John Holdren, Science Czar
John Holdren is the director of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, focusing on energy independence and global warming. Holdren has degrees from MIT and Stanford and won the unanimous approval in the Senate to be the president's chief science adviser, but some of his controversial early writings may have escaped the senators' notice.
'Ultimately' Human
"The fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being," Holdren wrote in "Human Ecology," a 1973 textbook he co-authored with environmental activists Paul and Anne Ehrlich.
The Secret Rights of Trees
Holdren heralded a "tightly reasoned essay" by law professor Christopher Stone, who said, "I am quite seriously proposing that we give legal rights to forests, oceans, rivers and other so-called 'natural objects' in the environment -- indeed, to the natural environment as a whole." Holdren, writing in 1977's "Ecoscience," which was also co-authored with Paul and Anne Ehrlich, said the change would have "a most salubrious effect on the quality of the environment."
Forced Abortions
Holdren wrote that "it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society."
In a future society, "It would even be possible to require pregnant single women to marry or have abortions, perhaps as an alternative to placement for adoption, depending on the society," Holdren and his co-authors wrote.
A Planetary Regime
To help achieve their goals, Holdren and the Ehrlichs formulated a "world government scheme" they called the Planetary Regime, which would administer the world's resources and human growth. They also discussed the development of an "armed international organization, a global analogue of a police force" to which nations would surrender part of their sovereignty.
Sterilizing Chemicals in Water and Food
"Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems," Holdren wrote in "Ecoscience."
"To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock."
Seeding the Skies
Holdren told the Associated Press in April that the U.S. will consider all options to stop global warming -- including an experimental scheme to shoot pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun's rays and cool the earth, a last resort he hoped could be averted.
"We don't have the luxury of taking any approach off the table," he said, because global warming poses a threat akin to being "in a car with bad brakes driving toward a cliff in the fog."
Sterilizing Capsules
Another "coercive fertility control" program floated by Holdren involved "the development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired ... The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births."
Mass Die-Off
During his confirmation hearing, Holdren was asked to clear up his 1986 prediction that global warming was going to kill about 1 billion people by 2020. "It is a possibility, and one we should work energetically to avoid," Holdren said, under pressure from Sen. David Vitter, R-La.
De-Development
In 1973, Holdren and the Ehrlichs argued in "Human Ecology" that "a massive campaign must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States."
Later in the '70s, as first reported by CNSNews.com., he explained in "Ecoscience" that he meant a reduction in everything from nuclear arms and pesticides to giant automobiles and plastic wrappings.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Friday, August 14, 2009
Obama and health care
Obama's Forfeited Credibility Sabotaging Obamacare
by David Limbaugh
President Barack Obama apparently came to believe the myth of his messiahship and has accordingly abused and squandered his good will and political capital and possibly self-sabotaged his socialized medicine scheme.
Of all the newsworthy aspects of this desperate "reform" effort, none is more so than the robust democratic processes it has reinvigorated in this nation. While Democrats insist the nationwide grass-roots movement against his Draconian measure is contrived and illusory, it is just the opposite.
Nothing could be so real as the American people, emboldened by their passion for liberty, standing up against a callous, dishonest government trolling for its freedoms in exchange for false promises.
All the proof we need that Obama and Democrats recognize the authenticity of this grass-roots protest is their hysterical reaction to it. They wouldn't be hyperventilating about it if they believed it to be fake, but would use their super-majorities to ram through this bill.
Indeed, that congressmen have not been able or courageous enough (against the threat of being removed from office in 2010) to pass this bill is the story of the year. Integral to that story is the unraveling of the Obama mystique, occasioned by Obama's ongoing arrogance and duplicity, most recently on the Obamacare issue.
Let's just look at some of the myriad ways Obama has betrayed the enormous trust bestowed upon him -- on the health care issue alone.
Obama has said he just wants a dialogue with the American people on health care. Sorry, but there are just so many times a person can say the exact opposite of what he means and retain a shred of credibility. While saying he wants this dialogue, he's also telling his opponents to shut up -- literally. Even more revealing, he was adamant that this bill be passed before the August recess -- a bill whose provisions he admitted or pretended he was not familiar with. How could there have been a dialogue if he had already made up his mind and if the deadline he had artificially imposed could not possibly have allowed a dialogue?
Obama has said his opponents were trying to "scare and mislead the American people," when in fact his opponents are the American people whom he is trying to scare and mislead.
Obama misleads us concerning the public option, saying people can keep their private plans if they prefer. Yet the House bill, which he was urging be passed before the August recess, effectively would coerce employers, through punitive and positive incentives, to dump their private plans in favor of the public option. Most Americans have employer-provided health insurance, so a wholesale exodus to the public option would be inevitable -- and intended. In fact, the bill would prevent those who lose private coverage from reacquiring it, except plans conforming to a slew of new mandated regulations, which eventually would drive such plans out of existence. Obama's propagandette, Linda Douglass, falsely denied that Obama said he supports the public option, but he's on tape.
Obama misleads us in his inartful attempt to analogize the postal industry with his health plan, saying privately run FedEx and UPS have fared well against the government-run Postal Service. He fails to tell us how different the public/private competitive environment would be under his health care plan with the deck stacked -- by law -- against the survival of private insurers and private care.
Obama misleads us by denying that bureaucrats would "meddle" in our health care decisions or with the doctor-patient relationship. Yet in almost the same breath, he boasts that he would bundle payments to doctors based on the quality, not the quantity, of the services they provide -- such quality to be determined by his bureaucratic boards. The House bill is replete with provisions conferring such decisions on government bureaucrats.
Obama misleads us when he and his minions cavalierly dismiss the public's genuine concern about the government, under his plan, insinuating itself into end-of-life decisions. Instead of responding to provisions of the bill legitimately generating such concerns, he puts words into our mouths, saying we claim that the bill would require "euthanasia." Even some of Obama's state-run media fact checkers suggested that Reps. Thaddeus McCotter and John Boehner made that claim. In fact, they said provisions of the bill "could create ... a more permissive environment for euthanasia ... and physician-assisted suicide." Someone needs to check the fact checkers.
Of course there are legitimate concerns here, and it insults our intelligence to suggest otherwise. The bill would immediately impose a monumental conflict of interest on government bureaucrats by tasking them to cut costs drastically while simultaneously empowering them to "counsel" people about their end-of-life (and other) medical care. Such a conflict of interest -- over life and death itself -- is unconscionable and unthinkable in the United States of America.
The "messiah" has lost his mojo -- by betraying his unearned trust with the people.
by David Limbaugh
President Barack Obama apparently came to believe the myth of his messiahship and has accordingly abused and squandered his good will and political capital and possibly self-sabotaged his socialized medicine scheme.
Of all the newsworthy aspects of this desperate "reform" effort, none is more so than the robust democratic processes it has reinvigorated in this nation. While Democrats insist the nationwide grass-roots movement against his Draconian measure is contrived and illusory, it is just the opposite.
Nothing could be so real as the American people, emboldened by their passion for liberty, standing up against a callous, dishonest government trolling for its freedoms in exchange for false promises.
All the proof we need that Obama and Democrats recognize the authenticity of this grass-roots protest is their hysterical reaction to it. They wouldn't be hyperventilating about it if they believed it to be fake, but would use their super-majorities to ram through this bill.
Indeed, that congressmen have not been able or courageous enough (against the threat of being removed from office in 2010) to pass this bill is the story of the year. Integral to that story is the unraveling of the Obama mystique, occasioned by Obama's ongoing arrogance and duplicity, most recently on the Obamacare issue.
Let's just look at some of the myriad ways Obama has betrayed the enormous trust bestowed upon him -- on the health care issue alone.
Obama has said he just wants a dialogue with the American people on health care. Sorry, but there are just so many times a person can say the exact opposite of what he means and retain a shred of credibility. While saying he wants this dialogue, he's also telling his opponents to shut up -- literally. Even more revealing, he was adamant that this bill be passed before the August recess -- a bill whose provisions he admitted or pretended he was not familiar with. How could there have been a dialogue if he had already made up his mind and if the deadline he had artificially imposed could not possibly have allowed a dialogue?
Obama has said his opponents were trying to "scare and mislead the American people," when in fact his opponents are the American people whom he is trying to scare and mislead.
Obama misleads us concerning the public option, saying people can keep their private plans if they prefer. Yet the House bill, which he was urging be passed before the August recess, effectively would coerce employers, through punitive and positive incentives, to dump their private plans in favor of the public option. Most Americans have employer-provided health insurance, so a wholesale exodus to the public option would be inevitable -- and intended. In fact, the bill would prevent those who lose private coverage from reacquiring it, except plans conforming to a slew of new mandated regulations, which eventually would drive such plans out of existence. Obama's propagandette, Linda Douglass, falsely denied that Obama said he supports the public option, but he's on tape.
Obama misleads us in his inartful attempt to analogize the postal industry with his health plan, saying privately run FedEx and UPS have fared well against the government-run Postal Service. He fails to tell us how different the public/private competitive environment would be under his health care plan with the deck stacked -- by law -- against the survival of private insurers and private care.
Obama misleads us by denying that bureaucrats would "meddle" in our health care decisions or with the doctor-patient relationship. Yet in almost the same breath, he boasts that he would bundle payments to doctors based on the quality, not the quantity, of the services they provide -- such quality to be determined by his bureaucratic boards. The House bill is replete with provisions conferring such decisions on government bureaucrats.
Obama misleads us when he and his minions cavalierly dismiss the public's genuine concern about the government, under his plan, insinuating itself into end-of-life decisions. Instead of responding to provisions of the bill legitimately generating such concerns, he puts words into our mouths, saying we claim that the bill would require "euthanasia." Even some of Obama's state-run media fact checkers suggested that Reps. Thaddeus McCotter and John Boehner made that claim. In fact, they said provisions of the bill "could create ... a more permissive environment for euthanasia ... and physician-assisted suicide." Someone needs to check the fact checkers.
Of course there are legitimate concerns here, and it insults our intelligence to suggest otherwise. The bill would immediately impose a monumental conflict of interest on government bureaucrats by tasking them to cut costs drastically while simultaneously empowering them to "counsel" people about their end-of-life (and other) medical care. Such a conflict of interest -- over life and death itself -- is unconscionable and unthinkable in the United States of America.
The "messiah" has lost his mojo -- by betraying his unearned trust with the people.
The preventive care myth
The "Preventive Care" Myth
by Charles Krauthammer
WASHINGTON -- In the 48 hours of June 15-16, President Obama lost the health care debate. First, a letter from the Congressional Budget Office to Sen. Edward Kennedy reported that his health committee's reform bill would add $1 trillion in debt over the next decade. Then the CBO reported that the other Senate bill, being written by the Finance Committee, would add $1.6 trillion. The central contradiction of Obamacare was fatally exposed: From his first address to Congress, Obama insisted on the dire need for restructuring the health care system because out-of-control costs were bankrupting the Treasury and wrecking the U.S. economy -- yet the Democrats' plans would make the problem worse.
Accordingly, Democrats have trotted out various tax proposals to close the gap. Obama's idea of limits on charitable and mortgage-interest deductions went nowhere. As did the House's income tax surcharge on millionaires. And Obama dare not tax employer-provided health insurance because of his campaign pledge of no middle-class tax hikes.
Desperation time. What do you do? Sprinkle fairy dust on every health care plan, and present your deus ex machina: prevention.
Free mammograms and diabetes tests and checkups for all, promise Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, writing in USA Today. Prevention, they assure us, will not just make us healthier, it also "will save money."
Obama followed suit in his Tuesday New Hampshire town hall, touting prevention as amazingly dual-purpose: "It saves lives. It also saves money."
Reform proponents repeat this like a mantra. Because it seems so intuitive, it has become conventional wisdom. But like most conventional wisdom, it is wrong. Overall, preventive care increases medical costs.
This inconvenient truth comes, once again, from the CBO. In an Aug. 7 letter to Rep. Nathan Deal, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf writes: "Researchers who have examined the effects of preventive care generally find that the added costs of widespread use of preventive services tend to exceed the savings from averted illness."
How can that be? If you prevent somebody from getting a heart attack, aren't you necessarily saving money? The fallacy here is confusing the individual with society. For the individual, catching something early generally reduces later spending for that condition. But, explains Elmendorf, we don't know in advance which patients are going to develop costly illnesses. To avert one case, "it is usually necessary to provide preventive care to many patients, most of whom would not have suffered that illness anyway." And this costs society money that would not have been spent otherwise.
Think of it this way. Assume that a screening test for disease X costs $500 and finding it early averts $10,000 of costly treatment at a later stage. Are you saving money? Well, if one in 10 of those who are screened tests positive, society is saving $5,000. But if only one in 100 would get that disease, society is shelling out $40,000 more than it would without the preventive care.
That's a hypothetical case. What's the real-life actuality in the United States today? A study in the journal Circulation found that for cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, "if all the recommended prevention activities were applied with 100 percent success," the prevention would cost almost 10 times as much as the savings, increasing the country's total medical bill by 162 percent. Elmendorf additionally cites a definitive assessment in the New England Journal of Medicine that reviewed hundreds of studies on preventive care and found that more than 80 percent of preventive measures added to medical costs.
This doesn't mean we shouldn't be preventing illness. Of course we should. But in medicine, as in life, there is no free lunch. The idea that prevention is somehow intrinsically economically different from treatment -- that treatment increases costs and prevention lowers them -- is simply nonsense.
Prevention is a wondrous good, but in the aggregate it costs society money. Nothing wrong with that. That's the whole premise of medicine: Treating a heart attack or setting a broken leg also costs society. But we do it because it alleviates human suffering. Preventing a heart attack with statins or breast cancer with mammograms is costly. But we do it because it reduces human suffering.
However, prevention is not, as so widely advertised, healing on the cheap. It is not the magic bullet for health care costs.
You will hear some variation of that claim a hundred times in the coming health care debate. Whenever you do, remember: It's nonsense -- empirically demonstrable and CBO-certified.
by Charles Krauthammer
WASHINGTON -- In the 48 hours of June 15-16, President Obama lost the health care debate. First, a letter from the Congressional Budget Office to Sen. Edward Kennedy reported that his health committee's reform bill would add $1 trillion in debt over the next decade. Then the CBO reported that the other Senate bill, being written by the Finance Committee, would add $1.6 trillion. The central contradiction of Obamacare was fatally exposed: From his first address to Congress, Obama insisted on the dire need for restructuring the health care system because out-of-control costs were bankrupting the Treasury and wrecking the U.S. economy -- yet the Democrats' plans would make the problem worse.
Accordingly, Democrats have trotted out various tax proposals to close the gap. Obama's idea of limits on charitable and mortgage-interest deductions went nowhere. As did the House's income tax surcharge on millionaires. And Obama dare not tax employer-provided health insurance because of his campaign pledge of no middle-class tax hikes.
Desperation time. What do you do? Sprinkle fairy dust on every health care plan, and present your deus ex machina: prevention.
Free mammograms and diabetes tests and checkups for all, promise Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, writing in USA Today. Prevention, they assure us, will not just make us healthier, it also "will save money."
Obama followed suit in his Tuesday New Hampshire town hall, touting prevention as amazingly dual-purpose: "It saves lives. It also saves money."
Reform proponents repeat this like a mantra. Because it seems so intuitive, it has become conventional wisdom. But like most conventional wisdom, it is wrong. Overall, preventive care increases medical costs.
This inconvenient truth comes, once again, from the CBO. In an Aug. 7 letter to Rep. Nathan Deal, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf writes: "Researchers who have examined the effects of preventive care generally find that the added costs of widespread use of preventive services tend to exceed the savings from averted illness."
How can that be? If you prevent somebody from getting a heart attack, aren't you necessarily saving money? The fallacy here is confusing the individual with society. For the individual, catching something early generally reduces later spending for that condition. But, explains Elmendorf, we don't know in advance which patients are going to develop costly illnesses. To avert one case, "it is usually necessary to provide preventive care to many patients, most of whom would not have suffered that illness anyway." And this costs society money that would not have been spent otherwise.
Think of it this way. Assume that a screening test for disease X costs $500 and finding it early averts $10,000 of costly treatment at a later stage. Are you saving money? Well, if one in 10 of those who are screened tests positive, society is saving $5,000. But if only one in 100 would get that disease, society is shelling out $40,000 more than it would without the preventive care.
That's a hypothetical case. What's the real-life actuality in the United States today? A study in the journal Circulation found that for cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, "if all the recommended prevention activities were applied with 100 percent success," the prevention would cost almost 10 times as much as the savings, increasing the country's total medical bill by 162 percent. Elmendorf additionally cites a definitive assessment in the New England Journal of Medicine that reviewed hundreds of studies on preventive care and found that more than 80 percent of preventive measures added to medical costs.
This doesn't mean we shouldn't be preventing illness. Of course we should. But in medicine, as in life, there is no free lunch. The idea that prevention is somehow intrinsically economically different from treatment -- that treatment increases costs and prevention lowers them -- is simply nonsense.
Prevention is a wondrous good, but in the aggregate it costs society money. Nothing wrong with that. That's the whole premise of medicine: Treating a heart attack or setting a broken leg also costs society. But we do it because it alleviates human suffering. Preventing a heart attack with statins or breast cancer with mammograms is costly. But we do it because it reduces human suffering.
However, prevention is not, as so widely advertised, healing on the cheap. It is not the magic bullet for health care costs.
You will hear some variation of that claim a hundred times in the coming health care debate. Whenever you do, remember: It's nonsense -- empirically demonstrable and CBO-certified.
Hillary in a time out...
Hillary Needs a Time-Out
by Rich Galen
During the primary season last year, Hillary Clinton claimed she was more qualified than Barack Obama to be President of the United States because of the skills and knowledge of international affairs she had gained at the side of Bill Clinton.
I know there's a domestic affairs joke in there, but I'm passing on it because I want to make my point.
We have discussed previously that the Hillary camp made a deal with the Barack camp that they would not blow up the Democratic National Convention if Hillary were to be appointed Secretary of State.
Obama's other choice for Secretary of State was soon-to-be-convicted-felon and current New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, so he took the deal.
Hillary Clinton is a dreadful Secretary of State.
In May, Clinton announced that the Iranians were building a huge "mega-embassy" in Nicaragua. Why? "You can only imagine what that's for," she said.
The operative word there was "imagine" because that's apparently what America's chief diplomat was doing about the Iranian embassy. The other answer is that the Iranians have, while they have been developing their nuclear bomb technology, the ability to build an invisible embassy.
Could happen.
According to that front for Right-Wing interests, the Washington Post,
Nicaraguan reporters scoured the sprawling tropical city in search of the embassy construction site. Nothing. Nicaraguan Chamber of Commerce chief Ernesto Porta laughed and said: "It doesn't exist." Government officials say the U.S. Embassy complex is the only "mega-embassy" in Managua. A U.S. diplomat in Managua conceded: "There is no huge Iranian Embassy being built as far as we can tell."
Oops. Musta been George W. Bush's fault.
More recently you have seen the footage of Hillary - looking like Jabba the Hutt in a light blue outfit - lashing out at a student during a - dare we say it - town hall meeting in Kinshasa, Congo who had asked about what President Clinton thought about the Chinese moving in and taking over the heavy construction biz.
Hillary flashed and said,
"Wait, you want me to tell you what my husband thinks? My husband is not secretary of state, I am. If you want my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channeling my husband.''
Yikes! Could it be that Barack Obama and Bill Clinton made the deal for Bill to go to North Korea before anyone mentioned it to the Secretary of State who, as we now know beyond any doubt, is Hillary Clinton and she was feeling a little left out, once again, of the boy's club?
Over the ensuing days it was explained that it was the mistake of a nervous student mis-speaking Mr. Clinton when he meant to say "Mr. Obama." Then it was the mistake of a nervous translator. Or, and I think this is the real answer, it was George W. Bush's fault.
Hillary's latest example of why she should be fired came the other day when she suggested that the 2000 election was stolen.
"You know we've had all kinds of problems in some of our past elections, as you might remember. In 2000, our presidential election came down to one state where the brother of the man running for president was the governor of the state, so we have our problems, too."
Put aside the fact that major news organizations, desperate to claim that Al Gore should have been elected, hired a major auditing firm to recount the recount and found that, no matter which set of rules they used, Gore still lost. Hillary probably hadn't read about because it wasn't widely reported.
This, in Hillary's mind, was not George W. Bush's fault. It was Jeb Bush's fault.
But, to be in a place like Nigeria and hold America's democratic process up to scorn is an outrage.
If Hillary were a Republican in a Republican Administration there would be howls of outrage from the press corps demanding to know if the Republican President stood behind what was dribbling out of the mouth of his Republican Secretary of State.
But … nooooooo. Barack Obama takes responsibility for nothing and is asked to take responsibility for even less.
Obama should cut his losses. If he can't fire Hillary, he should bring her home and give her a time out.
by Rich Galen
During the primary season last year, Hillary Clinton claimed she was more qualified than Barack Obama to be President of the United States because of the skills and knowledge of international affairs she had gained at the side of Bill Clinton.
I know there's a domestic affairs joke in there, but I'm passing on it because I want to make my point.
We have discussed previously that the Hillary camp made a deal with the Barack camp that they would not blow up the Democratic National Convention if Hillary were to be appointed Secretary of State.
Obama's other choice for Secretary of State was soon-to-be-convicted-felon and current New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, so he took the deal.
Hillary Clinton is a dreadful Secretary of State.
In May, Clinton announced that the Iranians were building a huge "mega-embassy" in Nicaragua. Why? "You can only imagine what that's for," she said.
The operative word there was "imagine" because that's apparently what America's chief diplomat was doing about the Iranian embassy. The other answer is that the Iranians have, while they have been developing their nuclear bomb technology, the ability to build an invisible embassy.
Could happen.
According to that front for Right-Wing interests, the Washington Post,
Nicaraguan reporters scoured the sprawling tropical city in search of the embassy construction site. Nothing. Nicaraguan Chamber of Commerce chief Ernesto Porta laughed and said: "It doesn't exist." Government officials say the U.S. Embassy complex is the only "mega-embassy" in Managua. A U.S. diplomat in Managua conceded: "There is no huge Iranian Embassy being built as far as we can tell."
Oops. Musta been George W. Bush's fault.
More recently you have seen the footage of Hillary - looking like Jabba the Hutt in a light blue outfit - lashing out at a student during a - dare we say it - town hall meeting in Kinshasa, Congo who had asked about what President Clinton thought about the Chinese moving in and taking over the heavy construction biz.
Hillary flashed and said,
"Wait, you want me to tell you what my husband thinks? My husband is not secretary of state, I am. If you want my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channeling my husband.''
Yikes! Could it be that Barack Obama and Bill Clinton made the deal for Bill to go to North Korea before anyone mentioned it to the Secretary of State who, as we now know beyond any doubt, is Hillary Clinton and she was feeling a little left out, once again, of the boy's club?
Over the ensuing days it was explained that it was the mistake of a nervous student mis-speaking Mr. Clinton when he meant to say "Mr. Obama." Then it was the mistake of a nervous translator. Or, and I think this is the real answer, it was George W. Bush's fault.
Hillary's latest example of why she should be fired came the other day when she suggested that the 2000 election was stolen.
"You know we've had all kinds of problems in some of our past elections, as you might remember. In 2000, our presidential election came down to one state where the brother of the man running for president was the governor of the state, so we have our problems, too."
Put aside the fact that major news organizations, desperate to claim that Al Gore should have been elected, hired a major auditing firm to recount the recount and found that, no matter which set of rules they used, Gore still lost. Hillary probably hadn't read about because it wasn't widely reported.
This, in Hillary's mind, was not George W. Bush's fault. It was Jeb Bush's fault.
But, to be in a place like Nigeria and hold America's democratic process up to scorn is an outrage.
If Hillary were a Republican in a Republican Administration there would be howls of outrage from the press corps demanding to know if the Republican President stood behind what was dribbling out of the mouth of his Republican Secretary of State.
But … nooooooo. Barack Obama takes responsibility for nothing and is asked to take responsibility for even less.
Obama should cut his losses. If he can't fire Hillary, he should bring her home and give her a time out.
national defense
Obama’s Money Mantra Hurts National Defense
by Arne Owens
Earlier this year, President Barack Obama sent his Administration’s 2010 budget priorities to the Congress. What it revealed was shocking, even if it should not have been surprising, with trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, even before healthcare reform spending is counted. The only significant cuts were in future defense spending, even as American forces are fully engaged in fighting two wars and the world appears as dangerous as it ever was.
The White House’s budget submission called for ending production of the Air Force F-22 Raptor, a replacement for the 40-year old F-15 Eagle air-superiority fighter. Congressional calls for restoring F-22 funding were soon followed by President Obama’s first and only veto threat to date. The veto threat means the F-22 program is effectively cancelled, and the Air Force’s ability to suppress enemy air defenses and establish air supremacy over future battlefields has been degraded.
The Administration also proposed cutting production of the Navy’s top fighter aircraft, the F-18 Super Hornet, which will result in a shortfall of at least 200 aircraft – probably 300 – that are sorely needed to modernize the Navy’s carrier air wings.
Also applying the cutting knife to the Army, the White House is canceling the Future Combat System Manned Ground Vehicles, the high-tech replacements for M1 Abrams tanks and M2 Bradley Infantry fighting vehicles, designed in the 1970s.
Finally, Obama Administration has taken a pass on building the Air Force’s next-generation mid-air re-fueling tanker. With the oldest KC-135 aerial refueling tankers entering a sixth decade of service and the newest, the KC-10, in the air for 30 years, our ability to maintain global air dominance well into the future is at increased risk.
Most disconcerting, however, is the White House plan to cut missile defense spending by $1.4 billion. At a time when North Korea is developing a nuclear weapons capability and testing launch vehicles of increasing range to deliver warheads capable of reaching U.S. territory, cutting spending on missile defense is downright dangerous. And North Korea is not the only threat. The mid-term threat from Iran remains real after witnessing their recent launch of a domestically produced missile with a 1,200-mile range. Only a credible missile-defense shield will convince North Korea and Iran of the futility of their quest for advanced ballistic missile technology, or, worst case, deter them from using such weapons if they are successfully developed.
Let us hope that the Administration isn’t simply saving money to fund future “cash for clunkers” and the other massive government giveaways at the expense of national defense. But recent history is not reassuring. Less than 12% of recent stimulus bill funding is truly stimulative, with the remainder consisting largely of programmatic handouts to various Democratic constituencies demanding government services. Priorities in the 2010 budget continue the trend, and the implication for future budgets is more of the same. Given this realignment of funding priorities from the previous Administration, especially cuts in key defense programs, it is difficult to imagine any result other than a decline in the readiness of our military.
Defending the nation in the years ahead requires actually funding weapons programs and systems that our military can use to do the defending. Congressional action to fund the replacement of aging aircraft and ground combat vehicles in the 2010 defense appropriations bill is essential. It will also create thousands of American jobs, a seeming no-brainer, given the ongoing recession. Spending taxpayer money wisely while funding the necessary tools of national security makes America more secure while also contributing to a vibrant 21st century economy.
by Arne Owens
Earlier this year, President Barack Obama sent his Administration’s 2010 budget priorities to the Congress. What it revealed was shocking, even if it should not have been surprising, with trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, even before healthcare reform spending is counted. The only significant cuts were in future defense spending, even as American forces are fully engaged in fighting two wars and the world appears as dangerous as it ever was.
The White House’s budget submission called for ending production of the Air Force F-22 Raptor, a replacement for the 40-year old F-15 Eagle air-superiority fighter. Congressional calls for restoring F-22 funding were soon followed by President Obama’s first and only veto threat to date. The veto threat means the F-22 program is effectively cancelled, and the Air Force’s ability to suppress enemy air defenses and establish air supremacy over future battlefields has been degraded.
The Administration also proposed cutting production of the Navy’s top fighter aircraft, the F-18 Super Hornet, which will result in a shortfall of at least 200 aircraft – probably 300 – that are sorely needed to modernize the Navy’s carrier air wings.
Also applying the cutting knife to the Army, the White House is canceling the Future Combat System Manned Ground Vehicles, the high-tech replacements for M1 Abrams tanks and M2 Bradley Infantry fighting vehicles, designed in the 1970s.
Finally, Obama Administration has taken a pass on building the Air Force’s next-generation mid-air re-fueling tanker. With the oldest KC-135 aerial refueling tankers entering a sixth decade of service and the newest, the KC-10, in the air for 30 years, our ability to maintain global air dominance well into the future is at increased risk.
Most disconcerting, however, is the White House plan to cut missile defense spending by $1.4 billion. At a time when North Korea is developing a nuclear weapons capability and testing launch vehicles of increasing range to deliver warheads capable of reaching U.S. territory, cutting spending on missile defense is downright dangerous. And North Korea is not the only threat. The mid-term threat from Iran remains real after witnessing their recent launch of a domestically produced missile with a 1,200-mile range. Only a credible missile-defense shield will convince North Korea and Iran of the futility of their quest for advanced ballistic missile technology, or, worst case, deter them from using such weapons if they are successfully developed.
Let us hope that the Administration isn’t simply saving money to fund future “cash for clunkers” and the other massive government giveaways at the expense of national defense. But recent history is not reassuring. Less than 12% of recent stimulus bill funding is truly stimulative, with the remainder consisting largely of programmatic handouts to various Democratic constituencies demanding government services. Priorities in the 2010 budget continue the trend, and the implication for future budgets is more of the same. Given this realignment of funding priorities from the previous Administration, especially cuts in key defense programs, it is difficult to imagine any result other than a decline in the readiness of our military.
Defending the nation in the years ahead requires actually funding weapons programs and systems that our military can use to do the defending. Congressional action to fund the replacement of aging aircraft and ground combat vehicles in the 2010 defense appropriations bill is essential. It will also create thousands of American jobs, a seeming no-brainer, given the ongoing recession. Spending taxpayer money wisely while funding the necessary tools of national security makes America more secure while also contributing to a vibrant 21st century economy.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Obama's red pill
Take the red pill, Mr. President
By: David FreddosoCommentary Staff Writer07/23/09 6:56 AM EDT
President Barack Obama responds to questions during a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, July 22, 2009. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)
"If there's a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half price for the thing that's going to make you well?" -- President ObamaIn last night's press conference, President Obama seemed to be reliving that famous scene from The Matrix. The main character is offered a choice between a red pill that makes him see reality for what it is, and a blue pill that allows him to continue living in a pleasant world of illusions. Last night, President Obama appeared to have taken the blue pill before his press conference. How else could he convince himself, the Congressional Budget Office's numbers notwithstanding, that his health care reform bill will not increase both health care costs and the federal deficit? How else can he continue to make the argument that a massive expansion of government spending on health care will solve rather than exacerbate the current problems? How can he repeatedly express such absolute certainty that such a measure will easily pay for itself several times over in the long run? Why can he not at least acknowledge the possibility that it will become a costly and useless trillion-dollar boondoggle that follows in the footsteps of his stimulus package? With his example of the red and blue pills, and another about whether a child's hypothetical tonsils should be removed, President Obama unwittingly presents the real problem with his plan for reform. Here is a well-meaning government official who so fails to grasp the problem in health care that he can present such absurd oversimplifications and suggest that this sort of thing is the real problem -- doctors simply lack the common sense to make obvious medical decisions. President Obama wants us to solve this problem by putting himself and other government officials in charge of rescuing medicine from the medical profession. If medical doctors with a decade of schooling cannot distinguish between good cures and ineffective ones that must be discontinued, then by gosh, we're lucky that the good folks from the government can.
President Obama thus frames the issue as a false choice between doing nothing at all and handing over to Washington complicated, case-by-case medical decisions that cannot possibly be legislated or dictated by government.
This transfer of medical authority to the bureaucracy is intended to curb costs. Unfortunately, there is exactly one thing that government can do to control costs in health care: it can insist on paying below cost. This shifts the cost burden to private insurance companies, which in turn pass along higher premiums to their patients. This is what government-run Medicare does today for many treatments, including cancer. Government will do more of this kind of "saving" when it assumes greater responsibility for funding citizens' health care, particularly if a government-option health care plan is established. The Mayo Clinic which President Obama praised in his speech last night is the same Mayo Clinic whose president signed onto a letter to Congress yesterday, expressing fears that a government-option health care plan Obama wants to establish will do more of this cost-shifting. The letter states:
Under the current Medicare system, a majority of doctors and hospitals that care for Medicare patients are paid substantially less than it costs to treat them. Many providers are therefore already approaching a point where they can not afford to see Medicare patients. Expansion of a Medicare-type plan without a method to define, measure, and pay for healthy outcomes for patients will move many doctors and hospitals across this threshold, and ultimately hurt the patients who seek our care. We should not put more Americans into the current unsustainable system.
President Obama brushed off this concern last night near the end of his press conference, citing a hopeful but very vague blog post on Mayo's website that went up a day before the letter was sent. In addition to ignoring budgetary and medical concerns, he repeated his dubious promise that his plan will not force millions of Americans out of health insurance plans they already have and like. He had no comforting words to convince anyone of the wisdom of creating two new taxes on employers -- one of them a tax that punishes small businesses with a higher tax rate if they create more jobs -- in the middle of a recession.The one thing President Obama did not do last night was address directly any of the concerns that Americans have about his pending reform proposals. With this sort of rhetorical detachment from reality, it is not surprising that public support for his vision of health care reform is gradually eroding.
President Obama needs to take the red pill, even if it does cost twice as much.
By: David FreddosoCommentary Staff Writer07/23/09 6:56 AM EDT
President Barack Obama responds to questions during a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, July 22, 2009. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)
"If there's a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half price for the thing that's going to make you well?" -- President ObamaIn last night's press conference, President Obama seemed to be reliving that famous scene from The Matrix. The main character is offered a choice between a red pill that makes him see reality for what it is, and a blue pill that allows him to continue living in a pleasant world of illusions. Last night, President Obama appeared to have taken the blue pill before his press conference. How else could he convince himself, the Congressional Budget Office's numbers notwithstanding, that his health care reform bill will not increase both health care costs and the federal deficit? How else can he continue to make the argument that a massive expansion of government spending on health care will solve rather than exacerbate the current problems? How can he repeatedly express such absolute certainty that such a measure will easily pay for itself several times over in the long run? Why can he not at least acknowledge the possibility that it will become a costly and useless trillion-dollar boondoggle that follows in the footsteps of his stimulus package? With his example of the red and blue pills, and another about whether a child's hypothetical tonsils should be removed, President Obama unwittingly presents the real problem with his plan for reform. Here is a well-meaning government official who so fails to grasp the problem in health care that he can present such absurd oversimplifications and suggest that this sort of thing is the real problem -- doctors simply lack the common sense to make obvious medical decisions. President Obama wants us to solve this problem by putting himself and other government officials in charge of rescuing medicine from the medical profession. If medical doctors with a decade of schooling cannot distinguish between good cures and ineffective ones that must be discontinued, then by gosh, we're lucky that the good folks from the government can.
President Obama thus frames the issue as a false choice between doing nothing at all and handing over to Washington complicated, case-by-case medical decisions that cannot possibly be legislated or dictated by government.
This transfer of medical authority to the bureaucracy is intended to curb costs. Unfortunately, there is exactly one thing that government can do to control costs in health care: it can insist on paying below cost. This shifts the cost burden to private insurance companies, which in turn pass along higher premiums to their patients. This is what government-run Medicare does today for many treatments, including cancer. Government will do more of this kind of "saving" when it assumes greater responsibility for funding citizens' health care, particularly if a government-option health care plan is established. The Mayo Clinic which President Obama praised in his speech last night is the same Mayo Clinic whose president signed onto a letter to Congress yesterday, expressing fears that a government-option health care plan Obama wants to establish will do more of this cost-shifting. The letter states:
Under the current Medicare system, a majority of doctors and hospitals that care for Medicare patients are paid substantially less than it costs to treat them. Many providers are therefore already approaching a point where they can not afford to see Medicare patients. Expansion of a Medicare-type plan without a method to define, measure, and pay for healthy outcomes for patients will move many doctors and hospitals across this threshold, and ultimately hurt the patients who seek our care. We should not put more Americans into the current unsustainable system.
President Obama brushed off this concern last night near the end of his press conference, citing a hopeful but very vague blog post on Mayo's website that went up a day before the letter was sent. In addition to ignoring budgetary and medical concerns, he repeated his dubious promise that his plan will not force millions of Americans out of health insurance plans they already have and like. He had no comforting words to convince anyone of the wisdom of creating two new taxes on employers -- one of them a tax that punishes small businesses with a higher tax rate if they create more jobs -- in the middle of a recession.The one thing President Obama did not do last night was address directly any of the concerns that Americans have about his pending reform proposals. With this sort of rhetorical detachment from reality, it is not surprising that public support for his vision of health care reform is gradually eroding.
President Obama needs to take the red pill, even if it does cost twice as much.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Obama against freedom
Obama Turns On Freedom Around the Globe
by Bob McEwen
For more than twenty years American foreign policy has been guided by a freedom agenda: the notion that our security interests are best protected by advancing the cause of freedom around the world. Ronald Reagan championed it when he won the cold war, George H.W. Bush when he fought the first gulf war, and Bill Clinton when he committed America to defending human rights in the Balkans. Now, here comes President Barack Obama. who has effectively turned America’s back on the cause of freedom around the globe.
Right now, freedom hangs in the balance in Honduras. President Manuel Zelaya has been sent packing because of his attempted power grab and efforts to subvert the constitution. The Honduran constitution limits him to just one 4-year term. (This restriction is seen as so important that in Honduras even the Honduran congress and the President acting together cannot discard it.) Nevertheless, this Hugo Chavez wannabe began an unconstitutional and illegal referendum that would allow him to rule indefinitely. The Honduran Supreme Court, Attorney General, and Congress, however, all proceeded to follow their constitution. Accordingly, he was expelled and replaced by the proper successor of his own political party. Evidence now reveals the extent that Zelaya has been supported in his power grab by Chavez of Venezuela and neighboring Nicaragua who are placing hundreds of supporters into Honduras to foment trouble.
What has been President Obama’s response? On which side does the United States now stand? Mr. Obama has sided with Zelaya, even echoing his words that the Honduran effort to faithfully follow their constitution amounts to “a coup.” The Obama Administration even co-sponsored a resolution in the United Nations condemning Honduras and calling for Zelaya's reinstatement. Little surprise that Hugo Chavez has gleefully declared that Obama’s move will “deliver a major blow” to the people and government of Honduras.
Alone, this might be seen as a poor decision. But it is part of a troubling pattern of behavior that speaks to something deeper at work.
When Iranians took the streets in recent weeks to declare their rejection of the unfair and rigged elections in their country, President Obama dithered and sat mute for days preferring to play the role of neutral observer rather than the advocate for freedom. Only after world public opinion soundly came out against the mullahs in Iran did Obama feel safe to condemn their brutal suppression of protestors.
In June, when the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) offered its annual Democracy Award to five leaders of Cuba’s pro-democracy movement, the White House was curiously silent. The NED asked the White House for a presidential meeting with dissident Bertha Atunez, who headed the Cuban Rosa Parks Women’s Movement for Civil Rights. Previous Presidents Bush and Clinton had met with NED award winners. But this time they were ignored by the White House. No doubt this was because the Obama Administration seeks to curry favor with Cuba’s dictators. The normally pro-Obama Washington Post editorial page was quick to conclude that the White House was saying, “Message to Mr. Chavez and the Castro brothers: We can work with you. Message to Cuba’s democratic opposition: We don’t have time for you.” Only after the Washington Post contacted the White House to explain their silence did they proceed to issue a bland statement.
Obama’s rhetoric in support of democracy is slippery and elusive. During his June speech in Cairo, Egypt Obama offered a relativistic definition of democracy, saying he was committed to governments that “reflect the will of the people.” Dictators everywhere recognize that as their phrase. Tyrants such as the Castro brothers in Cuba always claim this is exactly what they do. During an April meeting of the Organization of American States, Obama tried to warm relations with Chavez. He pushed us further down the road of abandoning a freedom agenda when he explained that he wanted to avoid discussions about democracy and “break free from some of the stale debates and old ideologies that have dominated and distorted the debate in this hemisphere for far too long.” His Secretary of State Hillary Clinton added, “Let’s put ideology aside. That is so yesterday.” The world must wonder, do Americans now believe that championing civil liberties are just stale debates?
President Obama apparently believes that by warming up to autocrats in Iran, Russia, and Venezuela he can change them and their regimes. No doubt he’s putting great faith in his ability to charm and communicate. But he is deluding himself if he believes that these tyrants are simply misguided democrats that will succumb to his persuasion. The cold war did not end because we magically conjoled communist elites to see things our way. The cold war ended because we enabled “people power” and then democratic values triumphed.
The President needs to worry less about getting along with tyrants and instead concern himself more with the security of the American people. He will do that best by standing up for democratic values.
by Bob McEwen
For more than twenty years American foreign policy has been guided by a freedom agenda: the notion that our security interests are best protected by advancing the cause of freedom around the world. Ronald Reagan championed it when he won the cold war, George H.W. Bush when he fought the first gulf war, and Bill Clinton when he committed America to defending human rights in the Balkans. Now, here comes President Barack Obama. who has effectively turned America’s back on the cause of freedom around the globe.
Right now, freedom hangs in the balance in Honduras. President Manuel Zelaya has been sent packing because of his attempted power grab and efforts to subvert the constitution. The Honduran constitution limits him to just one 4-year term. (This restriction is seen as so important that in Honduras even the Honduran congress and the President acting together cannot discard it.) Nevertheless, this Hugo Chavez wannabe began an unconstitutional and illegal referendum that would allow him to rule indefinitely. The Honduran Supreme Court, Attorney General, and Congress, however, all proceeded to follow their constitution. Accordingly, he was expelled and replaced by the proper successor of his own political party. Evidence now reveals the extent that Zelaya has been supported in his power grab by Chavez of Venezuela and neighboring Nicaragua who are placing hundreds of supporters into Honduras to foment trouble.
What has been President Obama’s response? On which side does the United States now stand? Mr. Obama has sided with Zelaya, even echoing his words that the Honduran effort to faithfully follow their constitution amounts to “a coup.” The Obama Administration even co-sponsored a resolution in the United Nations condemning Honduras and calling for Zelaya's reinstatement. Little surprise that Hugo Chavez has gleefully declared that Obama’s move will “deliver a major blow” to the people and government of Honduras.
Alone, this might be seen as a poor decision. But it is part of a troubling pattern of behavior that speaks to something deeper at work.
When Iranians took the streets in recent weeks to declare their rejection of the unfair and rigged elections in their country, President Obama dithered and sat mute for days preferring to play the role of neutral observer rather than the advocate for freedom. Only after world public opinion soundly came out against the mullahs in Iran did Obama feel safe to condemn their brutal suppression of protestors.
In June, when the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) offered its annual Democracy Award to five leaders of Cuba’s pro-democracy movement, the White House was curiously silent. The NED asked the White House for a presidential meeting with dissident Bertha Atunez, who headed the Cuban Rosa Parks Women’s Movement for Civil Rights. Previous Presidents Bush and Clinton had met with NED award winners. But this time they were ignored by the White House. No doubt this was because the Obama Administration seeks to curry favor with Cuba’s dictators. The normally pro-Obama Washington Post editorial page was quick to conclude that the White House was saying, “Message to Mr. Chavez and the Castro brothers: We can work with you. Message to Cuba’s democratic opposition: We don’t have time for you.” Only after the Washington Post contacted the White House to explain their silence did they proceed to issue a bland statement.
Obama’s rhetoric in support of democracy is slippery and elusive. During his June speech in Cairo, Egypt Obama offered a relativistic definition of democracy, saying he was committed to governments that “reflect the will of the people.” Dictators everywhere recognize that as their phrase. Tyrants such as the Castro brothers in Cuba always claim this is exactly what they do. During an April meeting of the Organization of American States, Obama tried to warm relations with Chavez. He pushed us further down the road of abandoning a freedom agenda when he explained that he wanted to avoid discussions about democracy and “break free from some of the stale debates and old ideologies that have dominated and distorted the debate in this hemisphere for far too long.” His Secretary of State Hillary Clinton added, “Let’s put ideology aside. That is so yesterday.” The world must wonder, do Americans now believe that championing civil liberties are just stale debates?
President Obama apparently believes that by warming up to autocrats in Iran, Russia, and Venezuela he can change them and their regimes. No doubt he’s putting great faith in his ability to charm and communicate. But he is deluding himself if he believes that these tyrants are simply misguided democrats that will succumb to his persuasion. The cold war did not end because we magically conjoled communist elites to see things our way. The cold war ended because we enabled “people power” and then democratic values triumphed.
The President needs to worry less about getting along with tyrants and instead concern himself more with the security of the American people. He will do that best by standing up for democratic values.
Sotomayor and La Raza
Sotomayor's Ties to La Raza
by Tom Tancredo
Last week, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy spoke out against critics of Sonia Sotomayor as playing “racial politics.” According to Leahy, "You have one leader of the Republican party call her the equivalent of the head of the Ku Klux Klan… That's what comes across. It comes across that if you belong to a group that tries to help Hispanics... somehow you're suspicious.”
Usually confirmation hearings are supposed to be about getting specifics about the nominee. But Leahy chose to make vague accusations against unnamed critics of the nominee while defending an unnamed organization. It was apparent to DC insiders that the “group that tries to help” Hispanics is the National Council for La Raza (The Race) and the “Republican Leader” is me.
It isn’t surprising that he didn’t want to use our names. After all it’s difficult to defend someone belonging to a group called “The Race” by accusing her opponents of playing racial politics. The last thing the Democrats want is for the American people to know about the National Council of La Raza, their radical agenda and Sotomayor’s association with the group.
Sotomayor is a member of La Raza and her comments about “Wise Latinas” being superior to white men appeared in the La Raza Law Journal. The National Council of La Raza bills itself as “the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States” who works through “its network of nearly 300 affiliated community-based organizations.”
Among these affiliates are several chapters of the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán) who La Raza helps fund. Aztlán is what radical “Mechistas”—as they refer to themselves on La Raza’s website—call the American Southwest, which they claim still belongs to Mexico. Their slogan is "Por La Raza todo, Fuera de La Raza nada" meaning “For the Race everything, outside the Race nothing.” One chapter says on La Raza’s site that their mission is “empowerment of our gente and the liberation of Aztlán.”
La Raza receives tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to set up charter schools like the Aztlán Academy of Tucson where they fly the Mexican Flag, but not the American Flag and teach students “Aztec Math.”
In 1994, La Raza gave their “Chicano of the Year” Award to Jose Angel Guitierrez who once said, “We have got to eliminate the Gringo, and what I mean by that is that if the worse comes to the worst, we have got to kill him" and that “our devil has pale skin and blue eyes.”
Of special importance when considering a Supreme Court nominee is La Raza’s position on a variety of policy and legal issues. They support driver’s licenses, in state tuition and amnesty for illegal aliens. They say that virtually all enforcement of our immigration laws on the state level is unconstitutional. They filed amicus briefs in favor of racial preferences and in favor of benefits for illegal aliens. They led the legal attack against Hazelton, PA for their official English and anti-illegal alien measures.
At the very least, Sotomayor should explain where she stands on these issues.
While questioning her connections to radical left wing groups is off limits, attacking conservatives for belonging to mainstream organizations like the Federalist Society is fair game for the Democrats.
When Larry Thompson was up for Deputy Attorney General in 2001, Leahy questioned his role with the organization. Sen. Richard Durbin denounced the group as a “far right” group who he implied might want to bring back the Dred Scott decision upholding slavery.
The Federalist Society is nothing but a debating and social organization for conservative and libertarian law students and attorneys. In contrast to La Raza, it takes no position on legal cases or policy.
If membership in the Federalist Society is a problem for the Democrats, imagine how they would react if Samuel Alito or John Roberts belonged to a group called “The National Council of the White Race” who honored a man who once said “We have got to eliminate Latinos, and what I mean by that is that if the worse comes to the worst, we have got to kill him," as “white man of the year.” They wouldn’t pass the bar, much less become Supreme Court justices. But when a Hispanic or Black holds these views, we need to celebrate him for his diversity.
The Democrats support of Sotomayor and La Raza shows us what Obama’s “post racial” America really looks like. Designated minority victim groups are free to promote their anti-white racist agenda, while any whites who fight back are playing “racial politics.”
by Tom Tancredo
Last week, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy spoke out against critics of Sonia Sotomayor as playing “racial politics.” According to Leahy, "You have one leader of the Republican party call her the equivalent of the head of the Ku Klux Klan… That's what comes across. It comes across that if you belong to a group that tries to help Hispanics... somehow you're suspicious.”
Usually confirmation hearings are supposed to be about getting specifics about the nominee. But Leahy chose to make vague accusations against unnamed critics of the nominee while defending an unnamed organization. It was apparent to DC insiders that the “group that tries to help” Hispanics is the National Council for La Raza (The Race) and the “Republican Leader” is me.
It isn’t surprising that he didn’t want to use our names. After all it’s difficult to defend someone belonging to a group called “The Race” by accusing her opponents of playing racial politics. The last thing the Democrats want is for the American people to know about the National Council of La Raza, their radical agenda and Sotomayor’s association with the group.
Sotomayor is a member of La Raza and her comments about “Wise Latinas” being superior to white men appeared in the La Raza Law Journal. The National Council of La Raza bills itself as “the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States” who works through “its network of nearly 300 affiliated community-based organizations.”
Among these affiliates are several chapters of the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán) who La Raza helps fund. Aztlán is what radical “Mechistas”—as they refer to themselves on La Raza’s website—call the American Southwest, which they claim still belongs to Mexico. Their slogan is "Por La Raza todo, Fuera de La Raza nada" meaning “For the Race everything, outside the Race nothing.” One chapter says on La Raza’s site that their mission is “empowerment of our gente and the liberation of Aztlán.”
La Raza receives tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to set up charter schools like the Aztlán Academy of Tucson where they fly the Mexican Flag, but not the American Flag and teach students “Aztec Math.”
In 1994, La Raza gave their “Chicano of the Year” Award to Jose Angel Guitierrez who once said, “We have got to eliminate the Gringo, and what I mean by that is that if the worse comes to the worst, we have got to kill him" and that “our devil has pale skin and blue eyes.”
Of special importance when considering a Supreme Court nominee is La Raza’s position on a variety of policy and legal issues. They support driver’s licenses, in state tuition and amnesty for illegal aliens. They say that virtually all enforcement of our immigration laws on the state level is unconstitutional. They filed amicus briefs in favor of racial preferences and in favor of benefits for illegal aliens. They led the legal attack against Hazelton, PA for their official English and anti-illegal alien measures.
At the very least, Sotomayor should explain where she stands on these issues.
While questioning her connections to radical left wing groups is off limits, attacking conservatives for belonging to mainstream organizations like the Federalist Society is fair game for the Democrats.
When Larry Thompson was up for Deputy Attorney General in 2001, Leahy questioned his role with the organization. Sen. Richard Durbin denounced the group as a “far right” group who he implied might want to bring back the Dred Scott decision upholding slavery.
The Federalist Society is nothing but a debating and social organization for conservative and libertarian law students and attorneys. In contrast to La Raza, it takes no position on legal cases or policy.
If membership in the Federalist Society is a problem for the Democrats, imagine how they would react if Samuel Alito or John Roberts belonged to a group called “The National Council of the White Race” who honored a man who once said “We have got to eliminate Latinos, and what I mean by that is that if the worse comes to the worst, we have got to kill him," as “white man of the year.” They wouldn’t pass the bar, much less become Supreme Court justices. But when a Hispanic or Black holds these views, we need to celebrate him for his diversity.
The Democrats support of Sotomayor and La Raza shows us what Obama’s “post racial” America really looks like. Designated minority victim groups are free to promote their anti-white racist agenda, while any whites who fight back are playing “racial politics.”
Obama and Dodd
Dodd and Obama: Corrupt Birds of a Feather
by Michelle Malkin
Everything you need to know about false Hope and Change can be found in one picture: the image of President Obama embracing embattled Sen. Chris Dodd.
The troubled Democrat is in deep over his sweetheart Countrywide home-loan deals, corporate bailout cash and crony associations. New revelations by Countrywide whistleblower Robert Feinberg confirm what more and more of Dodd's constituents in Connecticut are coming to realize: He's a lying weasel.
Dodd denied knowledge of the special treatment the subprime mortgage company had given him and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad on home loans. (Dodd's were worth more than $800,000.) Feinberg flatly contradicted him in secret testimony on the Hill this week.
Connecticut voters are not smiling about Dodd's hypocritical bashing of lobbyists on the airwaves while he parties with them behind closed doors. And as they scrimp through the recession, they haven't forgotten about Dodd's dozy Irish cottage deal with convicted insider trader Edward Downe Jr. (who received a Clinton pardon with Dodd's generous help). Sandra Harris, an unaffiliated voter from West Hartford, Conn., told the Hartford Courant: "I've lost respect for him. … It's time for a change." A Quinnipiac poll now shows that 60 percent of key independent voters disapprove of Dodd.
But Dodd's cratering numbers and mounting ethics scandal aren't just about Dodd. Damaged birds of a feather flock together. Even before these latest disclosures, Dodd's approval ratings had dropped to their lowest levels ever. Yet, Obama -- agent of the "new politics," erstwhile Breath of Fresh Air, guarantor of all that is good and clean in Washington -- declared his support for Dodd's 2010 re-election campaign bid.
"I can't say it any clearer: I will be helping Chris Dodd because he deserves the help," Obama announced in April. "He just has an extraordinary record of accomplishment, and I think the people of Connecticut will come to recognize that."
Obama progressives should cringe at their president's bear hug of one of the most ethically compromised politicians on Capitol Hill. The Beltway swamp is teeming with Democratic corruption scandals -- Pennsylvania congressman John Murtha's earmark factory and tax-subsidized airports and radars to nowhere; New York Rep. Charlie Rangel's rent-controlled apartment scams and tax scandals; California Rep. Maxine Waters' business ties to a minority-owned bank that received $12 million in TARP money under smelly circumstances, for starters. But Dodd's career epitomizes the most fetid aspects of Washington's culture of corruption. It's a textbook case of nepotism, self-dealing, back scratching, corporate lobbying, government favors and entrenched incumbency.
When he launched his presidential bid in February 2007, Obama inspired millions and rallied the world with his pledge to "build a more hopeful America." He told a cheering crowd in Springfield, Ill., land of Lincoln, that he recognized "that there is a certain presumptuousness in this, a certain audacity to this announcement. I know that I have not spent a long time learning the ways of Washington, but I have been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington have to change."
Two years later, Obama declared his support for an entrenched U.S. senator drowning in the decrepit old politics of pay-for-play.
Two years later, at a "historic" and "unprecedented" record pace, Obama presided over a heap of botched nominations, crony appointments, lobbyist paybacks, union and left-wing activist payoffs, and abandoned promises to make government more transparent and accountable to ordinary Americans.
"Washington is broken," Obama lamented on the campaign trail. Yet, under President Obama, the business of Washington is booming. The collapse of the Era of HopeNChangeyness demonstrates the first and last law of political physics: As government grows, corruption flows. Massive new federal spending plus tens of thousands of pages of new regulations plus unprecedented new powers over taxpayers and the economy ensure limitless new opportunities for sleaze, favor trading, deal cutting and influence peddling.
The president's dwindling blind faithful may still cling to the belief that he can work miracles. But no one, not even Barack Obama, can drain a swamp by flooding it.
by Michelle Malkin
Everything you need to know about false Hope and Change can be found in one picture: the image of President Obama embracing embattled Sen. Chris Dodd.
The troubled Democrat is in deep over his sweetheart Countrywide home-loan deals, corporate bailout cash and crony associations. New revelations by Countrywide whistleblower Robert Feinberg confirm what more and more of Dodd's constituents in Connecticut are coming to realize: He's a lying weasel.
Dodd denied knowledge of the special treatment the subprime mortgage company had given him and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad on home loans. (Dodd's were worth more than $800,000.) Feinberg flatly contradicted him in secret testimony on the Hill this week.
Connecticut voters are not smiling about Dodd's hypocritical bashing of lobbyists on the airwaves while he parties with them behind closed doors. And as they scrimp through the recession, they haven't forgotten about Dodd's dozy Irish cottage deal with convicted insider trader Edward Downe Jr. (who received a Clinton pardon with Dodd's generous help). Sandra Harris, an unaffiliated voter from West Hartford, Conn., told the Hartford Courant: "I've lost respect for him. … It's time for a change." A Quinnipiac poll now shows that 60 percent of key independent voters disapprove of Dodd.
But Dodd's cratering numbers and mounting ethics scandal aren't just about Dodd. Damaged birds of a feather flock together. Even before these latest disclosures, Dodd's approval ratings had dropped to their lowest levels ever. Yet, Obama -- agent of the "new politics," erstwhile Breath of Fresh Air, guarantor of all that is good and clean in Washington -- declared his support for Dodd's 2010 re-election campaign bid.
"I can't say it any clearer: I will be helping Chris Dodd because he deserves the help," Obama announced in April. "He just has an extraordinary record of accomplishment, and I think the people of Connecticut will come to recognize that."
Obama progressives should cringe at their president's bear hug of one of the most ethically compromised politicians on Capitol Hill. The Beltway swamp is teeming with Democratic corruption scandals -- Pennsylvania congressman John Murtha's earmark factory and tax-subsidized airports and radars to nowhere; New York Rep. Charlie Rangel's rent-controlled apartment scams and tax scandals; California Rep. Maxine Waters' business ties to a minority-owned bank that received $12 million in TARP money under smelly circumstances, for starters. But Dodd's career epitomizes the most fetid aspects of Washington's culture of corruption. It's a textbook case of nepotism, self-dealing, back scratching, corporate lobbying, government favors and entrenched incumbency.
When he launched his presidential bid in February 2007, Obama inspired millions and rallied the world with his pledge to "build a more hopeful America." He told a cheering crowd in Springfield, Ill., land of Lincoln, that he recognized "that there is a certain presumptuousness in this, a certain audacity to this announcement. I know that I have not spent a long time learning the ways of Washington, but I have been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington have to change."
Two years later, Obama declared his support for an entrenched U.S. senator drowning in the decrepit old politics of pay-for-play.
Two years later, at a "historic" and "unprecedented" record pace, Obama presided over a heap of botched nominations, crony appointments, lobbyist paybacks, union and left-wing activist payoffs, and abandoned promises to make government more transparent and accountable to ordinary Americans.
"Washington is broken," Obama lamented on the campaign trail. Yet, under President Obama, the business of Washington is booming. The collapse of the Era of HopeNChangeyness demonstrates the first and last law of political physics: As government grows, corruption flows. Massive new federal spending plus tens of thousands of pages of new regulations plus unprecedented new powers over taxpayers and the economy ensure limitless new opportunities for sleaze, favor trading, deal cutting and influence peddling.
The president's dwindling blind faithful may still cling to the belief that he can work miracles. But no one, not even Barack Obama, can drain a swamp by flooding it.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Africa's climate crisis
Africa’s real climate crisis
by Fiona Kobusingye
Fiona Kobusingye is coordinator of Congress of Racial Equality Uganda and the Kill Malarial Mosquitoes Now Brigade.
Life in Africa is often nasty, impoverished and short. AIDS kills 2.2 million Africans every year according to WHO (World Health Organization) reports. Lung infections cause 1.4 million deaths, malaria 1 million more, intestinal diseases 700,000. Diseases that could be prevented with simple vaccines kill an additional 600,000 annually, while war, malnutrition and life in filthy slums send countless more parents and children to early graves.
And yet, day after day, Africans are told the biggest threat we face is – global warming.
Conferences, news stories, television programs, class lectures and one-sided “dialogues” repeat the claim endlessly. We’re told using oil and petrol, even burning wood and charcoal, will dangerously overheat our planet, melt ice caps, flood coastal cities, and cause storms, droughts, disease and extinctions.
Over 700 climate scientists and 31,000 other scientists say humans and carbon dioxide have minimal effects on Earth’s temperature and climate, and there is no global warming crisis. But their views and studies are never invited or even tolerated in these “climate crisis” forums, especially at “ministerial dialogues” staged with United Nations money. Al Gore refuses to debate any of these experts, or even permit questions that he hasn’t approved ahead of time.
Instead, Africans are told climate change “threatens humanity more than HIV/AIDS.” More than 2.2 million dead Africans every year?
We are warned that it would be “nearly impossible to adapt to the loss of the West Antarctic ice sheet,” which would raise sea levels by “5 to 15 meters.” That certainly would impact our coastal communities. But how likely is it?
The average annual temperature in Antarctica is minus 50 degrees F! Summer in its Western Peninsula barely lasts two months and gets maybe 10 degrees above freezing for just a few hours a day. Not even Mr. Gore or UN computer models talk about raising Antarctic
temperatures by 85 degrees F year-round. So how is that ice supposed to melt?
Let’s not forget that sea levels have risen 120 meters since the last Ice Age ended. Do the global warming alarmists think cave men fires caused that? Obviously, powerful natural forces caused those ancient glaciers to come and go – and caused the droughts, floods and climate changes that have affected Africa, the Earth and its animals and people for millions of years.
Just consider northern Africa, where green river valleys, hippopotami and happy villages suddenly got turned into the Sahara Desert 4,000 years ago. Scientists don’t know why, but it probably wasn’t Egyptian pharaohs building pyramids and driving chariots.
However, the real problem isn’t questionable or fake science, hysterical claims and worthless computer models that predict global warming disasters. It’s that they’re being used to justify telling Africans that we shouldn’t build coal or natural gas electrical power plants. It’s the almost total absence of electricity keeping us from creating jobs and becoming modern societies. It’s that these policies KILL.
The average African life span is lower than it was in the United States and Europe 100 years ago. But Africans are being told we shouldn’t develop, or have electricity or cars because, now that those countries are rich beyond anything Africans can imagine, they’re worried about global warming.
Al Gore and UN climate boss Yvo de Boer tell us the world needs to go on an energy diet. Well, I have news for them. Africans are already on an energy diet. We’re starving!
Al Gore uses more electricity in a week than 28 million Ugandans together use in a year. And those anti-electricity policies are keeping us impoverished.
Not having electricity means millions of Africans don’t have refrigerators to preserve food and medicine. Outside of wealthy parts of our big cities, people don’t have lights, computers, modern hospitals and schools, air conditioning – or offices, factories and shops to make things and create good jobs.
Not having electricity also means disease and death. It means millions die from lung infections, because they have to cook and heat with open fires; from intestinal diseases caused by spoiled food and unsafe drinking water; from malaria, TB, cholera, measles and other diseases that we could prevent or treat if we had proper medical facilities.
Hypothetical global warming a hundred years from now is worse than this?
Telling Africans they can’t have electricity and economic development – except what can be produced with some wind turbines or little solar panels – is immoral. It is a crime against humanity.
Meanwhile, China and India are building new coal-fired power plants every week, so that they can lift their people out of poverty. So even if Africa remains impoverished – and the US and Europe switched to windmills and nuclear power – global carbon dioxide levels would continue increasing for decades.
Even worse, the global warming crusaders don’t stop at telling us we can’t have electricity. They also campaign against biotechnology. As American, Brazilian and South African farmers will tell you, biotech seeds increase crop yields, reduce pesticide use, feed more people and help farmers earn more money. New varieties are being developed that can resist droughts – the kind Africa has always experienced, and the ones some claim will increase due to global warming.
Environmental radicals even oppose insecticides and the powerful spatial insect repellant DDT, which Uganda’s Health Ministry is using along with bed nets and modern ACT drugs to eliminate malaria. They claim global warming will make malaria worse. That’s ridiculous, because the disease was once found all over Europe, the United States and even Siberia.
Uganda and Africa need to stop worrying about what the West, the UN and Al Gore say. We need to focus on our own needs, resources and opportunities.
We don’t need more aid – especially the kind that goes mostly to corrupt officials who put the money in private bank accounts, hold global warming propaganda conferences and keep their own people poor. We don’t need rich countries promising climate change assistance (maybe, sometime, ten years from now), if we promise not to develop.
We need to stop acting like ignorant savages, who thought solar eclipses meant the gods were angry with them, and asked witch doctors to bring the sun back. We need to stop listening to global warming witch doctors, who get rich telling us to keep living “indigenous,” impoverished lives.
We need trade, manufacturing, electricity and transportation fuels to power modern industrial economies. We need to do what China and India are doing – develop – and trade more with them.
That is how we will get the jobs, prosperity, health and environmental quality we deserve.
by Fiona Kobusingye
Fiona Kobusingye is coordinator of Congress of Racial Equality Uganda and the Kill Malarial Mosquitoes Now Brigade.
Life in Africa is often nasty, impoverished and short. AIDS kills 2.2 million Africans every year according to WHO (World Health Organization) reports. Lung infections cause 1.4 million deaths, malaria 1 million more, intestinal diseases 700,000. Diseases that could be prevented with simple vaccines kill an additional 600,000 annually, while war, malnutrition and life in filthy slums send countless more parents and children to early graves.
And yet, day after day, Africans are told the biggest threat we face is – global warming.
Conferences, news stories, television programs, class lectures and one-sided “dialogues” repeat the claim endlessly. We’re told using oil and petrol, even burning wood and charcoal, will dangerously overheat our planet, melt ice caps, flood coastal cities, and cause storms, droughts, disease and extinctions.
Over 700 climate scientists and 31,000 other scientists say humans and carbon dioxide have minimal effects on Earth’s temperature and climate, and there is no global warming crisis. But their views and studies are never invited or even tolerated in these “climate crisis” forums, especially at “ministerial dialogues” staged with United Nations money. Al Gore refuses to debate any of these experts, or even permit questions that he hasn’t approved ahead of time.
Instead, Africans are told climate change “threatens humanity more than HIV/AIDS.” More than 2.2 million dead Africans every year?
We are warned that it would be “nearly impossible to adapt to the loss of the West Antarctic ice sheet,” which would raise sea levels by “5 to 15 meters.” That certainly would impact our coastal communities. But how likely is it?
The average annual temperature in Antarctica is minus 50 degrees F! Summer in its Western Peninsula barely lasts two months and gets maybe 10 degrees above freezing for just a few hours a day. Not even Mr. Gore or UN computer models talk about raising Antarctic
temperatures by 85 degrees F year-round. So how is that ice supposed to melt?
Let’s not forget that sea levels have risen 120 meters since the last Ice Age ended. Do the global warming alarmists think cave men fires caused that? Obviously, powerful natural forces caused those ancient glaciers to come and go – and caused the droughts, floods and climate changes that have affected Africa, the Earth and its animals and people for millions of years.
Just consider northern Africa, where green river valleys, hippopotami and happy villages suddenly got turned into the Sahara Desert 4,000 years ago. Scientists don’t know why, but it probably wasn’t Egyptian pharaohs building pyramids and driving chariots.
However, the real problem isn’t questionable or fake science, hysterical claims and worthless computer models that predict global warming disasters. It’s that they’re being used to justify telling Africans that we shouldn’t build coal or natural gas electrical power plants. It’s the almost total absence of electricity keeping us from creating jobs and becoming modern societies. It’s that these policies KILL.
The average African life span is lower than it was in the United States and Europe 100 years ago. But Africans are being told we shouldn’t develop, or have electricity or cars because, now that those countries are rich beyond anything Africans can imagine, they’re worried about global warming.
Al Gore and UN climate boss Yvo de Boer tell us the world needs to go on an energy diet. Well, I have news for them. Africans are already on an energy diet. We’re starving!
Al Gore uses more electricity in a week than 28 million Ugandans together use in a year. And those anti-electricity policies are keeping us impoverished.
Not having electricity means millions of Africans don’t have refrigerators to preserve food and medicine. Outside of wealthy parts of our big cities, people don’t have lights, computers, modern hospitals and schools, air conditioning – or offices, factories and shops to make things and create good jobs.
Not having electricity also means disease and death. It means millions die from lung infections, because they have to cook and heat with open fires; from intestinal diseases caused by spoiled food and unsafe drinking water; from malaria, TB, cholera, measles and other diseases that we could prevent or treat if we had proper medical facilities.
Hypothetical global warming a hundred years from now is worse than this?
Telling Africans they can’t have electricity and economic development – except what can be produced with some wind turbines or little solar panels – is immoral. It is a crime against humanity.
Meanwhile, China and India are building new coal-fired power plants every week, so that they can lift their people out of poverty. So even if Africa remains impoverished – and the US and Europe switched to windmills and nuclear power – global carbon dioxide levels would continue increasing for decades.
Even worse, the global warming crusaders don’t stop at telling us we can’t have electricity. They also campaign against biotechnology. As American, Brazilian and South African farmers will tell you, biotech seeds increase crop yields, reduce pesticide use, feed more people and help farmers earn more money. New varieties are being developed that can resist droughts – the kind Africa has always experienced, and the ones some claim will increase due to global warming.
Environmental radicals even oppose insecticides and the powerful spatial insect repellant DDT, which Uganda’s Health Ministry is using along with bed nets and modern ACT drugs to eliminate malaria. They claim global warming will make malaria worse. That’s ridiculous, because the disease was once found all over Europe, the United States and even Siberia.
Uganda and Africa need to stop worrying about what the West, the UN and Al Gore say. We need to focus on our own needs, resources and opportunities.
We don’t need more aid – especially the kind that goes mostly to corrupt officials who put the money in private bank accounts, hold global warming propaganda conferences and keep their own people poor. We don’t need rich countries promising climate change assistance (maybe, sometime, ten years from now), if we promise not to develop.
We need to stop acting like ignorant savages, who thought solar eclipses meant the gods were angry with them, and asked witch doctors to bring the sun back. We need to stop listening to global warming witch doctors, who get rich telling us to keep living “indigenous,” impoverished lives.
We need trade, manufacturing, electricity and transportation fuels to power modern industrial economies. We need to do what China and India are doing – develop – and trade more with them.
That is how we will get the jobs, prosperity, health and environmental quality we deserve.
Obama's foreign policy
The Obama Doctrine on its Deathbed
by Michael Gerson
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration lacks a foreign policy ideology as a matter of ideology. Speaking recently at the Council on Foreign Relations, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asserted, "rigid ideologies and old formulas don't apply." The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans -- tempered by pragmatism, proud of its ad hockery and willing to consider everything on a case-by-case basis.
But even lacking an ideology, the administration does have a doctrine. The defining principle of President Obama's foreign policy is engagement with America's adversaries. Much of the president's public diplomacy has been designed to clear a path for such talks -- expressing respect for legitimate grievances, apologizing for past wrongs and offering dialogue without preconditions.
Six months on, how fares the Obama doctrine? Concerning North Korea and Iran, the doctrine is on its deathbed.
North Korea responded to administration outreach by testing a nuclear weapon, firing missiles toward allies, resuming plutonium reprocessing and threatening the United States with a "fire shower of nuclear retaliation." During congressional testimony, Clinton admitted, "At this point (it) seems implausible, if not impossible, the North Koreans will return to the six-party talks and begin to disable their nuclear capacity again."
The Iranian regime's reaction to engagement was to cut the ribbon on a nuclear enrichment facility, add centrifuges, conduct a fraudulent election and kill and imprison a variety of political opponents. Regarding administration overtures, Clinton recently told the BBC, "We haven't had any response. We've certainly reached out and made it clear that's what we'd be willing to do ... but I don't think they have any capacity to make that kind of decision right now."
The problem is not engagement itself -- which was, after all, attempted in various forms by the previous administration. The difficulty is that the Obama foreign policy team has often argued that the reason for tension and conflict with nations such as North Korea and Iran is a lack of adequate American engagement -- which is absurd, and has raised absurdly high expectations.
During the 2008 campaign, for example, Obama adviser P.J. Crowley (now State Department spokesman) argued, "Hard-liners on both sides have dominated that relationship and made it very difficult for the United States and Iran to come together and have a serious conversation."
But can the lack of a serious conversation with Iran -- or with North Korea -- now credibly be blamed on the previous administration? Obama's diplomatic hand has been extended for a while now. Fists remain clenched. This is not because some magical diplomatic words remain unspoken. It is because of the nature of oppressive regimes themselves.
Such regimes are often internally preoccupied. Precisely because they lack genuine legitimacy, they spend large amounts of time and effort maintaining their fragile authority, consolidating power and managing undemocratic transitions.
North Korea confronts a succession crisis. Iran deals with growing dissent and clerical division. Both tend to make calculations based on internal power struggles, not some rational calculation of their external image and interests. They are so inwardly focused that they do not have, as Clinton said, "any capacity" to respond to engagement. It is questionable in these cases if we currently have any serious negotiating partners at all.
And the inherent instability of oppressive regimes also leads them to tighten control by invoking threats from abroad -- particularly from the United States. Because anti-Americanism is a central commitment of North Korean and Iranian ideologies, any softening of this resentment requires a kind of voluntary regime change. Pyongyang and Tehran would need to find a new source of legitimacy -- a new prop for their power -- other than hatred for America. Not easy or likely.
The Obama administration's public campaign of engaging enemies is headed toward an entirely unintended consequence. Eventually it will raise expectations for action. As the extended hand is slapped again and again, the goals of North Korea and Iran will be fully revealed and the cost to American credibility will rise.
Already the administration has given Iran a September deadline to respond to the offer of talks and has threatened "crippling action" if Iran achieves nuclear capabilities. Congress is preparing sanctions on Iranian refined petroleum, which would escalate tensions significantly.
This is the paradox of the Obama doctrine. By attempting to engage North Korea and Iran so visibly, Obama is dramatically exposing the limits of engagement -- and building the case for confrontation.
by Michael Gerson
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration lacks a foreign policy ideology as a matter of ideology. Speaking recently at the Council on Foreign Relations, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asserted, "rigid ideologies and old formulas don't apply." The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans -- tempered by pragmatism, proud of its ad hockery and willing to consider everything on a case-by-case basis.
But even lacking an ideology, the administration does have a doctrine. The defining principle of President Obama's foreign policy is engagement with America's adversaries. Much of the president's public diplomacy has been designed to clear a path for such talks -- expressing respect for legitimate grievances, apologizing for past wrongs and offering dialogue without preconditions.
Six months on, how fares the Obama doctrine? Concerning North Korea and Iran, the doctrine is on its deathbed.
North Korea responded to administration outreach by testing a nuclear weapon, firing missiles toward allies, resuming plutonium reprocessing and threatening the United States with a "fire shower of nuclear retaliation." During congressional testimony, Clinton admitted, "At this point (it) seems implausible, if not impossible, the North Koreans will return to the six-party talks and begin to disable their nuclear capacity again."
The Iranian regime's reaction to engagement was to cut the ribbon on a nuclear enrichment facility, add centrifuges, conduct a fraudulent election and kill and imprison a variety of political opponents. Regarding administration overtures, Clinton recently told the BBC, "We haven't had any response. We've certainly reached out and made it clear that's what we'd be willing to do ... but I don't think they have any capacity to make that kind of decision right now."
The problem is not engagement itself -- which was, after all, attempted in various forms by the previous administration. The difficulty is that the Obama foreign policy team has often argued that the reason for tension and conflict with nations such as North Korea and Iran is a lack of adequate American engagement -- which is absurd, and has raised absurdly high expectations.
During the 2008 campaign, for example, Obama adviser P.J. Crowley (now State Department spokesman) argued, "Hard-liners on both sides have dominated that relationship and made it very difficult for the United States and Iran to come together and have a serious conversation."
But can the lack of a serious conversation with Iran -- or with North Korea -- now credibly be blamed on the previous administration? Obama's diplomatic hand has been extended for a while now. Fists remain clenched. This is not because some magical diplomatic words remain unspoken. It is because of the nature of oppressive regimes themselves.
Such regimes are often internally preoccupied. Precisely because they lack genuine legitimacy, they spend large amounts of time and effort maintaining their fragile authority, consolidating power and managing undemocratic transitions.
North Korea confronts a succession crisis. Iran deals with growing dissent and clerical division. Both tend to make calculations based on internal power struggles, not some rational calculation of their external image and interests. They are so inwardly focused that they do not have, as Clinton said, "any capacity" to respond to engagement. It is questionable in these cases if we currently have any serious negotiating partners at all.
And the inherent instability of oppressive regimes also leads them to tighten control by invoking threats from abroad -- particularly from the United States. Because anti-Americanism is a central commitment of North Korean and Iranian ideologies, any softening of this resentment requires a kind of voluntary regime change. Pyongyang and Tehran would need to find a new source of legitimacy -- a new prop for their power -- other than hatred for America. Not easy or likely.
The Obama administration's public campaign of engaging enemies is headed toward an entirely unintended consequence. Eventually it will raise expectations for action. As the extended hand is slapped again and again, the goals of North Korea and Iran will be fully revealed and the cost to American credibility will rise.
Already the administration has given Iran a September deadline to respond to the offer of talks and has threatened "crippling action" if Iran achieves nuclear capabilities. Congress is preparing sanctions on Iranian refined petroleum, which would escalate tensions significantly.
This is the paradox of the Obama doctrine. By attempting to engage North Korea and Iran so visibly, Obama is dramatically exposing the limits of engagement -- and building the case for confrontation.
Thugocracy
Bully Boys: A Brief History of White House Thuggery
by Michelle Malkin
Six months into the Obama administration, it should now be clear to all Americans: Hope and Change came to the White House wrapped in brass knuckles.
Ask the Congressional Budget Office. Last week, President Obama spilled the beans on the "Today Show" that he had met with CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf -- just as the number crunchers were casting ruinous doubt on White House cost-saving claims.
Yes, question the timing.
The CBO is supposed to be a neutral scorekeeper -- not a water boy for the White House. But when the meeting failed to stop the CBO from issuing more analysis undercutting the health care savings claims, Obama's budget director Peter Orszag played the heavy.
Orszag warned the CBO in a public letter that it risked feeding the perception that it was "exaggerating costs and underestimating savings." Message: Leave the number fudging to the boss. Capiche?
Obama issued an even more explicit order to unleash the hounds on Blue Dog Democrats during his health care press conference. "Keep up the heat" translated into Organizing for America/Democratic National Committee attack ads on moderate Democrats who have revolted against Obamacare's high costs and expansive government powers over medical decisions.
Looks like there won't be a health care beer summit anytime soon.
The CBO and the Blue Dogs got off easy compared to inspectors general targeted by Team Obama goons. Former AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin was slimed as mentally incompetent ("confused" and "disoriented") after blowing the whistle on several cases of community service tax fraud, including the case of Obama crony Kevin Johnson. Johnson is the NBA star turned Sacramento mayor who ran a federally funded nonprofit group employing AmeriCorps volunteers, who were exploited to perform campaign work for Johnson and to provide personal services (car washes, errands) to Johnson and his staff.
Walpin filed suit last week to get his job back -- and to defend the integrity and independence of inspectors general system-wide. But he faces hardball tactics from both the West Wing and the East Wing, where first lady Michelle Obama has been intimately involved in personnel decisions at AmeriCorps, according to youth service program insiders.
At the Environmental Protection Agency, top Obama officials muzzled veteran researcher Alan Carlin, who dared to question the conventional wisdom on global warming. The economist with a physics degree was trashed as a non-scientist know-nothing.
Obama Treasury officials forced banks to take TARP bailout money they didn't want and obstructed banks that wanted to pay back TARP money from doing so. The administration strong-armed Chrysler creditors and Chrysler dealers using politicized tactics that united both House Democrats and Republicans, who passed an amendment last week reversing Obama on the closure of nearly 800 Chrysler dealerships and more than 2,000 GM dealerships.
At the Justice Department, Obama lawyers are now blocking a House inquiry into the suspicious decision to dismiss default judgments against radical New Black Panther Party activists who intimidated voters and poll workers on Election Day in Philadelphia. The DOJ is preventing Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., from meeting with the trial team in the case. Wolf has been pressing for answers on what communications Attorney General Eric Holder and his deputies conducted with third-party interest groups and other political appointees about the case. So far: radio silence.
In the mafia culture, bully boys depend on a code of silence and allegiance -- omerta -- not only among their brethren, but also from the victims. The victims of Obama thugocracy are no longer cooperating. Perhaps it won't be long until some of the enforcers start to sing, too.
by Michelle Malkin
Six months into the Obama administration, it should now be clear to all Americans: Hope and Change came to the White House wrapped in brass knuckles.
Ask the Congressional Budget Office. Last week, President Obama spilled the beans on the "Today Show" that he had met with CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf -- just as the number crunchers were casting ruinous doubt on White House cost-saving claims.
Yes, question the timing.
The CBO is supposed to be a neutral scorekeeper -- not a water boy for the White House. But when the meeting failed to stop the CBO from issuing more analysis undercutting the health care savings claims, Obama's budget director Peter Orszag played the heavy.
Orszag warned the CBO in a public letter that it risked feeding the perception that it was "exaggerating costs and underestimating savings." Message: Leave the number fudging to the boss. Capiche?
Obama issued an even more explicit order to unleash the hounds on Blue Dog Democrats during his health care press conference. "Keep up the heat" translated into Organizing for America/Democratic National Committee attack ads on moderate Democrats who have revolted against Obamacare's high costs and expansive government powers over medical decisions.
Looks like there won't be a health care beer summit anytime soon.
The CBO and the Blue Dogs got off easy compared to inspectors general targeted by Team Obama goons. Former AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin was slimed as mentally incompetent ("confused" and "disoriented") after blowing the whistle on several cases of community service tax fraud, including the case of Obama crony Kevin Johnson. Johnson is the NBA star turned Sacramento mayor who ran a federally funded nonprofit group employing AmeriCorps volunteers, who were exploited to perform campaign work for Johnson and to provide personal services (car washes, errands) to Johnson and his staff.
Walpin filed suit last week to get his job back -- and to defend the integrity and independence of inspectors general system-wide. But he faces hardball tactics from both the West Wing and the East Wing, where first lady Michelle Obama has been intimately involved in personnel decisions at AmeriCorps, according to youth service program insiders.
At the Environmental Protection Agency, top Obama officials muzzled veteran researcher Alan Carlin, who dared to question the conventional wisdom on global warming. The economist with a physics degree was trashed as a non-scientist know-nothing.
Obama Treasury officials forced banks to take TARP bailout money they didn't want and obstructed banks that wanted to pay back TARP money from doing so. The administration strong-armed Chrysler creditors and Chrysler dealers using politicized tactics that united both House Democrats and Republicans, who passed an amendment last week reversing Obama on the closure of nearly 800 Chrysler dealerships and more than 2,000 GM dealerships.
At the Justice Department, Obama lawyers are now blocking a House inquiry into the suspicious decision to dismiss default judgments against radical New Black Panther Party activists who intimidated voters and poll workers on Election Day in Philadelphia. The DOJ is preventing Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., from meeting with the trial team in the case. Wolf has been pressing for answers on what communications Attorney General Eric Holder and his deputies conducted with third-party interest groups and other political appointees about the case. So far: radio silence.
In the mafia culture, bully boys depend on a code of silence and allegiance -- omerta -- not only among their brethren, but also from the victims. The victims of Obama thugocracy are no longer cooperating. Perhaps it won't be long until some of the enforcers start to sing, too.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
obama and race
How Our Post-Racial President Uses Race Card As Both Sword And Shield
By LARRY ELDER Posted Tuesday, July 28, 2009 4:20 PM PT Oops, President Obama did it again. He thoughtlessly, carelessly and offensively whipped out the race card.
Some people — not just black — voted for Obama because of his race. Many expected an Obama election to (a) improve "race relations" and (b) make a profound statement about America's inclusiveness.
Obama's election would show how close we've come to Dr. Martin Luther King's vision of a society that judges people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. He seemed so uplifting.
A biracial candidate (white mom, black dad), he refreshingly responded to Steve Kroft's "60 Minutes" question about whether his race hurt his bid for the presidency. "I think if I don't win this race," Obama replied, "it will be because of other factors. It's gonna be because I have not shown to the American people a vision for where the country needs to go that they can embrace." Well done.
On the 40th anniversary of "Blood Sunday" — a watershed civil rights march — Obama spoke optimistically about the great distance America has traveled, with but a small distance to go:
"There's still some battles that need to be fought, some rivers that need to be crossed . . . The previous generation — the Moses generation — pointed the way. They took us 90% of the way there, but we still got that 10%, in order to cross over to the other side." Excellent.
After all, polls showed that black former Secretary of State Colin Powell could have won the 1996 election assuming he secured his party's nomination. Back in 1958, when Gallup first posed the question "Would you vote for a well-qualified candidate who happened to be black?," 53% of Americans said no. By 2006, that number had fallen to 3% in a Los Angeles Times-Bloomberg poll, or about one-third the number who believe Elvis still lives. But now, out comes the race card.
Friend Of Skip
During Obama's press conference, he answered a question about the arrest of the black professor and director of Harvard University's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Henry Gates.
Question: "Recently Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested at his home in Cambridge. What does that incident say to you and what does it say about race relations in America?"
Obama: "Well, I should say at the outset that Skip Gates is a friend, so I may be a little biased here. I don't know all the facts. What's been reported, though, is that the guy forgot his keys, jimmied his way to get into the house, there was a report called into the police station that there might be a burglary taking place — so far, so good, right?
". . . But so far, so good. They're reporting — the police are doing what they should. There's a call, they go investigate what happens. My understanding is at that point Professor Gates is already in his house. The police officer comes in, I'm sure there's some exchange of words, but my understanding is, is that Professor Gates then shows his ID to show that this is his house. And at that point, he gets arrested for disorderly conduct — charges which are later dropped.
"Now, I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that, but I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge Police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That's just a fact . . . ."
In other words, the president decided, without any corroborating evidence, that the officer victimized Gates and committed an act of "racial profiling." Obama said nothing about Gates' racially charged verbal abuse of an officer simply trying to do his job and protect Gates' home, a home which — by Gates own admission — had been a target of a previous attempted break-in.
This is, in fact, why Gates used his shoulder to push open his front door, prompting a neighbor to call the police because she suspected someone was trying to break in.
Damage Control
Obama later gave a semi-apology and said he didn't intend to "malign" the Cambridge Police department. He called the incident a "teachable" moment. Indeed it was. But for whom — America or Obama?
Here's what the leader of the free world — a lawyer, a former constitutional law teacher, a man whom actor Sean Penn during last year's Academy Awards referred to as "elegant" — should have said:
"I know Professor Gates. He is a friend of mine, so I am biased. I don't know all the facts. But I know that the police responded to call from a neighbor who thought someone was breaking into his house. An officer arrived and ultimately he arrested Gates at the professor's own home.
"What led up to it, what kind of words were exchanged, the record of the officer, the local law on disorderly conduct, among other factors, are all relevant. And I simply do not know enough to comment.
"But all too often an exchange between a black citizen and a white police generates knee-jerk accusations of racism and racial profiling. The police perform a difficult job, and they, too, wish to return home every day to their loved ones.
"We should appreciate and congratulate them — recognizing that there are some bad apples in every profession — for their willingness to do a difficult and dangerous job. Beyond this, until I know more, I'm not prepared to comment."
In full damage-control mode, the president invited Gates and Sgt. Crowley to the White House to resolve the "Cambridge Conflict." After his irresponsible "Cambridge Police acted stupidly" comment, Obama now says that "two good people" merely engaged in a "misunderstanding."
If the police audiotapes show both sides equally at fault in escalating the incident into an arrest, fair enough. Bring them both down for a can-we-get-along photo-op beer-drinking session.
But what if the yet-to-be-released tapes reveal that one of the participants committed an unwarranted, "yo mamma"-based provocation, that the parties were not equally at fault, and that Crowley legally used his discretion — even if he could have walked away — in making the arrest? Why reward the miscreant by giving him a sit-down with the president?
That would have been a home run with the possibility of actually improving police-citizen relations. But here's the problem. The media and the Democratic Party love to exploit and exaggerate the "tension" between blacks and whites.
Left To Die
Never mind that some of the attention-grabbing blacks-are-oppressed stories turn out bogus — the Duke lacrosse team "rape" scandal, the Al Sharpton-driven Tawana Brawley "sexual assault" story, the discredited black-churches-targeted-for-arson story, the Jena Six hyperventilation, and, of course, the mother of all "racism" stories — the double-homicide trial of O.J. Simpson.
Democrats gleefully exploit "racial divisions" when it suits them, because it protects and cultivates that monolithic black vote.
Then-First Lady Hillary Clinton once condemned the then-Republican-controlled Congress before a predominantly black audience: "When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation, and you know what I'm talking about."
Then-Senate candidate, now Sen. Clair McCaskill, a Democrat, said, "George Bush let people die on rooftops in New Orleans because they were poor and because they were black."
DNC Chairman Howard Dean referred to the GOP as the "white party" and calls Republicans racist: "The Republicans are all about suppressing votes. Two voting machines if you live in a black district, 10 voting machines if you live in a white district."
Once, during a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus, Dean said: "You think the Republican National Committee could get this many people of color in a single room? . . . Only if they had the hotel staff in here."
But now the media's knee-jerk pursuit of the whites-oppressing-blacks Gates-Cambridge story pulls their guy "off message," jeopardizing his pursuit of ObamaCare. Thus the president's press secretary calls the media's frenzy over the Gates-Cambridge affair an "obsession."
We've seen this before with Obama. And the picture grows clearer and clearer. Use the race card both as shield and sword, when necessary, then give uplifting speeches about the need to "come together." Follow this with the obligatory "how far we've come," but couple it with "how far we have to go."
Rather than apologize for his 20-year attendance at a church with a racist pastor, Obama first defended him as a product of his generation; then criticized the pastor's view of race relations as "static," as if things haven't improved; then treated the country to a lecture on the history of race relations; then dumped the preacher. Yeah, Sen. Obama, but why did you belong to a church whose leader refers to America as "the United States of KKK"?
Obama's assumption that Gates' arrest reflects a history of race relations that "still haunts us" comes straight out of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's playbook: Cry racism, facts to follow. The Obama-loving press doesn't notice, doesn't care or feels America, given its past, deserves it.
Focus On Color
GOP opponent John McCain, reflecting his party's near-pathological fear of being labeled bigoted, helpfully played along by instructing his staff to take Wright "off the table." McCain removed an explosive red meat (pardon the expression) issue lest someone call him . . . RACIST! Even Obama called Wright's views a "legitimate issue"!
During the campaign, Obama got away with calling his grandmother "a typical white person." He survived after demeaning people in Middle America and small towns who "cling to guns or religion." (Blacks live in Middle America and small towns too, but somehow one suspects they weren't the target.)
He selected, as the nation's first black attorney general, former Clinton Deputy AG Eric Holder. Holder then called America, as to matters of race, "a nation of cowards"?!
Obama nominates Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. In speeches over the last 10 years, she asserted that a "wise Latina" would make a better judge than a "white male." As an appellate judge, she agreed to throw out a New Haven, Conn., firefighters' promotion test because whites performed better than blacks. But few commented on Sotomayor's reasoning.
Liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, when the court sided 5-4 with the firefighters, wrote the dissent. Never mind that Ginsburg's reasoning was as different from Sotomayor's as Keith Olbermann is from Dick Cheney.
Ginsburg wrote that before calling the test unfair, the lower court needs to determine whether the exam truly tests knowledge necessary to the job. If the test requires a candidate recite from "Hamlet," and whites do better than blacks, that's bad. But Sotomayor only cared about the result. Whites did well. Blacks did not. End of story. Throw it out.
Even my Obama-supporting brother — who rose, as many do in this country of opportunity, from entry level to management at a major corporation — shook his head and said, "He just goes back and forth, doesn't he?" Obama's view of society increasingly looks less like one that is colorblind, but rather is color-coordinated.
Or, to paraphrase the United Negro College Fund, a race card is a terrible thing to waste.
By LARRY ELDER Posted Tuesday, July 28, 2009 4:20 PM PT Oops, President Obama did it again. He thoughtlessly, carelessly and offensively whipped out the race card.
Some people — not just black — voted for Obama because of his race. Many expected an Obama election to (a) improve "race relations" and (b) make a profound statement about America's inclusiveness.
Obama's election would show how close we've come to Dr. Martin Luther King's vision of a society that judges people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. He seemed so uplifting.
A biracial candidate (white mom, black dad), he refreshingly responded to Steve Kroft's "60 Minutes" question about whether his race hurt his bid for the presidency. "I think if I don't win this race," Obama replied, "it will be because of other factors. It's gonna be because I have not shown to the American people a vision for where the country needs to go that they can embrace." Well done.
On the 40th anniversary of "Blood Sunday" — a watershed civil rights march — Obama spoke optimistically about the great distance America has traveled, with but a small distance to go:
"There's still some battles that need to be fought, some rivers that need to be crossed . . . The previous generation — the Moses generation — pointed the way. They took us 90% of the way there, but we still got that 10%, in order to cross over to the other side." Excellent.
After all, polls showed that black former Secretary of State Colin Powell could have won the 1996 election assuming he secured his party's nomination. Back in 1958, when Gallup first posed the question "Would you vote for a well-qualified candidate who happened to be black?," 53% of Americans said no. By 2006, that number had fallen to 3% in a Los Angeles Times-Bloomberg poll, or about one-third the number who believe Elvis still lives. But now, out comes the race card.
Friend Of Skip
During Obama's press conference, he answered a question about the arrest of the black professor and director of Harvard University's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Henry Gates.
Question: "Recently Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested at his home in Cambridge. What does that incident say to you and what does it say about race relations in America?"
Obama: "Well, I should say at the outset that Skip Gates is a friend, so I may be a little biased here. I don't know all the facts. What's been reported, though, is that the guy forgot his keys, jimmied his way to get into the house, there was a report called into the police station that there might be a burglary taking place — so far, so good, right?
". . . But so far, so good. They're reporting — the police are doing what they should. There's a call, they go investigate what happens. My understanding is at that point Professor Gates is already in his house. The police officer comes in, I'm sure there's some exchange of words, but my understanding is, is that Professor Gates then shows his ID to show that this is his house. And at that point, he gets arrested for disorderly conduct — charges which are later dropped.
"Now, I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that, but I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge Police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That's just a fact . . . ."
In other words, the president decided, without any corroborating evidence, that the officer victimized Gates and committed an act of "racial profiling." Obama said nothing about Gates' racially charged verbal abuse of an officer simply trying to do his job and protect Gates' home, a home which — by Gates own admission — had been a target of a previous attempted break-in.
This is, in fact, why Gates used his shoulder to push open his front door, prompting a neighbor to call the police because she suspected someone was trying to break in.
Damage Control
Obama later gave a semi-apology and said he didn't intend to "malign" the Cambridge Police department. He called the incident a "teachable" moment. Indeed it was. But for whom — America or Obama?
Here's what the leader of the free world — a lawyer, a former constitutional law teacher, a man whom actor Sean Penn during last year's Academy Awards referred to as "elegant" — should have said:
"I know Professor Gates. He is a friend of mine, so I am biased. I don't know all the facts. But I know that the police responded to call from a neighbor who thought someone was breaking into his house. An officer arrived and ultimately he arrested Gates at the professor's own home.
"What led up to it, what kind of words were exchanged, the record of the officer, the local law on disorderly conduct, among other factors, are all relevant. And I simply do not know enough to comment.
"But all too often an exchange between a black citizen and a white police generates knee-jerk accusations of racism and racial profiling. The police perform a difficult job, and they, too, wish to return home every day to their loved ones.
"We should appreciate and congratulate them — recognizing that there are some bad apples in every profession — for their willingness to do a difficult and dangerous job. Beyond this, until I know more, I'm not prepared to comment."
In full damage-control mode, the president invited Gates and Sgt. Crowley to the White House to resolve the "Cambridge Conflict." After his irresponsible "Cambridge Police acted stupidly" comment, Obama now says that "two good people" merely engaged in a "misunderstanding."
If the police audiotapes show both sides equally at fault in escalating the incident into an arrest, fair enough. Bring them both down for a can-we-get-along photo-op beer-drinking session.
But what if the yet-to-be-released tapes reveal that one of the participants committed an unwarranted, "yo mamma"-based provocation, that the parties were not equally at fault, and that Crowley legally used his discretion — even if he could have walked away — in making the arrest? Why reward the miscreant by giving him a sit-down with the president?
That would have been a home run with the possibility of actually improving police-citizen relations. But here's the problem. The media and the Democratic Party love to exploit and exaggerate the "tension" between blacks and whites.
Left To Die
Never mind that some of the attention-grabbing blacks-are-oppressed stories turn out bogus — the Duke lacrosse team "rape" scandal, the Al Sharpton-driven Tawana Brawley "sexual assault" story, the discredited black-churches-targeted-for-arson story, the Jena Six hyperventilation, and, of course, the mother of all "racism" stories — the double-homicide trial of O.J. Simpson.
Democrats gleefully exploit "racial divisions" when it suits them, because it protects and cultivates that monolithic black vote.
Then-First Lady Hillary Clinton once condemned the then-Republican-controlled Congress before a predominantly black audience: "When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation, and you know what I'm talking about."
Then-Senate candidate, now Sen. Clair McCaskill, a Democrat, said, "George Bush let people die on rooftops in New Orleans because they were poor and because they were black."
DNC Chairman Howard Dean referred to the GOP as the "white party" and calls Republicans racist: "The Republicans are all about suppressing votes. Two voting machines if you live in a black district, 10 voting machines if you live in a white district."
Once, during a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus, Dean said: "You think the Republican National Committee could get this many people of color in a single room? . . . Only if they had the hotel staff in here."
But now the media's knee-jerk pursuit of the whites-oppressing-blacks Gates-Cambridge story pulls their guy "off message," jeopardizing his pursuit of ObamaCare. Thus the president's press secretary calls the media's frenzy over the Gates-Cambridge affair an "obsession."
We've seen this before with Obama. And the picture grows clearer and clearer. Use the race card both as shield and sword, when necessary, then give uplifting speeches about the need to "come together." Follow this with the obligatory "how far we've come," but couple it with "how far we have to go."
Rather than apologize for his 20-year attendance at a church with a racist pastor, Obama first defended him as a product of his generation; then criticized the pastor's view of race relations as "static," as if things haven't improved; then treated the country to a lecture on the history of race relations; then dumped the preacher. Yeah, Sen. Obama, but why did you belong to a church whose leader refers to America as "the United States of KKK"?
Obama's assumption that Gates' arrest reflects a history of race relations that "still haunts us" comes straight out of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's playbook: Cry racism, facts to follow. The Obama-loving press doesn't notice, doesn't care or feels America, given its past, deserves it.
Focus On Color
GOP opponent John McCain, reflecting his party's near-pathological fear of being labeled bigoted, helpfully played along by instructing his staff to take Wright "off the table." McCain removed an explosive red meat (pardon the expression) issue lest someone call him . . . RACIST! Even Obama called Wright's views a "legitimate issue"!
During the campaign, Obama got away with calling his grandmother "a typical white person." He survived after demeaning people in Middle America and small towns who "cling to guns or religion." (Blacks live in Middle America and small towns too, but somehow one suspects they weren't the target.)
He selected, as the nation's first black attorney general, former Clinton Deputy AG Eric Holder. Holder then called America, as to matters of race, "a nation of cowards"?!
Obama nominates Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. In speeches over the last 10 years, she asserted that a "wise Latina" would make a better judge than a "white male." As an appellate judge, she agreed to throw out a New Haven, Conn., firefighters' promotion test because whites performed better than blacks. But few commented on Sotomayor's reasoning.
Liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, when the court sided 5-4 with the firefighters, wrote the dissent. Never mind that Ginsburg's reasoning was as different from Sotomayor's as Keith Olbermann is from Dick Cheney.
Ginsburg wrote that before calling the test unfair, the lower court needs to determine whether the exam truly tests knowledge necessary to the job. If the test requires a candidate recite from "Hamlet," and whites do better than blacks, that's bad. But Sotomayor only cared about the result. Whites did well. Blacks did not. End of story. Throw it out.
Even my Obama-supporting brother — who rose, as many do in this country of opportunity, from entry level to management at a major corporation — shook his head and said, "He just goes back and forth, doesn't he?" Obama's view of society increasingly looks less like one that is colorblind, but rather is color-coordinated.
Or, to paraphrase the United Negro College Fund, a race card is a terrible thing to waste.
On Obama
Our New President: Disaster In The Making?
By THOMAS SOWELL Posted Tuesday, July 28, 2009 4:20 PM PT
After many a disappointment with someone, and especially after a disaster, we may be able to look back at numerous clues that should have warned us that the person we trusted did not deserve our trust.
When that person is the president of the United States, the potential for disaster is virtually unlimited.
Many people are rightly worried about what this administration's reckless spending will do to the economy in our time and to our children and grandchildren, to whom a staggering national debt will be passed on. But if the worst that Barack Obama does is ruin the economy, I will breathe a sigh of relief.
He is heading this country toward disaster on many fronts, including a nuclear Iran, which has every prospect of being an irretrievable disaster of almost unimaginable magnitude. We cannot put that genie back in the bottle — and neither can generations yet unborn. They may yet curse us all for leaving them hostages to nuclear terror.
Conceivably, Israel can spare us that fate by taking out the Iranian nuclear facilities, instead of relying on Obama's ability to talk the Iranians out of going nuclear.
What the Israelis cannot spare us, however, are our own internal problems, of which the current flap over President Obama's injecting himself into a local police issue is just a small sign of a very big danger.
Nothing has torn more countries apart from inside like racial and ethnic polarization. Just this year, a decades-long civil war, filled with unspeakable atrocities, has finally ended in Sri Lanka. The painful irony is that, when the British colony of Ceylon became the independent nation of Sri Lanka in 1948, its people were considered to be a shining example for the world of good relations between a majority (the Sinhalese) and a minority (the Tamils).
That all changed when politicians decided to "solve" the "problem" that the Tamil minority was much more economically successful than the Sinhalese majority. Group identity politics led to group preferences and quotas that escalated into polarization, mob violence and ultimately civil war.
Group identity politics has poisoned many other countries, including at various times Kenya, Czechoslovakia, Fiji, Guyana, Canada, Nigeria, India and Rwanda. In some countries the polarization has gone as far as mass expulsions or civil war.
The desire of many Americans for a "post-racial" society is well-founded, though the belief that Barack Obama would move in that direction was extremely ill-advised, given the history of his actions and associations.
This is a president on a mission to remake American society in every aspect, by whatever means are necessary and available. That requires taking all kinds of decisions out of the hands of ordinary Americans and transferring them to Washington elites — and ultimately the No. 1 elite, Barack Obama himself.
Like so many before him who have ruined countries around the world, Obama has a greatly inflated idea of his own capabilities and the prospects of what can be accomplished by rhetoric or even by political power.
Often this has been accompanied by an ignorance of history, including the history of how many people before him have tried similar things with disastrous results.
During a recent TV interview, when President Obama was asked about the prospects of victory in Afghanistan, he replied that it would not be victory like in World War II, with "Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur."
In reality, it was not Emperor Hirohito who surrendered on the battleship Missouri. American troops were already occupying Japan before Hirohito met Gen. Douglas MacArthur for the first time.
This is not the first betrayal of his ignorance by Obama, nor the first overlooked by the media. Moreover, ignorance by itself is not nearly as bad as charging full steam ahead, pretending to know. Barack Obama is doing that on a lot of issues, not just history or a local police incident in Massachusetts.
While the mainstream media in America will never call him on this, these repeated demonstrations of his amateurism and immaturity will not go unnoticed by this country's enemies around the world. And it is the American people who will pay the price.
Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate, Inc
By THOMAS SOWELL Posted Tuesday, July 28, 2009 4:20 PM PT
After many a disappointment with someone, and especially after a disaster, we may be able to look back at numerous clues that should have warned us that the person we trusted did not deserve our trust.
When that person is the president of the United States, the potential for disaster is virtually unlimited.
Many people are rightly worried about what this administration's reckless spending will do to the economy in our time and to our children and grandchildren, to whom a staggering national debt will be passed on. But if the worst that Barack Obama does is ruin the economy, I will breathe a sigh of relief.
He is heading this country toward disaster on many fronts, including a nuclear Iran, which has every prospect of being an irretrievable disaster of almost unimaginable magnitude. We cannot put that genie back in the bottle — and neither can generations yet unborn. They may yet curse us all for leaving them hostages to nuclear terror.
Conceivably, Israel can spare us that fate by taking out the Iranian nuclear facilities, instead of relying on Obama's ability to talk the Iranians out of going nuclear.
What the Israelis cannot spare us, however, are our own internal problems, of which the current flap over President Obama's injecting himself into a local police issue is just a small sign of a very big danger.
Nothing has torn more countries apart from inside like racial and ethnic polarization. Just this year, a decades-long civil war, filled with unspeakable atrocities, has finally ended in Sri Lanka. The painful irony is that, when the British colony of Ceylon became the independent nation of Sri Lanka in 1948, its people were considered to be a shining example for the world of good relations between a majority (the Sinhalese) and a minority (the Tamils).
That all changed when politicians decided to "solve" the "problem" that the Tamil minority was much more economically successful than the Sinhalese majority. Group identity politics led to group preferences and quotas that escalated into polarization, mob violence and ultimately civil war.
Group identity politics has poisoned many other countries, including at various times Kenya, Czechoslovakia, Fiji, Guyana, Canada, Nigeria, India and Rwanda. In some countries the polarization has gone as far as mass expulsions or civil war.
The desire of many Americans for a "post-racial" society is well-founded, though the belief that Barack Obama would move in that direction was extremely ill-advised, given the history of his actions and associations.
This is a president on a mission to remake American society in every aspect, by whatever means are necessary and available. That requires taking all kinds of decisions out of the hands of ordinary Americans and transferring them to Washington elites — and ultimately the No. 1 elite, Barack Obama himself.
Like so many before him who have ruined countries around the world, Obama has a greatly inflated idea of his own capabilities and the prospects of what can be accomplished by rhetoric or even by political power.
Often this has been accompanied by an ignorance of history, including the history of how many people before him have tried similar things with disastrous results.
During a recent TV interview, when President Obama was asked about the prospects of victory in Afghanistan, he replied that it would not be victory like in World War II, with "Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur."
In reality, it was not Emperor Hirohito who surrendered on the battleship Missouri. American troops were already occupying Japan before Hirohito met Gen. Douglas MacArthur for the first time.
This is not the first betrayal of his ignorance by Obama, nor the first overlooked by the media. Moreover, ignorance by itself is not nearly as bad as charging full steam ahead, pretending to know. Barack Obama is doing that on a lot of issues, not just history or a local police incident in Massachusetts.
While the mainstream media in America will never call him on this, these repeated demonstrations of his amateurism and immaturity will not go unnoticed by this country's enemies around the world. And it is the American people who will pay the price.
Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate, Inc
Post racial president
A Post-Racial President?
by Thomas Sowell
Many people hoped that the election of a black President of the United States would mark our entering a "post-racial" era, when we could finally put some ugly aspects of our history behind us.
That is quite understandable. But it takes two to tango. Those of us who want to see racism on its way out need to realize that others benefit greatly from crying racism. They benefit politically, financially, and socially.
Barack Obama has been allied with such people for decades. He found it expedient to appeal to a wider electorate as a post-racial candidate, just as he has found it expedient to say a lot of other popular things-- about campaign finance, about transparency in government, about not rushing legislation through Congress without having it first posted on the Internet long enough to be studied-- all of which turned to be the direct opposite of what he actually did after getting elected.
Those who were shocked at President Obama's cheap shot at the Cambridge police for being "stupid" in arresting Henry Louis Gates must have been among those who let their wishes prevail over the obvious implications of Obama's 20 years of association with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Anyone who can believe that Obama did not understand what the racist rants of Jeremiah Wright meant can believe anything.
With race-- as with campaign finance, transparency and the rest-- Barack Obama knows what the public wants to hear and that is what he has said. But his policies as president have been the opposite of his rhetoric, with race as with other issues.
As a state senator in Illinois, Obama pushed the "racial profiling" issue, so it is hardly surprising that he jumped to the conclusion that a policeman was racial profiling when in fact the cop was investigating a report received from a neighbor that someone seemed to be breaking into the house that Professor Gates was renting in Cambridge.
For those who are interested in facts-- and these obviously do not include President Obama-- there has been a serious study of racial profiling in a book titled "Are Cops Racist?" by Heather Mac Donald. Her analysis of the data shows how this issue has long been distorted beyond recognition by politics.
The racial profiling issue is a great vote-getter. And if it polarizes the society, that is a price that politicians are willing to pay in order to get votes. Academics who run black studies departments, as Professor Henry Louis Gates does, likewise have a vested interest in racial paranoia.
For "community organizers" as well, racial resentments are a stock in trade. President Obama's background as a community organizer has received far too little attention, though it should have been a high-alert warning that this was no post-racial figure.
What does a community organizer do? What he does not do is organize a community. What he organizes are the resentments and paranoia within a community, directing those feelings against other communities, from whom either benefits or revenge are to be gotten, using whatever rhetoric or tactics will accomplish that purpose.
To think that someone who has spent years promoting grievance and polarization was going to bring us all together as president is a triumph of wishful thinking over reality.
Not only Barack Obama's past, but his present, tell the same story. His appointment of an attorney general who called America "a nation of cowards" for not dialoguing about race was a foretaste of what to expect from Eric Holder.
The way Attorney General Holder has refused to prosecute young black thugs who gathered at a voting site with menacing clubs, in blatant violation of federal laws against intimidating voters, speaks louder than any words from him or his president.
President Obama's first nominee to the Supreme Court is, like Obama himself, someone with a background of years of affiliation with an organization dedicated to promoting racial resentments and a sense of racial entitlement.
An 18th century philosopher said, "When I speak I put on a mask. When I act I am forced to take it off." Barack Obama's mask slipped for a moment last week but he quickly recovered, with the help of the media. But we should never forget what we saw.
by Thomas Sowell
Many people hoped that the election of a black President of the United States would mark our entering a "post-racial" era, when we could finally put some ugly aspects of our history behind us.
That is quite understandable. But it takes two to tango. Those of us who want to see racism on its way out need to realize that others benefit greatly from crying racism. They benefit politically, financially, and socially.
Barack Obama has been allied with such people for decades. He found it expedient to appeal to a wider electorate as a post-racial candidate, just as he has found it expedient to say a lot of other popular things-- about campaign finance, about transparency in government, about not rushing legislation through Congress without having it first posted on the Internet long enough to be studied-- all of which turned to be the direct opposite of what he actually did after getting elected.
Those who were shocked at President Obama's cheap shot at the Cambridge police for being "stupid" in arresting Henry Louis Gates must have been among those who let their wishes prevail over the obvious implications of Obama's 20 years of association with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Anyone who can believe that Obama did not understand what the racist rants of Jeremiah Wright meant can believe anything.
With race-- as with campaign finance, transparency and the rest-- Barack Obama knows what the public wants to hear and that is what he has said. But his policies as president have been the opposite of his rhetoric, with race as with other issues.
As a state senator in Illinois, Obama pushed the "racial profiling" issue, so it is hardly surprising that he jumped to the conclusion that a policeman was racial profiling when in fact the cop was investigating a report received from a neighbor that someone seemed to be breaking into the house that Professor Gates was renting in Cambridge.
For those who are interested in facts-- and these obviously do not include President Obama-- there has been a serious study of racial profiling in a book titled "Are Cops Racist?" by Heather Mac Donald. Her analysis of the data shows how this issue has long been distorted beyond recognition by politics.
The racial profiling issue is a great vote-getter. And if it polarizes the society, that is a price that politicians are willing to pay in order to get votes. Academics who run black studies departments, as Professor Henry Louis Gates does, likewise have a vested interest in racial paranoia.
For "community organizers" as well, racial resentments are a stock in trade. President Obama's background as a community organizer has received far too little attention, though it should have been a high-alert warning that this was no post-racial figure.
What does a community organizer do? What he does not do is organize a community. What he organizes are the resentments and paranoia within a community, directing those feelings against other communities, from whom either benefits or revenge are to be gotten, using whatever rhetoric or tactics will accomplish that purpose.
To think that someone who has spent years promoting grievance and polarization was going to bring us all together as president is a triumph of wishful thinking over reality.
Not only Barack Obama's past, but his present, tell the same story. His appointment of an attorney general who called America "a nation of cowards" for not dialoguing about race was a foretaste of what to expect from Eric Holder.
The way Attorney General Holder has refused to prosecute young black thugs who gathered at a voting site with menacing clubs, in blatant violation of federal laws against intimidating voters, speaks louder than any words from him or his president.
President Obama's first nominee to the Supreme Court is, like Obama himself, someone with a background of years of affiliation with an organization dedicated to promoting racial resentments and a sense of racial entitlement.
An 18th century philosopher said, "When I speak I put on a mask. When I act I am forced to take it off." Barack Obama's mask slipped for a moment last week but he quickly recovered, with the help of the media. But we should never forget what we saw.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Obama and Orwell
Rhetoric V. Reality: Health Care by Orwell
by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
President Obama's rhetoric Wednesday night summoned the memory of "1984," George Orwell's novel of a nightmarish future -- where the slogan of the rulers is "War is peace; freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength."
The president assures us that he will cut health-care spending ... by adding $1 trillion to health-care spending.
He says that "health-care decisions will not be made by government" ... while he sets up a new Federal Health Board to tell doctors what treatments they can offer and to whom and under what circumstances.
Obama told the media, "I will free doctors to make good health care decisions" ... by telling the physicians what to do.
When the president says he guarantees the "same coverage" to people who like their current health-insurance policies, he means that their current HMOs, insurers and doctors will be the ones to implement the protocols and instructions the government hands down to them -- not that we'll have our current freedom of decision-making.
When he blandly assures us that we will "stop paying for things that don't make us healthier," he really means that his Federal Health Board will overrule your doctor and stop him from using his own best judgment in your treatment.
The president will "get the politics out of health care" by putting it under government control.
Obama says that he will not "add to the deficit" to fund health care. But the bill reported by Rep. Charlie Rangel's Ways and Means Committee leaves $550 billion unfunded.
The president says that he'll identify savings that will reduce the need for more taxes -- even though the Congressional Budget Office refuses to say that his "savings" will actually work and warns that the bill will really be added to the deficit.
He repeatedly tells us that he'll cut health-care spending. What he means is that he will cut doctors' incomes and will turn down patients -- particularly the elderly -- when they seek medical care that his bureaucrats disapprove of.
And he ignores that cutting incomes in the medical field will reduce the number of doctors and force further rationing of care.
The president opines that he will replace the most "expensive care" with the "best care" by empowering government officials who have never met you to substitute their judgment for that of your doctor, who has examined you thoroughly.
When Obama laments that "14,000 people lose their insurance every day," he is referring to the job losses that his own failed efforts to end the recession have permitted.
He warns that health care costs are gobbling up money that employers should use to raise wages and worker pay -- yet the plans he backs would require employers to pay 8 percent of their payroll as a tax or provide insurance to their workers.
The Obama plan highlights greater preventive care -- but, at the same time, cuts medical incomes and so will cut the number of doctors who might provide it.
The stimulus package, in the Gospel According to Barack, was "designed" to work over the next two years. But at the time, he demanded immediate passage to "jump-start the economy" -- something that clearly did not happen.
Medicare and Medicaid are "driving the deficit" even as he increased the amount of red ink by at least $800 billion in six months with little, if any, increase in the cost of either program.
He says he "expects" banks to repay their TARP money. In fact, they're lining up around the block to do so -- but the Treasury will only permit a handful of them to do so.
In summary, Obama's health program will promote "lower cost and more choice" by increasing spending by $1 trillion, telling patients what care they're permitted to have, and limiting their access to quality care.
Orwell's heirs should sue for violation of copyright.
by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
President Obama's rhetoric Wednesday night summoned the memory of "1984," George Orwell's novel of a nightmarish future -- where the slogan of the rulers is "War is peace; freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength."
The president assures us that he will cut health-care spending ... by adding $1 trillion to health-care spending.
He says that "health-care decisions will not be made by government" ... while he sets up a new Federal Health Board to tell doctors what treatments they can offer and to whom and under what circumstances.
Obama told the media, "I will free doctors to make good health care decisions" ... by telling the physicians what to do.
When the president says he guarantees the "same coverage" to people who like their current health-insurance policies, he means that their current HMOs, insurers and doctors will be the ones to implement the protocols and instructions the government hands down to them -- not that we'll have our current freedom of decision-making.
When he blandly assures us that we will "stop paying for things that don't make us healthier," he really means that his Federal Health Board will overrule your doctor and stop him from using his own best judgment in your treatment.
The president will "get the politics out of health care" by putting it under government control.
Obama says that he will not "add to the deficit" to fund health care. But the bill reported by Rep. Charlie Rangel's Ways and Means Committee leaves $550 billion unfunded.
The president says that he'll identify savings that will reduce the need for more taxes -- even though the Congressional Budget Office refuses to say that his "savings" will actually work and warns that the bill will really be added to the deficit.
He repeatedly tells us that he'll cut health-care spending. What he means is that he will cut doctors' incomes and will turn down patients -- particularly the elderly -- when they seek medical care that his bureaucrats disapprove of.
And he ignores that cutting incomes in the medical field will reduce the number of doctors and force further rationing of care.
The president opines that he will replace the most "expensive care" with the "best care" by empowering government officials who have never met you to substitute their judgment for that of your doctor, who has examined you thoroughly.
When Obama laments that "14,000 people lose their insurance every day," he is referring to the job losses that his own failed efforts to end the recession have permitted.
He warns that health care costs are gobbling up money that employers should use to raise wages and worker pay -- yet the plans he backs would require employers to pay 8 percent of their payroll as a tax or provide insurance to their workers.
The Obama plan highlights greater preventive care -- but, at the same time, cuts medical incomes and so will cut the number of doctors who might provide it.
The stimulus package, in the Gospel According to Barack, was "designed" to work over the next two years. But at the time, he demanded immediate passage to "jump-start the economy" -- something that clearly did not happen.
Medicare and Medicaid are "driving the deficit" even as he increased the amount of red ink by at least $800 billion in six months with little, if any, increase in the cost of either program.
He says he "expects" banks to repay their TARP money. In fact, they're lining up around the block to do so -- but the Treasury will only permit a handful of them to do so.
In summary, Obama's health program will promote "lower cost and more choice" by increasing spending by $1 trillion, telling patients what care they're permitted to have, and limiting their access to quality care.
Orwell's heirs should sue for violation of copyright.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Obama's science czar
Ghoulish Science Plus Obamacare Equals Health Hazard
by Michelle Malkin
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius tried to reassure citizens in New Orleans this week that Obamacare bureaucrats will make sound medical decisions for all Americans. She failed. Under the government-run plan, she promised, a team of health care experts will recommend what should be covered: "I think it would be wise to let science guide what the best health care package is."
Gulp. It's the Obama administration's view of sound "science" that should send chills down patients' spines.
Case in point: The president's prestigious science czar, John Holdren, refuses to answer questions about his radical published work on population control over the last 30 years.
Last week, I called the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to press Holdren on his views about forced abortions and mass sterilizations; his purported disavowal of "Ecoscience," the 1977 book he co-authored with population control zealots Paul and Anne Ehrlich; and his continued embrace of forced-abortion advocate and eugenics guru Harrison Brown, whom he credits with inspiring him to become a scientist.
After investigative bloggers and this column reprinted extensive excerpts from "Ecoscience," which mused openly about putting sterilants in the water supply to make women infertile and engineering society by taking away babies from undesirables and subjecting them to government-mandated abortions, the White House issued a statement from Holdren last week denying he embraced those proposals. The Ehrlichs challenged critics to read their and Holdren's more recent research and works.
Well, I did read one of Holdren's recent works. It revealed his clingy reverence for, and allegiance to, the gurus of population control authoritarianism. He's just gotten smarter about cloaking it behind global warming hysteria. In 2007, he addressed the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference. Holdren served as AAAS president; the organization posted his full slide presentation on its website.
In the opening slide, Holdren admitted that his "preoccupation" with apocalyptic matters such as "the rates at which people breed" was a lifelong obsession spurred by Harrison Brown's work. Holdren heaped praise on Brown's half-century-old book, "The Challenge of Man's Future," and then proceeded to paint doom-and-gloom scenarios requiring drastic government interventions to control climate change.
Who is Harrison Brown? He was a "distinguished member" of the International Eugenics Society whom Holdren later worked with on a book about -- you guessed it -- world population and fertility. Brown advocated the same population control-freak measures Holdren put forth in "Ecoscience." In "The Challenge of Man's Future," Brown envisioned a regime in which the "number of abortions and artificial inseminations permitted in a given year would be determined completely by the difference between the number of deaths and the number of births in the year previous."
Brown exhorted readers to accept that "we must reconcile ourselves to the fact that artificial means must be applied to limit birth rates." If we don't, Brown warned, we will face a planet "with a writhing mass of human beings." He likened the global population to a "pulsating mass of maggots."
When I pressed Holdren's office specifically about his relationship with Brown, spokesman Rick Weiss told me he didn't know who Brown was and balked at drawing any conclusions about Holdren's views based on his homage just two years ago to his lifelong mentor, colleague and continued inspiration, Harrison Brown.
Weiss lectured me rather snippily about the need for responsible journalism (he was a Washington Post reporter for 15 years). He then told me not to expect any response from Holdren's office to my question on whether Holdren disavows his relationship with a eugenics enthusiast who referred to the world population as a "pulsating mass of maggots" and championed a scheme of abortion and artificial insemination quotas. To date the office has maintained radio silence.
If this is the kind of ghoulish "science" that guides the White House, we can only hope that Obamacare is dead on arrival.
by Michelle Malkin
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius tried to reassure citizens in New Orleans this week that Obamacare bureaucrats will make sound medical decisions for all Americans. She failed. Under the government-run plan, she promised, a team of health care experts will recommend what should be covered: "I think it would be wise to let science guide what the best health care package is."
Gulp. It's the Obama administration's view of sound "science" that should send chills down patients' spines.
Case in point: The president's prestigious science czar, John Holdren, refuses to answer questions about his radical published work on population control over the last 30 years.
Last week, I called the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to press Holdren on his views about forced abortions and mass sterilizations; his purported disavowal of "Ecoscience," the 1977 book he co-authored with population control zealots Paul and Anne Ehrlich; and his continued embrace of forced-abortion advocate and eugenics guru Harrison Brown, whom he credits with inspiring him to become a scientist.
After investigative bloggers and this column reprinted extensive excerpts from "Ecoscience," which mused openly about putting sterilants in the water supply to make women infertile and engineering society by taking away babies from undesirables and subjecting them to government-mandated abortions, the White House issued a statement from Holdren last week denying he embraced those proposals. The Ehrlichs challenged critics to read their and Holdren's more recent research and works.
Well, I did read one of Holdren's recent works. It revealed his clingy reverence for, and allegiance to, the gurus of population control authoritarianism. He's just gotten smarter about cloaking it behind global warming hysteria. In 2007, he addressed the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference. Holdren served as AAAS president; the organization posted his full slide presentation on its website.
In the opening slide, Holdren admitted that his "preoccupation" with apocalyptic matters such as "the rates at which people breed" was a lifelong obsession spurred by Harrison Brown's work. Holdren heaped praise on Brown's half-century-old book, "The Challenge of Man's Future," and then proceeded to paint doom-and-gloom scenarios requiring drastic government interventions to control climate change.
Who is Harrison Brown? He was a "distinguished member" of the International Eugenics Society whom Holdren later worked with on a book about -- you guessed it -- world population and fertility. Brown advocated the same population control-freak measures Holdren put forth in "Ecoscience." In "The Challenge of Man's Future," Brown envisioned a regime in which the "number of abortions and artificial inseminations permitted in a given year would be determined completely by the difference between the number of deaths and the number of births in the year previous."
Brown exhorted readers to accept that "we must reconcile ourselves to the fact that artificial means must be applied to limit birth rates." If we don't, Brown warned, we will face a planet "with a writhing mass of human beings." He likened the global population to a "pulsating mass of maggots."
When I pressed Holdren's office specifically about his relationship with Brown, spokesman Rick Weiss told me he didn't know who Brown was and balked at drawing any conclusions about Holdren's views based on his homage just two years ago to his lifelong mentor, colleague and continued inspiration, Harrison Brown.
Weiss lectured me rather snippily about the need for responsible journalism (he was a Washington Post reporter for 15 years). He then told me not to expect any response from Holdren's office to my question on whether Holdren disavows his relationship with a eugenics enthusiast who referred to the world population as a "pulsating mass of maggots" and championed a scheme of abortion and artificial insemination quotas. To date the office has maintained radio silence.
If this is the kind of ghoulish "science" that guides the White House, we can only hope that Obamacare is dead on arrival.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite Without Tears
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Monday, July 20, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Journalism: After the eulogies, the fact remains that "the most trusted man in America" betrayed that trust. He helped snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Vietnam and tried hard to do the same in Iraq.
President Obama on Friday praised Walter Cronkite as a journalistic icon, calling the CBS anchor the "voice of certainty in an uncertain world." More to the point, he was the father of advocacy journalism, the patron saint of media bias. He went from reporting news to recreating it in his own image.
Far from the image of the patriotic war correspondent, Cronkite was a World Federalist who couldn't wait for what was called "the American Century" to end.
In this Aug. 25, 1998, photo, Walter Cronkite is joined by President Bill Clinton, wife Hillary and daughter Chelsea on a sailboat near Edgartown, Mass. Best known as anchorman for the 'CBS Evening News' for 19 years, Cronkite died Friday night at 92.
In a profile by Newsday TV writer Verne Gay in the Jan. 21, 1996, issue of Los Angeles Times Magazine, Cronkite spoke of his dream for America. "We may have to find some marvelous middle ground between capitalism and communism," Gay quotes Cronkite as saying.
Let's call it socialism, and Cronkite at least lived long enough to see it unfolding before his eyes and ours.
Cronkite said that for the United States "the first priority of the new order must be a revision of the educational system to . . . guarantee that each of our citizens will have equal resources to share in the decisions of the democracy, and a fair share of the economic pie."
For him, equal opportunity was not enough; equal success must be guaranteed. And he was ahead of his time in suggesting we should spread the wealth around.
In October 1999, Cronkite accepted the Norman Cousins Global Governance Award from the World Federalist Association. In accepting the award, he said "we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a world government" and that "Americans will have to yield up some of our sovereignty."
Cronkite was also bothered by American wars against oppression and tyranny. The "most trusted man in America" said Vietnam was unwinnable and helped to make it so. Then-President Johnson reportedly told an aide, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America."
Except that Cronkite's analysis was almost pure fiction and dead wrong.
His report after the Tet offensive of 1968 was a total misreading of the situation on the ground, which was that Tet was an American and South Vietnamese victory and a Viet Cong defeat. His report did succeed in fueling the anti-war movement Hanoi counted on for victory.
The Viet Cong didn't reach a single one of their objectives and lost most of their 45,000 troops in their attacks on 21 South Vietnamese cities. So massive was their defeat that it convinced Hanoi to send North Vietnamese Army regulars south to carry on the fight. But that's not what Cronkite reported.
What Cronkite never mentioned is that defeat came not on the battlefield but in the halls of Congress, when the "Watergate babies" of 1974 cut off aid to the valiant South Vietnamese who'd been successfully defending their country. The Democrats de-funded that war, and they wanted to defund the latest one too with his blessing.
In 2007, Cronkite said the Iraq War "is being carried out by a stubborn president." Stubborn like Churchill and Reagan. In an op-ed in the Japan Times, Cronkite said that we "have lost the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, and victory no longer seems to be a remote possibility."
The reporters and talking heads who revered him and sought to emulate him also manipulated the true facts, focusing on body counts and ignoring the millions of purple fingers, casting their first votes, their hearts and minds clearly with us.
To the Cronkites of the world it will always be 1968, and only global governance can save us from our quagmires. And that's the way it is . . .
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Monday, July 20, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Journalism: After the eulogies, the fact remains that "the most trusted man in America" betrayed that trust. He helped snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Vietnam and tried hard to do the same in Iraq.
President Obama on Friday praised Walter Cronkite as a journalistic icon, calling the CBS anchor the "voice of certainty in an uncertain world." More to the point, he was the father of advocacy journalism, the patron saint of media bias. He went from reporting news to recreating it in his own image.
Far from the image of the patriotic war correspondent, Cronkite was a World Federalist who couldn't wait for what was called "the American Century" to end.
In this Aug. 25, 1998, photo, Walter Cronkite is joined by President Bill Clinton, wife Hillary and daughter Chelsea on a sailboat near Edgartown, Mass. Best known as anchorman for the 'CBS Evening News' for 19 years, Cronkite died Friday night at 92.
In a profile by Newsday TV writer Verne Gay in the Jan. 21, 1996, issue of Los Angeles Times Magazine, Cronkite spoke of his dream for America. "We may have to find some marvelous middle ground between capitalism and communism," Gay quotes Cronkite as saying.
Let's call it socialism, and Cronkite at least lived long enough to see it unfolding before his eyes and ours.
Cronkite said that for the United States "the first priority of the new order must be a revision of the educational system to . . . guarantee that each of our citizens will have equal resources to share in the decisions of the democracy, and a fair share of the economic pie."
For him, equal opportunity was not enough; equal success must be guaranteed. And he was ahead of his time in suggesting we should spread the wealth around.
In October 1999, Cronkite accepted the Norman Cousins Global Governance Award from the World Federalist Association. In accepting the award, he said "we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a world government" and that "Americans will have to yield up some of our sovereignty."
Cronkite was also bothered by American wars against oppression and tyranny. The "most trusted man in America" said Vietnam was unwinnable and helped to make it so. Then-President Johnson reportedly told an aide, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America."
Except that Cronkite's analysis was almost pure fiction and dead wrong.
His report after the Tet offensive of 1968 was a total misreading of the situation on the ground, which was that Tet was an American and South Vietnamese victory and a Viet Cong defeat. His report did succeed in fueling the anti-war movement Hanoi counted on for victory.
The Viet Cong didn't reach a single one of their objectives and lost most of their 45,000 troops in their attacks on 21 South Vietnamese cities. So massive was their defeat that it convinced Hanoi to send North Vietnamese Army regulars south to carry on the fight. But that's not what Cronkite reported.
What Cronkite never mentioned is that defeat came not on the battlefield but in the halls of Congress, when the "Watergate babies" of 1974 cut off aid to the valiant South Vietnamese who'd been successfully defending their country. The Democrats de-funded that war, and they wanted to defund the latest one too with his blessing.
In 2007, Cronkite said the Iraq War "is being carried out by a stubborn president." Stubborn like Churchill and Reagan. In an op-ed in the Japan Times, Cronkite said that we "have lost the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, and victory no longer seems to be a remote possibility."
The reporters and talking heads who revered him and sought to emulate him also manipulated the true facts, focusing on body counts and ignoring the millions of purple fingers, casting their first votes, their hearts and minds clearly with us.
To the Cronkites of the world it will always be 1968, and only global governance can save us from our quagmires. And that's the way it is . . .
Our new science 'czar'
Czar 54, Who Are You?
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Monday, July 20, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Leadership: Our new science czar, John Holdren, once backed compulsory sterilization and forced abortion as part of a government population-control program. The only thing missing was a Soylent Green recipe.
In April, President Obama declared that "the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over." In everything from stem cell research to climate change and energy policy, reason and science would triumph. The problem is that what the Obama administration considers science, as exemplified by the choice of Holdren, is troubling.
In a recently rediscovered 1977 book, "Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment," co-authored with doomsters Paul and Anne Ehrlich, Holdren, who holds the post of presidential assistant for science technology, revealed his pessimistic and apocalyptic views on all three topics. They are disturbing.
He hates people and views them as the root of all planetary evils. Large families are a target of Holdren and the Ehrlichs, who write that they "contribute to general social deterioration by overproducing children" and "can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility."
On page 837, Holdren writes "it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society."
Overproducing children? On the next page, Holdren asserts that "neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution mentions a right to reproduce." He missed that part about life being an inalienable right.
Existing Constitution? On page 943, Holdren proposes "a comprehensive Planetary Regime (that) could control the development, administration and distribution of all natural resources . . . not only in the atmosphere and the oceans, but in such freshwater bodies as rivers and lakes." We believe that was tried in Kyoto and will be tried again in Copenhagen.
As for that nasty people problem, Holdren says the "Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries' shares within their regional limits. . . . The Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits." This is China on steroids.
Among the methods of population control he discusses in the book is "sterilizing women after their second or third child" and "adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods." He cautions that whatever is added must be safe for pets and livestock.
Similar nonsense was express in Paul Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb" (1968), which warned: "In the 1970s, the world will undergo famine — hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked on now." He was wrong.
Such nightmare scenarios regarding overpopulation have made the rounds since Thomas Malthus predicted in 1798 that overpopulation would outstrip England's food supply and the British Empire would literally starve to death.
In 1980, Holdren and the Ehrlichs made a famous wager with economist Julian Simon: They bet $1,000 that five metals — chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten — would be more expensive 10 years later. They were wrong on all five predictions, and had to pay up in 1990.
Holdren also calculated that famines due to climate change could leave a billion people dead by 2020, championed "population control measures," and believed 280 million Americans would likely be "too many."
Like Ehrlich, he forgot that with bodies come minds, minds that can innovate, invent and find substitutes for scarce resources and new ways to feed people. Things like fiber optic cables, wireless computers, and bioengineering come to mind. Obesity is a threat, not famine.
This administration, through its policies, programs and personnel choices, is pushing science fiction, not science, and seeking to control and limit people as a plague upon the earth. Science czar John Holdren's views, which to our knowledge have not been disavowed, paint a bleak future for the human race at the hands of government.
We prefer another piece of advice we were once given — be fruitful and multiply.
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Monday, July 20, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Leadership: Our new science czar, John Holdren, once backed compulsory sterilization and forced abortion as part of a government population-control program. The only thing missing was a Soylent Green recipe.
In April, President Obama declared that "the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over." In everything from stem cell research to climate change and energy policy, reason and science would triumph. The problem is that what the Obama administration considers science, as exemplified by the choice of Holdren, is troubling.
In a recently rediscovered 1977 book, "Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment," co-authored with doomsters Paul and Anne Ehrlich, Holdren, who holds the post of presidential assistant for science technology, revealed his pessimistic and apocalyptic views on all three topics. They are disturbing.
He hates people and views them as the root of all planetary evils. Large families are a target of Holdren and the Ehrlichs, who write that they "contribute to general social deterioration by overproducing children" and "can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility."
On page 837, Holdren writes "it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society."
Overproducing children? On the next page, Holdren asserts that "neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution mentions a right to reproduce." He missed that part about life being an inalienable right.
Existing Constitution? On page 943, Holdren proposes "a comprehensive Planetary Regime (that) could control the development, administration and distribution of all natural resources . . . not only in the atmosphere and the oceans, but in such freshwater bodies as rivers and lakes." We believe that was tried in Kyoto and will be tried again in Copenhagen.
As for that nasty people problem, Holdren says the "Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries' shares within their regional limits. . . . The Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits." This is China on steroids.
Among the methods of population control he discusses in the book is "sterilizing women after their second or third child" and "adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods." He cautions that whatever is added must be safe for pets and livestock.
Similar nonsense was express in Paul Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb" (1968), which warned: "In the 1970s, the world will undergo famine — hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked on now." He was wrong.
Such nightmare scenarios regarding overpopulation have made the rounds since Thomas Malthus predicted in 1798 that overpopulation would outstrip England's food supply and the British Empire would literally starve to death.
In 1980, Holdren and the Ehrlichs made a famous wager with economist Julian Simon: They bet $1,000 that five metals — chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten — would be more expensive 10 years later. They were wrong on all five predictions, and had to pay up in 1990.
Holdren also calculated that famines due to climate change could leave a billion people dead by 2020, championed "population control measures," and believed 280 million Americans would likely be "too many."
Like Ehrlich, he forgot that with bodies come minds, minds that can innovate, invent and find substitutes for scarce resources and new ways to feed people. Things like fiber optic cables, wireless computers, and bioengineering come to mind. Obesity is a threat, not famine.
This administration, through its policies, programs and personnel choices, is pushing science fiction, not science, and seeking to control and limit people as a plague upon the earth. Science czar John Holdren's views, which to our knowledge have not been disavowed, paint a bleak future for the human race at the hands of government.
We prefer another piece of advice we were once given — be fruitful and multiply.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Cronkite
February 27, 2008
Walter Cronkite, Vietnam, and the Decline of Media CredibilityBy Lee Cary
Walter Cronkite’s remarks at the end of his February 27, 1968 evening news broadcast, four decades ago today, were a watershed in the history of the MSM’s credibility.
Unless you’re at least 55 years old, you probably don’t remember that CBS broadcast 40 years ago. The most trusted man in America had recently returned from Vietnam where he hosted a documentary on the VC/NVA TET (New Year) offensive that began January 31, 1968. Back in NYC, he closed his program that night by introducing “an analysis that must be speculative, personal, [and] subjective.” Among his comments were these:
Who won and who lost in the great Tet offensive against the cities? I’m not sure. The Vietcong did not win by a knockout, but neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw.
It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate.
But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could. (Emphases added)
Most evenings Cronkite ended his broadcasts with “And that’s the way it is.” That night he ended with a more somber, “This is Walter Cronkite. Good night.”
Today, it’s hard to fully appreciate the stature and status Cronkite held in 1968. He was the successor in fame to the demigod persona that had been Edward R. Murrow. When President Johnson heard of Cronkite’s comments, he was quoted as saying, “That’s it. If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.”
In January 2006, Cronkite said his statement on Vietnam was his proudest moment. When asked then if he would give the same advice on Iraq, Cronkite didn’t hesitate to say “Yes.”
At the time, Cronkite’s pronouncement added credibility and importance to all the network anchors. His was a stunning exercise of media power. But, in the perspective of history, the outcome of his pronouncement is not universally recognized as having been positive. He overtly and figuratively stepped out from behind the microphone to add his personal commentary to the news. We had not seen this before. By doing so, Cronkite issued an implicit license to his journalistic colleagues to interject personal opinions into their factual reporting of the news. The difference is that Cronkite clearly labeled it as personal opinion, while many MSM news personalities today weave their opinions into reporting. His sentiment registered with many, perhaps most, of his viewers that night. He changed opinions by offering his own. But in hindsight, his analysis was wrong – dead wrong for some.
Generally, the “referees of history” have not rendered the TET offensive a military draw. The VC/NVA suffered unexpectedly high casualties, from which it took years to recover. In particular, the ranks of the Viet Cong were decimated.
General No Nguyen Giap, the Supreme Commander of the Viet Minh (NVA) forces said, in a 1989 interview with CBS’s Morley Safer,
“We paid a high price, but so did you…not only in lives and material…After Tet the Americans had to back down and come to the negotiating table, because the war was not only moving into…dozens of cities and towns in South Vietnam, but also to the living rooms of Americans back home for some time. The most important result of the Tet offensive was it made you de-escalate the bombing, and it brought you to the negotiation table. It was, therefore, a victory…The war was fought on many fronts. At that time the most important one was American public opinion.” (The Vietnam War: An Encyclopedia of Quotations, Howard Langer, 2005)
The Vietnam War did not end in a stalemate, particularly for those S. Vietnamese who, at risk and often loss of life, loyally supported the U.S. Armed Forces (not all did, but very many did). We left them in a lurch, cut off their military aid, and watched while they suffered the consequences when the North Vietnamese blatantly ignored the negotiated resolution (they never intended to honor) that Cronkite advocated.
Many of those of us who served in Vietnam do not look upon its ending as reflecting “honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy.” A compelling case can be made that we should never have sent troops to Vietnam in the first place. But we did. And then, after nearly 60,000 U.S. deaths and countless Vietnamese casualties, we bugged out. There’s no way to put an honorable face on that unavoidable truth.
Once upon a time, I lived for awhile not far from a village called Ba Chuc in An Giang Province in the Mekong Delta. After the U.S. evacuated Vietnam, there was nothing to stop old animosities between the Cambodians and Vietnamese from turning hot. Here’s a description of what happened in Ba Chuc.
“On April 30, 1977, Pol Pot’s troops launched a surprise attack on 13 villages in eight Vietnamese border provinces. Ba Chuc was the hardest hit. The massacre was at its fiercest during the 12 days of occupation, April 18-30, 1978, during which the intruders killed 3,157 villagers. The survivors fled and took refuge in the pagodas of Tam Buu and Phi Lai or in caves on Mount Tuong, but they were soon discovered. The raiders shot them, slit their throats or beat them to death with sticks. Babies were flung into the air and pierced with bayonets. Women were raped and left to die with stakes planted in their genitals.”
There were two survivors to the massacre.
Cronkite didn’t cover it on the CBS evening news.
As judged by subsequent events, Cronkite was wrong. And over time, his words became a watershed marking the place where the gradual erosion of the MSM’s credibility began.
Walter Cronkite, Vietnam, and the Decline of Media CredibilityBy Lee Cary
Walter Cronkite’s remarks at the end of his February 27, 1968 evening news broadcast, four decades ago today, were a watershed in the history of the MSM’s credibility.
Unless you’re at least 55 years old, you probably don’t remember that CBS broadcast 40 years ago. The most trusted man in America had recently returned from Vietnam where he hosted a documentary on the VC/NVA TET (New Year) offensive that began January 31, 1968. Back in NYC, he closed his program that night by introducing “an analysis that must be speculative, personal, [and] subjective.” Among his comments were these:
Who won and who lost in the great Tet offensive against the cities? I’m not sure. The Vietcong did not win by a knockout, but neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw.
It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate.
But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could. (Emphases added)
Most evenings Cronkite ended his broadcasts with “And that’s the way it is.” That night he ended with a more somber, “This is Walter Cronkite. Good night.”
Today, it’s hard to fully appreciate the stature and status Cronkite held in 1968. He was the successor in fame to the demigod persona that had been Edward R. Murrow. When President Johnson heard of Cronkite’s comments, he was quoted as saying, “That’s it. If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.”
In January 2006, Cronkite said his statement on Vietnam was his proudest moment. When asked then if he would give the same advice on Iraq, Cronkite didn’t hesitate to say “Yes.”
At the time, Cronkite’s pronouncement added credibility and importance to all the network anchors. His was a stunning exercise of media power. But, in the perspective of history, the outcome of his pronouncement is not universally recognized as having been positive. He overtly and figuratively stepped out from behind the microphone to add his personal commentary to the news. We had not seen this before. By doing so, Cronkite issued an implicit license to his journalistic colleagues to interject personal opinions into their factual reporting of the news. The difference is that Cronkite clearly labeled it as personal opinion, while many MSM news personalities today weave their opinions into reporting. His sentiment registered with many, perhaps most, of his viewers that night. He changed opinions by offering his own. But in hindsight, his analysis was wrong – dead wrong for some.
Generally, the “referees of history” have not rendered the TET offensive a military draw. The VC/NVA suffered unexpectedly high casualties, from which it took years to recover. In particular, the ranks of the Viet Cong were decimated.
General No Nguyen Giap, the Supreme Commander of the Viet Minh (NVA) forces said, in a 1989 interview with CBS’s Morley Safer,
“We paid a high price, but so did you…not only in lives and material…After Tet the Americans had to back down and come to the negotiating table, because the war was not only moving into…dozens of cities and towns in South Vietnam, but also to the living rooms of Americans back home for some time. The most important result of the Tet offensive was it made you de-escalate the bombing, and it brought you to the negotiation table. It was, therefore, a victory…The war was fought on many fronts. At that time the most important one was American public opinion.” (The Vietnam War: An Encyclopedia of Quotations, Howard Langer, 2005)
The Vietnam War did not end in a stalemate, particularly for those S. Vietnamese who, at risk and often loss of life, loyally supported the U.S. Armed Forces (not all did, but very many did). We left them in a lurch, cut off their military aid, and watched while they suffered the consequences when the North Vietnamese blatantly ignored the negotiated resolution (they never intended to honor) that Cronkite advocated.
Many of those of us who served in Vietnam do not look upon its ending as reflecting “honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy.” A compelling case can be made that we should never have sent troops to Vietnam in the first place. But we did. And then, after nearly 60,000 U.S. deaths and countless Vietnamese casualties, we bugged out. There’s no way to put an honorable face on that unavoidable truth.
Once upon a time, I lived for awhile not far from a village called Ba Chuc in An Giang Province in the Mekong Delta. After the U.S. evacuated Vietnam, there was nothing to stop old animosities between the Cambodians and Vietnamese from turning hot. Here’s a description of what happened in Ba Chuc.
“On April 30, 1977, Pol Pot’s troops launched a surprise attack on 13 villages in eight Vietnamese border provinces. Ba Chuc was the hardest hit. The massacre was at its fiercest during the 12 days of occupation, April 18-30, 1978, during which the intruders killed 3,157 villagers. The survivors fled and took refuge in the pagodas of Tam Buu and Phi Lai or in caves on Mount Tuong, but they were soon discovered. The raiders shot them, slit their throats or beat them to death with sticks. Babies were flung into the air and pierced with bayonets. Women were raped and left to die with stakes planted in their genitals.”
There were two survivors to the massacre.
Cronkite didn’t cover it on the CBS evening news.
As judged by subsequent events, Cronkite was wrong. And over time, his words became a watershed marking the place where the gradual erosion of the MSM’s credibility began.
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