TUESDAY,  JANUARY 6,  2009

HINT NOT TAKEN - AT 11:29 A.M. ET: 

WASHINGTON (AP) _ President-elect Barack Obama's appointed successor was turned away when he appeared at the U.S. Capitol to take his seat.

Roland Burris announced the decision to deny him the seat as he stood before a large throng of reporters and cameras in the rain outside the Capitol building.

COMMENT:  You'd think Mr. Burris would have more dignity than to go through with this charade.  Who would want even to accept an appointment to the Senate from the corrupt governor of Illinois?

HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD?  FINALLY?  - AT 10:30 A.M. ET:  Talk-show host Mike Scully - I'll be doing his show tomorrow and will give you details - reminds us of Andrew Breitbart's great new site focusing on conservatives in Hollywood, and the need for same.  It's here.  Check it out.

MODERATE DEMOCRATS?  REALLY?

Posted at 10:28 a.m. ET

Some good news from Congress?  Let me pinch myself.

The New York Times reports that the new Congress may have a decidedly moderate cast, thanks in large measure to moderates elected as Democrats.  Dennis Kucinich must be taking pills over this:

Building on the 2006 class that gave Democrats a majority, this freshman class serves to broaden a moderate coalition considered more conservative on social issues, particularly in the House. The Democratic leadership almost certainly will be mindful — as it was in the 2008 election — of the members’ individual vulnerabilities, especially since several were elected by extraordinarily narrow margins.

Guess it wasn't the wipeout that the mainstream media was screaming about on election night.

Gary C. Jacobson, an expert on Congress and a professor at the University of California/San Diego, described the cumulative impact of the 2006 and 2008 elections: “I think the effect is to move the Democratic caucus somewhat to the right and if it wants to stay as large as it is now, it has to accommodate these folks.

“You’re not going to see any wild, left-wing policymaking,” he added. “You’re not going to get the Berkeley wish-list out of this crowd.”

Oh goody.  I can sleep well tonight.

A former Nixon aide, Walt Minnick of Idaho, was elected as a moderate Democrat:

Mr. Minnick has already joined the emerging chorus of conservative Democrats, sometimes known as blue-dog Democrats, to sound alarms over the potential for ballooning deficits sure to accompany a stimulus package estimated at $875 billion to a trillion dollars. “I feel very strongly that the federal government needs to live within its means,” Mr. Minnick, a timber executive from Boise, said.

A Democrat said this?  Is he still alive?

Aaron Schock, the 27-year-old Republican from Illinois, was even more insistent that taxpayers have grown increasingly impatient with bailout after bailout. “There’s a level of frustration from people saying enough taking care of fat cats, the executives, the stockholders,” he said.

And that's good, coming from a Republican.

So the old adage applies:  Be careful what you wish for.  You may get it.  The Democrats increased their majority, but the liberal left in the party may actually have been weakened by the last election.  We await the first call from Manhattanites and San Franciscans to secede, and maintain their ideological purity.  It will come.

January 6, 2008.      Permalink          

CAROLINE NO HIT - AT 8:26 A.M. ET:  Caroline Kennedy, who'd like to be appointed senator from New York to succeed Hillary Clinton, is apparently not making the grade in the court of public opinion, as WCBS reports:

NEW YORK (CBS) —

Caroline Kennedy appears to be losing momentum in her bid for Hillary Clinton's U.S. Senate seat.

A new survey conducted by Public Policy Polling shows 58 percent of voters would prefer to see Gov. David Paterson appoint state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to the seat.

That's compared to Kennedy's 27 percent.

Among Democratic voters, Cuomo leads by about 20 points. That's about the same lead Kennedy enjoyed just a month earlier.

COMMENT:  Kennedy has done poorly in interviews.  In the media age, that's a devastating minus.  It's sad because, by every account, she's a lovely woman.  But lovely doesn't quite do it.  And most Americans alive today don't remember her father, who was assassinated some 45 years ago, so the name doesn't have the impact it once did. 

CHILLY TOWARD PANETTA

Posted at 7:55 a.m.

The Obama team, as it starts its maiden voyage in government, may have brushed an iceberg.  The president-elect's selection of Leon Panetta to head the CIA has been met with a big chill.

It isn't that Panetta is unpopular.  He's a former congressman and White House chief of staff under Bill Clinton, and is respected as both competent and smart.  But in a time of war the nation usually expects a CIA director to have some experience in intelligence work.  The Panetta resumé is blank on that one.  CQ reports, in a dispatch carried by Yahoo:

The incoming and outgoing chairs of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee signaled concerns about President-elect Barack Obama's choice of Leon E. Panetta to head the CIA, primarily because of Panetta's thin intelligence resume.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who was miffed that she wasn't consulted on the nomination, reiterated her stand that a CIA director should have relevant experience.

Added an aide to John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., who served as chairman of the committee in the 110th Congress: "I think, based on press reporting if it proves correct, Sen. Rockefeller has some concerns about his selection. Not because he has any concerns about Panetta, whom he thinks very highly of, but because he has no intelligence experience and because he has believed this has always been a position that should be outside of the political realm."

Not much applause there.

Christopher S. Bond, R-Mo., vice chairman of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, questioned the choice.

"Job No. 1 at the CIA is to track down and stop terrorists," Bond said in a statement. "In a post-9/11 world, intelligence experience would seem to be a prerequisite for the job of CIA director."

If Panetta were a Broadway show, it would be closing already.

But not everyone was opposed:

"First of all, he's certainly dealt with a lot of intelligence," said Hamilton, an Obama ally. "In the Iraq Study Group we dealt with it every day. As chief of staff in the White House, you deal with it every day, too."

Hamilton said Panetta would need top deputies from the intelligence community. "It's a complicated, arcane business," he noted. But he added, "What his strength will be is he brings an outsider's perspective to the intelligence community."

I'm not sure Panetta will want such faint praise.  "Dealing" with intelligence is far from being an expert on intelligence operations or how to run a spy agency.  I "deal" with medical matters whenever I read a medical story.  But I'm not a physician. 

Look, he'll probably be confirmed.  But the choice is disappointing because Obama has bowed to the left wing of his party, which opposed any new CIA director who had anything to do with intelligence operations under the Bush administration.  That pretty much ruled out anyone who'd served in the last eight years.  The Panetta apointment is the equivalent of Harry Truman choosing a military leader in 1946, to confront the Soviet Union, who hadn't served in World War II.

Not change we can believe in.

January 6, 2009.      Permalink          

CHAVEZ CLOSES THE TAP - AT 7:14 A.M. ET:  From the Boston Herald:

Joe Kennedy announced yesterday he’s laying off 20 employees and temporarily halting most of his winter fuel-assistance programs due to Citgo yanking $100 million in support for the nonprofit Citizens Energy.

Citgo, owned by the Venezuelan government led by leftist loudmouth president Hugo Chavez, recently informed Kennedy that it was “temporarily” suspending its oil donations for the low-income program.

Kennedy, who was clearly distraught by the unexpected decision, said Citgo’s move is apparently tied to the recent dramatic fall in crude-oil prices.

COMMENT:  In the story, Kennedy says he'll try to meet with Chavez to turn this around, and urged people to write to the Venezuelan "leader."  This is pathetic - asking Americans to go begging to an America-hating thug.  Most outrageous, the request comes from a member of the family of an American president who vowed to pay "any price" in defense of freedom.  Joe, this is what happens when you depend on people like Chavez.  Why can't you understand it? 

THE RULES OF GAZA - AT 6:56 A.M. ET:  --  From Mona Charen at Real Clear Politics:

It was lost amid the news of Israel's counterattack on Hamas in the past few days, but Hamas' leadership passed several new laws for Gaza in December. They've adopted the Sharia criminal code, which legalizes a number of medieval punishments including cutting off of hands, stoning, lashing, and crucifixion. Possession of wine will now get you 40 lashes in Gaza City. Thus does Hamas express its solidarity with its patron and inspiration, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

COMMENT:  Toward the end of World War II, General Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered American soldiers marched through the newly liberated death camps of the Third Reich.  He said at the time that American boys might not know what they were fighting for, but at least they would see what they were fighting against.  The paragraph above gives us a small glimpse of what, today, the free nations are fighting against.  The question is whether we will care enough, and see the battle through. 

MONDAY,  JANUARY 5,  2009

REMARKABLE - AT 10:22 P.M. ET:  From the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: 

Hamas must not be allowed to win its conflict with the Israel Defense Forces, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak told a delegation of European foreign ministers in a closed conversation Monday.

The comment occurred even as Hamas, for the first time since the fighting began, sent representatives to Cairo to discuss a cease-fire. Following a meeting with Egyptian intelligence officials, Hamas officials said they had received an Egyptian proposal and would consider it.

COMMENT:  The left must be having fits - but the fact is that some key elements in the Arab world are, despite required public comments, rooting for the Israelis.  So are some Europeans, which is why the diplomacy is so slow motion.  There is a wide recognition that Hamas, supported by Iran, is a threat to the Mideast, and beyond.

TROUBLE FOR OBAMA - AT 6:51 P.M. ET:  It hasn't been a great two days for the president-elect.  Widely, and correctly, praised for running a smooth transition, he's had to pull Bill Richardson's nomination for secretary of commerce because Richardson had legal problems that Obama's vetting team should have detected.

Now, as reported here earlier, Obama has selected Leon Panetta, former Clinton chief of staff, to be director of Central Intelligence, even though Panetta has no intelligence background.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, an Obama ally, is none too pleased, and was apparently snubbed in making the appointment, as the Washington Independent reports:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who’s about to take the reins as chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, doesn’t appear to be too happy with Leon Panetta’s prospective appointment to head the CIA. Here’s what her office just sent me:

“I was not informed about the selection of Leon Panetta to be the CIA Director. I know nothing about this, other than what I’ve read,” said Senator Feinstein, who will chair the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in the 111th Congress.

“My position has consistently been that I believe the Agency is best-served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time.”

Not an auspicious sign for Panetta’s confirmation hearings.

Ouch.  Time to get on the phone, Mr. President-elect.  Senator Feinstein's office number is (202) 224-3841.

BULLETIN FROM BRITAIN - AT 6:33 P.M. ET:  We bring you this because of its extreme urgency.  Ofsted, Britain's main school-inspection agency, has made a major move, as the Guardian reports:

Ofsted is to launch a crackdown on "boring" teaching in response to concerns that children's behaviour is deteriorating because they are not being stimulated enough in class.

Inspectors will be told to give more finely tuned advice to struggling schools on what is going wrong in their lessons and why pupils are not paying attention, the chief inspector of schools, Christine Gilbert, said.

She told the Guardian the changes in the inspections would amount to a "crackdown" on boring teaching. "I think that it should do that. When I was a [local authority] director of education I wanted to know if there was a link between boredom and achievement. We did a piece of work on it and there was strong evidence that a lot of it was boredom."

COMMENT:  No, I'm not making that up.  Almost every week there's a new and brilliant insight from Britain's educators.  None of these ideas have anything to do with challenging their students or demanding high standards.  British education is turning into one huge excuse machine.  We've seen, in some of the educational "experiments" in large American cities, exactly where that leads. 

MINNESOTA STRANGE - AT 6:26 P.M. ET:  As expected, Minnesota's canvassing board declared Democratic unfunny comedian Al Franken the winner in the race for U.S. senator.  The board's count has Franken 225 votes ahead of incumbent Norm Coleman.  Coleman, though, is not surrendering:

Coleman, as expected, will file a formal election contest within the next 24 hours.

"This process isn't at the end; it is now just at the beginning," said Coleman counsel Tony Trimble in a statement following the state canvassing board meeting. "We will contest the results of the Canvassing Board -- otherwise, literally millions of Minnesotans will be disenfranchised."

COMMENT:  The question is whether the U.S. Senate will take note of the challenge, or seat Franken anyway. 

SCREECHING  HALT - AT 6:25 P.M. ET - From The Washington Post: 

The auto industry capped off 2008 with its worst sales in 15 years, as Americans continued to steer clear of dealerships in December, according to year-end sales figures released today.

Sales at General Motors, Toyota, Ford and Chrysler -- the U.S. market's four largest auto manufacturers -- fell sharply last month as companies sought help from Congress to avoid financial collapse. GM said sales fell 31 percent compared with the same month a year ago. Ford's sales plummeted 32 percent, and Toyota posted a 37 percent decline. Chrysler's sales dropped 53 percent in December.

COMMENT:  There are psychological factors at work here that get too little attention.  Are we talking ourselves into a depression?  These sales figures don't reflect the real economy, where 93 percent of Americans still have their jobs, and wages are reasonable.  They seem to reflect a fear of buying, which can make matters much worse than economic statistics indicate.

PANETTA TO THE DARK SIDE - AT 4:10 P.M. ET:  From The New York Times:  President-elect Barack Obama has selected Leon E. Panetta, the former congressman and White House chief of staff, to take over the Central Intelligence Agency, an organization that Mr. Obama criticized during the campaign for using interrogation methods he decried as torture, Democratic officials said Monday.

COMMENT:  Hmm.  Clinton's White House chief of staff, knows how to handle scandal, chaos and deception, CIA...yeah, that's a good fit.

THE MONEY TREE

Posted at 9:30 a.m. ET

The Obama economic plan begins to take shape amidst reports that Congress may delay action because the issues are too complex for quick action.  From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama plans to include about $300 billion in tax cuts for workers and businesses in his economic recovery program, advisers said Sunday, as his team seeks to win over Congressional skeptics worried that he was too focused on government spending.

Tax cuts are good.  They actually work.  That fact, of course, will disturb the ideologues.

Although some tax cuts were always expected to be included in Mr. Obama’s economic package, his team disclosed the scope and some details of the plans on Sunday at a time when Republicans have begun voicing criticism of what they describe as an open-checkbook approach to spending. By focusing more attention on the tax cuts in the plan, Obama aides hope to frame it as a balanced, pragmatic approach. 

At least Republicans are being heard.  And apparently listened to.

Mr. Obama’s team argued Sunday that the short-term cost of its economic plan was not a priority in the face of the dire problems in the economy. “There is no short run, other than keeping the economy from absolutely tanking. That’s the only short run,” Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. said on “This Week.”

They actually let him out of the house.  Well, we know the new administration has some compassion for its own.

Mr. Obama’s advisers said Sunday that they were searching for a way to get that credit into Americans’ pockets quickly to help stimulate spending, but would not duplicate the rebate checks sent last year as part of an economic package signed by President Bush. Instead, they said, they were discussing making the credit retroactive to the 2008 tax year and adjusting withholding formulas so paychecks would start reflecting that right away.

These are reasonable ideas.  The president-elect has a solid economic team.  Maybe we'll get somewhere.

To encourage businesses to expand their work forces and operations, Mr. Obama wants a tax credit for each job created. During the campaign, he proposed $3,000 for each job. Advisers said he was now also trying to figure out a way to give incentives to businesses to resist cutting jobs, as so many have been doing.

One lesson the new group must learn from the Bush administration:  Those receiving funds must account for them.  We've seen the outrage, across the political spectrum, directed at banks that will not disclose what they've done with the bailout money they've received.  Not acceptable.

The Obama plan would also allow businesses to apply net operating losses from last year to offset tax liabilities from prior years, enabling them to claim refunds from the government now in hopes of encouraging capital investment, much as was done in a 2002 economic stimulus plan.

Okay.  Let's get some money back to the people.  And let's hope it's enough to stop the losses. 

January 5, 2009.      Permalink          

OBAMA EXAMINED

Posted at 8:15 a.m. ET

Related to our item, "The Anguished Left," just below:  Jennifer Rubin, at Pajamas Media, can be very tough on Barack Obama.  But here she lightens up, suggesting that there may be some good things on the horizon.  We certainly hope so, but we'll keep both eyes open.  It's remarkable, though, that two weeks before his inauguration, we actually know so little about our next president:

The contours of his agenda are still not crystal clear, but some of the blanks have been filled in over the last two months.

For starters, the fear of some on the Right — and the hope of those on the Left — that President-elect Obama was an ultra-dove, a sort of Manchurian candidate, has been largely discredited. His choice of a national security team filled with center-right figures and even a Bush administration defense secretary has shaken the Left. His plans for a gradual draw down of U.S. troops in Iraq and a prompt buildup in Afghanistan are virtually indistinguishable from McCain’s.

It will be great if she's right.  We reserve judgment.  He hasn't put his own stapler on the desk yet.

We have also learned that the media’s love affair with the president-elect is largely unrequited...

...The imbalance in his press relationship — devotion on one side and evasion, verging on testiness, on the other — may suggest rockier times lay ahead.

But he'll always have Chris Matthews. 

President-elect Obama also demonstrated a reticence to weigh in on big and contentious issues when the end game was far from certain. He stayed away from the Georgia Senate run-off race, refused comment on the Gaza incursion...

...What remains to be seen is whether this will be his presidential modus operandi — sort of a Zen-like indifference to storms raging about him — or whether he is just waiting to spring into action on January 20.

And...

We also confirmed, if there was any doubt remaining, that New Politics was a convenient campaign slogan and a hook for energizing the Democratic base, but not much more. The Clinton team is back in great numbers...

Yeah, and Chicago style politics is on display.  Not too much change to believe in.  Looks pretty routine thus far.

President-elect Obama also let it be known he’s not interested in continuing the culture wars. Rick Warren got an invite to the inauguration and the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for gays in the military may get a reprieve.

The panic has already begun.

How this will play out once Obama is sworn is still an open question. Will he be a wishy-washy, indecisive figure like Jimmy Carter or a savvy deal-maker like LBJ? Will he be more like George W. Bush on national security than either his supporters or opponents ever imagined?

Finally...

But, if the transition is any clue, he is unlikely to be a radical, rely on underqualified yes men, spend too much time with the press, involve himself in extraneous issues, or refight divisive cultural issues. That is not a bad recipe for success.

No it's not.  As we said, we reserve judgment.  And there have been a few unpleasant ripples, like the appointment of an environmental team that seems in the tank for the global-warming religion.  But, by and large, Mr. Obama has appeared to be on an even keel. 

Our position here is clear:  We will praise him when we think he's right, oppose him when we think he's wrong.  We want him to succeed, as long as the definition of success is reasonable.

January 5, 2009.      Permalink          

THE ANGUISHED LEFT - AT 6:58 A.M. ET:  The political left is starting to anguish over Barack Obama.  His latest sin, apparently, is that he hasn't rushed to Gaza to defend the peace-loving, devout fighters of Hamas against the America-loving, Pentagon-equipped imperialist forces of capitalist Israel, and their Christian lovers.  The UK's reliably left Guardian comments:

But evidence is mounting that Obama is already losing ground among key Arab and Muslim audiences that cannot understand why, given his promise of change, he has not spoken out. Arab commentators and editorialists say there is growing disappointment at Obama's detachment - and that his failure to distance himself from George Bush's strongly pro-Israeli stance is encouraging the belief that he either shares Bush's bias or simply does not care.

COMMENT:  Let's hope he shares Bush's bias.  Here we don't need change we can believe in.  My own fear, though, is that Obama may get sworn in, then make some grand opening gesture toward "peace" that would cut off an Israeli victory.  We'll see two weeks from tomorrow. 

NOT ONLY THE RACE CARD, BUT THE RACE BILLBOARD - AT 6:42 A.M. ET:  From AP: 

CHICAGO -- Illinois U.S. Senate appointee Roland Burris plans to have a high-stakes showdown on Capitol Hill this week with Democratic leaders who continue to say he won't be seated in Congress.

Dozens of black leaders and ministers organized by U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush gave Burris a rousing send-off Sunday at New Covenant Church on Chicago's South Side. Burris took the stage to a crescendo of drums, organ music and applause as hundreds of supporters cheered his appointment.

COMMENT:  There seems no end to the awfulness of this, or to Burris's ego.  This is racial politics at its worst.  This is the seat being vacated by the nation's first black president.  You'd think there'd be a little dignity here.  But ambition trumps dignity every time.