May 14, 2015

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For a treat today we have Hugh Hewitt’s interview of Charles Krauthammer. The answers are not as well organized as his writings, but it’s good to hear some of the rambling thoughts of Sir Charles.

HH: Charles, tomorrow, I’m talking to your colleague, Kirsten Powers, about her new book, The Silencing. There’s an entire chapter on the President’s obsession with Fox News. But what does, it kind of reached a crescendo yesterday. What did you make of that?

CK: I remember we talked about it last night on Special Report, and I suggested that Fox buy a full-page ad touting the fact that Barack Obama is apparently now a constant viewer of Fox News, he’s such an expert on it. He said if you watch it all the time, so I’m glad to know that he’s joined this vast audience that Fox commands. Look, this is sort of a pathological Obama where you know, he picks up these memes. He doesn’t know a damn thing about what’s on Fox. The idea that Fox is constantly showing, you know, sponges and leeches, and never shows the waitress trying to make it, it’s just sort of the mythological world that he lives in. Or he may be cynical. I mean, he may know it’s all nonsense. I mean, I can’t tell. I mean, after all, you probably need a psychiatrist to figure that out. But it’s either cynical or just hopelessly deluded on this. I would prefer to think he’s cynical, because I’d like somebody in the White House who’s not delusional. And this is the usual Obama cynicism. It’s the media, it’s the press, they’re underreporting liberal successes. I mean, look, the fact is a war on poverty, the billions poured into helping the poor, which in my 20s I rather supported until in my 30s, the empirical social science evidence began to come out that not only was money poured down the drain, but it was undermining the traditional structures of even the poorest neighborhoods and leading to real terrible pathologies, including helping to accelerate the breakdown of the family. So these are, there’s just the empirical social science refuting the liberal nostrums about how to help the poor. But he never engages in an argument. It’s all ad hominin. …

 

HH: Where do you see this race going? We have a minute to the break.

CK: I think it’s very clear, this is analysis, not advocacy. The top tier clearly is Jeb Bush, Scott Walker and Marco Rubio. They’ve had all pretty good launches. Bush has declines, which makes him, so he’s not the runaway frontrunner. I don’t even know that he is the frontrunner. But there are three in the top tier. I am sure that either one or two will emerge from the second tier to join them, but that will take time, probably happen at the debates, the way Huckabee joined the top tier in ’08 when he came out of nowhere. And I think Cruz would be a candidate for that. I don’t think Rand Paul will ultimately be, because as a libertarian, he’s got a ceiling that’s rather low – high floor, low ceiling. And he’s somewhat hurt by the rise of foreign policy as an issue, where I think he’s rather weak. …

  

 

Jonathan Tobin posts on the snub the Saudis have sent to the president.

… The Saudis, like the Israelis, know that America’s promises about both the nuclear deal and the future of the region are not worth much. The Iranians have been granted two paths to a bomb by the United States. One is by cheating via the easily evaded restrictions in the nuclear pact with little fear of sanctions being snapped back. The other is by patiently waiting for it to expire while continuing their nuclear research with little interference from a West that will be far more interested in trade than anything else.

That leaves the Saudis thinking they may need to procure their own nuclear option and to flex their muscles, as they have been doing in Yemen. It also sets up the region for what may be an ongoing series of confrontations between Iranian allies and the Saudis and their friends, a recipe for disaster.

Will Obama get the message and change course? That’s even less likely than him embracing Netanyahu. An administration that came into office determined to create more daylight between itself and Israel has now embarked on a policy designed to alienate all of America’s traditional allies in order to appease a vicious Islamist foe. Anyone who thinks this will turn out well simply isn’t paying attention to the same events that have left the Saudis and other U.S. allies thinking they are more or less being left on their own.

 

 

Jennifer Rubin posts on the fact nobody trusts this president. 

The Post reports: “King Salman of Saudi Arabia, a key ally of the United States, will not attend a summit this week at Camp David called to address security concerns among Persian Gulf nations about a potential nuclear deal with Iran, the Saudi foreign minister said Sunday.” To say this is a slight or an insult is to minimize the symbolism of the decision. The Saudi king is telling America and the world: There is nothing President Obama can promise that is worth the trip. Out of all the Gulf states, only two will be sending heads of state.

Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) says dryly that “the optics of this are bad.” Indeed, he tells me that “regardless of how Camp David plays out, one thing is clear: the Gulf states are decidedly uneasy about this Iran deal. And I suspect that there is little Washington can offer that will change this.”

You know it’s bad when the White House is insisting it isn’t: …

  

 

Max Boot has more on the latest embarrassment for President Disaster. 

President Obama is in the position of a high-school student who thinks that the cool kids are going to come to his birthday party and starts bragging about it around school, only to have his prized guests opt out at the last minute, leaving him looking considerably embarrassed. The guests in question are the leaders of America’s closest Gulf allies. They had been invited to a fence-mending summit at Camp David but only two—the emirs of Qatar and Kuwait—have accepted. All the others have suddenly discovered they have something else urgent to do that weekend. (Haircuts scheduled! Barbecues to attend!) Most embarrassing for Obama, as Jonathan Tobin noted earlier today, is that Saudi King Salman had at first accepted the invitation before declining it.

The administration spinmeisters can put a happy face on this all they want by claiming that they can still negotiate with the lower-level leaders the Gulf countries are sending but there is no doubt that this is a rebuke of the administration for putting Iran first. The Gulf leaders see the U.S. increasingly cozy with the rulers in Tehran, whose imperial designs they regard as a mortal danger, and they are not reticent about signaling their displeasure. Refusing to attend the Camp David summit is the least of it. Other actions that the Gulfies are taking are more serious—for example launching bombing campaigns against extremists in both Libya and, on a larger scale, in Yemen without asking for America’s permission or even bothering to notify us more than a few hours in advance. …

 

 

Speaking of disasters, David Harsanyi posts on the worst of the GOP contenders – Huckabee. Harsanyi tries to understand why he dislikes the Huckster so much.

… Maybe it’s the awe-shucks populism that isn’t substantively very different from the class-conflict rhetoric we hear from so many on the Left these days. Or maybe it’s that everyman Huckabee has been running for one political office or another for the past 25 years – a fact that might escape the attention of anyone listening to the nuggets of blue-collar wisdom found in his speeches and those God, guns, grits, and gravy books he writes.

Since his last run for the presidency, Huckabee has hosted a national radio show and television show, and he’s endorsed all sorts of interesting products, including “secret biblical cures for cancer” to, no doubt, some unfortunate and desperate people. Because, Huckabee, like all of those selfish plutocrats he likes to denounce, is out to make a buck.

Or maybe it’s his paternalistic attacks on pop culture, the ones that make him sound like some reincarnated member of the PMRC, that are so off-putting? After all, as governor of Arkansas Huckabee was a zealous NannyState advocate– passing precedent-setting intrusions into the lifestyles choices of individuals in Arkansas.

It could also be his role as John McCain’s hitman in the 2008 primaries, when he attacked Mitt Romney’s faith in an effort to dissuade Evangelicals from supporting the Mormon candidate. Focusing on a candidate’s belief system, at least from my perspective, is within the bounds of acceptable political debate. But Huckabee’s churlish innuendo dropping should have undercut any perception you might have that the cheery former Baptist preacher is anything but your typical politician. …

  

 

Andrew Malcolm was thinking he would pass on commenting on the awful commencement speech delivered at Tuskegee by the president’s wife. We were going to leave it alone too, but Malcolm was too good.

… Commencement speeches are relatively easy compositions for writers to put in politicians’ mouths. Graduations are happy times. Pols want to be associated with happy times. The publicity-seeking school wants a celebrity to grace the stage to confirm the day’s import for the mere cost of an honorary degree.

So, they come. Congratulate the grads. Urge appreciation for supportive families. Offer one or two pieces of free advice that no one will remember. And get out of the way.

Not the Obamas. Not First Lady Michelle Obama. Presidential spouse is an unusual job. Unpaid. Unstructured. Presidential helpmate, privately. Sometimes publicly. So far, only women. (Susan Swain of C-SPAN, by the way, has just published a fascinating book, “First Ladies,” profiles of all 44 unique women who’ve held that position, available in hardback and e-book here.)

While hubby played golf this Mother’s Day weekend, Mrs. Obama went to Alabama’s TuskegeeUniversity’s. Her 3,700 words began in standard form, but quickly became a detailed recounting of American racism including the famed Tuskegee airmen who overcame it seven decades ago.

Then, her address took a turn we’ve become accustomed to expect more from her husband: The celebration of 500 hard-won graduations became instead a speech more about her. …