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Christopher Hitchens doesn’t like the idea of Hillary as SecState.
… In matters of foreign policy, it has been proved time and again, the Clintons are devoted to no interest other than their own. A president absolutely has to know of his chief foreign-policy executive that he or she has no other agenda than the one he has set. Who can say with a straight face that this is true of a woman whose personal ambition is without limit; whose second loyalty is to an impeached and disbarred and discredited former president; and who is ready at any moment, and on government time, to take a wheedling call from either of her bulbous brothers? This is also the unscrupulous female who until recently was willing to play the race card on President-elect Obama and (in spite of her own complete want of any foreign-policy qualifications) to ridicule him for lacking what she only knew about by way of sordid backstairs dealing. What may look like wound-healing and magnanimity to some looks like foolhardiness and masochism to me.
Monica Crowley says if Hill goes to State, Bill will go rogue.
… With Hillary at State serving a president her husband loathes, the potential for Bill sabotaging Obama is enormous. Like Carter, he’s got the global contacts. Like Carter, he’s now nothing more than a global influence peddler. Like Carter, he’s got the bitter resentment over the new guy. But unlike Carter, he’s also got a wife whom he consciously or unconsciously tried to torpedo from taking his special gig. (Shades of what he did and will continue to do to Obama for actually taking his special gig?)
Bill Clinton has never behaved himself, especially when his legacy and image are on the line. Those two things loom large now that a hipper Democrat is about to take the office which Bill Clinton still believes should be his personal fiefdom.
As much as Carter drove him bananas with his foreign policy freelancing, Clinton learned a thing or two about how to undermine a successor you can’t stand. He’s smarter, slicker and still a media magnet, so when he backstabs Obama, Clinton may dominate rather than just frustrate.
Hillary may go to State, but Bill will go rogue.
Ed Morrissey says Chambliss is up by 3% in Georgia Senate runoff.
… Voter enthusiasm for Martin has declined since the general election. Martin got his momentum from the massive numbers of Obama voters, most of whom appear less interested in the remaining down-ticket race. Chambliss may not have that problem, since John McCain didn’t generate an enthusiastic response from the Republican base, meaning that Chambliss’ voters will be motivated more by Chambliss himself. Republicans have the secondary motivation to deny Obama a filibuster-proof Senate by ensuring Chambliss’ re-election.
Either way, it looks like it will go down to the wire. Republicans around the country who want to keep at least one potential check on the excesses of single-party government had better start actively supporting the Chambliss effort. You can help by contributing to Saxby Chambliss here or at the NRSC, and learning more about Martin’s record here.
Bret Stephens continues with Caroline Glick’s thoughts about protecting ourselves from pirates.
… Piracy, of course, is hardly the only form of barbarism at work today: There are the suicide bombers on Israeli buses, the stonings of Iranian women, and so on. But piracy is certainly the most primordial of them, and our collective inability to deal with it says much about how far we’ve regressed in the pursuit of what is mistakenly thought of as a more humane policy. A society that erases the memory of how it overcame barbarism in the past inevitably loses sight of the meaning of civilization, and the means of sustaining it.
Some 250 Taliban jumped 30 Marines. Marine Corps News has details.
… “The biggest thing to take from that day is what Marines can accomplish when they’re given the opportunity to fight,” the sniper said. “A small group of Marines met a numerically superior force and embarrassed them in their own backyard. The insurgents told the townspeople that they were stronger than the Americans, and that day we showed them they were wrong.”
During the battle, the designated marksman single handedly thwarted a company-sized enemy RPG and machinegun ambush by reportedly killing 20 enemy fighters with his devastatingly accurate precision fire. He selflessly exposed himself time and again to intense enemy fire during a critical point in the eight-hour battle for Shewan in order to kill any enemy combatants who attempted to engage or maneuver on the Marines in the kill zone. What made his actions even more impressive was the fact that he didn’t miss any shots, despite the enemies’ rounds impacting within a foot of his fighting position.
“I was in my own little world,” the young corporal said. “I wasn’t even aware of a lot of the rounds impacting near my position, because I was concentrating so hard on making sure my rounds were on target.” …
Thomas Sowell knows why Obama wants to “jolt” the economy.
Barack Obama says that we have to “jolt” the economy. That certainly makes sense, if you take the media’s account of the economy seriously — but should the media be taken seriously?
Amid all the political and media hysteria, national output has declined by less than one-half of one percent. In fact, it may not have declined even that much — or at all — when the statistics are revised later, as they very often are.
We are not talking about the Great Depression, when output dropped by one-third and unemployment soared to 25 percent.
What we are talking about is a golden political opportunity for politicians to use the current financial crisis to fundamentally change an economy that has been successful for more than two centuries, so that politicians can henceforth micro-manage all sorts of businesses and play Robin Hood, taking from those who are not likely to vote for them and transferring part of their earnings to those who will vote for them.
For that, the politicians need lots of hype, and that is being generously supplied by the media. …
American.com says auto bailout is a mistake.
… Bailing out Detroit is unnecessary. After all, this is why we have the bankruptcy process. If companies in Chapter 11 can be salvaged, a bankruptcy judge will help them find the way. In the case of the Big Three, a bankruptcy process would almost certainly require them to dissolve their current union contracts. Revamping their labor structures is the single most important change that GM, Ford, and Chrysler could make—and yet it is the one change that many pro-bailout Democrats wish to ignore.
The Big Three, the United Auto Workers (UAW), the Michigan Congressional delegation, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid all know that $25 billion is nowhere near enough money to fix the problems ailing Detroit. The politicians must know that bankruptcy is the better course for auto companies and their workers (indeed, it could save 100,000 jobs). But they also know who fills their political coffers, and the UAW leadership is opposed to Chapter 11 because its labor contracts would be deemed toxic and abrogated by a bankruptcy judge.
The U.S. auto industry needs a shakeout, not a bailout. What we are witnessing, unfortunately, is an attempted shakedown. Let’s hope it doesn’t succeed.
Eugene Volokh says in parts of the West you don’t own the rain that falls on your land.
Weather Channel has purge.
The Onion says Bush has pardoned Scooter Libby who was disguised as a turkey.