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In the Telegraph Blogs, UK, Nile Gardiner blogs about events of 2010.
…The political landscape still looks strikingly bleak for the “transformational president” as he goes into 2011. 2010 was a stunningly bad year for Barack Obama, no matter how much the likes of The New York Times or The Washington Post might try to sugar coat it. Here are four key reasons why it was a year Obama will want to forget:
…2. Conservatism grew increasingly dominant in America
The midterms were certainly no flash in the pan, but part of a broader conservative revolution that swept America in 2010. As a recent Gallup survey showed, 48 percent of Americans now describe themselves as “conservative”, compared to 32 percent who call themselves “moderate”, and just 20 percent who call themselves “liberal”. Conservatives now outnumber liberals by nearly 2.5 to 1, a ratio that is likely to increase in 2011. The percentage of Americans who are conservative has risen six points since 2006 and eight points since 1994. Barack Obama, the most liberal US president of the modern era, has a natural liberal constituency comprised of just one in five Americans, which certainly does not bode well for 2012.
…4. The Tea Party became more powerful than the president at the ballot box
The Tea Party was the big victor of 2010, and spectacularly humiliated the White House by running rings around it. A small grassroots movement with barely any resources evolved into the most successful US political movement of this generation, sparking a national protest against the Big Government policies of the Obama administration, and a powerful call for a return to America’s founding principles. The Tea Party was initially mocked and jeered by its political opponents, including the president, but later came to be feared by the Left as it flexed tremendous political muscle. As I noted in September, a CNN poll showed that “while just 37 percent of Americans are more likely to vote for a candidate if backed by Barack Obama, a far larger 50 percent will vote for a Tea-Party endorsed candidate.” The Tea Party continues to gain momentum following the midterms, where it scored significant successes, and a late November USA Today/Gallup poll showed the Tea Party virtually neck and neck with President Obama in terms of voter opinion on who should influence government policy.
Also in the Telegraph Blogs, UK, Toby Harnden has a post on the Gitmo closing that wasn’t.
…Mr Obama’s act of “closing” Guantanamo Bay was hailed around the world as a courageous break with the evil Bush administration. “We are full of hope that the world is on the path to reason and peace,” said President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.
Except, of course, the prison has not closed. Two years after the dramatic order – the directive of a commander-in-chief and not a mere campaign promise – it clearer than ever that Guantanamo Bay is here to stay. There are still 174 inmates there, only three of whom have been tried and found guilty.
Privately, White House officials concede that the facility will be open on November 6 2012, when Obama faces re-election. Asking when the order might be acted upon, however, almost invariably provokes a scowl of disapproval. Merely asking about Guantanamo is akin to farting in church. …
Nile Gardiner also blogs about the Tea Party movement.
…I described in an earlier piece why I thought the Tea Party was so successful in contrast to the declining fortunes of the Obama presidency:
The reason for the Tea Party’s stunning success and President Obama’s equally remarkable decline is relatively simple. A truly popular grassroots movement has captured the fears and concerns of tens of millions of Americans over the relentless rise of Big Government and the growing threat to economic and individual freedom under the Obama administration, while channeling their hopes and aspirations for the future based upon a return to the founding ideals of the Constitution.
In contrast, an out of touch presidency that exudes arrogance and elitism at every turn continues to contemptuously spend other people’s money with abandon, building up a crippling debt that will ultimately destroy America’s long-term prosperity if left unchecked. It is a stark choice that the two sides offer, and it’s not surprising that a clear majority of Americans are opting for political revolution rather than the status quo. …
And one more from the Telegraph Blogs, UK. James Delingpole has a brilliant blog on green fascism, ending with a prescient quote from Alexis de Tocqueville.
My final post of the year is not about Global Warming. Or rather, it is, but only in the most tangential way. As the sharper among you will long since have recognised, the reason I bang on about AGW is not because I’m obsessed with “Climate Change” but because I recognise it as a strategically vital campaign in a much broader global culture war. On the outcome of this war depends not only the future of Western civilisation but also more immediately concerning things like whether or not our children and grandchildren have jobs, and whether or not we live in a state of liberty or tyranny.
This is why I believe this year’s most important publication is not any of the superb crop of books on AGW – eg Andrew Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion; Bob Carter’s Climate Change: The Counter Consensus; Slaying The Sky Dragon; Steve Goreham’s Climatism!; Steven Mosher and Thomas Fuller’s Climategate: The CRUtape Letters – but the book that goes closest to the heart of this great ideological struggle, Christopher Snowdon’s The Spirit Level Delusion.
…I’ll let Snowdon himself explain why:
Apologists for Marxism have made myriad excuses for their ideology’s failure to provide the same standard of living and liberty as was enjoyed in capitalist nations. Until recently, few have been so brazen as to claim that lowering living standards and curtailing freedom were the intended consequences, let alone that people would be happier with less of either. In that sense, books like The Spirit Level represent a departure for the left. Limiting choice, reducing wealth and lowering aspirations are now openly advocated as desirable ends in themselves. …
Jennifer Rubin posts on upcoming investigations into the New Black Panther scandal at the Justice Department. Yes we can demand accountability.
With Attorney General Eric Holder, one never is certain whether he is disingenuous or simply badly informed. He counseled the president that there was no choice but to disclose detainee abuse photos. The advice was wrong, and the recommendation was countermanded after a firestorm of criticism. He told the country that a civilian trial for 9/11 terrorists would offer a greater chance of conviction than a military tribunal. He memorably stumbled before the Senate Judiciary Committee in trying to defend that unfounded assertion. There, too, his advice seems destined to be ignored.
Then there is the New Black Panther Party scandal, a case about egregious voter intimidation brought by the Bush administration and dismissed by Obama political appointees after a default judgment had been obtained. As The Post and I have detailed, there is ample evidence from former Justice Department employees and from documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act that the administration concealed evidence of political appointees’ role in dismissing a blatant case of voter intimidation and that in the department’s voting section career employees and political appointees adhere to the view that voting rights laws should not be enforced against non-White defendants. And then there is Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Thomas Perez’s misleading testimony under oath.
…Well, it is time, finally, for Holder and Perez to be examined under oath.Similarly, the political appointee Julie Fernandes, who instructed Department attorneys not to pursue cases against African American defendants, should be summoned to give her account of events. The new chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Lamar Smith (R.-Tex.), has been trying to get to the bottom of the controversy for over eighteen months. Now he has the power to convene hearings and subpoena witnesses and evidence. At some point soon, Holder will be asked why he is unaware or unwilling to address the appearance of serious wrongdoing in the Justice Department, which he promised to rid of corruption and politicization when he took office.
Rubin also discusses the recess appointment of James Cole.
You can expect that Republican congressmen and senators when they return this week will continue to decry the recess appointment of James Cole to the post of deputy attorney general. There is no doubt that recess appointments are constitutionally-authorized; but the question here is Cole’s fitness to serve. And there is reason for Republicans and Democrats alike to be deeply concerned over the appointment. True, Cole will hold the position for only a year, but the number-two man in the Justice Department, who oversees myriad key decisions, can do quite a lot of harm in 12 months.
On Dec. 2, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R.-Ala.) took to the floor to explain his objections to Cole’s then pending nomination:
Why does the President want to appoint somebody who thinks 9/11 was a criminal act and not an act of war? I think it is a big deal, so that is one of the reasons we have raised it. Is he going to bring some balance to Attorney General Holder or are they going to move even further left in their approach to these issues?
I would also note he was given a highly paid position as an independent monitor of AIG. This is the big insurance company whose credit default swaps and insurance dealings really triggered this entire collapse of the economic system. He was in the company at the time as a government monitor, and he did not blow the whistle on what was going on throughout this period of time. …
…So the question remains: why would the president and the attorney general select Cole from among all the qualified attorneys in the country to fill the number-two spot in the Justice Department? Now surely, Democrats certainly must be as concerned as Sessions — not only about Cole’s position on the war on terror (which has been generally rejected not only by the administration but by many Democratic senators), but about his lack of diligence at AIG. It would seem both Cole and Eric Holder should do some explaining, under oath, once Congress reconvenes.
Jeff Jacoby points out the problems with a House of Representatives that has not grown for one hundred years. It is hard to see the efficacy of sending more criminals to DC, but he might have a point.
… According to the Census Bureau, there are now 710,767 Americans in the average congressional district. But with every state constitutionally entitled to at least one House seat, and with the membership of the House frozen at 435, districts can deviate widely from the average. Wyoming’s single US representative has just 568,000 constituents; the member from neighboring South Dakota has 820,000. That means a vote cast in Wyoming has nearly 1.5 times the impact of a South Dakotan’s vote.
An even more egregious violation of the “one man, one vote’’ principle is the inequality between Rhode Island’s two congressional districts, with 528,000 voters each, and Montana’s lone district, with 994,000. So great is that disparity, observes Scott Scharpen, the founder of an organization called Apportionment.US, that it takes 188 voters in Montana to equal 100 voters in Rhode Island.
The Supreme Court earlier this month refused to take up a lawsuit, initiated by Scharpen and others, that sought an order forcing Congress to dramatically enlarge the House of Representatives in order to equalize congressional districts. Unsurprisingly, the court ruled that the size of Congress is for members of Congress, not judges, to decide. …