessary. We could have done the exact same thing, but done it in a way that was consistent with our laws."

This is a remarkably ignorant account of the American experience with jihadism. In point of fact, while the government managed to prosecute many people responsible for the 1993 WTC bombing, many also escaped prosecution because of the limits on civilian criminal prosecution. Some who contributed to the attack, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, continued to operate freely because they were beyond the system’s capacity to apprehend. Abdul Rahman Yasin was released prematurely because there was not sufficient evidence to hold him — he fled to Iraq, where he was harbored for a decade (and has never been apprehended).

Definitive, I think.  Read the whole thing.  Our country may well elect a man in November who is to the left of John Kerry, a man who thinks he knows the world because he once lived in another country.  The situation is pathetic.

June 17, 2008.      Permalink          

FIRST EVENING UPDATE:  JUNE 17,  2008

Posted at 6:53 p.m. ET

OBAMA ON WAR

Obama on war?  That should take a minute.  The Illinois senator and zero-military-experience candidate got into a spat today with the McCain campaign over national security:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democrat Barack Obama says he'll take no lectures from Republicans on who will keep America safer. GOP rival John McCain's campaign criticized Obama Tuesday for speaking approvingly of the successful prosecution of terrorists.

A McCain aide said, "Obama is a perfect manifestation of a September 10th mind-set" and does not understand the dangers posed by U.S. adversaries.

Obama told reporters that the Republicans have no "standing to suggest that they've learned a lot of lessons from 9-11."

He said they "helped to engineer the distraction of the war in Iraq at a time when we could have pinned down the people who actually committed 9-11." He said Osama bin Laden is still at large in part because of their failed strategies.

In a conference call with reporters, McCain adviser Randy Scheunemann said Tuesday: "Senator Obama is a perfect manifestation of a September 10th mind-set. ... He does not understand the nature of the enemies we face." Former CIA director James Woolsey said Obama has "an extremely dangerous and extremely naive approach toward terrorism ... and toward dealing with prisoners captured overseas who have been engaged in terrorist attacks against the United States."

The Obama campaign quickly responded with its own conference call in which Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Richard Clarke, a counterterrorism official in Republican and Democratic administrations, argued the McCain campaign was emulating Karl Rove, President Bush's former political adviser.

A few thoughts:  I'm so tired of the Dems charging that we haven't captured Osama bin Laden because of Bush policies.  It is extremely hard to capture an enemy leader.  We didn't get the top Nazis or Japanese militarists until after we'd won World War II.  It's a red herring.

And did I just read that the Dems are sending John Kerry out to lecture McCain on national defense?  Kerry was denouncing his country while McCain was being beaten in a North Vietnamese prison.  Don't any of the Democratic operatives know that?  Do they care? 

That last question is the most important.

June 17, 2008.      Permalink          

SECOND EARLY AFTERNOON POST:  JUNE 17,  2008

Posted at 2:53 p.m. ET

ENERGY FOR McCAIN

Following on the theme of putting Obama on the defensive, James Pethokoukis of US News & World Report proposes a seven-point program to allow McCain to seize the initiative on energy.  He's on to something, because gasoline prices will be a major gut issue this fall.  He proposes:

1.  Stop talking about global warming.
2.  Ban the color green (symbolic).
3.  Propose drilling in ANWR while standing in ANWR.
4.  Accuse Obama of wanting to launch a preemptive war on the American economy.
5.  Stop blaming Big Oil.
6.  Go with a populist "cost of living" argument.
7.  Advocate a cheap Manhattan Project.

These are interesting ideas.  Read the details and see what you think.  The Dems are restricted by their worship of the environmental lobbies.  Americans are spending fifty bucks to fill up their cars.  Now is the time for McCain to advocate "responsible environmentalism," not fanaticism, and propose energy policies that will ease the citizen's pain in a reasonable amount of time.  Alternative fuels are fine, but most Americans will go through their kids' college funds before the new stuff is ready.

June 17, 2008.      Permalink           

EARLY AFTERNOON POST:  JUNE 17,  2008

Posted at 2:04 p.m. ET

POLLS

Remarkable consistency in the polls today.  Both trackers we use here, Rasmussen and Gallup, continue to show Obama with a four-point lead over McCain.  A new ABC News/Washington Post poll produces exactly the same result.  So, understanding that all polls have a margin of error, and that we're not sure how Obama's race is affecting answers people give, we can cautiously assume that we're getting a pretty fair picture of where the race stands.

Any post-victory bounce is now over for Obama.  He didn't get much of one.  But Senator McCain is showing no great ability to gain on Obama, and he must do so soon.  He must define his opponent and put him on the defensive.

The deadly serious part of the campaign begins about September 1st, less than two and a half months away.  Obama will probably get a bigger bounce from his convention than will McCain, simply because of his vastly greater ability to deliver a speech.  (I dread McCain's acceptance speech.  If he can't use a teleprompter by then, he's finished.)  By convention time, Obama must be the defender.  He has shown a weakness to defend, which must be exploited. 

June 17, 2008.       Permalink          

TUESDAY:  JUNE 17,  2008

Posted at 6:03 a.m. ET

IRAQIS FOR McCAIN

According to Bret Stephens of The Wall Street Journal, John McCain is change that Iraqis can believe in. 

Constraints of time and money being what they are, I have not gotten round to phoning 1,000 Iraqis to get their views on Obama-McCain. But I did sit down last week with four key provincial Iraqi leaders, Sunnis and Shiites, who -- without actually endorsing Mr. McCain -- made their views abundantly clear.

"The Iraqis are really fearful about some of the positions the Democratic Party has adopted," says Sheik Ahmed Abu Rishah. "If the Democrats win, they will be withdrawing their forces in a very rapid manner."

Mamoun Sami Rashid al-Alawi, the governor of Anbar province, agrees. "We have over a million casualties, thousands of houses destroyed," he says. "Are we going to tell [Iraqis] that the game is over? That the Americans are pulling out?"

Hey, that's what we told the Vietnamese, and what a great deal that turned out to be for them and the Cambodians.  Yes we can!

A sense of incredulity hangs over the way Iraqis see the U.S. political debate taking shape. The governor tells a moving story about their visit to Walter Reed hospital, where they were surprised to find smiles on the faces of GIs who had lost limbs. "The smile is because they feel they have accomplished something for the American people."

And...

But the Iraqis came away with a different impression in Chicago, where they had hoped to meet with Mr. Obama but ended up talking to a staff aide. "We noticed there was a concentration on the negatives," the governor recalls. "The Democrat kept saying that Americans have committed a lot of mistakes. Yes, that's true, but why don't you concentrate on what the Americans have achieved in Iraq?"

There is news in that paragraph.  It is shocking that a provincial governor in a country where we are at war was reduced to speaking with an Obama staff aide.  What kind of an administration will Obama bring?  Will Senator McCain please blast Obama for this?  McCain staff?  Listening?  Awake?

The Iraqis are even more incredulous about Mr. Obama's willingness to negotiate with Iran, which they see as a predatory regime. "Do you Americans forget what the Iranians did to your embassy?" asks the governor. "Don't you know that Ahmadinejad was one of [the hostage takers]?"

And...

It's not just Iran. "There is no other country that supports us," says Gov. Awani. "What is happening in Iraq scares everyone," by which he means the neighboring autocracies that have something to fear from a successful democratic model in their midst.

That only makes America's ambivalence toward its democratic creation that much stranger to the Iraqis. Will the next administration abandon both its principles and its friends in the region? For what?

Finally...

Throughout our interview, the men did not stop fingering their prayer beads, as if their future hinges on their ability to make their case to the American public. They're right: It does. Which is why Iraq, all but alone among the nations, will be praying for a McCain victory on the first Tuesday in November.

That is a very good column.  Bret Stephens was editor of The Jerusalem Post, and knows the region thoroughly.  In Vietnam the American press created the illusion that the Vietnamese weren't worth fighting for.  It's doing the same in Iraq.  Columns like this, and I hope you read the whole thing, tell a different story.  I hope the American people listen.

June 17, 2008.      Permalink          

TRAVEL PLANS

Barack Obama will have another chance to meet with the Iraqi officials his staff snubbed. He is doing an Ike.  On October 25, 1952, GOP presidential candidate, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, said this about how an Eisenhower administration would end the Korean War:

Where will a new Administration begin?

It will begin with its President taking a simple, firm resolution. The resolution will be: To forego the diversions of politics and to concentrate on the job of ending the Korean war-until that job is honorably done.

That job requires a personal trip to Korea.

I shall make that trip. Only in that way could I learn how best to serve the American people in the cause of peace.

I shall go to Korea.

It was a great campaign line.  Eisenhower won.  He went to Korea. 

Now Barack Obama has announced traveling plans of his own:

Obama said today the campaign would be making an announcement as to when, but he said he he wanted to visit both Iraq and Afghanistan before the election in November.

"I told him that I look forward to seeing him in Baghdad," Obama said of his conversation with Iraq’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari. "You know, we'll make an announcement about that [as to when], but as I said, I'm interested in visiting Iraq and Afghanistan before the election."

Not exactly ringing rhetoric.  Eisenhower, no great speaker, did far better.  But of course Ike was a five-star general who actually knew what he was talking about.

So Obama will, to use the military lingo, get his ticket punched by going to Iraq and Afghanistan, where he will observe things.  I wonder if he'll actually have a chat with those guys Bret Stephens interviewed.  Why don't I think so?

The whole thing smacks of some forced traveling required of a man whose national-defense credits are shorter than the list of the side effects of aspirin. 

The key question:  What will General Obama say when he returns?  If he says things are going badly, he'll be lying.  If he says they're going well, he'd be hard pressed to defend his pullout strategy.  Maybe he'll just say that he's studying his notes. 

June 17, 2008.      Permalink          

VILE

I never cease to be amazed at the depths to which some people sink to maintain their place at the left-wing banquet table. 

The latest object of study is the very vulgar Richard Falk, a retired Princeton professor who won his port-side spurs as a young man by loudly opposing the American effort in Vietnam.  In more recent years he's continued in that spirit, but also added Israel to his list of targets.

It wasn't surprising then, that the dictator-packed U.N. Human Rights Council named Falk to examine Israeli "abuses" in the Palestinian territories.  They knew what they wanted, and they know what they're getting.  But the appointment drew more than the expected criticism, and Falk now is pulling a stunt to shore up his credibility:

A UN expert charged with investigating Israeli rights abuses against Palestinians says his role is biased and should be widened to include violations carried out by Palestinians as well.

Richard Falk, a professor emeritus at Princeton University, asked the UN Human Rights Council on Monday to address persistent criticism of his post by changing the job description.

"I think the idea of investigating violations of international humanitarian law only make sense if all the relevant parties are included," Falk told The Associated Press after the meeting.

Attention has been diverted from Israel's human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories by those who argue his role is one-sided and biased, he said.

"One exposes the real character of the occupation much more effectively if one responds to that criticism, which I think is in any event a fair criticism," Falk said.

In other words, the only reason to change his job description is so his slamming of Israel, which he's preparing before actually acquiring any facts, will have more credibility.  Look, at least the guy admits he's following the party line.  I'll give him that.

But get this one:

Falk said he would be disappointed if the Geneva-based council does not expand his job when it reviews the role for the first time in September.

He said, however, he would not want to investigate abuses by Palestinians against their own people.

"I think the [UN's] special attention to the occupation has to include resistance to the occupation," he said. "That is why I favor expanding the mandate, but not expanding it to include what Palestinians do to each other."

Did he actually say that?  I guess he did.  There's been no correction or retraction.

Yeah, come to think of it, who cares what the Palestinians do to each other?  What's in it for the international left?  So they blow up some of their own?  Hey, you've got to break a couple of eggs to make an omelet.

You know, maybe we've found a leftist who, because of age or something else, actually says what he really means.  Mr. Falk is retired from Princeton.  I hope Princeton is relieved.

June 17, 2008.      Permalink