Click on WORD or PDF for full content
Sunday night’s Pickings carried an item from Big Government.com about Sarkozy’s simmering dissent from Obama’s UN charade. WSJ editors give us some of the back story rooted in the way the clandestine Iranian facility was revealed.
President Obama wants a unified front against Iran, and to that end he stood together with Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown in Pittsburgh on Friday morning to reveal the news about Tehran’s secret facility to build bomb-grade fuel. But now we hear that the French and British leaders were quietly seething on stage, annoyed by America’s handling of the announcement. …
… We thought we’d never see the day when the President of France shows more resolve than America’s Commander in Chief for confronting one of the gravest challenges to global security. But here we are.
Jennifer Rubin comments on the Pittsburgh story.
… So what does this say about Obama’s search for “consensus”? It’s a very odd consensus that rejects the opinions of Britain and France (for more immediate and robust action) and waits for Russia and China to join in. This provides further evidence that the president’s favorite phrases—”multilateral action” and “international community”—exist only in the make-believe world of his own speeches. In the real world populated by actual nations with diverse interests, you can’t please them all, especially when it’s anything important. Waiting for some nations to finally agree with us is in itself off-putting to other nations who want prompt action. …
Yesterday it was Howard Fineman suggesting the kid president get off the TV. Today Richard Cohen of WaPo telling what he thinks is wrong.
… The trouble with Obama is that he gets into the moment and means what he says for that moment only. He meant what he said when he called Afghanistan a “war of necessity” — and now is not necessarily so sure. He meant what he said about the public option in his health-care plan — and then again maybe not. He would not prosecute CIA agents for getting rough with detainees — and then again maybe he would.
Most tellingly, he gave Congress an August deadline for passage of health-care legislation — “Now, if there are no deadlines, nothing gets done in this town . . . ” — and then let it pass. It seemed not to occur to Obama that a deadline comes with a consequence — meet it or else.
Obama lost credibility with his deadline-that-never-was, and now he threatens to lose some more with his posturing toward Iran. He has gotten into a demeaning dialogue with Ahmadinejad, an accomplished liar. (The next day, the Iranian used a news conference to counter Obama and, days later, Iran tested some intermediate-range missiles.) Obama is our version of a Supreme Leader, not given to making idle threats, setting idle deadlines, reversing course on momentous issues, creating a TV crisis where none existed or, unbelievably, pitching Chicago for the 2016 Olympics. Obama’s the president. Time he understood that.
More on Honduras from Michael Totten.
… Sanctions are supposed to be temporary. Targeted countries are always told what they can do to restore the status quo ante. Iran, for instance, can dismantle its nuclear-weapons program. Syria can cease and desist its support for Hamas and Hezbollah. Saddam Hussein, while he still ruled Iraq, had the option of admitting weapons inspectors.
Honduras, though, will have no way out if the interim government doesn’t return Zelaya to power before his term ends in January. Because the Honduran constitution prohibits him and every other president from serving more than one term, it won’t be legally possible for Honduras to do what’s demanded of it after the end of this year. Unlike Iraq, Iran, and Syria, it will be isolated and trapped under sanctions indefinitely. …
Mark Steyn has some advice from The Corner.
… But, if we’re talking about letting the left “set the rules”, Mr Marcus’ column reminded me of a larger point: Don’t take your opponents at face value; listen to what they’re really saying. What does the frenzy unleashed on Sarah Palin last fall tell us? What does Newsweek’s “Mad Man” cover on Glenn Beck mean? Why have ”civility” drones like Joe Klein so eagerly adopted Anderson Cooper’s scrotal “teabagging” slur and characterized as “racists” and “terrorists” what are (certainly by comparison with the anti-G20 crowd) the best behaved and tidiest street agitators in modern history?
They’re telling you who they really fear. …
… The media would like the American right to be represented by the likes of Bob Dole and John McCain, decent old sticks who know how to give dignified concession speeches. Last time round, we went along with their recommendation. If you want to get rave reviews for losing gracefully, that’s the way to go. If you want to win, look at whom the Democrats and their media chums are so frantic to destroy: That’s the better guide to what they’re really worried about.
Michael F. Cannon and Ramesh Ponnuru do some ObamaCare fact checking.
It is a good thing that other congressmen did not follow Rep. Joe Wilson’s lead. If they yelled out every time President Obama said something untrue about health care, they would quickly find themselves growing hoarse.
By our count, the president made more than 20 inaccurate claims in his speech to Congress. We have excluded several comments that are deeply misleading but not outright false. (For example: Obama pledged not to tap the Medicare trust fund to pay for reform. But there is no money in that “trust fund,” anyway, so the pledge is meaningless.) Even so, we may have missed one or more false statements by the president. Our failure to include one of his comments in the following list should not be taken to constitute an endorsement of its accuracy, let alone wisdom. …
Byron York tells us what is really important. The One is going to Denmark on an errand for Mayor Daley.
With growing pressure for decisions on life-or-death issues in Afghanistan and Iran, this morning the White House announced that President Obama will soon travel to…Copenhagen. Obama will be in Denmark for just a few hours — he leaves this Thursday and returns Friday — which is just enough time to make a pitch for Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympic Games. He’ll be following First Lady Michelle Obama, who is also going to Copenhagen as part of the promote-Chicago team. Here is the White House press release: …
Scott Johnson of Power Line posts on the NY Times missing stories. First it was Van Jones. Then ACORN.
The videos posted by James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles at Big Government exposed ACORN housing officials around the country as eager to lend a hand. They wanted to help O’Keefe and Giles set up brothels in which minors from Central America would be set up as working girls. The New York Times did its damndest to ignore the story, until the political consequences of the videos made it almost impossible.
New York Times ombudsman Clark Hoyt takes up some of the obvious issues that arise from the Times’s treatment of the exposure of ACORN. Hoyt does a good job even if his column reads like deadpan comedy. …
There’s a great movie in here somewhere. But, will it be comedy or drama? WSJ reports on the Denver attorney representing Najibullah Zazi in his terror trial.
… Veteran criminal defense attorneys have been unusually blunt in assessing Mr. Folsom’s qualifications. “Mr. Folsom is just in over his head,” said prominent Denver defense lawyer Daniel Recht, citing Mr. Folsom’s performance so far and minimal experience in federal court.
With a shrug and a drag on his cigarette, Mr. Folsom begs to differ. “I’ve been practicing criminal defense for 10 years,” he says. “This is an enormous case, but when you get down to the core principles, it’s about criminal defense.” …
Under the heading of The Law is an Ass, read this story about the state’s threats to a woman helping her neighbors.