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Messiah Lies About His Senate Committee Assignment [Andy McCarthy]
This guy is going to be harder than Bill Clinton to keep up with. The next whopper whips along before you have time to wrap your brain around the last one.
At Powerline, John Hinderaker goes through Obama's continuing contortions (in Israel) over how Jerusalem must remain the undivided capitol of Israel, unless of course it is divided and unless of course it is also the capitol of "Palestine," which possibilities absolutely positively mark no change in the messiah's original decree, which he really really meant, that Jerusalem must remain the undivided capitol of Israel. Obama then continued (italics mine):
Now, in terms of knowing my commitments, you don't have to just look at my words, you can look at my deeds. Just this past week, we passed out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, which is my committee, a bill to call for divestment from Iran, as a way of ratcheting up the pressure to ensure that they don't obtain a nuclear weapon.
John explains the rest:
But Obama is not a member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. Obama just made that up so he could count the committee's action as one of "my deeds."
If committed by a Republican, this would be a gaffe of historic proportions. Even a Senator as inattentive to his duties as Obama certainly knows what committees he serves on. For him to fabricate the claim, out of whole cloth, that the Senate Banking Committee is "[his] committee," strikes me as another sign of Obama's megalomania. That, plus more evidence that he is totally at sea without a teleprompter.
07/23 03:49 PM
Reflections on Obama in Berlin
with an assist from Ruth Marcus
Posted by: Streiff
Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 10:25AM
0 Comments
As Barack Obama conducts a campaign event in front of a column memorializing three wars of aggression by 19th century Prussia I hope every Berliner realizes what an Obama-like presidency in 1948 would have meant for them. Today Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus helps us recall:
But there are lessons from the airlift that should be more unsettling for those, like Obama, who want to be done with Iraq. The impulse of many Americans then, just as now, was to be finished with the entire project. " 'Get Germany off the American taxpayer's back' was the call of conservatives in Congress," [Democratic strategist and author of The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America's Finest HourAndrei ] Cherny writes.
An occupation that looked irretrievably lost by spring 1948 turned paradoxically into success as the blockade continued. Berliners' misery deepened, but so, too, did their faith in America and democracy. Berliners who had told pollsters since the war's end that they would choose "economic security" over "freedom" changed their attitudes in the face of American kindnesses.
At home, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, concerned about strains on the military, pressed to halt the airlift. So did the CIA, whose analysts, Cherny notes, "concluded that the United States was now worse off than if the airlift had never been attempted." Truman overruled them all. "We'll stay in Berlin -- come what may," he wrote in his diary in July 1948.
Sixty years later, as Obama arrives in a prosperous, thriving Berlin, it is fair to wonder whether the Cold War might have unfolded differently had Truman decided not to draw the line there against Soviet aggression.
The allure of quick and definite withdrawal from Iraq is evident. The reward of careful perseverance may become visible only in the long arc of history.
Foreign Relations: Maliki and the US
Posted By Grim
I have not said anything about these negotiations, but "foreign relations" is one of the things I was brought on board to write about. So, I'd like to offer my thoughts.
There is an important concept needed to understand the negotiations -- both formal ones, and those using the press as a proxy -- between the US and Maliki on the long-term security agreement between our countries. The real issue is not which bases we will maintain, or surrender. It is not whether we will stay for 16 months or ten years. The real issue is whether Iraq is a genuinely sovereign power, with the full authority to negotiate its interests as an equal with America.
It is vitally important to our counterinsurgency efforts that the answer to that question be "Yes." In order for Iraq to survive its internal pressures, the central government must be accepted as legitimate by the people. This is the capstone of the counterinsurgency effort, the point at which the move from war to law will be complete.
America has poured vast effort into that cause -- by helping to make sure that the constitution drafted was widely accepted, by overseeing free and fair elections, by careful encouragement of the so-called 'benchmarks,' by encouraging the upcoming provincial elections, and so forth. We've also invested money, CERP and other funds, in order to help the Iraqi government with outreach programs in its more distant regions until its own resources came online. We have used US military equipment to ferry central-government figures out to the provinces for negotiations, until the roads became safe. All of this is about making the government work, for all Iraqis, so that they could trust it enough to move to politics instead of war.
There is one final matter to make it real: our own influence. The Iraqis must see that their government is in fact theirs. It cannot be a puppet; it must be theirs in fact.
Here, then, is the concept: Iraq must appear to "win" in the negotiations with the United States. In public, Maliki must appear strong and confident, able to command even America within the bounds of Iraq.
Greyhawk and Matt are perfectly correct that Maliki's statements in the past have always been overconfident of his capacity to ask America to leave. It's also clear that his current situation favors a continuing presence of US allies, to continue to train his security forces in the short term; his air force in the medium term; and to provide a useful alliance and security guarantee v. Iran and others in the long term. You can trust the man to understand these matters, but in public, he must appear strong and defiant in order to retain the confidence of his governing coalition, and the broader Iraqi public.
If we recognize that, we will come to an arrangement that suits both our peoples, and can be sustained in the long term without political stress. Success in COIN requires a state of the type Iraq is starting to appear to be: strong, independent, and a legitimate voice for the interests of its population. That is how you get them to turn to politics as a way of expressing their interests.
The other thing successful COIN requires is the maintenance of popular will to sustain the effort. "An arrangement that suits both our peoples, and can be sustained in the long term" is just what we need to make a free Iraq concrete and permanent. This is the way to get it. What is done in private is one thing, but in public, Maliki and Iraq must be seen to "win."
The US does not need to "win." This is the government we have so carefully nurtured, and at such cost. We will win -- if they do.
[Editor Note: Welcome Instapundit readers! You may find the latest piece about Iraq by Grim interesting as well.]
July 22, 2008 • Permalink
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Thanks Grim -- I enjoy reading what you have to say because you are able to say things reasonably without sounding overbearing or know it all! I learn a lot by reading what you write!
Posted by: Soldier's Mom | July 22, 2008 at 03:32 PM
Grim, I wish you could explain this to Obama and the press that is trying to give him credit for negotiating our withdrawal by 2010.
Something Obama the Noob seems not to know: the importance of rhetoric in the Arab culture. If they say it, then it is so. Saddam announced he would make the streets run red with American blood before Gulf I. Yeah, so he said it. He didn't have to actually do it.
Whatever Maliki says to keep the Iraqi street quiet is probably balanced by what he intends to do to keep AQI off those streets.
Obama is a fool if he confuses political rhetoric with political intentions.
Were Maliki to announce the US was going to be there 4 years from now full force, he'd be the next guy out on the street.
Maybe one of Obama's 300 advisors can explain this to him real slow. And none of this has anything to do with Maliki endorsing Obama's plans.
Obama Campaign Prints German-language Flyers for Berlin Rally
This is pretty extraordinary. A candidate for the American Presidency is using flyers printed in German to turn people out for his campaign rally in Berlin on Thursday. This flyer can be found on a bilingual page on BarackObama.com advertising the event:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3269/2694048267_3e2a9043db.jpg
The German flyers bear Obama's campaign logo and say "Paid for by Obama for America."
I'm surprised at this lapse in judgment in an otherwise well-oiled and professional Obama campaign. The last time they printed up campaign paraphenalia in a foreign language, it didn't work out so hot for them.
So, this isn't just some sober, high-minded foreign policy speech, part of a foreign trip occurring under the auspices of his official Senate office. It is a campaign rally occuring on foreign soil. They are using the same tactics to turn out Germans to an event as they would to any rally right here in America. This after Obama's campaign said this:
“It is not going to be a political speech,” said a senior foreign policy adviser, who spoke to reporters on background. “When the president of the United States goes and gives a speech, it is not a political speech or a political rally.
“But he is not president of the United States,” a reporter reminded the adviser.
The sea of Germans drummed up by the Obama campaign will be used as props to tell us Americans how to vote, and the campaign isn't trying to pretend otherwise. That's breathtakingly arrogant, and par for the course for Barack Obama.
"the Repubs are now being forced to admit we can begin to plan leaving Iraq "
Still acting the clown idiot, hey Peg?
The only reason we are able to continue the drawdown that has started already is because the surge worked- you know the strategy that Barry was sure would make things worse.
IF he had had his way, Iraq would be engulfed in bloody civil war right now
It's comical that Barry is trying to take credit for a policy he was dead set against and his mind numbed followers actually give him credit for it.
THe pace of the drawdown will always depend on conditions on the ground
Elven Barry says we will never leave completely ( at least today that's his position- ya never know )
Obama Should follow France on This One [Lisa Schiffren]
In a show of his exquisite sensitivity to cultural distinctions, Senator Obama is thinking about hiring a liaison to Muslims, to advise him on how not to offend them. For the job he is considering one Haim Nawas, a Jordanian-American, according to Politico, July 21:
Nawas wrote in 2005 that the Bush Administration should take a more nuanced approach to public diplomacy directed at Muslim women.
"We need to recognise that the social structure in the Muslim world is very different from America's," she wrote. "American women need to understand that what is best for them is not necessarily what is best for Muslim women. Advocacy of women’s rights in the Muslim world must show sensitivity to local political realities."
Those local realities include forced marriage for young girls, honor killing for shows of romantic independence, genital mutilation, polygamy, little or no education, little or no right to any personal freedom, often no political freedom or right to vote, and little or no economic freedom. Also, and above all, traditional Islamic societies presume absolute deference to men, which is to say, radical inequality. So, which of these practices are better for Muslim women, and therefore should get Obama's support, and the support of American (female) tax dollars in our public diplomacy?
It's not often that one would advise an American politician to look to France for backbone, but last week the French government, in its hard-earned wisdom, denied citizenship to a Moroccan immigrant on the grounds that she was too passive and willing to be stepped on by her husband, sons, and male relatives. This, the court pronounced, did not accord with the French character. To which one must say, Bravo! Maybe Sarkozy should raise the subject in this week's meetings with Obama during the pre-inaugural world tour.
07/22 10:53 AM
Dems Slip in Congressional Poll; McCain and Obama Now Tied
It's doubtful Barack Obama's media cheerleaders will notice since they're so in the tank for their guy, but the poll numbers for The Messiah have been steadily eroding the past two weeks to where he and Senator McCain are now tied, according to the latest Rasmussen numbers. If you look at the daily numbers the past two weeks, you'll notice Obama's six-point edge has disappeared.
How is this happening with all the slavish attention for Obama's world tour?
Well, it could be people are so turned off by the fawning coverage of Obama, which has gotten so ridiculous in recent days to the point where even the leftist media is noticing how out of control it is.
Meanwhile, the generic Congressional ballot, which had the Democrats up 14 points last month has now eroded to nine points.
Hmm. Might the public finally be realizing what a lousy job the Pelosi Congress has been doing?
It may finally have occurred to those complaining about $4 a gallon gas that they may wind up paying much more with a No-Drill Congress and a pliable President Obama?
Just imagine if the media coverage of Obama and McCain were anywhere near remotely fair and balanced.
Update: Instapundit links. Thanks!
Their Fair Share
July 21, 2008; Page A12
Washington is teeing up "the rich" for a big tax hike next year, as a way to make them "pay their fair share." Well, the latest IRS data have arrived on who paid what share of income taxes in 2006, and it's going to be hard for the rich to pay any more than they already do. The data show that the 2003 Bush tax cuts caused what may be the biggest increase in tax payments by the rich in American history.
[Their Fair Share]
The nearby chart shows that the top 1% of taxpayers, those who earn above $388,806, paid 40% of all income taxes in 2006, the highest share in at least 40 years. The top 10% in income, those earning more than $108,904, paid 71%. Barack Obama says he's going to cut taxes for those at the bottom, but that's also going to be a challenge because Americans with an income below the median paid a record low 2.9% of all income taxes, while the top 50% paid 97.1%. Perhaps he thinks half the country should pay all the taxes to support the other half.
Aha, we are told: The rich paid more taxes because they made a greater share of the money. That is true. The top 1% earned 22% of all reported income. But they also paid a share of taxes not far from double their share of income. In other words, the tax code is already steeply progressive.
We also know from income mobility data that a very large percentage in the top 1% are "new rich," not inheritors of fortunes. There is rapid turnover in the ranks of the highest income earners, so much so that people who started in the top 1% of income in the 1980s and 1990s suffered the largest declines in earnings of any income group over the subsequent decade, according to Treasury Department studies of actual tax returns. It's hard to stay king of the hill in America for long.
The most amazing part of this story is the leap in the number of Americans who declared adjusted gross income of more than $1 million from 2003 to 2006. The ranks of U.S. millionaires nearly doubled to 354,000 from 181,000 in a mere three years after the tax cuts.
This is precisely what supply-siders predicted would happen with lower tax rates on capital gains, dividends and income. The economy and earnings would grow faster, which they did; investors would declare more capital gains and companies would pay out more dividends, which they did; the rich would invest less in tax shelters at lower tax rates, so their tax payments would rise, which did happen.
The idea that this has been a giveaway to the rich is a figment of the left's imagination. Taxes paid by millionaire households more than doubled to $274 billion in 2006 from $136 billion in 2003. No President has ever plied more money from the rich than George W. Bush did with his 2003 tax cuts. These tax payments from the rich explain the very rapid reduction in the budget deficit to 1.9% of GDP in 2006 from 3.5% in 2003.
This year, thanks to the credit mess and slower growth, taxes paid by the rich may fall and the deficit will rise. (The nonstimulating tax rebates will also hurt the deficit.) Mr. Obama proposes to close this deficit by raising tax rates on the rich to their highest levels since the late 1970s. The very groups like the Congressional Budget Office and Tax Policy Center that wrongly predicted that the 2003 investment tax cuts would cost about $1 trillion in lost revenue are now saying that repealing those tax cuts would gain similar amounts. We'll wager it'd gain a lot less.
If Mr. Obama does succeed in raising tax rates on the rich, we'd also wager that the rich share of tax payments would fall. The last time tax rates were as high as the Senator wants them -- the Carter years -- the rich paid only 19% of all income taxes, half of the 40% share they pay today. Why? Because they either worked less, earned less, or they found ways to shelter income from taxes so it was never reported to the IRS as income.
The way to soak the rich is with low tax rates, and last week's IRS data provide more powerful validation of that proposition.
Funny ( actually pretty sad ) that you refuse to acknowledge the polls now that say the race is tied
YOu list supposed McCain gaffes but fail to acknowledge Barry's more numerous and serious " inartful " moments
I guess to you polls only matter when the further your bot aganda
I think in the long run, people have pretty well developed BS detectors
They;ll be bale to figure out who has the judgement needed and who can better relate to the non elite of the country
I think in the debates ( if Barry ever agrees to any ) the distinctions will be clear
No smoking hot spot
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David Evans | July 18, 2008
I DEVOTED six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.
FullCAM models carbon flows in plants, mulch, debris, soils and agricultural products, using inputs such as climate data, plant physiology and satellite data. I've been following the global warming debate closely for years.
When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old ice core data, no other suspects.
The evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we were certain when it appeared we needed to act quickly? Soon government and the scientific community were working together and lots of science research jobs were created. We scientists had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet.
But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"
There has not been a public debate about the causes of global warming and most of the public and our decision makers are not aware of the most basic salient facts:
1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it.
Each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the warming occurs first and the most. The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever.
If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming. So we know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the global warming. If we had found the greenhouse signature then I would be an alarmist again.
When the signature was found to be missing in 2007 (after the latest IPCC report), alarmists objected that maybe the readings of the radiosonde thermometers might not be accurate and maybe the hot spot was there but had gone undetected. Yet hundreds of radiosondes have given the same answer, so statistically it is not possible that they missed the hot spot.
Recently the alarmists have suggested we ignore the radiosonde thermometers, but instead take the radiosonde wind measurements, apply a theory about wind shear, and run the results through their computers to estimate the temperatures. They then say that the results show that we cannot rule out the presence of a hot spot. If you believe that you'd believe anything.
2. There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None. There is plenty of evidence that global warming has occurred, and theory suggests that carbon emissions should raise temperatures (though by how much is hotly disputed) but there are no observations by anyone that implicate carbon emissions as a significant cause of the recent global warming.
3. The satellites that measure the world's temperature all say that the warming trend ended in 2001, and that the temperature has dropped about 0.6C in the past year (to the temperature of 1980). Land-based temperature readings are corrupted by the "urban heat island" effect: urban areas encroaching on thermometer stations warm the micro-climate around the thermometer, due to vegetation changes, concrete, cars, houses. Satellite data is the only temperature data we can trust, but it only goes back to 1979. NASA reports only land-based data, and reports a modest warming trend and recent cooling. The other three global temperature records use a mix of satellite and land measurements, or satellite only, and they all show no warming since 2001 and a recent cooling.
4. The new ice cores show that in the past six global warmings over the past half a million years, the temperature rises occurred on average 800 years before the accompanying rise in atmospheric carbon. Which says something important about which was cause and which was effect.
None of these points are controversial. The alarmist scientists agree with them, though they would dispute their relevance.
The last point was known and past dispute by 2003, yet Al Gore made his movie in 2005 and presented the ice cores as the sole reason for believing that carbon emissions cause global warming. In any other political context our cynical and experienced press corps would surely have called this dishonest and widely questioned the politician's assertion.
Until now the global warming debate has merely been an academic matter of little interest. Now that it matters, we should debate the causes of global warming.
So far that debate has just consisted of a simple sleight of hand: show evidence of global warming, and while the audience is stunned at the implications, simply assert that it is due to carbon emissions.
In the minds of the audience, the evidence that global warming has occurred becomes conflated with the alleged cause, and the audience hasn't noticed that the cause was merely asserted, not proved.
If there really was any evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming, don't you think we would have heard all about it ad nauseam by now?
The world has spent $50 billion on global warming since 1990, and we have not found any actual evidence that carbon emissions cause global warming. Evidence consists of observations made by someone at some time that supports the idea that carbon emissions cause global warming. Computer models and theoretical calculations are not evidence, they are just theory.
What is going to happen over the next decade as global temperatures continue not to rise? The Labor Government is about to deliberately wreck the economy in order to reduce carbon emissions. If the reasons later turn out to be bogus, the electorate is not going to re-elect a Labor government for a long time. When it comes to light that the carbon scare was known to be bogus in 2008, the ALP is going to be regarded as criminally negligent or ideologically stupid for not having seen through it. And if the Liberals support the general thrust of their actions, they will be seen likewise.
The onus should be on those who want to change things to provide evidence for why the changes are necessary. The Australian public is eventually going to have to be told the evidence anyway, so it might as well be told before wrecking the economy.
Dr David Evans was a consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005.
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Barack Obama's Butterfly Effect
July 20, 2008 4:45 PM
Today on CBS's Face the Nation, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in Afghanistan, told the paparazzi-pursued correspondent Lara Logan that "the objective of this trip was to have substantive discussions with people like President Karzai or Prime Minister Maliki or President Sarkozy or others who I expect to be dealing with over the next eight to 10 years.
"And it's important for me to have a relationship with them early, that I start listening to them now, getting a sense of what their interests and concerns are."
The notion that Obama will be dealing with world leaders for eighjt-to-ten years, possibly up through July 2018, suggests that either (a) he believes that not only will he be elected and re-elected, but the 22nd amendment will be repealed and he will be elected for a third term, OR (b) he was speaking casually and just meant two terms.
(I'm guessing b.)
There is a term in chaos theory describing the how infinitesmal variations of the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system.
Most of us are more familiar with the more common name for it: the butterfly effect.
The butterfly effect was introduced in Ray Bradbury's 1952 short story "A Sound of Thunder," when time travelers change the world beyond measure by accidentally killing a butterfly in prehistoric times.
Similarly, international diplomacy can be impacted by careless or glibly-chosen words. (Cue President Bush's "crusade" remarks.)
Some Democratic allies of Obama's are -- off the record -- concerned that the senator too often doesn't consider the potential butterfly effect of his diction.
Take his support for an "undivided Jerusalem," or his remarks about women seeking abortions when they're "feeling blue," which upset feminist leaders.
Or the media kerfuffle after his "refine my policies" presser.
On his press plane on July 5, after that incident, Obama said, "I’m surprised at how finely calibrated every single word was measured."
A reporter noted that that is precisely what happens with the president, he can change world affairs with one word, finely calibrating your words is what happens.
"Well, of course, no, I understand," Obama said. "But for me to say that I’m going to refine my policies, you know, I don’t think in anyway is inconsistent with prior statements and doesn’t change my strategic view that this war has to end and that I am going to end it as president."
This week Obama will have his words picked apart like never before, and it will be an international audience of not just opponents but actual enemies.
They will be watching and waiting to see if he kills any butterflies.
Barry just keeps looking more arrogant and stupid every day
"I don't cite poll numbers"
LMAO
You've spent the lat 3 years saying "33%ers" and variations thereof
WHat a clown
WHen the numbers don't suit ya, you ignore them
Obama flunks history, again
posted at 10:24 am on July 20, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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After receiving a hailstorm of criticism for considering Brandenburg Gate for a public speech, as well as official German dissuasion, Barack Obama moved the venue to the Siegessäule monument. Obama will speak about “historic” US-German relations, but once again, Obama’s own grasp of history has been proven deficient. Not only does the site contain a monument to Prussian victories over other American allies in Europe, its placement was decided by Adolf Hitler — in order to impress crowds in his idealized version of Berlin called Germania:
Still, even as the issue of his speech’s location has now been settled, a number of politicians in Berlin are still dissatisfied with the site. The Siegessäule — or Victory Column — was erected in memory of Prussia’s victories over Denmark (1864), Austria (1866) and France (1870/71). The column originally stood in front of the Reichstag, Germany’s parliament building, but was moved by Adolf Hitler to its current location in 1939 to make way for his planned transformation of Berlin into the Nazi capital “Germania.”
“The Siegessäule in Berlin was moved to where it is now by Adolf Hitler. He saw it as a symbol of German superiority and of the victorious wars against Denmark, Austria and France,” the deputy leader of the Free Democrats, Rainer Brüderle, told Bild am Sonntag. He raised the question as to “whether Barack Obama was advised correctly in his choice of the Siegessäule as the site to hold a speech on his vision for a more cooperative world.”
Andreas Schockenhoff of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats said, “the Siegessäule in Berlin is dedicated to a victory over neighbors who are today our European friends and allies. It is a problematic symbol.”
Hitler didn’t just move the monument to its more central location. He had a taller column built for it as well, to emphasize its message of German military domination over Europe. He saw it as a message to Germans of their destiny — as well as to other Europeans as their destiny as well. It was never meant as a symbol of peaceful, multicultural co-existence.
Team Obama has outdone themselves on symbolism with this choice. They’ve managed to make their hosts uncomfortable for a second time with their choice of rallying point, and perhaps more so this time. If one wanted to talk peace, what worse location could one choose than Adolf Hitler’s favorite monument to militaristic domination? One has to wonder how France, Denmark, and Austria will feel about Obama rallying German masses under the Siegessäule. Deja vu?
Obama could be excused for his gaffe, except for two reasons. His team certainly understood the historical weight that the Brandenburg Gate would have lent his event, so why didn’t they bother to ask the Germans about the Siegessäule? Quite obviously, the Germans understand the meaning and subtext of the monument, and most of them wonder why Obama does not. Maybe this is a better example of clueless Americans traveling abroad than those who can only say Merci, beaucoup.
The more basic question is why Obama feels the need to conduct a campaign event among Germans. Meeting with foreign leaders makes sense for a man with no foreign policy experience whatsoever, but that doesn’t require massive rallies among people who aren’t voting in this election. In his rush to look impressive for no one’s purposes but his own, Obama has made himself look ignorant and arrogant all over again.
Blowback
Is the fact that they are tied in the polls funny to you?
We KNOW how much value you place on polls, don't we
One last clue for ya:
It was the COUncil that gave the negative header
It was memebers of the Society itself that did the research and published the article
The COUncil is seperate from the membership
They MIGHT be more concerned with losing funding if they espouse a contrarian view''
Either way, it doesn't change the facts in the research or that many 10,000's of scientist are questioning Gore's new religion
It's 2 seperate issues
Yes, of course we should try and reduce emissions as much as we can
But, the pretense that we should do it to reduce the C02 that is causing global warming is nonsense
COnsidering the economic implications of doing what the Gore crowd wants would be catastrophic
Pollution is every different than global warming. There are many problems caused by pollution- global warming isn't one of them.
The problems caused by pollution can be met w/o the draconian meausres Gore wants that would cripple the worlds economy
Rethinking Climate Change
The dam that global warming zealots have erected to keep out criticism of their theory is giving way. The American Physical Society, which represents around 50,000 physicists, has retreated from its past position that anthropogenic global warming is "incontrovertible" and has now acknowledged that "[t]here is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably...primarily responsible for global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution." The APS has now opened a debate on global warming in its journal Physics & Society.
One of the two initial contributions published by P&S is by Viscount Monckton, who wrote in an email to DailyTech:
"I was dismayed to discover that the IPCC's 2001 and 2007 reports did not devote chapters to the central 'climate sensitivity' question, and did not explain in proper, systematic detail the methods by which they evaluated it. When I began to investigate, it seemed that the IPCC was deliberately concealing and obscuring its method."
According to Monckton, there is substantial support for his results, "in the peer-reviewed literature, most articles on climate sensitivity conclude, as I have done, that climate sensitivity must be harmlessly low."
Monckton, who was the science advisor to Britain's Thatcher administration, says natural variability is the cause of most of the Earth's recent warming. "In the past 70 years the Sun was more active than at almost any other time in the past 11,400 years ... Mars, Jupiter, Neptune’s largest moon, and Pluto warmed at the same time as Earth."
Most people do not realize that the U.N.'s IPCC report was a political document, not a scientific one. As such, it explicitly refused to consider any of the recent scientific work on carbon dioxide and the earth's climate. That work seems to show rather definitively that human activity has little to do with climate change, which has occurred constantly for millions of years.
This would be an appropriate occasion for John McCain to announce that, in view of the fact that the claim of a scientific "consensus" has now unraveled, he is rethinking his own position on the regulation of carbon emissions.
Try again why?
THe author of the study stands by his thorough research. For whatever reason ( fear of funding loss ) the Council added the line above the article
Fact remains is what he said is backed by 10,000's of physicists
I don't see how that raises a lot of questions about the facts
Soemtimes I really wonder about your comprehension skills
The Bush admin has done nothing of the sort
There was global warming till 1998- temperatures have now started to cool
I posted this the other day:
Myth of Consensus Explodes: APS Opens Global Warming Debate
Michael Asher (Blog) - July 16, 2008 9:35 PM
The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming. The APS is also sponsoring public debate on the validity of global warming science. The leadership of the society had previously called the evidence for global warming "incontrovertible."
In a posting to the APS forum, editor Jeffrey Marque explains,"There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution."
The APS is opening its debate with the publication of a paper by Lord Monckton of Brenchley, which concludes that climate sensitivity -- the rate of temperature change a given amount of greenhouse gas will cause -- has been grossly overstated by IPCC modeling. A low sensitivity implies additional atmospheric CO2 will have little effect on global climate.
Larry Gould, Professor of Physics at the University of Hartford and Chairman of the New England Section of the APS, called Monckton's paper an "expose of the IPCC that details numerous exaggerations and "extensive errors"
In an email to DailyTech, Monckton says, "I was dismayed to discover that the IPCC's 2001 and 2007 reports did not devote chapters to the central 'climate sensitivity' question, and did not explain in proper, systematic detail the methods by which they evaluated it. When I began to investigate, it seemed that the IPCC was deliberately concealing and obscuring its method."
According to Monckton, there is substantial support for his results, "in the peer-reviewed literature, most articles on climate sensitivity conclude, as I have done, that climate sensitivity must be harmlessly low."
Monckton, who was the science advisor to Britain's Thatcher administration, says natural variability is the cause of most of the Earth's recent warming. "In the past 70 years the Sun was more active than at almost any other time in the past 11,400 years ... Mars, Jupiter, Neptune’s largest moon, and Pluto warmed at the same time as Earth."
Update 7/17/2008: After publication of this story, the APS responded with a statement that its Physics and Society Forum is merely one unit within the APS, and its views do not reflect those of the Society at large.
Al Qaeda diverting terrorists from Iran to Afghanistan?
Posted by: McQ
Consider this:
Senior leaders of al-Qaida may be diverting fighters from the war in Iraq to the Afghan frontier area, the top American commander in Iraq told The Associated Press on Saturday.
If true, that one sentence blows away many of myths that have fueled the left's criticism of the war in Iraq.
A) Iraq was a diversion from Afghanistan. In fact, it appears it wasn't at all. In fact, when you look at how Afghanistan is going and how Iraq is going, it may have moved the fight to a more favorable area (and under more favorable tactical conditions - like unity of command) for the US. If they have the power now to divert terrorist fighters to Afghanistan, it can be assumed they had the power to divert terrorist fighters from Afghanistan to Iraq as well.
B) AQI was a separate entity from AQ. Obviously if the report above is true, then the AQ effort in Iraq was indeed part of the overall AQ strategy and it was pulling the strings. That's pretty much been established previously, but this would simply reinforce that point. Thus you can then conclude that AQI was not only a part of AQ but created by AQ.
C) We've created more terrorists. If AQ had the choice of sending them either to Iraq or Afghanistan as that sentence indicates, then what were available in Iraq would also have been available for Afghanistan.
Afghanistan, for years, was a less successful effort than Iraq mainy because AQ didn't have full control (the Taliban was a part of that effort in conjunction with AQ) and AQ was enjoying more success in Iraq. So it reinforced its success.
Now with that success turned into a defeat, and after the Taliban reorganizing and doing better in Afghanistan, it is that war where AQ now sees at least a glimmer of hope for its forces. So the argument can now be made that the number of terrorists would have been the same given the existence of the war in Afghanistan and they were diverted to a more promising war, at the time, in Iraq.
"There are unsubstantiated rumors and reflections that perhaps some foreign fighters originally intended for Iraq may have gone to the FATA," he said, referring to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, where extremists have a secure staging ground for movements into neighboring Afghanistan.
"We do think that there is some assessment ongoing as to the continued viability of al-Qaida's fight in Iraq," he said. "They're not going to abandon Iraq, they're not going to write it off. None of that. But what they certainly may do is start to provide some of those resources that would have come to Iraq to Pakistan, possibly Afghanistan."
[...]
"That could be under review," Petraeus said. "We do think they are considering what should be the main effort."
[...]
"We do know the foreign fighter flow into Iraq has been reduced very substantially," he said.
D) Iraq isn't the main front in the war on terror. Since this speaks to decisions by AQ as to where they will make their main effort and indications are now being seen that says it will be Afghanistan, it is now hard to argue that Iraq wasn't an very important front in the war against AQ. They saw it as the main front, while critics dismissed it as a diversion.
E) Combat troops in Iraq should be withdrawn on a published timeline (16 months per Obama). The fact that intel indicates a drastic drawdown of the AQ effort in Iraq, but not its abandonment, as well as the intel that tells us that AQ can and will shift assets to the front showing the most promise, again argues against announced withdrawal timelines and the complete withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq.
Yep, Gore made a good point
Except for the part about global warming being caused by man made CO2, he's a genius
They realized that AQ isn't the answer. I don't see them welcoming back that brutality
Once the oil income starts flowing in to all involved parties, everyone will be in better shape
In an ideal world, the oil income would be shared once the govt skims off enough to run it's business, but given the corruption that's been the norm there for centuries, that's a dream
W/o realizing it was in their best interest to get AQ out of the country, the money wouldn't have made a difference
IF it takes money instead of bullets and casualties on both sides, what's the problem?
Absolutely- the same debates have gone on for decades
Given the long lag time for getting new oil or any alternative source on line, the failure to think and act long term was criminal
$4+ gas is a good motivator
Among your idiotic posts, this takes the case.
The only reason we are able to continue ( notice I said continue, not start ) drawdowns is BECAUSE THE SURGE WORKED
Remember that same surge that Barry said wouldn't work and would probably have worsened the situation???????
IF Barry has had his way, Iraq would still be in civil war and the whole area even more unstable than ever
Yeah, let's elevate the elitist with horrible judgement to the most powerful position in the world
McCain said it and it's true- the US ( regardless of who's President ) will have a presence in Iraq for centuries
And gee, if the McCain campaign is such a disaster now, aren't you worried that your boy Barry is tied in the polls with him ( we all know how you love to parrot poll results )
Imagine when McCain gets his sh*t together- should be a landslide
The leases are finite and expensive
Thinking that any business would purposefully pay a large amount for an asset and then not develop it ( for what good reason ??) is just plain stupid- and sadly typical of your faulty logic
Again, the land is expensive , there have been surveys done on the land to determine viability, then why would the oil companies choose not to drill??
Answer- because they have determined through actual analysis ( compared to your moonbat theories ) that the land wouldn't produce enough oil to be economically viable
WHy aren't they drilling the land??
Plus they have millions of acres that they have under lease and they are not drilling. The Dems want to put in a provision that if they don't drill in their current leases that they forfeit those leases and the punk says NO.
This has to be the stupidest argument EVER
The oil companies pay large $$$ for the leases. Follow along here. Then they spend many millions more doing surveys to see if there is oil worth drilling for. IF they don't drill, they lose the money spent on the lease and surveying.
NO company would ever survive if they purposefully turned their backs on viable assets.
The clincher- pay attention - they aren't drilling on those leases because there isn't oil there worth drilling for
See, it's really no that hard once you go beyond new world order crazed fantasies
I guess youd have them drill on barren land just for spite?? That, I'm sure you realize would actually cause prices to go up because they wouldnt be able to drill on worhtwhile leases. The leases are finite- if they don't drill w/in a certain time frame they lose them anyway
See, here's another clue- oil companies don't make any money if they don't have any oil to sell
sheesh
Barack Obama's Judgment Means Longer Wars
John McCain Gets the Response Right
Posted by: Mark Impomeni
Friday, July 18, 2008 at 08:34PM
0 Comments
The McCain campaign has been showing signs of life, as Moe deftly points out. There is one issue that we know motivates McCain enough to go on the offensive, and that is national security in general and the war in Iraq in particular. Barack Obama is set to travel to Iraq to view firsthand the success of the troop surge strategy that he opposed. And the McCain campaign isn't about to let him try to share in the credit.
The campaign released a statement today, reacting to the news that the Bush Administration and the Iraqi government have come to an agreement on a "general time horizon" for the continued presence of U.S. troops in Iraq. To some on the left, the announcement is vindication for Obama's plan to remove troops from Iraq quickly. For some on the right, the announcement pulls the rug out from under John McCain, who has steadfastly argued that the duration of the U.S. troop presence should be determined by conditions, not politics. Both are evidence of shallow thinking.
Rather than a defeat for McCain, and evidence of the prescience of the Senator from H.O.P.E.™, the announcement is a vindication of McCain's call for a surge of troops to begin with. It is evidence of the correctness of Republican and Administration policies on the war and should be celebrated as such. It also shows the dangerous irony of Obama's and liberals' timidity on matters of war. In their zeal to end hostilities and prevent casualties, Democratic policies lead to longer wars and more bloodshed.
McCain's statement hits all those themes and more.
"Progress between the United States and Iraq on a time horizon for American troop presence is further evidence that the surge has succeeded. Most of the U.S. forces used in the surge have already been withdrawn. When a further conditions-based withdrawal of U.S. forces is possible, it will be because we and our Iraqi partners built on the successes of the surge strategy, which Senator Obama opposed, predicted would fail, voted against and campaigned against in the primary. When we withdraw, we will withdraw with honor and victory. An honorable and victorious withdrawal would not be possible if Senator Obama's views had prevailed. An artificial timetable based on political expediency would have led to disaster and could still turn success into defeat. If we had followed Senator Obama's policy, Iraq would have descended into chaos, American casualties would be far higher, and the region would be destabilized." [emphasis mine]
Exactly right.
The whole point of the Iraq War was to stand up a functioning democracy in the heart of the Middle East. The point of the surge was to bring down violence so that the Iraqi government could grow. That it has done so and is looking for the earliest possible date for U.S. withdrawal is the plan working as it was intended. It is not evidence of some kind of defeat for the Administration or McCain. Nor is it a chance for Obama to jump on the bandwagon of the strategy that he didn't have the judgment to recognize would succeed. McCain is correct to hail this development as a defeat for Obama, who sided with those who said Iraq was a hopeless disaster 18 months ago.
Good for Sen. McCain for issuing this statement. Now let's see it on television.
You misread my post
I agree it's a terrible idea regardless of which side is recommending it
I jsut pointed out that the 150 in NO and 24 training sailors wasn't a huge threat
Let's cheer another of Sortaqueen's heroes:
How To Fete A Child Killer
Posted by: MichaelW
For the low, low price of two badly mutilated dead Israeli soldiers, Lebanon gets to shower a beloved holy warrior with wild praise as they treat him to a hero's welcome.
The Lebanese press (read, "Hezbollah mouthpiece") had its say too:
On the dawning of the day after the prisoner swap deal, enacted with Hizbullah on Wednesday, media linked to the Shiite group continue to celebrate with articles commending Hizbullah's "victory," which included the return of convicted murderer Samir Kuntar to Lebanon.
"Salaam to you, people of Lebanon," Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar called out. The paper, which has ties with Hizbullah, covered the affair closely. The article quoted from Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah's speech, in which he said he would now turn to "strategic" matters such as the releasing of the Shabaa Farms and the defense of Lebanon.
As-Safir news launched the title, "Second July: Freedom for the prisoners and national unity", and presented the "victory" as equal to Hizbullah's achievements in the Second Lebanon War two years ago. "July 16 is an historical day, a day of unity," the paper said.
"Arab and Lebanese joy at the return of the prisoners and the bones of the shahids (martyrs)," read the title of the article by al-Quds al-Arabi, a London-based paper. Al-Manar celebrated the "national wedding", the name given to the festive affair in Lebanon, and interrupted broadcasts in order to bring live coverage of the funerals of the kidnapped soldiers in Israel.
Isn't that lovely. Allah knows that anyone brave enough to shoot a 4 year old girl's father to death before her very eyes, and then courageously crush the girl's head against the rocks with the butt of his gun and the heel of his boot, deserves such wonderful treatment. Especially after he had to endure such cruel treatment of being held in captivity by the Jewish pig-dog state, in such close congress with infidels. It's no wonder that Qantar and his merry band of warriors vowed to carry on the brave, brave work of killing more little girls:
Five Lebanese terrorists set free as part of a prisoner swap with Israel prayed Thursday at the grave of a slain Hizbullah military commander, pledging to follow in his footsteps and continue fighting Israel.
Wearing military fatigues, the five walked down a red carpet laid out for them outside Imad Mughniyeh's burial spot at a cemetery south of Beirut. They laid wreaths and gave a military salute at the grave as supporters showered them with rice.
Mughniyeh, a shadowy figure Israel and the West accuse of masterminding terrorist bombings in the 1980s and 1990s, was killed in a car bomb in neighboring Syria in February. Hizbullah and its supporters regard him as a hero of almost mythical stature.
"We swear to God...to continue on your same path and not to retreat until we achieve the same stature that Allah bestowed on you," said Lebanon's longest-held prisoner in Israel, Samir Kuntar. He refered to Mughniyeh's "martyrdom."
"This is our great wish. We envy you and we will achieve it, God willing," Kuntar said.
Huh. So if you release terrorists back to their home countries they may start terrorizing all over again? That seems important somehow. Have to make a mental note to follow up on that.
Anyway, there's no denying that Sami Qantar is a real class act. Totally deserving a real Hezbollah Huzzah!
On the Lebanese side of the Rosh Hanikra Israel-Lebanon border crossing, Hezbollah erected a platform upon which to honor Kuntar. Lebanese, Palestinian and Hezbollah flags were hung above the stage.
A former cellmate of Samir Kuntar, Jaber Weshah, who is now deputy director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, said: "Today is a true day of joy for all Palestinians and all freedom lovers across the world."
Caption: Hezbollah jihadis salute their fallen hero, and Samir Qantar's role model, Imad Mughniyah, at his funeral.
[HT: Hot Air]
Obama in Ramallah
Noah Pollak - 07.18.2008 - 8:08 AM
We learn today from the AFP that next week, during his trip to the Middle East, Barack Obama plans on visiting Ramallah to meet with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority. Here is a question that would be appropriate for Obama to ask Abbas:
President Abbas, last week you cheered the release of Samir Kuntar, a man who murdered an Israeli family. You congratulated Hezbollah on its ability to extort the release of Kuntar by abducting Israelis, and your party, Fatah, organized celebrations across the West Bank. Your spokesmen and advisers likewise hailed the release of this child-killer as a great victory for the Palestinian cause. Given your behavior last week, why should the United States believe you when you say that Palestinians wish to live peacefully alongside Israel? Why should the United States continue giving your government money and diplomatic support when you have never passed up an opportunity to celebrate the murder, and the murderers, of Israelis?
Will Obama pose such questions? It’s almost unimaginable.
Barack's Disgraceful Global Phony-Ops
James Lewis
Barack Obama has never been President, but he plays one on TV. The TV newsies find this utterly world-shaking, which is why the three major networks are sending their prime-time anchors along with the President of the World, Senator Barack Obama. John McCain took four foreign trips in the past year, and nobody even noticed.
Obama's narcissism swells to global proportions even as the American voters are beginning to notice something very fishy about this rookie from Illinois. Barack's triumphal European victory lap, four months before the American election, doesn't pass the smell test either, and the premature Hosannas by the liberal newsies confirms what our noses are telling us.
This is a weird, weird, candidacy.
As the Times of London writes,
"... for all the adoring throngs that are likely to greet the Democratic contender and the eight foreign leaders he will meet, the trip is aimed at voters back home, where Mr Obama's youth and inexperience have raised significant doubts that he has the gravitas, grit and sure-footedness to be their next commander-in-chief.
"The 12,000-mile whirlwind tour, extraordinary for its timing midway through a general election campaign and the international media frenzy it is attracting, will take Mr Obama to Iraq, Afghanistan, Jordan, Israel, the West Bank, Germany, France and Britain as he seeks to bolster his national security credentials - one of his greatest electoral liabilities."
And UK Times columnist Gerard Baker writes,
"You have to go back to the Beatles' first US tour to find a transatlantic trip freighted with the sort of pregnant excitement that attends the one Barack Obama is about to make next week."
But Charles Krauthammer hits the nail on the head with this headline:
"Obama's Ego Exceeds His Achievements. ...
"Americans are beginning to notice Obama's elevated opinion of himself. There's nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?
"Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted "present" nearly 130 times."
I thought John Kerry was embarassing when he ran as a real Vietnam combat vet, based on his three months making home movies in the Mekong Delta. Nobel Peace Laureate Al Gore has been bringing the blush of shame to my cheeks, with his Prophet-of-Doom act, based on an obvious scientific fraud that is finally beginning to be called what it is.
But Barack Obama is going to make us all feel completely embarassed in front of any sensible people left in the world, as he rips off his fake Ronald Reagan act at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.
This is disgusting. Obama looks like a pompous fool.
No, scratch that: Obama is a pompous fool.
Again, you're talking about 24 people who are training sailors.
Don't you think a civilian force like Barry is suggesting is a horrible idea?
Yep, so 150 people in NO after Katrina is the same as Barry wanting the same type of group, only as large and as well equipped as the " regular " military
The point, which you apparently missed was that this was a colossally bad idea by Barry. Just another example of his inexperience and how dangerous that would be as POTUS
Do you agree?
Myth of Consensus Explodes: APS Opens Global Warming Debate
Michael Asher (Blog) - July 16, 2008 9:35 PM
The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming. The APS is also sponsoring public debate on the validity of global warming science. The leadership of the society had previously called the evidence for global warming "incontrovertible."
In a posting to the APS forum, editor Jeffrey Marque explains,"There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution."
The APS is opening its debate with the publication of a paper by Lord Monckton of Brenchley, which concludes that climate sensitivity -- the rate of temperature change a given amount of greenhouse gas will cause -- has been grossly overstated by IPCC modeling. A low sensitivity implies additional atmospheric CO2 will have little effect on global climate.
Larry Gould, Professor of Physics at the University of Hartford and Chairman of the New England Section of the APS, called Monckton's paper an "expose of the IPCC that details numerous exaggerations and "extensive errors"
In an email to DailyTech, Monckton says, "I was dismayed to discover that the IPCC's 2001 and 2007 reports did not devote chapters to the central 'climate sensitivity' question, and did not explain in proper, systematic detail the methods by which they evaluated it. When I began to investigate, it seemed that the IPCC was deliberately concealing and obscuring its method."
According to Monckton, there is substantial support for his results, "in the peer-reviewed literature, most articles on climate sensitivity conclude, as I have done, that climate sensitivity must be harmlessly low."
Monckton, who was the science advisor to Britain's Thatcher administration, says natural variability is the cause of most of the Earth's recent warming. "In the past 70 years the Sun was more active than at almost any other time in the past 11,400 years ... Mars, Jupiter, Neptune’s largest moon, and Pluto warmed at the same time as Earth."
Update 7/17/2008: After publication of this story, the APS responded with a statement that its Physics and Society Forum is merely one unit within the APS, and its views do not reflect those of the Society at large.
I guess I missed the aprt where theya re as large as the military and are stationed here
Please provide a link
Thanks
Economic Nonadvisers
by Richard W. Rahn
Richard W. Rahn is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth.
Added to cato.org on July 16, 2008
This article appeared in the Washington Times on July 16, 2008.
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Do you think the economic, energy and environmental policies of the presidential candidates are clear, understandable and plausible? If you answered "no" for at least one of the candidates, it is, in part, because the advisers have not done an adequate job. A policy adviser to a presidential campaign has two very important roles. One is to develop coherent policies with intellectual substance and political appeal, and the other role is to brief (in reality, educate) the candidate on the issues.
This year the voters will choose between two major candidates who lack substantial private sector business experience and, particularly, entrepreneurial experience. Neither has formal schooling in economics, and both have shown deficiencies in domestic and global economic issues. Thus, the burden on their economic advisers is much greater than it was with a candidate like President Reagan, who had a degree in economics and a great interest in the subject. (Note: I am not unsympathetic to their plight, having been an economic policy adviser to congressional candidates and a presidential candidate.)
Richard W. Rahn is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth.
More by Richard W. Rahn
Neither candidate (especially Barack Obama) has yet been seriously challenged by the media or the other candidate on his economic policies. The advisers would be foolish to think their candidate could skate to election without exhibiting a greater understanding of the issues.
When candidates promise to do something about the deficit, they need to present a plausible plan. In the 1988 campaign, the first President Bush had a highly credible plan to balance the budget — not allow aggregate government spending to grow faster than inflation, and allow real economic growth to bring down the deficit — all without increasing taxes. It was known as the "flexible freeze," and it gave him the necessary debating points to come from behind and win the election. (The plan would have worked if Mr. Bush had not abandoned it early in his term. Ironically, the essence of the proposal was implemented by a compromise between the Republican Congress and President Clinton in the late 1990s, which resulted in the budget surplus.)
Mr. Obama's fiscal plan is totally implausible. He has, according to the National Taxpayer Union (NTU), already promised to increase spending on a variety of government programs by more than $344 billion per year. He intends to pay for it by increasing taxes on the "wealthy" (the top 1 percent of taxpayers already pay 39percent of the income tax). But the revenue he seeks will not be there, because the rich are able to find many legal (and illegal) ways to avoid paying much higher tax rates. Former Federal Reserve Board member and head of the National Economic Council Lawrence Lindsey has shown how the Obama proposal "would make the private sector $5 poorer in order to make the government $1 richer."
Nobel Laureate and "father of the euro" Robert Mundell said if Mr. Obama does not renew the 2003 tax rate reductions, "the U.S. will go into a big recession, a nosedive."
John McCain and his advisers have developed a more responsible fiscal plan, but need to explain more clearly how and where Mr. McCain will reduce spending (in light of his proposed $69 billion spending increases — again using NTU estimates) to attain his projected balanced budget and economic growth targets. If Mr. McCain can clearly articulate and defend his plan, he will have a big advantage against Mr. Obama, whose economic agenda is grossly irresponsible and destructive.
Mr. Obama's trade position is ripe for attack. It is clear from his remarks that he doesn't understand free trade, though he says he believes in it. (Hint: Free trade means trade without destructive regulations, conditions and tariffs.) Every good economist from Adam Smith (circa 1776) on has favored free trade because it results in far more winners than losers among both buyers and sellers. Mr. McCain has a strong free trade record but he needs help articulating the case.
Mr. Obama has been particularly incoherent when he advocates "energy independence" and then, in the same sentence, supports increased taxes on oil companies, which will only reduce their desire and ability to produce more. Most of the rest of his proposals would also further reduce energy supply, and he has no plausible plan to increase domestic energy supplies enough to reduce dependency.
Mr. McCain has received a gift from Mr. Obama, but he is timid about going where he should — i.e., the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. His advisers should craft language explaining that drilling in ANWR provides more benefits than costs given our current national security and economic situation and advances in technology that now enable us to do it with little environmental impact.
Neither Mr. Obama's nor Mr. McCain's advisers have adequately explained economic policy tradeoffs to their candidates, nor given them the necessary facts and arguments, because they continue to make politically and economically dumb statements.
Mr. McCain has a far stronger economic team than Mr. Obama has, but Mr. McCain's advisers must wean him from some of his misconceptions. Mr. Obama is supposed to want "change," but his economic platform is nothing more than the old, tax-spend-and-regulate-more, Democrat-labor union agenda, which, as history has shown, will only lead to lower growth and more unemployment. Thus Mr. Obama is left exposed to the Republicans (if they ever get their act together) and responsible members of the media, who might start doing a real analysis of the consequences of his proposals.
Also of interest
book coverThe Politics of Freedom: Taking on the Left, the Right, and Threats to Our Liberties
David Boaz offers his unique and often surprising views on such hot-button issues as the presidential race, individual rights vs. national security, drugs, immigration, the war on terror, school choice, and government intrusion into private lives.
Opinion and Commentary
How do the conspiracy believers on the board feel about this???
Another inconvenient truth down the Obama Memory Hole
Thomas Lifson
The staggering implications of another embarrassing Obama statement would remain unexplored, with the public record obscured, were it not for a video clip of one of his speeches posted to the web and alert internet journalists. As first developed by World Net Daily's Joseph Farah, the story is about what the candidate said in Colorado Springs on July 2nd:
We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.
Published transcripts of the speech in the Wall Street Journal and Denver Post did not include the remarks, which apparently were added to the prepared transcript. Another instance of the dangers of letting the candidate deviate from the teleprompter?
In the MSM, only the Chicago Tribune publicized the remarks. But the size implications of a force that's "just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as the United States Military went unremarked upon. This would truly be a mass organization, apparently a new kind of security force.
Ed Morrissey at Hot Air explores what else Obama could have meant. But if this remark ever requires response, I suspect he will admit to "poor phrasing" and claim he meant "ample" funding. But that would require someone beyond the blogosphere to publicize it. This is a golden opportunity for talk show hosts.
Even if he claims it was poor phrasing, the sweeping nature of the phrase "just as powerful, just as strong" seems to offer some sort of window into the candidate's mind. There is a hint of regarding the military as the "other" against which to compare the new forces. Inherent in the words "just as" is an unmistakable sense of catching up and balancing out.
If these new civilian security forces ever march into an Obama rally carrying torches, whatever color their shirts, I am out of here.
Hat tip: Clarice Feldman
Update: Here is the video of the Obama speech in its entirety:
Obama's Dishonest Op-Ed
In this morning's New York Times, Barack Obama published an op-ed on Iraq that presumably previews his "major speech" on the subject tomorrow. Even by Obama's standards, the piece is breathtakingly dishonest.
Obama admits that he opposed the surge, and the attendant change in strategy and tactics, that have brought us close to victory. But he somehow manages to twist his being wrong about the surge--the major foreign policy issue that has arisen during his time in Congress--into vindication:
But the same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true. The strain on our military has grown, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated and we’ve spent nearly $200 billion more in Iraq than we had budgeted. Iraq’s leaders have failed to invest tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues in rebuilding their own country, and they have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge.
Actually, however, Obama opposed the surge not because of those "factors" but because he thought it would fail. He said, on January 10, 2007, on MSNBC:
I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.
On January 14, 2007, on Face the Nation, he said:
We cannot impose a military solution on what has effectively become a civil war. And until we acknowledge that reality -- we can send 15,000 more troops, 20,000 more troops, 30,000 more troops, I don't know any expert on the region or any military officer that I've spoken to privately that believes that that is going to make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground.
On March 19, 2007, on the Larry King show, he said:
[E]ven those who are supporting -- but here's the thing, Larry -- even those who support the escalation have acknowledged that 20,000, 30,000, even 40,000 more troops placed temporarily in places like Baghdad are not going to make a long-term difference.
On May 25, 2007, in a speech to the Coalition Of Black Trade Unionists Convention, Obama said:
And what I know is that what our troops deserve is not just rhetoric, they deserve a new plan. Governor Romney and Senator McCain clearly believe that the course that we're on in Iraq is working, I do not.
On July 18, 2007, on the Today show, he said:
My assessment is that the surge has not worked and we will not see a different report eight weeks from now.
On November 11, 2007, two months after General David Petraeus told Congress that the surge was working, Obama doubled down, saying that the administration's new strategy was making the situation in Iraq worse:
Finally, in 2006-2007, we started to see that, even after an election, George Bush continued to want to pursue a course that didn't withdraw troops from Iraq but actually doubled them and initiated a surge and at that stage I said very clearly, not only have we not seen improvements, but we're actually worsening, potentially, a situation there.
In short, Obama bet the farm on his prediction that General Petraeus and the American military would fail. He was as spectacularly wrong as John McCain was spectacularly right. But his op-ed somehow twists this history into vindication on the theory that Afghanistan has deteriorated, the Iraq war has been expensive, and Iraq's political leaders "have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge."
Let's start with the last point. Obama completely fails to acknowledge the remarkable political progress that has resulted from the surge, as manifested by the fact that the country's largest Sunni bloc has rejoined the government, and the U.S. Embassy reports that 15 of the 18 benchmarks of political progress that were set by Congress are now being met. Those benchmarks were set precisely for the purpose of measuring the "political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge," yet Obama fails even to mention them.
Still more dishonest is Obama's failure to acknowledge what would have happened if his policy prescription, precipitate withdrawal regardless of military conditions, had been followed: chaos, sectarian violence, possibly genocide, a resurgent al Qaeda in control of part of Iraq, with Iran possibly in control of other areas of the country. This would have been a foreign policy disaster, yet Obama, with vague references to cost and Afghanistan, claims vindication!
As to al Qaeda--the elephant in the room--Obama simply dissimulates:
Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been.
That's not what Osama bin Laden (Iraq is where the "Third World War is raging”) or Ayman al-Zawahiri (Iraq is "the place for the greatest battle of Islam in this era”) say. Al Qaeda summoned jihadists from around the Muslim world to go to Iraq to fight American troops, declaring that this effort is the central front in their war against civilization. Those jihadists have been devastated by American armed forces, who have thereby scored what may, with hindsight, turn out to have been the decisive victory in the war against Muslim extremism. Obama denies all of this in a single sentence, without citing any evidence whatsoever.
Finally, Afghanistan: Obama would have us believe that he urged defeat in Iraq because he was so firmly committed to victory in Afghanistan. Once again, he misrepresents the record.
In fact, Obama has never supported our troops in Afghanistan. On the contrary, he said on August 14, 2007--less than a year ago--that our forces there are mostly committing war crimes:
We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there.
Obama has been so uninterested in Afghanistan that when he went to Iraq and other countries in the Middle East with a Congressional delegation in January 2006, he skipped the opportunity to continue on to Afghanistan, which was taken by others who made the trip with him, including Kit Bond and Harold Ford. And, in an embarrassing gaffe, Obama claimed on May 13, 2008, that we don't have enough "Arabic interpreters, Arab language speakers" in Afghanistan because they are all being used in Iraq. Obama thereby demonstrated the intellectual laziness and incuriosity that characterizes his campaign: they don't speak Arabic in Afghanistan, and, anyway, interpreters are drawn from local populations, not shipped around the world.
Worst of all, far from being committed to victory in Afghanistan, Obama voted to cut off all funding for all of our military efforts in Afghanistan on May 24, 2007 (H.R. 2206, CQ Vote #181), thereby seeking to bring about defeat there as well as in Iraq. His current effort to portray himself as a wolf in sheep's clothing on Afghanistan is a complete fraud.
It is possible that at some point in American history there may have been a major politician as dishonest as Barack Obama, but I can't offhand think of such a miscreant.
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