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In the WSJ, Daniel Henninger asks whether Obama will make the tough choices.

…The unanswered question at the center of this odd Nobel is whether Barack Obama admires Old Europe for the same reasons it admires him.

When it was a vibrant garden of ideas, Europe gave the world more good things than one can count. Then it discovered the pleasures of the welfare state. …

…The effect of arriving at a state of political decadence, of no longer being able to rise in the world, is that many people increasingly discover that soft moralism is a more congenial pastime than producing answers for the hard questions. …

…This isn’t to say that soft moralism is about nothing. But when matters such as climate change become life’s primary concerns, it means one is going to spend more time preaching, which is easy, than doing, which is hard. One thinks of Nobelist Al Gore’s unstoppable sermons. …

Charles Krauthammer asks what Obama’s apologies and appeasements have gotten us. You’ll love his paraphrase of Churchill’s famous description of Russia as “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”

…And what’s come from Obama’s single most dramatic foreign policy stroke — the sudden abrogation of missile defense arrangements with Poland and the Czech Republic that Russia had virulently opposed? For the East Europeans it was a crushing blow, a gratuitous restoration of Russian influence over a region that thought it had regained independence under American protection. …

…Henry Kissinger once said that the main job of Anatoly Dobrynin, the perennial Soviet ambassador to Washington, was to tell the Kremlin leadership that whenever they received a proposal from the United States that appeared disadvantageous to the United States, not to assume it was a trick.

No need for a Dobrynin today. The Russian leadership, hardly believing its luck, needs no interpreter to understand that when the Obama team clownishly rushes in bearing gifts and “reset” buttons, there is nothing ulterior, diabolical, clever or even serious behind it. It is amateurishness, wrapped in naïveté, inside credulity. In short, the very stuff of Nobels.

Peter Wehner comments on the news that Russia will not back sanctions against Iran.

…Apart from the fact that White House officials are presumably able to hide their glee today, what ought we to make of these developments?

The first is that President Obama looks to have been taken to the cleaners by the Russians. The United States bowed before Russian demands when it came to retooling a missile-defense system for Poland and the Czech Republic. We gave up something tangible and important — and in return we got a vague promise that Russia might be amenable to tougher sanctions against Iran. Now that vague promise appears to be inoperative — but the decision to scrap the Bush-era missile-defense program remains in place.

This episode captures Obama’s approach to international affairs and underscores its dangers. The president is weak and flaccid when it comes to our adversaries, and unreliable and unsteady when it comes to our allies. America’s enemies don’t respect us, and our allies increasingly don’t trust us. President Obama garners praise from the man attempting to lead a Marxist revolution in Latin America, Hugo Chavez, and is criticized by the hero of Solidarity, Lech Walesa. We pressure friends like Israel, Honduras, Poland, and the Czech Republic, and place our hopes in the goodwill and reasonableness of regimes like Russia, North Korea, and Iran. And in the process, some of the world’s foremost spokesmen for democracy publicly express their concern that Obama is “softening on human rights.” …

Jennifer Rubin adds her comments.

Pete, not only has Obama badly embarrassed himself but he’s also made many moderate supporters look awfully foolish. They vouched for his savvy negotiating skills, assuring us that Obama wouldn’t sell our allies in Poland and the Czech Republic down the river for nothing. (If you’re going to betray allies, at least don’t go home empty-handed.) …

…Obama has been sucked into — or rushed into, depending on your assessment of his motives — talks that have forestalled sanctions and provided Iran breathing room. In fact, the Iranians are no longer in the spotlight, facing harsh judgment for their violations of existing sanctions, a secretive enrichment site, and human rights atrocities. No, they’re sitting in cushy meeting rooms in Geneva getting encouragement to keep at it. Are we further ahead or further behind from six months ago in preventing a nuclear Iran?

It seems that the entire engagement gambit was based on a false premise: the administration would be competent and maximize its leverage. Instead, we’ve tossed leverage away like confetti and have been, as Pete says, taken to the cleaners at each encounter with an adversary. At some point, even those inclined toward soft power will recognize that it’s time to get out of conference rooms if all we’re going to do is make concessions and provide cover for despots.

The latest liberal to come to his senses is John MacArthur, publisher of Harper’s who asks, “Is this ‘smart’ president really really stupid?”

…Of course, failure to bag the Olympics is just one crack in the “smart” Obama image. I well understand that clever politicians make cynical choices to gain power, even when they know those choices will probably hurt the broader public. So far, Obama’s most cynical choice was to align himself with Robert Rubin and Wall Street in order to raise money for his presidential campaign. Second is his campaign pledge to escalate the occupation of Afghanistan to counter Republican claims that he and the Democrats were appeasers on “terrorism.” In third place is his decision to hand Max Baucus (the senator from Montana who moonlights as an insurance-company lobbyist) the task of “reforming” health care, thus guaranteeing that there would be no genuine reform. …

…But maybe such cynicism isn’t altogether so smart in 2009. Wall Street, unpunished and unrepentant after three decades of recklessness, is poised to embark on new, unregulated financial adventures, such as the issuance of securitized life-insurance policies known as “life settlement” bonds. Rewarded for their failures with huge sums of public money, the newly emboldened casino managers are liable to sink the ship next time, instead of just flooding it.

In Afghanistan, American soldiers are consistently dying in small batches (under orders from their Nobel Peace Prize-winning leader) while Afghan civilians continue to perish in far greater numbers under American and British bombs supposedly aimed at the Taliban. You don’t even have to remember Vietnam or the Russian occupation of Afghanistan to recognize the profound absurdity of the administration’s counterinsurgency strategy. Respectable experts, from Edward Luttwak on the right to George McGovern and William Polk on the left to Andrew J. Bacevich somewhere in the middle, have demolished the notion that such a military campaign can succeed in subduing a nationalist or tribal rebellion.

As for Baucus and health care, it’s clear that whatever bill comes out of the Finance Committee, large numbers of Americans will remain uninsured or underinsured. This means that the emergency room at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York will continue to overflow with poor children who come for primary care because their parents can’t afford a pediatrician. And it means that America’s industrial corporations will continue to suffer from a competitive disadvantage with manufacturers based in civilized countries where health care is considered a public trust and a right and the government pays the bill.

Does this sound smart? Or does it sound really, really stupid?

Mark Steyn has cutting remarks for the educationbots of Delaware’s Christina School District.

A few weeks ago, Zachary Christie of Newark, in Joe Biden’s Grand Duchy of Delaware, joined the Cub Scouts. In the course of so doing, he acquired one of those combination knife-fork-spoon utensils that come in so useful when you’re tucking in to a hearty meal round the campfire. …
But six-year old Zachary is to blame for finding his knife-fork-spoon utensil so cool he decided one October morn to take it to school to eat lunch with it. Knives are banned. Because they’re weapons. The first-grader was summoned to a disciplinary-committee hearing and sentenced to at least 45 days in reform school. Don’t get mad at the “educators.” “We have to follow the policy as it is written consistently because this is the code of conduct that is applied to all of our students in our district,” droned the School District spokesdrone, Wendy E. Lapham.

Indeed. This is the same Christina School District that in April attempted to expel sixth-grader Kasia Haughton. Kasia took a cake to school for her fellow students, and, in helping her pack it, her grandmother helpfully put a knife in the bag. Her teacher placed the cake on the desk, used the knife to cut it, passed round the slices, and then reported Kasia for bringing a “deadly weapon” to school. The grandmother packed the knife. The teacher used the knife. Kasia never touched it. … As the self-same spokesdrone Wendy E. Lapham droned on this occasion, any knife three inches or longer is classified as a deadly weapon. Have to follow the policy. Can’t make any exceptions. Despite having undergone years of expensive credentialization to qualify to serve in positions of authority, School District officials are prohibited by law from exercising any discretion, using any judgment, demonstrating any sense of proportion, or displaying other qualities hitherto associated with sentient human beings. …

…Unless, of course, you’re a Sikh. Sikhs like to carry their traditional kirpans — knives up to eight inches — and the New York City Board of Education and the Supreme Court of Canada, among many others, have ruled that boys are permitted to take them to school. Why? Because, in the ideological hierarchy, multiculturalism trumps “safety.” …

In Slate, Daniel Gross gives an eye-opening explanation of some of the current stock market activity.

…Perhaps the most compelling reason of all for investors to fret is that private equity firms are selling shares in companies they control to the public. Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman is feeling optimistic and, as Reuters reported earlier this week, the private equity firms he runs plans to take as many as eight companies in its portfolio public. Last week, Blackstone filed a $100 million IPO for Team Health, a hospital-staffing company it controls. As I predicted in back in June, private equity giant KKR is planning an IPO for Dollar General. Sources suggest that HCA, the hospital chain taken private by in November 2006 by KKR, Bain Capital, and Merrill Lynch’s private equity arm, could be taken public soon as well. RailAmerica, a railroad operator taken private by Fortress Investment Group in the spring of 2007, had an IPO earlier this week.

Why could a slew of such public offerings be bad news for the stock markets? After all, the billionaires behind these private equity firms are offering individual investors like you and me the opportunity to join them as shareholders of companies that have benefitted from their guidance and counsel.

That’s exactly why we should beware. Generally speaking, private equity investors are very smart traders. Stephen Schwarzman and Henry Kravis have amassed large fortunes because they’ve figured out how to buy low (using lots of borrowed money) and sell high. You’ll recall that the Blackstone Group’s ultimate offering—the sale of shares in itself to the public—came in June 2007, when the Dow was at about 13,500, close to the top. The IPO price marked a top for Blackstone Group’s stock, which fell almost immediately and now stands about 45 percent below the offering price.

In a typical public offering of stock, a company creates shares and sells them to the public, with the cash raised going into its coffers. The public is thus dealt in on future gains. In initial public offerings of privately held companies—especially of venture-capital and private-equity backed firms—it’s more common for existing shareholders to sell big chunks of their own holdings to the public. Much of the cash raised in these IPOs doesn’t go to the company to pay down debt or fund future investment. It goes into the pockets of the shareholders, who often substantially reduce their holdings by offloading their stakes on less sophisticated investors. That’s why private equity types refer to such events as “exits.” Take this week’s RailAmerica IPO. A total of 22 million shares were sold to the public at $15 per share, raising about $300 million after fees. But fewer than half—10.5 million shares—were sold by the company. The rest were sold by Fortress. So only about $157.5 million of the total raised went to the company. The rest went to Fortress, which got to shed some of its investment in RailAmerica and pocket a small fortune for its owners. RailAmerica could certainly have used all that $300 million. It has more than $700 million in debt. In the first half of 2009, interest costs ate up about three-fourths of operating income, and its underlying business is slumping. (Go here and click on the Sept. 29 registration statement to see the latest data.) In its first two days of trading, RailAmerica’s stock has fallen. (Fortress, it should be noted, still owns most of the company’s shares.) …

Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge.com puts more stock market news in perspective.

Another great representation of the amazing loss of purchasing power by the US public are today’s oblivious statements about the Dow at 10,000. While in absolute terms the Dow may cross whatever the Fed thinks is a necessary and sufficient mark before QE begins to taper off (Dow crosses 10k just as Treasury purchases expire), the truth is that over the past 10 years (the first time the DJIA was at 10,000) the dollar has lost 25% of its value. Therefore, we present the Dow over the last decade indexed for the DXY, which has dropped from 100 to about 75. On a real basis (not nominal) the Dow at 10,000 ten years ago is equivalent to 7,537 today! In other words, not only have we had a lost decade for all those who focus on the absolute flatness of the DJIA, but it is also a decade where the US Consumer has lost 25% of purchasing power from the perspective of stocks! You won’t hear this fact on the MSM. …

Phelim McAleer, in Investors Business Daily, writes about how, in the midst of the recession, and with global warming debunked, the Senate is looking to hamstring the economy with a cap-and-trade bill. McAleer is the journalist who recently had the effrontery to challenge Al Gore. You remember, the one who had his mike shut off by his fellow reporters.

…The evidence of environmentalism run amok abounds in Europe. Spain believed the spin that environmental regulation can create “green jobs” and boost the economy. Now the country has 18% unemployment. Britain could suffer blackouts because of policies that require the country to replace coal with fuels like solar and wind power that aren’t readily available or reliable.

Unfortunately for Americans, many of the lawmakers who represent them in Congress seem unwilling to learn from Europe’s mistakes.

The Senate is now considering a bill that Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., co-authored to create a European-style “cap and trade” system for carbon dioxide emissions, and he just won the endorsement of a key swing senator. International pressure on the United States to adopt such legislation also will increase in December at climate talks in Copenhagen.

That’s bad news for taxpayers. The Obama administration reluctantly admitted last month that cap-and-trade would cost the average American family $1,761 a year.

That is a rosy prediction. A Heritage Foundation analysis pegs the cost at an average of $2,979 a year and as much as $4,600 a year by 2035. Jobs will disappear, energy prices will skyrocket, and the American Dream will become an unattainable fantasy for many. …

Gerald Eskenazi reviews three new books about baseball for the WSJ.

…Leading off is “The First Fall Classic,” about the 1912 World Series, which wasn’t the “first”—that was the best-of-nine Series in 1903. But the New York Giants and Boston Red Sox World Series was, according to Mike Vaccaro, the first “classic.” He makes a persuasive case. Here we are in a world of train travel, of boozing, of sitting in the stands next to bookmakers openly shouting the odds, of men in fedoras, of a sport with 14 guys in the big leagues nicknamed “Rube.” Astonishingly, it was also a time when, according to Mr. Vaccaro, John J. “Muggsy” McGraw, the Giants’ legendary manager, could run pool halls in partnership with the mobster and gambling kingpin Arnold Rothstein without raising eyebrows. …

…There have been more World Series since 1912 that deserve the “classic” label, but only one postseason game can be called perfect: Yankee pitcher Don Larsen’s no hits, no walks, no errors jewel on Oct. 8, 1956, against the Brooklyn Dodgers. In “Perfect,” Lew Paper recounts the game through the eyes of the 19 players who saw action that afternoon at Yankee Stadium, basing his story on interviews with surviving players, sportswriters and family members. Mr. Larsen’s feat was not just the first (and still the only) World Series no-hitter; it was also baseball’s first perfect game since the Roaring ’20s. It had been such a long time since anyone had thrown a perfect game that Mr. Larsen didn’t even know there was such a term for retiring all 27 opposing batters in a row. …

…Batting third in this collection is Joe Posnanski’s “The Machine,” the breathless story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds, also known as the Big Red Machine during their years of dominance in the 1970s, when they won three National League pennants and two World Series titles. The book is written in a style reminiscent of Pete Rose’s head-first dives into second base. Here is Mr. Posnanski in the opening paragraph, describing Mr. Rose trying to inspire his teammates: “He stopped in front of each man, glared, his face a mask of rage, an angry drill sergeant, a harsh father, an unforgiving judge. . . . He could already feel the acid of defeat seething in his guts.” …