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Roger Simon posts on Kerry’s first speech.
I can’t say I was surprised when I read, via a Drudge link, that John Kerry made his first foreign policy speech as secretary of State on the heavyweight scientific subject of climate change (the perils thereof, of course).
But I did have a chuckle, remembering that sometime during or after the 2004 presidential campaign it was revealed that Kerry did even more poorly at Yale than the supposedly dopey George W. Bush. In fact, the former Massachusetts senator received four “Ds” in his freshman year, including one in geology.
Many of us will recall that geology, often known as “Rocks for Jocks,” was the preferred method of fulfilling the college science requirement for those challenged in that area. But a “D” was still pretty disgraceful. I know, having attended Dartmouth and Yale in the same era. (I wasn’t the greatest student, but I was a lot better than Kerry or Bush without a whole lot of effort.)
We can assume that our new Sec’y of State is not a science whiz. Nevertheless, Mr. Kerry is apparently certain that anthropogenic global warming is a great danger to the human race and should be the object of a major international effort.
Why does he think so? Because he assumes the vast majority of scientists say so, I would imagine. And also because that’s what the bien pensant think and there is no one more orthodox in his views than John Kerry. …
More on the Kerry speech from Nile Gardiner.
Late night host Jay Leno had a good punch line back in November when speculation was mounting that John Kerry might be the next Secretary of Defense. “Apparently this is part of America’s new defense strategy to bore our enemies to death,” quipped Leno. His second joke of the evening was even better: “the economy is so bad, MSNBC had to lay off 300 Obama spokesmen.” His third though was probably the best: “the economy is so bad, President Obama sent Susan Rice out to defend it.” (hat tip: The Daily Slog)
Kerry has ended up in Foggy Bottom instead of the Pentagon, but if President Obama’s plan is to bore America’s allies to death he’s clearly succeeding. The former Senator’s first speech as Secretary of State, delivered earlier today at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, was so excruciating that students were probably pleading to be released. It has to be one of the dullest lectures on record by a senior U.S. official, making Madeleine Albright’s speeches sound like the Gettysburg Address in comparison. Not only was it exceptionally lethargic, it was also full of badly written clichés put together by a speechwriting team that would be better suited to penning obituaries for The New York Times.
Here is a snippet, with the immortal line, “there is no longer anything foreign about foreign policy.” ..
Bob Woodward writes on the sequester lies from the president and Jack Lew.
… White House press secretary Jay Carney shifted position and accepted sequester paternity.
“The sequester was something that was discussed,” Carney said. Walking back the earlier statements, he added carefully, “and as has been reported, it was an idea that the White House put forward.”
This was an acknowledgment that the president and Lew had been wrong.
Why does this matter?
First, months of White House dissembling further eroded any semblance of trust between Obama and congressional Republicans. (The Republicans are by no means blameless and have had their own episodes of denial and bald-faced message management.)
Second, Lew testified during his confirmation hearing that the Republicans would not go along with new revenue in the portion of the deficit-reduction plan that became the sequester. Reinforcing Lew’s point, a senior White House official said Friday, “The sequester was an option we were forced to take because the Republicans would not do tax increases.”
In fact, the final deal reached between Vice President Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in 2011 included an agreement that there would be no tax increases in the sequester in exchange for what the president was insisting on: an agreement that the nation’s debt ceiling would be increased for 18 months, so Obama would not have to go through another such negotiation in 2012, when he was running for reelection.
So when the president asks that a substitute for the sequester include not just spending cuts but also new revenue, he is moving the goal posts. His call for a balanced approach is reasonable, and he makes a strong case that those in the top income brackets could and should pay more. But that was not the deal he made.
Speaking of Jack Lew, Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Weil posts on the stink coming from his Citigroup contract.
Lew was director of the Office of Management and Budget during President Bill Clinton’s administration, after which he worked at New YorkUniversity as an executive and a professor. He joined Citigroup in 2006 as chief operating officer of its global wealth-management division. Lew was recommended by former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, who at the time was chairman of Citigroup’s executive committee. (There seems to be an unwritten rule that every Treasury secretary must have deep ties to Rubin.) He became chief operating officer of the bank’s alternative-investments unit in January 2008.
Lew’s employment agreement with Citigroup said his “guaranteed incentive and retention award” wouldn’t be paid if he quit his job, with limited exceptions. One was if he left Citigroup “as a result of your acceptance of a full-time high level position with the United States government or regulatory body.” This applied if he left “prior to the payment of any incentive and retention award for performance year 2008 or thereafter.” Such an award wasn’t guaranteed but would be consistent with the company’s practice, the document said.
A similar provision concerned his stock-based compensation. If Lew left in 2008 or afterward to accept a high-level U.S. government position, all of his outstanding equity awards, including restricted stock, would vest immediately, the document said. Alternatively, Citigroup had the option of paying Lew the cash equivalent of any shares he forfeited upon leaving. The terms didn’t mention other kinds of public-service work, such as a midlevel U.S. government job, a position in municipal or state government, or working at a nonprofit organization such as a university.
Lew stood to receive $250,001 to $500,000 worth of accelerated restricted Citigroup stock when he left the company, according to a disclosure report he filed in January 2009. The same document listed $1.1 million of “salary and discretionary cash comp” from Citigroup. Lew said at last week’s hearing that his salary for 2008 was $350,000.
Lew was named a deputy secretary of State in 2009, Office of Management and Budget director again in 2010, and then became President Barack Obama’s chief of staff in 2012. Now he’s up for Treasury secretary, where he would play a critical role in overseeing the U.S.’s financial industry and rescuing it should another crisis ensue. Citigroup couldn’t have planned this better if it tried, which raises the natural question: Did it try?
When I asked Citigroup what its rationale was for including the government-service exception, a spokeswoman, Danielle Romero-Apsilos, said: “Citi routinely accommodates individuals who wish to leave the firm to pursue a position in government or nonprofit sector.” I pointed out that the contract terms I was asking about didn’t mention anything about a nonprofit, but she declined to elaborate on her statement.
More about Jack Lew’s lewd history from David Harsanyi.
… But there five reasons, at least, why Lew should be disqualified.
One: Lew has no compunction about misleading you.
Lew, a “master” of budgets and all things finance according to the president, has on several occasions lied to the American people to assist the president politically. Not average misrepresentations or partisan evasions, but blatant lies.
When asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in early 2012 how many days it had been since Senate Democrats passed a budget — over a thousand days for anyone counting at the time – Lew said this: “One of the things about the United States Senate that I think the American people have realized is that it takes 60, not 50, votes to pass something.”
It doesn’t take 60 votes, as Lew, a man Obama says has “deep and devout faith,” knows well. The 60-vote threshold doesn’t come into play on budgets.
Lew then repeated this contention on CNN’s “State of the Union,” saying: “But we also need to be honest. You can’t pass a budget in the Senate of the United States without 60 votes and you can’t get 60 votes without bipartisan support. So unless Republicans are willing to work with Democrats in the Senate, Harry Reid is not going to be able to get a budget passed.” We need to be honest? If Lew is unable to understand basic procedure he has no business in the cabinet, and if he does comprehend, then Senate has no business confirming a political so willing to mislead the American people to the Treasury.
Two: Lew personally benefited from the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression. …
Here’s something for Oscar night. Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit writes a WSJ OpEd on state film subsidies.
At the Democratic National Convention last year, actress Eva Longoria called for higher taxes on America’s rich. Her take: “The Eva Longoria who worked at Wendy’s flipping burgers—she needed a tax break. But the Eva Longoria who works on movie sets does not.”
Actually, nowadays an Eva Longoria who flipped burgers would probably qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit and get a check from the government rather than pay taxes. It’s the movie set where she works these days that may well be getting the tax break.
With campaign season over, you’re not likely to hear stars bringing up taxes at this weekend’s Academy Awards show. But the tax man ought to come out and take a bow anyway. Of the nine “Best Picture” nominees in 2012, for example, five were filmed on location in states where the production company received financial incentives, including “The Help” (in Mississippi) and “Moneyball” (in California). Virginia gave $3.5 million to this year’s Oscar-nominated “Lincoln.”
Such state incentives are widespread, and often substantial, but they don’t do much to attract jobs. About $1.5 billion in tax credits and exemptions, grants, waived fees and other financial inducements went to the film industry in 2010, according to data analyzed by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Politicians like to offer this largess because they get photo-ops with celebrities, but the economic payoff is minuscule. GeorgeMasonUniversity’s Adam Thierer has called this “a growing cronyism fiasco” and noted that the number of states involved skyrocketed to 45 in 2009 from five in 2002. …