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Thomas Sowell comments on the Justice Department investigating the CIA. No hope here. Just audacity.
…Those who are pushing for legal action against CIA agents may talk about “upholding the law” but they are doing no such thing. Neither the Constitution of the United States nor the Geneva Convention gives rights to terrorists who operate outside the law.
There was a time when everybody understood this. German soldiers who put on American military uniforms, in order to infiltrate American lines during the Battle of the Bulge were simply lined up against a wall and shot — and nobody wrung their hands over it. Nor did the U.S. Army try to conceal what they had done. The executions were filmed and the film has been shown on the History Channel.
So many “rights” have been conjured up out of thin air that many people seem unaware that rights and obligations derive from explicit laws, not from politically correct pieties. If you don’t meet the terms of the Geneva Convention, then the Geneva Convention doesn’t protect you. If you are not an American citizen, then the rights guaranteed to American citizens do not apply to you.
That should be especially obvious if you are part of an international network bent on killing Americans. But bending over backward to be nice to our enemies is one of the many self-indulgences of those who engage in moral preening.
But getting other people killed so that you can feel puffed up about yourself is profoundly immoral. So is betraying the country you took an oath to protect.
Jennifer Rubin reaches a compelling conclusion about Obama’s spineless responses to outrageous actions.
…The Obama administration’s blasé attitude has raised speculation that we were in on the “deal” or that we share suspicions long held by former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and others that maybe the wrong terrorist was convicted. But I think the explanation is simpler. Obama never gets very outraged about outrageous things, because that would require he do something. And, yes, there is a double standard about who gets the tongue-lashings. (Peretz again: “It is not as if Obama is usually shy with emotional oratory, although he is rather shy in admonishing Muslims, a difficulty he seems not to have with the Israelis.”)
If we were full-throated in our condemnation of Iranian show trials, or the continued Syrian facilitation of terrorists who kill our troops in Iraq, or human rights in China (or anywhere), Obama might be expected to address the source of the outrage and confront the miscreants. This he does not do. So he looks down, shuffles his feet, offers only the most tepid words, and moves on. But others, primarily our adversaries, are watching. They see an irresolute and unconcerned American president. And they will act accordingly.
Since the new administration tries to blame everything on W, Karl Rove has fun pointing out the real cause of their troubles.
… The administration’s problems have been compounded by tactical mistakes. Allowing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to push for a Democrat-only bill shatters any claim Mr. Obama can make to bipartisanship, a core theme of his candidacy. Leaving the legislation’s drafting to Congress has tied the president’s fortunes to Mrs. Pelosi, who has a 25% approval rating nationwide, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, whose approval rating is 37% in Nevada.
Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.) was inartful but basically correct when he said if Mr. Obama loses on health care, “it will be his Waterloo.” It would destroy confidence in the ability of Democrats to govern. Mr. Obama knows this, which is why he will stop at nothing to get a bill, any bill, on which the label “health-care reform” can be stuck.
Given the Democratic congressional margins, Mr. Obama has the votes to do it, but at huge costs to him and his party. Legislation that looks anything like the bill moving through the House will contain deeply unpopular provisions—including massive deficit spending, tax hikes and Medicare cuts—and create enormous ill will on Capitol Hill. This will be especially true if Democrats rely on parliamentary tricks to pass a bill in the Senate with 51 votes. The public’s reaction in August showed that the president is creating the conditions for a revolt against his party in the 2010 elections.
On the other hand, if Mr. Obama jettisons the public option, he may spark a revolt within his party. The Democratic base is already grumbling and could block a bill if it doesn’t include a public option.
Presidents always encounter rough patches. What is unusual is how soon Mr. Obama has hit his. He has used up almost all his goodwill in less than nine months, with the hardest work still ahead. At the year’s start, Democrats were cocky. At summer’s end, concern is giving way to despair. A perfect political storm is amassing, and heading straight for Democrats.
Ed Morrissey posts on Jake Tapper’s reporting of Obama’s “precipitous slide.”
How bad has Barack Obama’s slide in the polls become? So bad, Jake Tapper reports for ABC News, that the White House has abandoned the talk of mandates and now cast Obama as a courageous statesman willing to do the unpopular. Why, the world would look much different if Obama was concerned about mandates: …
Howard Kurtz recounts how a lot of the left-media are falling out of ObamaLove.
It is as inevitable in Washington as sweltering summers and steamy sex scandals.
A president is going to be smacked around from the moment he takes office and the uplifting rhetoric of campaign rallies meets the gritty reality of governing.
But the criticism of Barack Obama has turned strikingly personal as some of his liberal media allies have gone wobbly on him. After playing a cheerleading role during the campaign, some are bluntly questioning whether he’s up to the job.
If Obama is losing Paul Krugman, can the rest of the left be far behind?
“I’m concerned as to whether, in trying to reach out to the middle, he is selling out his base,” says Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page. “I find myself saying, ‘Where’s that well-oiled Obama machine we saw last year?’ . . . Maybe he’s being a little too cool at this point.” …
From abroad, Roger Simon looks at the current political landscape here and has some sage advice for the GOP.
… If I were the Republicans, I’d be worrying about peaking too early.
In Slate, Anne Applebaum explains some of the reasons for the continuing World War II commemorations.
…The answer cannot lie in the personal experiences of any of the statesmen involved, since none was alive at the time. It lies, rather, in the way that memories of the war have come to be central to the national memory, and therefore to the contemporary politics, of so many of the countries that fought in it.
Everything about modern Germany, for instance, is the way it is because of the war, from its pacifism and its devotion to the European Union to the architecture of its capital city. War guilt is built into the political system and becomes controversial only when it seems some Germans want to abandon it: The new wave of interest in the fate of Germans who fled or were expelled from Central Europe after the war, or the popularity of books about Allied bombings of German cities, worries many in the region. Hence Angela Merkel’s presence at Westerplatte. (She was the first to confirm she would attend.) No German chancellor wants any of Germany’s neighbors to doubt that Germany is still very sorry about 1939 (even if some are rather indifferent). And none wants Germany’s neighbors to fear German aggression today.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will attend for slightly different reasons, or so it would seem. Last weekend, Russian state television ran a long documentary essentially arguing that Stalin was justified in ordering the 1939 invasion of Poland and the Baltic states—and in doing a secret deal with Hitler—on the grounds that Poland itself was in a secret alliance with the Nazis. Putin himself probably will not defend this startling and ahistorical thesis, although—judging from an article he has written for the Polish media—he may well try to “contextualize” the Hitler-Stalin pact by comparing it with other diplomatic decisions. Lately, other Russians have lately expressed similarly positive views of 1939 in a well-coordinated attempt to justify the Hitler-Stalin pact. (If they have any views: The majority of Russians, a recent poll shows, do not know that the USSR invaded Poland in 1939.)
But from the point of view of the Russian ruling elite, such interpretations make sense: By praising Stalin’s aggression toward the USSR’s neighbors 70 years ago, the current leaders help justify Russia’s aggression toward its neighbors today, at least in the eyes of the Russian public. …
David Harsanyi, one of our favorites, agrees with George Will.
… Judging from their harsh reaction to Will, it’s not clear when, if ever, some conservatives believe the U.S. should withdraw from Afghanistan. Even less clear is how the victory narrative is supposed to play out. Does this triumphant day arrive when every Islamic radical in the region has met his virgins? If so, after eight years of American lives lost, the goal seems further away than ever.
Or is victory achieved when we finally usher this primitive tribal culture, with its violent warlords and religious extremism, through the 8th century all the way to modernity? If so, we’re on course for a centuries-long enterprise of nation-building and babysitting, not a war. The war was won in 2002.
If the goal is to establish a stable government to fill the vacuum created by our ousting of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, we’ve done quite a job. Most Americans can accept a Marine risking life and limb to safeguard our freedoms. But when that Marine is protector of a corrupt and depraved foreign parliament — one that recently legalized marital rape and demands women ask permission from male relatives to leave their home — it is not a victory worth celebrating. …
Scott Johnson of Powerline recounts a shocking story from Peter Robinson.
…Former Reagan speechwriter Peter Robinson recalls that Senator Kennedy was something more than a useful idiot. In the heyday of the Soviet Union’s peace offensive, Senator Kennedy appears to have offered his collaboration with Soviet leadership in opposing Reagan’s efforts. Robinson writes:
Picking his way through the Soviet archives that Boris Yeltsin had just thrown open, in 1991 Tim Sebastian, a reporter for the London Times, came across an arresting memorandum. Composed in 1983 by Victor Chebrikov, the top man at the KGB, the memorandum was addressed to Yuri Andropov, the top man in the entire USSR. The subject: Sen. Edward Kennedy.
“On 9-10 May of this year,” the May 14 memorandum explained, “Sen. Edward Kennedy’s close friend and trusted confidant [John] Tunney was in Moscow.” (Tunney was Kennedy’s law school roommate and a former Democratic senator from California.) “The senator charged Tunney to convey the following message, through confidential contacts, to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Y. Andropov.”
Kennedy’s message was simple. He proposed an unabashed quid pro quo. Kennedy would lend Andropov a hand in dealing with President Reagan. In return, the Soviet leader would lend the Democratic Party a hand in challenging Reagan in the 1984 presidential election. “The only real potential threats to Reagan are problems of war and peace and Soviet-American relations,” the memorandum stated. “These issues, according to the senator, will without a doubt become the most important of the election campaign.”
See Robinson’s column for the rest of the story. I add only that the soul of liberalism appears to be immortal. At any rate, it survives Senator Kennedy’s death.
The IBD Editorial board also comments on Kennedy’s KGB overtures and the egregious lack of coverage by the MSM.
…When we first heard of this, we thought it must be a mistake. Or a hoax. But it appears to be neither. Indeed, to our knowledge, the memo written by then-KGB chief Victor Chebrikov to Andropov has never been challenged as a fake….
…As we said, we’re not the first to report this. First came the London Times’ Sebastian, way back in 1992. And just three years ago, historian Paul Kengor repeated the story in his book “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism.” …
…The whole shameful episode reflects poorly on the honesty and integrity of America’s major news outlets. It seems Kennedy read the media right — he was quite confident the Fourth Estate’s reflexive defenders of Camelot could be counted on to help. …
…Again, in the end, there’s no evidence Kennedy or Tunney ever actually helped the KGB. Just that they offered to. Yet this raises many troubling questions that, sadly, may never be answered.
Did Kennedy not understand that the Soviet Union was, indeed, a murderous evil empire? Did he really think that, between Reagan and Andropov, the Russian was the lesser of two evils?
Still more troubling, perhaps, is the question asked recently by James Kirchick at Commentary Magazine: Did a sitting senator violate the Logan Act, the 1799 law that prohibits “any citizen” of the U.S. from meddling in American foreign policy on behalf of a foreign power?
The mainstream media could have at least asked these questions. That they didn’t only adds to a long, shameful history of partisanship that has skewed the news for more than a generation — and left the nation worse off for it.
David Warren has been reluctant to write about Kennedy.
…Those who could not guess what I thought of Ted Kennedy, could not have been reading my columns. But to review, quickly, I classed him among the horrible freaks of electoral politics, an embodiment of almost everything I detest in public life, from open advocacy of “the culture of death,” and socialist tyranny, to great personal hypocrisy; sometimes nearly a traitor to his country; and certainly a traitor to his religion. …
…”But what do you really think?” I can hear my reader asking. That is what I really think, but it is not incompatible with something else I really think: that Kennedy was a great and interesting man, and not without some noble qualities; moreover, a man in some (small) degree excused by the overweening ambitions of the Kennedy family, inculcated by a rather monstrous father. His brother Robert would, had he survived, have set Ted a better example, for Robert retained a fairly stalwart Christian moral sense, and was thus less easily corrupted.
Ambition on behalf of the good should be encouraged; ambition as an end in itself should never be. But the worst kind of ambition was the sort Ted Kennedy had, in which self and cause become inextricably confused. …
John Stossel looks at the unintended, and negative, economic consequences of Cash for Clunkers.
…Let’s start at the beginning. The government paid car owners to trade in their old cars, which will be destroyed. But the government is running a deficit. So it doesn’t have $3 billion to hand out. It must borrow the money, which reduces the amount of money for other investments. Moreover, the government must raise taxes in the future to pay back the principal and interest — or the Federal Reserve will monetize the debt through inflation. Either way, we pay.
That isn’t all. Those car buyers were either going to trade in their used cars soon or they weren’t. If they were, Cash for Clunkers simply moved up the schedule. The stimulation of the auto industry occurred earlier. Big deal. But if buyers planned to keep their cars longer, the program imposed costs that are less visible. Without the government incentive to buy cars, consumers would have bought other things — computers, washing machines, televisions. The manufacturers and sellers of those products didn’t get to make those sales. Why should the auto industry get privileges at the expense of others?
Then there are the mechanics who would have serviced those used cars. They’ve lost business. Some will be laid off. Nor should we forget low-income people who depend on the used-car market for their transportation. The cheap cars they would have bought were destroyed. …
…Finally, there is something revolting about the government subsidizing the destruction of useful things. It reminds me of the New Deal policy of killing piglets and pouring milk down sewers to keep food prices from falling. …
Given the complaints of some of the left Luddites about bio-engineered crops, the fact there is plenty of diversity in available seeds is counter-intuitive. Jonathan Adler at Volokh Conspiracy has the story.
It is generally assumed that crop diversity declined dramatically during the 20th century. This trend is blamed upon market pressures and the rise of corporate agriculture, among other things. But is the underlying assumption accurate? Paul Heald and Susannah Chapman of the University of Georgia (law and anthropology, respectively) suggest we may need to rethink what we think we know about vegetable crop diversity. In a new paper, “Crop Diversity Report Card for the Twentieth Century: Diversity Bust or Diversity Boom?”, they present evidence that crop diversity has not declined meaningfully at all. …
The Wall Street Journal editorial board reports on the government-created drought in California.
…The state’s water emergency is unfolding thanks to the latest mishandling of the Endangered Species Act. Last December, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued what is known as a “biological opinion” imposing water reductions on the San Joaquin Valley and environs to safeguard the federally protected hypomesus transpacificus, a.k.a., the delta smelt. As a result, tens of billions of gallons of water from mountains east and north of Sacramento have been channelled away from farmers and into the ocean, leaving hundreds of thousands of acres of arable land fallow or scorched. …
…The result has already been devastating for the state’s farm economy. In the inland areas affected by the court-ordered water restrictions, the jobless rate has hit 14.3%, with some farming towns like Mendota seeing unemployment numbers near 40%. Statewide, the rate reached 11.6% in July, higher than it has been in 30 years. In August, 50 mayors from the San Joaquin Valley signed a letter asking President Obama to observe the impact of the draconian water rules firsthand. …
…The issue now turns to the Obama Administration and the courts, though the farmers have so far found scant hope for relief from the White House. In June, the Administration denied the governor’s request to designate California a federal disaster area as a result of the drought conditions, which U.S. Drought Monitor currently lists as a “severe drought” in 43% of the state. Doing so would force the Administration to acknowledge awkward questions about the role its own environmental policies have played in scorching the Earth. …
…The Pacific Legal Foundation has filed a lawsuit on behalf of three farmers in the valley, calling the federal regulations “immoral and unconstitutional.” Because the delta smelt is only found in California, the Foundation says, it does not fall under the regulatory powers provided by the Constitution’s Commerce Clause. On a statutory basis, the Fish and Wildlife Service also neglected to appropriately consider the economic devastation the pumping restrictions would bring. …
We close with a look at a time when we had a government that got a few things right. John Fund reviews Hayward’s The Age of Reagan.
You call this a crisis? Think back nearly 30 years ago. When Ronald Reagan took office the country’s economy was in a shambles—inflation was running into the double digits, growth had stagnated and the top marginal tax rate was 70%. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union, bristling with imperial designs and nuclear weapons, had recently invaded Afghanistan, installing a puppet regime, and Iran had ousted a pro-Western leader in favor of a fervently anti-American cleric. The White House tenure of Jimmy Carter, known for hand-wringing over ”malaise” and a botched hostage-rescue mission, had led scholars to conclude that the American presidency, as an institution, was too weak to govern in the modern world.
And then came Reagan. He faced down the Soviets, cut taxes and revived the economy. Not least, he restored confidence in the presidency itself, providing a model for his successors. One of his legacies, visible in the outlook of every successful presidential candidate since, is an optimism about the nation, echoing his statement that “people who talk about an age of limits are really talking about their own limitations, not America’s.”
In “The Age of Reagan,” Steven F. Hayward offers a splendid narrative history of Reagan’s two terms in the White House—a period (1981-89) that amounted to what he calls a “counterrevolution,” reversing so much of what had spiraled downward in the late 1970s. Along the way, he supplies a keen analysis of just how much Reagan succeeded in changing America’s self-image, often by reasserting core principles. …