Monthly Archives: March 2009

March 26, 2009 — Scott Johnson

A contingency liability

One of the striking features of Obama’s press conference on Tuesday was the lack of interest on the part of the press in foreign policy and national security. It’s not that there was no news on which to seek Obama’s comment. Word has arrived via the Washington Post, for example, that Obama has abandoned the Global War on Terror. It’s not that we’ve raised a white flag, it’s just that »
March 25, 2009 — John Hinderaker

Blood In the Water

And, Ralph Peters says, it’s Type O. The Obama administration is only two months old–amazingly enough–but its performance in foreign policy has been horrific. Peters totals up the scoresheet, from China to Iran, from Poland to Venezuela. The verdict: By comparison, the Carter administration is starting to look like a model of manly strength, courage and patriotism. »
March 25, 2009 — John Hinderaker

Who’s Going to Lend the Money?

The Obama administration has embarked on a spree of borrowing that eclipses anything seen in world history. The Democratic Congress is nervous, but seems willing to go along. But this borrowing is not occurring in a vacuum; many other governments are also floating debt. So, who’s going to lend the trillions of dollars that governments need to disguise the fact that their ideas are bankrupt? Maybe nobody. Yesterday, the British »
March 25, 2009 — John Hinderaker

Scottish Banker’s Home Attacked

AIG employees have expressed concern about their safety and, in some cases, reportedly have received death threats. Their fears may not be unfounded: in Scotland, an “anti-capitalist” group attacked the home of Sir Fred Goodwin, former CEO of the Royal Bank of Scotland, smashing several windows and vandalizing a car parked in the driveway. Goodwin had been demonized in the press and attacked by British politicians, much like AIG’s management. »
March 25, 2009 — Scott Johnson

A word on Obama’s presser

I was struck by how dour and glib President Obama was in responding to the questions at last night’s news conference. Much of what he said in any given response was disingenuous at best, but understanding his lack of candor requires an ability to crack the code in which he speaks and a detailed knowledge of the subject he’s addressing. Minneapolis attorney Andrew Brehm concisely captures the nature of Obama’s »
March 25, 2009 — John Hinderaker

The Budget Battle Is Joined

The House Budget Committee began its markup of the FY 2010 budget today. Democrats, nervous about the public’s reaction to the oceans of red ink proposed by Barack Obama, claim that the budget they have introduced in the House cuts $100 billion from Obama’s proposal. A couple of hours ago, ranking committee member Paul Ryan threw down the gauntlet in his opening statement on behalf of committee Republicans. In his »
March 25, 2009 — John Hinderaker

Free Enterprise: Not Dead Yet

Rasmussen samples public attitudes toward federal regulation of executive compensation, and finds what I consider a sensible consensus: Sixty-one percent (61%) of adults say the government should regulate the level of pay and bonuses for executives of a company that receives government funding…. Twenty-seven percent (27%) disagree. At the same time, just 23% of Americans believe the government should regulate executive pay and bonuses for banks and finance companies that »
March 25, 2009 — Scott Johnson

When they came for AIG

The letter by AIG executive Jake DeSantis submitting his resignation should be a cause of shame for the politicians and pundits hounding AIG in connection with its payment of retention bonuses. It eloquently articulates the disgust appropriate to the occasion. Thanks to the New York Times for publishing “Dear AIG, I quit!” Among those for whom DeSantis’s letter should be a cause for shame are Barack Obama, Timothy Geithner, Nancy »
March 25, 2009 — Scott Johnson

Hey, nineteen

Today is the birthday of Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul. The metaphor of royal lineage has some application in Franklin’s case. Her father, the Reverend C.L. Franklin, was the renowned Detroit preacher whose New Bethel Baptist Church provided the original venue for Aretha and her sisters, Erma and Carolyn. She became a child star as a gospel singer, signing a recording contract with Columbia Records at age 18 via »
March 24, 2009 — John Hinderaker

Barack Speaks

I missed President Obama’s press conference, as I was on an airplane. I’m not sure whether Scott or Paul caught it; maybe they’ll weigh in later. For now, here are a few observations based on reading the transcript. Obama said, in his introductory statement: At the end of the day, the best way to bring our deficit down in the long run is not with a budget that continues the »
March 24, 2009 — Scott Johnson

The difference between Ramallah and the American university

The Israeli Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh writes for the Jerusalem Post. I had the privilege of meeting him when I visited Israel in the summer of 2007. He is one disarmingly brave man. He has recently been in the United States visiting American campuses. Perhaps not surprisingly, he finds the climate of opinion on campus different from the climate of opinion among Arabs on the West Bank in Ramallah. »
March 24, 2009 — Scott Johnson

Mark Rudd remembers

Mark Rudd was the colleague of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn in the Weather Underground. He is also the author of a memoir that is out today. Ronald Radosh reviews Rudd’s memoir Underground in the New York Post. Radosh credits Rudd with remembering a few items that Ayers and his friends seek to airbrush from the record, including the purpose of their terrorism. Radosh points out, for example: Their attempts »
March 24, 2009 — John Hinderaker

Bachmann Quotes Jefferson; Strib Is Shocked

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is one of Minnesota’s most effective spokesmen for conservatism, so our local media have collaborated with Democrats in trying to defeat her. The most recent attack on Michele arose out of my radio show last Saturday. One of her staffers emailed us to ask if she could come on the show to talk about some public meetings she will be sponsoring in her district on the Obama »
March 24, 2009 — Scott Johnson

Obamanomics: An introduction

John Steele Gordon is the prominent financial historian and author of An Empire of Wealth. In “The economic contradictions of Obama-ism” — a preview from the forthcoming issue of Commentary — he concisely explains how Obama administration policies will retard economic growth. Gordon’s introductory discussion of Elkhart, Indiana is worth reading all by itself. The title of Gordon’s essay alludes to Marx’s thesis regarding the internal contradictions of capitalism. Marx »
March 23, 2009 — Scott Johnson

From the Tran jury

A reader writes that he was the member of the jury that recently convicted former FBI agent Vo Duong “Ben” Tran of charges that he planned to rip off an Orange County drug house. The drug house was in fact a trap set by the FBI. Tran had been fired by the FBI in 2003; at trial he testified that he was on a mission to gather evidence he intended »
March 23, 2009 — John Hinderaker

How Would He Pronounce “Cassiopeia”?

Everyone knows that Barack Obama is lost without his teleprompter, but his latest blunder, courtesy of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, via the Corner, suggests that the teleprompter may not be enough unless it includes phonetic spellings. Obama was speaking at a White House roundtable on clean energy systems, and repeatedly saluted Orion Energy Systems, whose CEO, Neal Verfuerth, was present at the event. So Obama referred to “Orion” a number »
March 23, 2009 — John Hinderaker

Regression to the Mean

It’s one of the world’s most powerful forces, and it may have caught up with Barack Obama, just two months into his term: tomorrow’s Zogby poll will show the President’s approval/disapproval rating at “about 50-50.” This will be no surprise to Power Line readers, who have followed Obama’s steady decline to near the break-even point, as recorded by Rasmussen Reports. It’s striking, though, that so far Obama’s return to campaign »