Click on WORD or PDF for full content
Roger Simon figures out Specter
James Kirchick, New Republic editor, is also tired of BO running down his country. Nov. 5th Pickings expressed the hope electing a black as president would get some of the media and the left to agree the U. S. isn’t such a bad place after all. Instead, the new president has taken over the job of trashing our country.
… When not establishing false premises about the previous administration (the easier to glorify his own) or apologizing for his country, Obama has shown unusual deference to autocrats. At the Summit of the Americas, he calmly sat through a 50-minute anti-American tirade by the communist leader of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, and was disturbingly ebullient in glad-handing Venezuelan autocrat Hugo Chavez. There’s nothing wrong with the president participating in a multilateral summit where criticism, even egregiously unfair criticism, of the U.S. is expressed. But if he can sit and take verbal abuse from Latin American demagogues, then surely speaking a little truth in response to their lies is appropriate.
It was plenty controversial when, years into his ex-presidency, Jimmy Carter publicized his critique of U.S. policy by meeting with hostile governments to conduct freelance diplomacy. In 1994, Carter traveled to North Korea, called its then-dictator, Kim Il Sung, a “vigorous and intelligent” man, and took the Clinton administration by surprise, negotiating a deal empowering Kim to continue his nascent nuclear program. But Carter at least waited until he left the White House before denigrating his country.
The ill effects of Obama’s obsequious behavior will not be immediate. His friendly handshake with Chavez will not suddenly lead to the closing of more opposition radio stations in Venezuela, nor will his bemoaning American arrogance in Europe lead to more Russian aggression tomorrow.
But Obama’s fecklessness emboldens our adversaries and discourages advocates of liberty around the world. …
Thomas Sowell has similar thoughts.
… In his visit to CIA headquarters, President Obama pledged his support to the people working there and said that there would be no prosecutions of CIA agents for prior actions. Then he welshed on that in a matter of hours by leaving the door open for such prosecutions, which the left has been clamoring for, both inside and outside of Congress.
Repercussions extend far beyond issues of the day. It is bad enough that we have a glib and sophomoric narcissist in the White House. What is worse is that whole nations that rely on the United States for their security see how easily our president welshes on his commitments. So do other nations, including those with murderous intentions toward us, our children and grandchildren.
Jennifer Rubin posts on inadvertent admissions in a Tom Friedman column today.
… So to recap: the Bush team kept us safe from an implacable foe by using interrogation methods which the American public approved of and by fighting (often against the admonitions of Friedman and his colleagues) and largely prevailing in Iraq. The latter effort may deal a death blow to Al Qaeda which one supposes made it a very worthwhile endeavor. Well, yes, Friedman awards Obama the prize for “doing [his] best” in a war largely waged by his reviled predecessor – who is rarely praised for doing his best, but we get the point.
It must be some other George W. Bush who was the worst foreign policy president in history – because the 43rd president, by Friedman’s accounting, got some very big things right, despite ferocious odds. (One of President Bush’s librarians might want to clip this one out for the “Bush Legacy Inadvertently Revived By Obama” file.)
Stratfor on the pandemic possibility.
… We are not trying to be alarmist. As stated, we do not really know what these swine flu infections and deaths mean, and as with many other scares, this situation might dissipate in a matter of days. There have been plenty of scares about avian strains of the flu virus breaking through the human-to-human transmission barrier, and so far they have been unfounded. Even the widely hyped outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which spread rapidly from China to a number of other countries in 2002 and 2003, ultimately was contained. Fewer than 800 fatalities from SARS occurred worldwide, with only eight confirmed cases (and zero deaths) in the United States, despite widespread concern that the disease could severely impact the American populace. …
Debra Saunders won’t drink the torture Kool-Aid.
The mantra from the left during the Bush years went something like this: The world is not black and white. Sophisticated minds should seek out different, nuanced opinions.
Now that Barack Obama is president, you can say a farewell to nuance.
The left chants, “torture doesn’t work” – defining waterboarding and sleep deprivation as torture. Obama has a longhand version of that mantra in his rejection of the “false choice between our security and our ideals.”
In Obamaland, somehow there never are difficult choices.
From the presidency that was supposed to promote intellectualism comes the argument that waterboarding is immoral – which is a fair argument to make, until its adds: and it doesn’t work.
But common sense tells you that techniques like sleep deprivation, waterboarding and a forced bland diet work, at least some times. …
Ross Douthat’s inaugural column at NY Times is here. Ross has taken over the position of in-house conservative last occupied by Bill Kristol. Douthat kind of wastes this one arguing Dick Cheney might have been a better candidate for the GOP last fall.
WSJ reports on the combination of beer giants InBev and Anheuser-Busch.
ST. LOUIS — Construction crews arrived at One Busch Place a few months ago and demolished the ornate executive suites at Anheuser-Busch Cos. In their place the workers built a sea of desks, where executives and others now work a few feet apart.
It is just one piece of a sweeping makeover of the iconic American brewer by InBev, the Belgian company that bought Anheuser-Busch last fall. In about six months, InBev has turned a family-led company that spared little expense into one that is focused intently on cost-cutting and profit margins, while rethinking the way it sells beer.
The new owner has cut jobs, revamped the compensation system and dropped perks that had made Anheuser-Busch workers the envy of others in St. Louis. Managers accustomed to flying first class or on company planes now fly coach. Freebies like tickets to St. Louis Cardinals games are suddenly scarce.
Suppliers haven’t been spared the knife. The combined company, Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, has told barley merchants, ad agencies and other vendors that it wants to take up to 120 days to pay bills. The brewer of Budweiser, a company with a rich history of memorable ads, has tossed out some sports deals that were central to marketing at the old Anheuser-Busch.
The changes have been tough for workers to swallow. …
Click on WORD or PDF for full content