Maxine Waters Blames Bush

Maxine Waters made her first significant statement after being formally charged by the Ethics committee in the House and she blamed Bush.

Embattled Rep. Maxine Waters on Friday blamed the Bush administration for her ethics problems -- saying she had to intervene with the Treasury Department on behalf of minority-owned banks seeking federal bailout funds -- including one tied to her husband -- because the Treasury Department wouldn't schedule its own appointments.

The California Democrat said in a Capitol Hill news conference -- an event rarely held during a congressional recess -- that she reached out to then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson in late 2008 when his department failed to respond to the National Bank Association's request for a meeting

The worst thing for the Obama administration is for both the Waters and Rangel trials to turn racial. If that were to happen, he'd be stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place.

If he were to sign on to the idea that the charges against both are racist in nature, that would turn off most of the electorate. If he didn't however, that would turn off African Americans. Either way, he'd lose support somewhere. Already, we're getting more and more support in mainstream liberal thought that these charges are racist in nature. Kirsten Powers made the suggestion on Special Report on Thursday. It's clear that Maxine Waters will make race an issue in her trial and if Rangel does the same, that would amp up racial tensions exponentially.

Kerry: "Not Fair to Blame Obama"

John Kerry was on CNN defending President Obama.

I think what's happened is Fareed, in the last six months I think there was an article even in the paper this week about people no longer blaming Bush. They're beginning to target this White House. That's a natural course of events as you go through any administration, but I don't think it is fair to the President

Senator Kerry went on to say that Democrats have to go out with "passion" and defend all their accomplishments during the Obama administration because in his perspective the people haven't figured out just how much they've accomplished.

I think Senator Kerry is confused. The people know exactly what the Democrats have accomplished and that's the problem.

Obama at Mercy of Events not Rhetoric

President Obama was on the attack again yesterday.

Comparing congressional Republicans to dangerous teenage drivers and binge-spending drunken sailors, President Obama held no metaphor back as he hit the campaign trail for the first of two stops in pivotal mid-term Senate races.

While raising money for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Robin Carnahan in Kansas City Thursday, Obama tried out some new rhetoric, framing the fall midterm elections by blaming the GOP for the sluggish economy, and urging voters not to give Republicans another chance.

"This is a choice between the policies that got us into this mess in the first place and the policies that are getting us out of this mess, and the other side is banking on people not having a good memory," said Mr. Obama. "They're trying to bamboozle you."

This has become wonderful political theater. Obama now takes every opportunity to slam Congressman Joe Barton and thus he reminds voters that Barton showed sympathy for BP. He's also recently slammed Minority Leader John Boehner for comparing the financial crisis to an ant.

None of it makes any difference. From 2005 until the election of November of 2006, George W. Bush was in the same position. He was entirely at the mercy of events in Iraq. Rhetoric back and forth was entirely unimportant. Instead, the situation continued to deteriorate and he paid for it at the polls.

Obama will face a similar dynamic. Everything comes down entirely to what the economy looks like. So, all the political theater will only be just that. Ultimately, with only a few months left, everything comes down to raw numbers: the unemployment rate, GDP growth, etc. All of those point to an economy that is still sputtering and as long as that is occurring Obama and the Democrats will take responsibility and be punished. No speech, attack, or creative alliteration will make any difference. As long as it looks as though the economy is not creating enough jobs Obama is at the mercy of the economy.

Pelosi: Blame Bush to Continue

Nancy Pelosi made it clear that the Democrats will continue to blame Bush for the indefinite future in this interview.

We'll stop blaming Bush when the problems run out

History and historians will have ample opportunities to cast dispersions on the Bush presidency. For them, blame is very relevant. Nancy Pelosi said it was relevant to blame him for the financial crisis, the recession, and even the Gulf Oil spill.

The Speaker needs a quick refresher course in leadership. People don't want leaders that look to point fingers. They want leaders that accept responsibility and solve problems.

The Speaker for instance says that President Obama inherited a deficit. That's nonsense. Deficits are year over year things. President Obama didn't inherit a deficit. He decided all on his own to grow the deficit to a trillion and a half dollars. That's entirely his doing. No one told him he needed to spend nearly a trillion dollars on a stimulus. That was entirely his responsibility.

The Gulf Oil spill is even more ludicrous. People hired by the Obama administration were the ones that had lax oversight over this particular rig. It happened on Obama's watch and certainly the response was entirely Obama's.

Amid Violence the Iraqis

It's been just a bit less than seven years since then President George Bush ordered a surprise bombing on the palace of Saddam Hussein. In the interim, Iraq has gone through a remarkable transformation. Only four short years, the violence was so intense that most everyone thought loss was assured and it would soon disintegrate into a failed state or worse. Since, the country has roared back from the brink of uncontrolled chaos and is quickly becoming a model of Democracy and representative government for the Middle East. So, that is the backdrop for the vote in parliamentary elections in Iraq tomorrow. Those elections are nothing like the elections here. Already a car bomb has exploded and Al Qaeda promises to kill anyone that leaves their home to vote.

A car bomb exploded near a bus for pilgrims in the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Saturday, killing at least three people, including two Iranians, on the eve of key national elections, officials said.

Blasts in other Iraqi cities have killed dozens this week, underscoring warnings that insurgents would attempt to disrupt the vote with violence. An Al Qaeda front group issued a statement on Friday saying those who leave their homes on election day risk attack.

We've been here before. For each election, Al Qaeda sets off bombs and threatens anyone that dares to vote. They are successful in taking lives but entirely unsuccessful in scaring anyone from their new found rights.

In fact, as remarkable as the elections themselves will be, the run up to the elections have proven just how far Iraq has come. Their were a series of debates. These debates weren't only broadcast throughout Iraq, but through satellite, broadcast throughout the Middle East. The debates were so provocative that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was moved to call in himself to one of the aftershows and comment on one of the topics being debated.

The station said that they cut seven minutes from its running time to make more
room for advertisements from various campaigns.

And the ads don’t come cheap: 15 minutes of airtime cost $100,000, according to station officials.

The shows are also being seen outside Iraq. Ms. Qaysei said she was pleasantly surprised when Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, called the station and praised the debate program.

President Bush firmly believed that liberty was a universal concept. His critics mocked him. They said that the Middle East wasn't ready for that kind of freedom. Yet, Iraqis vote in much larger percentages than we do, even though they face the threat of death when they do. These debates are among the most popular television in Iraq. They're our American Idol.

The critics also claimed that Iraq would quickly become nothing more than a puppet of Iran. Those critics were again wrong. They underestimated the sophistication of Iraqi society and politics.

In fact, Iraq's parliamentary system is far too sophisticated for that. While Shia are by far the most dominant sect, it's far too splintered politically to ever cause Iraq to merely be Iran's puppet. There are those Shia that merely want to be Iran's puppet and there are others that are Secular. Both the Sunni and Kurds have no use for Iran. In a parliamentary system, one party can't rule alone and so the interests of Iran must be balanced with the interests of smaller players in order to build a coalition.

That's the most remarkable thing of all. In seven short years, Iraq has gone from a dictatorship ruled by a strong man to a representative government GOVERNED by a sophisticated parliamentary system. The ruling government lead by Nuri Al Maliki is made up of a coalition of six different parties. This election features about six thousand candidates and they are all vying for votes by giving their platforms on issues like the future of Kirkuk.

General Petreaus often said that in counter insurgency there is no one moment where victory is made. Instead, the people reject the insurgents and embrace democracy. We have victory. The election, the debates, and the manner in which the Iraqi people have embraced their new found liberty is victory. No bombs, explosions, or fear will ever make them waver from what they have.

Hussain Backpedals

Obama's Islam envoy, Rashed Hussain, has back tracked and admitted to making some controversial comments about Sami Al Arian.

President Barack Obama’s new Islamic envoy, Rashad Hussain, changed course Friday — admitting that he made sharply critical statements about a U.S. terror prosecution against a Muslim professor after initially saying he had no recollection of making such comments.


“I made statements on that panel that I now recognize were ill-conceived or not well-formulated,” Hussain said, referring to a 2004 conference at which he discussed the case.

The comments themselves were fairly innocuous. He never gave on opinion one way or another about the details of Al Arian's case. Instead, he made a general statement about Bush administration policies. These statements are fairly typical of a mindset of many on the left.

This appears to be a case of "it's not the crime but the cover up". The administration initially denied he made them at all. They only backed down after Politico got hold of tape of the event. As such, they inherently condemned the comments themselves. So, now, they are stuck having to defend these comments after taking a totally different stance entirely earlier.

Friday Night Document Drop: No misconduct in Bush interrogation memos

Whenever there's news that an administration wants downplayed, it's always released on Friday evening when most media is preparing for the weekend. So, the news that
David Margolis and John Yoo had no misconduct in their now infamous "torture" memos by the Justice Department came out on Friday.

The architect of the Bush administration's memos authorizing waterboarding and other “enhanced” interrogation techniques told investigators that the president of the United States has the power to order the "massacre" of civilians, according to an internal Justice Department investigation released late Friday.


The investigators found that Berkeley law professor John Yoo committed "intentional professional misconduct" when he advised the president that such techniques, which many consider torture, were legal.

The report did show that each showed "poor judgment" in issuing these memos. Both faced potential disbarrment and now are off with an admonishment.

Biden Vs. Cheney

Just when you thought the Obama administration couldn't sink any lower, Joe Biden comes out with a full frontal assault against former VP Dick Cheney, and Cheney responded in kind. The fireworks started during the week when Biden showed up on Larry King.


Now, you know the administration is struggling when they try and take credit for Iraq. The president will likely not have all the troops out by the end of his first term. Both Biden and Obama were against the surge. Biden wanted to carve up Iraq into three parts. At best, they can be credited for not screwing things up.

Then, on today's show, Joe Biden trotted out the old Daniel Moynahan line about not getting your own facts. It was on.

There's a few things of note here. First, Democrats love to defend Mirandizing Farouk by pointing to Richard Reid. Well, first, Reid was arrested only a couple months after 9/11. The military tribunals hadn't been set up yet. Second, who cares? The same folks that condemn each and every Bush policy are now defending their own by pointing to a Bush policy. That's rich. We probably shouldn't have Mirandized Reid. We certainly better not have done it until we got all we could from him. Whether we did or not, that doesn't justify Mirandizing Farouk after 50 minutes.

Finally, who knew that the best voice against Obama anti terror policies would be Dick Cheney? He's been the single biggest and boldest voice of criticism against Obama's anti terror policies that the opposition has. As for Obama, they continue to think that picking political fights will somehow make people forget that they find many of their policies reprehensible.

On Farouk, Obama Digs a Hole and Keeps Digging

In the span of a few days in August of 2005, the Bush administration defined itself negatively for its leadership or lack thereof. Once defined as such, there was little the Bush administration could do to reverse the perception of that debacle.

The Obama administration had just such a moment in the aftermath of the Christmas Day attempted hijacking. It took President Obama several days to say something. Secretary Napolitano proclaimed that "the system worked".

That was just the beginning. Then, news leaked that Farouk was only interrogated for fifty minutes and then read his Miranda rights. Then, no one in the administration seemed to be involved in making the decision, and Robert Gibbs went so far as to claim that in those fifty minutes we got all that we could out of Farouk.

The Obama administration is now backpedaling on trying KSM et al in New York. It's even looking more and more likely that all will wind up still being tried at GITMO. That will be a source for embarrassment for the administration but it's a mistake that can be rectified. If, in fact, they come to their senses and try them in the right place, it won't define them.

With Farouk, there is no such second chance. There was a moment for leadership and in that moment, there was none. I believe the administration knows it. That's why a terrorism expert like John Brennan has turned into a political hack going anywhere with a megaphone to defend the indefensible. It's probably why the administration leaked that after five weeks Farouk was speaking again.

All of this has only made things worse. The administration screwed up badly by immediately treating Farouk as a criminal rather than an enemy in war. They screwed up just as badly by not having someone that looked as though they were in charge in the immediate aftermath of the attempted hijacking. Yet, they've made things worse by stubbornly defending all of this behavior. By doing so, they've continued to dig a hole created in December.

It's the Deficits Stupid

The administration came out with their deficit projections for FY 2011 and they are staggering.

President Obama sent Congress a $3.8 trillion budget Monday for fiscal year 2011, pushing a plan that includes new jobs-creation programs but is projected to add nearly $1.3 trillion in deficit spending on top of the current year's projected $1.6 trillion deficit.

According to the plan, the 2011 deficit of $1.267 trillion would fund nearly the entirety of the year's discretionary spending, which is $1.415 trillion or 37 percent of the government's total outlays. Mandatory spending on items such as entitlements and interest payments make up the rest.

This is the FY 2011 budget so this includes the so called spending freeze. That should put to rest the so called effectiveness of this freeze. If these projections materialize, this will be the biggest deficit ever.

The nexis of the president's problems start and end with this deficit. It's the easiest way to explain his problems. The president claims that these deficits are necessary to stimulate the economy. It's true. Almost everyone agrees that deficits are a natural and necessary parts of recessions. It's not true, however, that deficits must reach these levels.

People are afraid of the consequences, long and short term, of these massive deficits. As a result, they've rejected his entire agenda. As long as we see $1 trillion deficits and more the president will have this as an anchor.

The president in his remarks again tried to blame Bush for this. He claimed, again, that he inherited this deficit. That's of course non sense. This is the FY 2011 budget. This is a full year after Bush left office. This has nothing to do with Bush. These deficits are his responsibility and his alone. The folks aren't stupid and still blaming Bush is now just boring.

Obama on His Way to Infamy

Let me give my presidential grade for President Obama's first year. If the next three are as "good" as this one, he'll be challenging Hoover et al for the worst president of all time. He's got plenty of time to turn things around, but let's not kid ourselves. So far, he's been really close to an unmitigated disaster. My dad, who didn't vote for him but generally likes him, constantly harps on his extension of unemployment insurance as an accomplishment. Now, if a supporter makes that your accomplishment, you know you've got problems.

Whether it's domestic policy, foreign policy or political acumen, Obama continues to show that he's simply not up to the job. Most of our worst fears about the president continue to be realized. His complete lack of experience is clearly showing. Clearly, he didn't have a proper vetting process in place. Furthermore, on multiple occasions, the Van Jones affair in particular, he showed a total political tone deafness that's simply stunning.

The biggest folly has to be health care reform. Such sweeping reform usually add to a legacy. Look at Social Security. That's nothing more than a Ponzi Scheme and yet that's a lasting legacy for FDR. This won't be anything like that. That's because even if it does pass it will be so roundly rejected that it will be repealed in no time.

Obama's inexperience has clearly shown on that one. Remember when he urged the legislature to send him a bill by August. What could have possibly put in his mind that such a complicated piece of legislation would be done that quickly. That misstep cost him credibility. Worse yet, he let the Congress craft the bill and didn't control them in the slightest. By the mid summer, the process was an unmitigated disaster and he couldn't contain it. Now, we're at a point where he'll attempt to shove a bill with 30%+ approval down everyone's throat in a totally partisan manner.

On the economy, the president has spent a lot of time talking about health care. The administration promised that unemployment wouldn't cross 8% and now it's 10%. They promised the stimulus would create jobs right away and we're still losing jobs. They promised that spending $787 billion would create jobs and now the Democrats want to spend $150 billion TO CREATE JOBS. He's locked himself into GM, AIG, and Fannie/Freddie and all are a black hole of money and the president has no idea how to extract himself from all of them.

Then, there's GITMO. He proclaimed boldly that it would be closed in a year and then didn't have a plan. Moving the terrorists anywhere in country is deeply unpopular not to mention just plain dumb. Yet, he's now so committed that he's going to do it no matter what. In fact, he's brushed off calls not to transfer the terrorists in light of the attempted attack since several of the planners are former occupants of GITMO. Even worse is his bone headed decision to try these terrorists in country in civilian courts. Whereas a Bush legacy is to once and for all treat terrorists as enemies in war, Obama's may very well be to send us back to treating them as criminals despite the historic failure of that approach.

He has a chance to secure his legacy by pulling out a victory in Afghanistan. I believe Bush went a long way to cementing his with the surge in Iraq. It remains to be seen just how things will go in Afghanistan. I believe he has the right strategy but it's yet unclear if he has the will to win. In his first year, the most troubling aspect of his presidency is his lack of will to fight the terrorists. Without that we won't win in Afghanistan or anywhere else.

His foreign policy is still evolving and it may evolve properly. His Nobel Prize speech was a breathe of fresh air. The president may be ready to get tough with Iran, and he certainly made the difficult choice in Afghanistan. Yet, he sided with the Socialist Zelaya in Honduras. He sat back and said nothing while Democratic forces erupted in protest in Iran and he was a way too buddy, buddy with the thug dictator Hugo Chavez. Embracing America's enemies, not supporting democratic forces, and a lack of will are the worst kinds of legacies.

Then, there's the events of the last seven days. It was nothing short of a disaster. The president said nothing for four days. He refused to leave Hawaii and his DHS Secretary claimed everything went just fine. He wanted to present an air of calm so that panic wouldn't ensue. Instead, he created the perception that he didn't care and chaos ensued. That happened after a failed attack.

So, what's Obama's legacy so far? It's the stimulus. The only effect we know it's had is adding a massive amount of money to our debt and deficit. That's it.

Now, the presidency is a wonderful, challenging, and awesome thing. So, we expect and even demand that the office itself change the occupant. We hope and assume that President Obama will grow into the office as he continues in it. So, the next three years he should evolve and he should improve. Let's not kid ourselves. If the next three are like the first one, he's right next to Herbert Hoover in infamy of the presidency.

Is Obama's Foreign Policy Changing?

President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize speech gave conservatives, or dare I say neoconservatives, plenty to love.

We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations -- acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.

I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago: "Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones." As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King's life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there's nothing weak -- nothing passive -- nothing naïve -- in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.

But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism -- it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.

...

Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms. The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest -- because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if others' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity.

...

And yet too often, these words are ignored. For some countries, the failure to uphold human rights is excused by the false suggestion that these are somehow Western principles, foreign to local cultures or stages of a nation's development. And within America, there has long been a tension between those who describe themselves as realists or idealists -- a tension that suggests a stark choice between the narrow pursuit of interests or an endless campaign to impose our values around the world.

I reject these choices. I believe that peace is unstable where citizens are denied the right to speak freely or worship as they please; choose their own leaders or assemble without fear. Pent-up grievances fester, and the suppression of tribal and religious identity can lead to violence. We also know that the opposite is true. Only when Europe became free did it finally find peace. America has never fought a war against a democracy, and our closest friends are governments that protect the rights of their citizens. No matter how callously defined, neither America's interests -- nor the world's -- are served by the denial of human aspirations.

Without a doubt, sprinkled into his Nobel Peace Prize speech were shots at the previous administration and tacit acknowledgements to the Euro liberals about America's past moral failings. Still, the general tenor of the speech was a very vigorous defense of a muscular foreign policy.

The speech came within a week of the President's announcement that he would send more troops to Afghanistan. The speech was applauded by no less than Newt Gingrich, who called it Obama's best, and Sarah Palin. Meanwhile, Neoconservative stalwarts William Kristol and Fred Kagan had this to say following the announcement of Obama's Afghanistan strategy.

Obama's decision, and the speech in which it was announced, were not flawless. The president should have met his commander's full request for forces. He should not have announced a deadline for the start of the withdrawal of U.S. forces. He should have committed to a specific and significant increase in the size of the Afghan National Security Forces. He should also have explained more clearly the relationship between defeating the Taliban and defeating al Qaeda, the significance of such a victory, and the reasons his Afghan strategy can succeed. The secretaries of defense and state, as well as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made those arguments far more compellingly in subsequent congressional testimony than the president did at West Point.

We shouldn't miss the forest for the trees, however. When all the rhetorical and other problems are stripped away, the fact remains that Obama has, in his first year in office, committed to doubling our forces in Afghanistan and embraced our mission there. Indeed, the plan the president announced on Tuesday features a commendably rapid deployment of reinforcements to the theater, with most of the surge forces arriving over the course of this winter, allowing them to be in position before the enemy's traditional fighting season begins.

In fact, the Nobel Peace Prize speech moved Bill Kristol to say this.

There was a fair amount for Bush Doctrine-supporters, American-exceptionalist patriots, and neocon warmongers to like in Obama's Oslo speech. He sounded hardheaded and pro-American, certainly by contrast with his previous rhetorical forays abroad--his utopian world-without-nuclear-weapons remarks in Prague in April or his apologetic speech to the Muslim world in Cairo two months later.

In Oslo, Obama began "by acknowledging a hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes." The implication of that? "There will be times when nations--acting individually or in concert--will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified."

Note that "acting individually." Despite much talk elsewhere in the speech about the international community acting together, Obama held open the possibility that nations will have to act alone and will be morally justified in doing so.

Similarly, despite his professed admiration for Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., Obama explicitly said, "as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone." Indeed, Obama went on implicitly to rebuke Gandhi: "A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies."

Kristol goes on to speculate if the Oslo speech was a precursor to a strike on Iran.

One thing that was underreported was the reaction to Obama in Europe following this speech. The Nobel Peace Prize speech was by far the most bellicose acceptance speech for the Nobel PEACE Prize that I can think of. Yet, there was little if any criticism of its bellicosity. In fact, the general reaction was positive.

Obama has in fact set things up to lead the world into aggressive action against Iran if that's what he chooses to do. His foreign policy has slowly but surely moved away from the naive leftist fantasy that it started out as to a much more realistic one.

It's true that Obama continues to insist on closing GITMO and trying KSM et al in country is disastrous. At the same time, Obama has effectively continued Bush's Iraq policy. He's followed a similar strategy in Afghanistan. If the Nobel Peace Prize speech is any indication, he may be moving to a muscular policy toward Iran as well.

The beauty is that if that's what he chooses he's in fact set himself up perfectly. The Europeans are enthralled with Obama. Only President Barack Obama could convince the Europeans to take a muscular stance against Iran. That doesn't necessarily mean a rush to war. In fact, he could lead the charge against serious sanctions, a Naval blockade, removal of ambassadors, and any other meaningful act against that nation. He set out a muscular foreign policy in Oslo and the Europeans didn't merely not criticize but applauded.

Obama can in fact demand such a policy of the Europeans and he's about the only person capable of leading it. It's too early to tell if Obama's policy real has moderated on foreign policy. There is however plenty for those like me to like lately.

There is always an X factor in any presidency. That is that the office itself changes and evolves the holder. It's very possible that the office has shown President Obama that the policies he was in favor of when a candidate are untennable and the office is forcing Obama to moderate. It's something to watch as his own presidency evolves.

Tim Geithner on the Brink

One thing is for sure, Tim Geithner would win the award for most embattled Presidential aide or cabinet member after ten months. Even before he was confirmed, Geithner faced controversy when it was revealed that he didn't pay his taxes. Since then, a series of embarrassing public appearances and vague explanations have caused Geithner to lose the confidence of many.

Tim Geithner rolled out the PPIP plan. That's if you want to call it a rollout. Instead, it was more of a sketch. The rollout was so embarrassing that the markets were spooked and dropped about 300 points that day. Geithner also once suggested that the dollar didn't need to remain the world's currency and that caused the dollar to tank following that announcement. (the Treasury Secretary is on our currency and so it's important, to say the least, for that same individual to contribute to its strength not weakness) He later rolled out the same PPIP in much greater detail and that lead to a rise in the market on that day. (of course the same PPIP program was later scaled back significantly)

The heat was taken off Geithner for a while, though he's become the butt of ridicule for conservatives since the revelation that he didn't pay his taxes. Meanwhile, many liberals are non too happy with Geithner either. He's seen as far too close with Wall Street by liberals and they were hoping for much more populist policies.

This week a lot of these tensions bubbled back to the surface. The bubbled up following revelations of Treasury IG Neal Barofsky that Geithner failed to negotiate a good deal for the tax payers in the AIG deal while President of the New York Federal Reserve.

Of course, while this was revealed this past week, all of this occurred in 2008. The time to discuss it was during his confirmation. Had this come to light then, along with tax revelations, it's unlikely that he would have made it through. Still, during te course of this week, Democrat Peter Defazio of Oregon and Republicans lead by Kevin Brady of Texas called on Geithner to resign.

Now, it's important that Geithner hasn't done anything recently to cause anyone to ask for his resignation. That can be viewed two ways. On the one hand, you could call it nitpicking. On the other hand, you could call it a lack of confidence that has been brought to the surface. One thing is for certain. Geithner's public presentation doesn't create a sense of security. That doesn't create a sense of comfort in his stewardship of the economy.

He's fumbled a series of Treasury tasks. More than that, there's a growing sense that the Obama administration doesn't know what it's doing on the economy. Our deficit will be about $1.5 trillion this year. Unemployment may reach 11% and beyond. There doesn't seem to be any end in sight, nor is there a sense that they can fix this.

On top of all this, Geithner, and Obama for that matter, continue to blame Bush. That's what happened in Geithner's exchange with Brady.

There's no worse leadership than blaming others. That's been the M.O. of the Obama administration. Whenever they were challenged on any of their misdeeds: massive deficits, massive unemployment, etc., they blame Bush. The half life on that ended months ago and they would be wise to put an end to it. Geithner wins no points by blaming his problems on the previous administration. The massive deficit is entirely his administration's not Bush's. It was his administration that promised that unemployment wouldn't reach above 8% with the stimulus, not Bush. These are the things that are making people jittery, and Geithner is doing nothing to relieve the jitters by blaming Bush.

Obama Ready to Reject Bush Doctrine Tenet

President Bush made his speech in the aftermath of 9/11 about a week afterwards. In the week between the attacks and his speech, there was a bit of debate about one specific issue. That issue was whether or not we were going to include the Taliban in our list of enemies for destruction along with Al Qaeda. I say there was just a bit of debate because most people were in agreement that the Taliban were no less responsible for 9/11 than Al Qaeda itself. Then, George Bush said this in his speech a week after 9/11.

we will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them

Bush continued.

From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.

That was the first tenet of the Bush Doctrine as it related to the GWOT. It was then, as it is now, rather non controversial. That's because it makes sense. Just as those that knowingly harbor a criminal are themselves criminals. Any regime that harbors terrorists must be held accountable for the terrorists.

It goes beyond that. Al Qaeda didn't merely show up one day in Afghanistan. They were invited in. They weren't invited for no reason. Instead, both Al Qaeda and the Taliban share an ideology and a world view. Al Qaeda wanted to be in Afghanistan, in part, because the Taliban imposed the sort of Islamic political philosophy that Al Qaeda agreed with. The two were ideological and strategic allies. One couldn't be dealt with, without dealing with the other.

This, I thought, was the one part of the Bush Doctrine that no one would challenge. Yet, it appears that President Obama is ready to drop that portion of the Bush doctrine.

Obama's developing strategy on the Taliban will "not tolerate their return to power," the senior official said. But the U.S. would fight only to keep the Taliban from retaking control of Afghanistan's central government -- something it is now far from being capable of -- and from giving renewed sanctuary in Afghanistan to Al-Qaeda, the official said.

...

Members of the president's national security team argued that the Taliban in Afghanistan do not pose a direct threat to the U.S., officials told The New York Times. It was unclear if everyone in the war council accepted the premise.

If the President follows through on this strategy that will reject a central tenet of the Bush Doctrine for the GWOT. No longer will we be treating the terrorists and their harboring regimes as one and the same. The president will treat Al Qaeda as the enemy and treat the Taliban as something else, something we can tolerate.

This makes no sense on a moral level. Al Qaeda is not a country. They operate because regimes invite them in. That's what the Taliban did. That makes the Taliban just as responsible for their terrorism as Al Qaeda itself. It also makes no sense on a strategic level. You can't separate the Taliban from Al Qaeda because they are in fact interchangeable.

Just as in pre-9/11 Afghanistan, these safe havens are home to broad cooperation between the Taliban and al Qaeda. The Taliban hosts camps for al Qaeda’s paramilitary army, as well as al Qaeda’s external network – that is, those terrorists responsible for striking the West. By some estimates there are more than 150 training camps, of various sizes and configurations, in the tribal areas in Northwestern Pakistan.

Senior al Qaeda leaders are routinely killed at Taliban safe houses, training camps, and compounds during U.S. airstrikes. Numerous Taliban leaders, including the Haqqanis (a father and son team who are based both in eastern Afghanistan and in Pakistan’s tribal areas, as discussed below), Hakeemullah Mehsud, Mullah Nazir, Hafiz Gul Bahadar, Omar Khalid, Mullah Fazlullah, and Faqir Mohammed host al Qaeda’s leaders and foot soldiers. These Taliban commanders conduct cross-border operations in Afghanistan, and aid al Qaeda in doing so as well.

So, how do you only go after Al Qaeda when Al Qaeda and the Taliban are fighting together, hiding together, and together in the overall war. That's doesn't even take into account that if we leave the Taliban in place that eventually they'll invite Al Qaeda back in, unless we want to stay in Afghanistan forever.

This would in fact be a massive change in the philosophy of the GWOT. If we aren't treating the terrorists and their sponsors as one and the same, we've now given license to any terrorist sponsoring state, a la Iran, much more license. If Obama pronounces that the Taliban can be left alone that will give that much more incentive for any other tyrant to invite terrorists into their nation. Of all the tenets of the Bush Doctrine, this is the one that I thought with most certainty would never be challenged. Yet, it appears that President Obama is on the brink of making a distinction between the terrorists and the states that sponsor them.

AG Holder: GITMO Unlikely to Close By Deadline

AG Eric Holder became the latest administrative official to announce that GITMO isn't going to close when it's supposed to on January 22nd, 2010.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that it will be difficult to meet the administration's Jan. 22, 2010, deadline to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

"It's going to be difficult for us to make the January deadline," Holder said in a press conference with reporters on Tuesday, adding, "It doesn't mean we're not going to try to do that."

Holder then asserted that GITMO will get closed sometime, though didn't give a date. I suppose that someday GITMO will get closed but it isn't any day soon. I believe that the Obama administration is now realizing that Bush didn't keep GITM open for nefarious reasons. Instead, Bush kept GITMO open because there was simply no viable option. I believe that Bush wanted to close GITMO but he simply couldn't find a way to do it.

Now, President Obama is realizing the same thing. No area of the U.S. wants them. Foreign countries will only take the mildest detainees. No one is going to take any really bad apples. Of course, there's all sorts of issues with moving these folks, be it into the U.S. or somewhere else abroad.

So, President Obama is realizing the same thing President Bush realized. He's realizing that closing GITMO is a lot more difficult to do than to say. The only difference was that President Bush made no bold proclamations about its closure.

The Iran Dance Starts Again

There is an old and very famous saying that everyone likely knows, "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result". Let's see if anyone finds any of this familiar.

Iran declared its refusal Tuesday to discuss its nuclear program -- including the disclosure of a second nuclear enrichment plant -- when it sits down at the negotiating table Thursday with the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany, Reuters reported. A top Iranian official told the news agency that his country will not abandon its nuclear activities, "even for a second."

Iran's nuclear chief also announced Tuesday that his country built its newly revealed uranium enrichment facility inside a mountain and next to a military site to ensure continuity of its nuclear activities in case of an attack. The revelation comes as the Obama administration works up plans to push for new sanctions against the country, targeting its energy, financial and telecommunications sectors if it does not comply with international demands to come clean about its nuclear program, U.S. officials said Monday.

Then, there's this.



Iran's missile test launches should not be used as an additional argument for imposing sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program, Interfax news agency quoted a senior Russian diplomat as saying on Tuesday.



Finally, there's this.

President Obama has let Iran know that it faces an arsenal of sanctions if it fails to completely disclose the nature of its nuclear program and ambitions.

But with three rounds of U.N. sanctions already in place -- and Iran's defiant refusal Tuesday to put its nuclear program on the table when it meets Thursday with representatives of the five permanent Security Council members and Germany -- some officials question whether yet another round of sanctions, especially ones dependent on Russia and China, would have any teeth.

If Iran does not cooperate Thursday, the Obama administration has been working up plans to target Iran's energy, financial and telecommunications sectors, U.S. officials said Monday.

If all of this sounds familiar, that's because it is. President Bush went through several rounds of this dance, and now it appears President Obama is also going through the same dance. Through allies, we reach out to Iran diplomatically about their nuclear program. They give hints that they may be ready to capitulate. Then, it turns out they've only strung us along. Russia then pays lip service to how terrible it all is but makes sure to let it be known that tough sanctions won't happen. Instead, we got some sort of weak and limp sanctions and we start the process all over again. At some point, our president says something to the effect of "Iran must choose".



In the meantime, Iran has moved from being years away from the bomb to probably months. We've been here before. We've gone through this before, and it's always ended the same. Iran never capitulates. Russia always protects Iran, and whatever sanctions come about ultimately are too weak to work. We are here again. The president is going through the same dance again. Will he really try all the same things and hope for a different result?

Bill Clinton and Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

Bill Clinton was on Meet the Press once again talking about a vast right wing conspiracy.

Oh, you bet. Sure it is. It's not as strong as it was, because America has changed demographically. But it's as virulent as it was. I mean, they're saying things about him. You know, it's like when they accused me of murder, and all that stuff they did. … But … it's not really good for the Republicans and the country, what's going on now. I mean, they may be hurting President Obama. They can take his numbers down. They can run his opposition up. But, fundamentally, he and his team have a positive agenda for America. Their agenda seems to be wanting him to fail.

My first thought is that President Clinton took nearly eight years of attacks on him personally. I didn't even see the video and I could tell the residual anger in his words. That's neither surprising and it's something that I can understand. After all, the attacks on him got very personal and they were sustained for nearly eight years. Deserved or not, President Clinton clearly took all the attacks very personally.

It's also yet another example that in politics we only notice vicious attacks when they come from the other side. President Clinton wasn't out there analyzing the vast left wing conspiracy when they did worse to President Bush than they did to him for eight years. With most of the media, academia, and hollywood squarely in the left, it's hard to see to see how there's a vast right wing conspiracy. Yet, that's all that President Clinton sees.

Both sides do this of course. There's a small strand of conservatives that are still convinced that President Obama wasn't born in the U.S. Yet, many of those same folks were mocking liberals who trotted out one conspiracy theory after another about why the Iraq war was started. That's because we always notice bad behavior from the other side a lot more quickly than we do from our own and from ourselves.

If there is a vast right wing conspiracy, then the conspiracy on the left is enormous. Yet, Bill Clinton only notices the one on the right and that's because it's only the right that attacked him personally for nearly eight years.

Admin Acknowledges: We Won't Close GITMO On Time

It was back in May when Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had this exchange in a press briefing regarding the closure of GITMO.

Q Robert, does the President still expect to close Guantanamo Bay one year after his announcement, which would be I guess January 20, 2010? And is --

MR. GIBBS: I think it's the 21st or 22nd, but, yes.

Q Twenty-first, thank you. And is he still planning on issuing a detailed map, if you will, of how to get there in another two months from now?

MR. GIBBS: I don't understand the second part.

Q Did he not say on January 22nd that within six months he would sort of issue -- the administration would issue plans for how it intended to close Guantanamo?

MR. GIBBS: I'd have to go back and look. I mean, obviously, Sheryl, the President remains committed to closing Guantanamo.

Q On January 22nd?

MR. GIBBS: On whatever date he previously intoned in the executive order.

Q And he's still confident that he can do that?

MR. GIBBS: He is. There are multiple task forces that are -- have been stood up, and are meeting to deal with the issues surrounding that closure.

There were many of us that were dubious of the President's claim that he would close GITMO by January 2010 from the beginning. He said it in his second day on the job. He never said where any of these terrorists would go. GITMO has become a punching bag for the left for going on six years. Yet, no one that has criticized GITMO has offered a credible alternative. That's how I was very dubious that Obama would actually be able to fulfill his promise of closing GITMO. For nearly two years he criticized GITMO, what he never did was offer a credible alternatitve. Still, Gibbs was confident back in this May briefing the administration would follow through on its promise.

Then, roadblocks began to appear. Only a handful of detainees were received by other nations and most of those were only received after we bribed them. Then, the Congress, nearly unanimously, cut off funds for the transfer of GITMO detainees without a plan. That happened in May. Then, all the sticky questions began. Where would the detainees be tried? What would happen if they were acquitted? What rights would they have, etc? Then, there was a very contentious town hall meeting in Michigan, a potential site for where some detainees would be moved, in which citizens furiously objected to any suggestions that any GITMO detainees would be moved there.

Still, the administration put on a happy face. In fact, as recently as this week, the President proclaimed in front of the UN that one of his accomplishments is the upcoming closure of GITMO. The closure of GITMO was one of several things that Obama cited in which he felt that the U.S. was joining the rest of the world.

The problem is that GITMO won't be closed by January 20th as promised, and the administration is finally acknowledging that.

President Obama is unlikely to close the much-maligned detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in time to meet the self-imposed deadline of January, as his administration runs into daunting legal and logistical hurdles in moving the more than 220 detainees still being held there.

The difficulties in completing the lengthy review of detainee files and resolving other thorny questions mean the president's promised January deadline may slip, senior administration officials acknowledged for the first time Friday to FOX News.

The political damage of all of this will be directly related to just how quickly GITMO is closed and how messy that closure becomes. If it is closed in May of 2010 and that transition is smooth, the damage is minimal. If it's still open in November of 2010, that will be a huge problem not only for Obama but the Demorats in general.

President Obama's problem here remains the same. The reason that GITMO will likely not close by January is because there's absolutely no plan for where they can be moved if it's not GITMO. The president made this proclamation when clearly he had no clue what he would do. That's still the case. If the Democrats had stopped to think in the middle of their non stop criticism, they might have realized that the reason Bush kept GITMO open was because it was the best of bad options. Where exactly should we hold KSM? If he's moved into the U.S., then an ACLU lawyer will immediately move to mandate full constitutional rights to him. Then, KSM will lawyer up and we won't get any more information from him.

So, I'd be stunned if most of the folks currently in GITMO now aren't still in GITMO come November of 2012.

Will Obama Override McChrystal?

Today on Special Report Charles Krauthammer relayed an interesting timeline. The president replaced General Mckiernan with General McChrystal in May. Here is what the President said all the way back on March 27th.

Today, I'm announcing a comprehensive, new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. And this marks the conclusion of a careful policy review, led by Bruce, that I ordered as soon as I took office. My administration has heard from our military commanders, as well as our diplomats. We've consulted with the Afghan and Pakistani governments, with our partners and our NATO allies, and with other donors and international organizations. We've also worked closely with members of Congress here at home. And now I’d like to speak clearly and candidly to the American people.

The situation is increasingly perilous. It's been more than seven years since the Taliban was removed from power, yet war rages on, and insurgents control parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Attacks against our troops, our NATO allies, and the Afghan government have risen steadily. And most painfully, 2008 was the deadliest year of the war for American forces.

So, let's review. In March, the president announced a new strategy. In May, he fired the general in Afghanistan and brought in his own. Now, that General wants tens of thousands of more troops for this effort and warns of failure without them.

The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warns in an urgent, confidential
assessment of the war that he needs more forces within the next year and bluntly states that without them, the eight-year conflict "will likely result in failure," according to a copy of the 66-page document obtained by The Washington Post.

How did the President respond to this request?

President Barack Obama is warning U.S. commanders that he's "skeptical" about whether more troops will make a difference in Afghanistan, saying he'll approve an upcoming request only if the forces fit into a strategy to beat back al-Qaida and protect the United States.

"Until I'm satisfied that we've got the right strategy I'm not gonna be sending some young man or woman over there — beyond what we already have," Obama said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "I'm not interested in just being in Afghanistan for the sake of being in Afghanistan or saving face or, in some way – you know, sending a message that America is here for the duration."

This statement is all parts troubling, absurd, and totally disingenuous. How can you be satisfied that more troops are needed unless more troops are there? Worse than that, President Obama is saying that a strategy still hasn't been finalized. That flies in the face of his statement on March 27th that a new strategy was formulated. He brought in a new General to implement that strategy. Now, that General wants more troops.

So, we have a president with near zero foreign policy experience and even less military experience proclaiming that he's not certain that the General, with thirty plus years of both, knows what he's talking about. Worse than that, this General is the one that Obama wanted to implement the strategy that supposedly started on March 27th.

To be fair, President Bush fired Donald Rumsfeld the day after the November 2006 elections. The surge wasn't announced until the end of January. In between, November and January, the troops were fighting without a coherent strategy. (most would say that they were fighting without one the whole time up until that point) So, we can't necessarily expect the President to have a strategy formulated immediately.

Still, if you're on the ground in Afghanistan, you are going to battle with no overriding strategy right now. The President, having claimed opposite six months ago, is saying that there is still no strategy. He's hinting that he will not take the recommendations of the generals on the ground. Since taking over as president, President Obama has yet to show that he is committed to victory in Afghanistan, Iraq, and in the GWOT period. This latest fiasco is more evidence that commitment to victory is not his main priority.

It's really simple. You follow the recommendations of your generals or you fire your generals. Lincoln went through Generals like Liz Taylor goes through husbands before settling on US Grant. Obama brought in his guy and now he refuses to give his guy the manpower the General is asking for. As such, we have a former State Senator with scant foreign policy experience overriding a life long military person. That's dangerous and it's unacceptable. Some point soon, the president will have to decide whether to follow McChrystal's recommendations. If he's unwilling to do so, he needs to replace McChrystal and figure out an exit strategy. If the president is unwilling to fight to win, then the only option is withdrawal.

And Now the Race Card

Over the weekend and today, there was no less than three different articles in the media either intimating that opponents of President Obama were racist or analyzing those that say so. The only thing I could think was the chutzpah on these folks is obscene. First, here's a bit from a Politico article.

Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.), chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, agreed with his colleague that elements of the opposition can’t accept the reality of a black president.

“There’s a very angry, small group of folks that just didn’t like the fact that Barack Obama won the presidency,” Honda said, adding: “With some, I think it is [about race].

Said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) about the race factor: “There are some issues that have been swept under the rug and we’re not witnessing them come out.”

But it's still a sensitive enough issue that the party doesn’t broach it directly.

Virginia Governor and Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine used a speech Friday to single out those conservative critics whose hostility toward President Obama goes deeper than just opposing his policies — but without mentioning that which many in his party believe drives the anger.

Here's a bit of the now infamous Maureen Dowd column.

I’ve been loath to admit that the shrieking lunacy of the summer — the frantic efforts to paint our first black president as the Other, a foreigner, socialist, fascist, Marxist, racist, Commie, Nazi; a cad who would snuff old people; a snake who would indoctrinate kids — had much to do with race.

I tended to agree with some Obama advisers that Democratic presidents typically have provoked a frothing response from paranoids — from Father Coughlin against F.D.R. to Joe McCarthy against Truman to the John Birchers against J.F.K. and the vast right-wing conspiracy against Bill Clinton.

But Wilson’s shocking disrespect for the office of the president — no Democrat ever shouted “liar” at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq — convinced me: Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it.

Now, all of these folks suddenly using the race card against their opponents must have very short memories. That's because they have quickly forgotten how they and their allies and friends treated the former president, George W. Bush. Bush was compared to Hitler, called a liar, a war criminal, an idiot, a meglomaniac, a zealot, and evil. This happened for much of the previous eight years. Yet, no one was accused of being a racist. That's politics. Opponents often don't merely oppose but rather they get nasty about it. That's what happened to President Bush and we merely called partisanship and politics.

Now, the same thing is happening to President Obama and immediately we call it racist. Bush can be called a war criminal and no one is called a racist. Obama is called a socialist and some say it's code for race. Is anyone surprised that as soon as there was enough criticism of President Obama, someone immediately played the race card? Some surmise that there are those that don't consider President Obama to be a legitimate president. That's true. There are those that think that. Some of those folks immediately insinuate that this is because people are racist. Are they serious? How many Democrats don't consider that Bush won in 2000 legitimately? Did we call them racist? So, what's the difference exactly?

In fact, President Obama hasn't been criticized or mocked nearly as much President Bush was. President Bush was called all sorts of nasty things by his opponents. Many of the were over the line and inappropriate. Yet, no one ever played the race card when it was President Bush that was criticized. Now, suddenly, President Obama is criticized and immediately people call it racist. Like I said, the chutzpah is stunning.