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WSJ Editors sum up the recent Bill Moyers news.
… Memories are short in Washington, and Mr. Moyers has gone on to promote himself as a political moralist, routinely sermonizing about what he claims are abuses of power by his ideological enemies. Since 9/11, he has been particularly intense in criticizing President Bush for his antiterror policies, such as warrantless wiretapping against al Qaeda.
Yet the historical record suggests that when Mr. Moyers was in a position of actual power, he was complicit in FBI dirt-digging against U.S. citizens solely for political purposes. As Judge Silberman put it in 2005, “I have always thought that the most heinous act in which a democratic government can engage is to use its law enforcement machinery for political ends.” …
Caroline Glick in the Jerusalem Post writes on the Obama choice to attend Durban II conferences.
While most Americans were busy celebrating Valentine’s Day, last Saturday the Obama administration announced that it would send a delegation to Geneva to participate in planning the UN’s so-called Durban II conference, scheduled to take place in late April. Although largely overlooked in the US, the announcement sent shock waves through Jerusalem.
The Durban II conference was announced in the summer of 2007. Its stated purpose is to review the implementation of the declaration adopted at the UN’s anti-Israel hate-fest that took place in Durban, South Africa, the week before the September 11, 2001, attacks against America.
At Durban, both the UN-sponsored NGO conclave and the UN’s governmental conference passed declarations denouncing Israel as a racist state. The NGO conference called for a coordinated international campaign aimed at delegitimizing Israel and the right of the Jewish people to self-determination, and belittling the Holocaust.
The NGO conference also called for curbs on freedom of expression throughout the world in order to prevent critical discussion of Islam. As far as the world’s leading NGOs – including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch – were concerned, critical discussions of Islam are inherently racist.
In defending US participation in the Durban II planning sessions, Gordon Duguid, the State Department’s spokesman, argued, “If you are not engaged, you don’t have a voice.”
He continued, “We wanted to put forward our view and see if there is some way we can make the document [which sets the agenda and dictates the outcome of the Durban II conference] a better document than it appears it is going to be.”
WHILE THIS seems like a noble goal, both the State Department and the Obama White House ought to know that there is absolutely no chance that they can accomplish it. This is the case for two reasons. …
David Warren, writing from Ottawa where he had a front row seat when Obama visited, says, “Welcome back, Carter.”
… Likewise, foreign affairs were suddenly thrust into the back trunk. I argued last year that it was hard to take seriously a foreign policy that seemed to consist of punishing America’s friends, and encouraging her enemies; that offered, for example, threats to Pakistan but dialogue with Iran.
I did not at the time expect that it would ever come into play, however, for I assumed that even if Obama won the election, more sober influences within the Democratic Party would prevail, and in the end he would find himself with something that secretly resembled the Bush doctrines.
I have lost that confidence since watching the new White House destructively criticize Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai, congratulate Venezuelans on constitutional changes that will enable Hugo Chavez to be president-for-life, deliver an entirely gratuitous apology for American behaviour towards the Islamic world, and send George Mitchell off to the Middle East to strike a more “balanced” posture between Israel and Hamas. This, after decisions on Guantanamo that signal a new “catch and release” approach to the world’s most dangerous terrorists.
While I doubt Americans intentionally voted for any of that, they did sign a blank cheque for unspecified “hope” and “change,” and they did endorse a candidate whose popularity was not only greater abroad than at home, but especially high among anti-Americans. They now have a President who is taking lectures from such as Desmond Tutu. He warns that Obama will squander the world’s goodwill if he does not immediately apologize to the Iraqi people for the “unmitigated disaster” in which George Bush freed them from Saddam Hussein. …
David Harsanyi says, “Be a patriot, and pay up!”
… The more irresponsibly you behave, the more government works for you. This week, the federal government doubled its commitment to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, promising to reimburse the companies up to $400,000,000,000 in losses on their investments in mortgage loans.
Yes, the same Freddie and Fannie — once implicitly guaranteed by government and now explicitly run by government — that helped, through social engineering, to push us into recession. It is vital, apparently, that we keep them afloat.
The only business plan that is more staggeringly counterproductive came from the auto industry, which is back for another bite. In last year’s second quarter, GM lost about $118,000 a minute. So, naturally, GM would like another $16,600,000,000 so it can fire 47,000 people. Because you decide not to spend your money on a GMC Acadia, the government will make you pay for one anyway. …
Robert Samuelson calls the stimulus ‘disappointing.’
Judged by his own standards, President Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus program, which he signed into law last week, is deeply disappointing. For weeks, Obama has described the economy in grim terms. “This is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill recession,” he said at his Feb. 9 press conference. It’s “the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.” Given these dire warnings, you’d expect the stimulus package to focus exclusively on reviving the economy. It doesn’t, and for that, Obama bears much of the blame. …
Abe Greenwald calls our attention to the Bush policy that military detainees in Afghanistan have no standing in U. S. constitutional rights. Makes sense to Pickerhead. It also makes sense to the Obama Justice Department. That’s right, the One, who is purer than the driven snow, likes the Bush ideas.
Andy McCarthy has fun with that in The Corner.
… Jonah mentioned on Friday that the Obama administration’s Friday bad/embarrassing news dump included a curt two-liner by which DOJ agreed with the Bush position that alien enemy combatants held at the Bagram base in Afghanistan have no constitutional rights. This (correct) position has much of Obama’s base up in rebellion mode. But what is most stunning is that it came at around the same time that, as Greg details, Vice President Biden and CIA Director Panetta gave speeches braying about how just these sorts of Bush detention policies (that we follow in every war) were contrary to “our values” and would not be tolerated in the Obama administration. …
Power Line post traces the stock market since it became apparent Obama would win.
Ilya Somin in Volokh Conspiracy reviews Jeff Benedict’s Little Pick House. The was previously mentioned here on February 3, 2009.
… Finally, Benedict highlights an often-overlooked aspect of Kelo-style “economic development” takings: their all too common failure to actually produce the economic development that supposedly justified them in the first place. As he points out, almost four years after the legal battle ended and nearly ten years after the NLDC’s development project began, the City still hasn’t built anything on the condemned land and there is no prospect of doing so anytime soon. So far, the net result of the NLDC’s condemnation efforts has been to destroy an entire neighborhood and waste some $80 million in public funds. The failure of the Kelo condemnations to actually benefit the local economy is a predictable result of the perverse incentives facing the NLDC and other similar agencies.
Benedict’s book does have a few shortcomings. In several places, he misstates a few of the legal issues involved in the case. For example, he claims that the Kelo decision “changed the rules” in favor of a more permissive standard for condemnations. In reality, as I explained in this article (pp. 224-25), previous Supreme Court precedent was so lax as to allow the government condemn virtually any property for virtually any reason. The true effect of Kelo was not a “change in the rules,” but heightened public awareness of the gross abuses permitted by existing legal doctrine.
Despite a few such errors, Little Pink House is an impressive account of the events leading up to the most controversial property rights decision in Supreme Court history
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