MONDAY,  MAY 18,  2009

SWINE FLU HITS NEW YORK KIDS - AT 5:50 P.M. ET:  The swine flu story seems to have receded from the news.  In the TV industry we used to refer to the "disease of the month," because illness was often the subject of TV movies.  Swine flu seemed to be journalism's "disease of the month."  However, in New York the problem is growing, not receding.  From CBS:

The number of New York City schools ordered closed amid rapidly growing fears of swine flu has grown to 16 after the Health Department announced four more schools will shut down and one Manhattan private school said it would be closing its doors as well.

The news comes a day after the city reported its first death due to the H1N1 strain, and just as Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said he "fully expects" to see even more significant cases in the near future.

COMMENT:  I have no idea why the problem is growing in New York.  There's a lot of travel back and forth between New York and Mexico, but no one is linking that to the outbreaks.  This story is not over.

May 18, 2009   Permalink

THE GREAT MEETING HAS BEEN HELD - AT 4:55 P.M. ET:  The leftist press must be very frustrated now that the Obama/Netanyahu meeting has been held, and the Israeli prime minister came out with his arms still attached. 

The meeting apparently was well scripted, with neither side changing any positions, but expressing them respectfully.  Obama wants a two-state solution, Netanyahu will commit - for now - only to a future in which the Palestinians govern themselves.

It was only on Iran that a little bit of news was made.  The president would not impose a rigid deadline on talks regarding Tehran's nuclear program, but said that he would reassess the situation by the end of the year, and that the talks must not go on forever.  From the Washington Post:

Acknowledging "deepening concern" over Iran's nuclear program, Obama today declined to set a deadline for Iran to end it, saying that he would wait until after that county's June presidential elections to directly engage its leaders. Obama said he should know by the end of the year whether those talks were making progress in persuading Iran to give up any ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons.

Netanyahu believes time is running out to stop Iran's nuclear program. He acknowledged today that Israel's interests coincide with those of Sunni Arab governments in the Middle East, including such important regional powers as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who also fear Shiite Iran's nuclear ambitions.

COMMENT:  Much will depend on whether Obama wants to move more to the center on foreign policy, something that's been hinted at in some recent decisions.  As we get into fall, the 2010 congressional elections will become more important in these calculations. 

May 18, 2009   Permalink

HIT 'EM WHEN THEY'RE DOWN - AT 4:36 P.M. ET:  From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON —The Obama administration will issue new national emissions and mileage requirements for cars and light trucks to resolve a long-running conflict among the states, the federal government and auto manufacturers, industry officials said Monday.

President Obama will announce as early as Tuesday that he will combine California’s tough new auto-emissions rules with the existing corporate average fuel economy standard to create a single new national standard, the officials said. As a result, cars and light trucks sold in the United States will be roughly 30 percent cleaner and more fuel-efficient by 2016.

COMMENT:  Notice that the story says "sold in the United States," not "made in the United States."  We are talking about a goal seven years away.  I suspect the reality will mean smaller, lighter, less safe cars. 

Look, this is a case where we can legitimately curse everyone.  On the one hand, this kind of pressure may well result in more economic chaos in the auto industry.  On the other hand, the industry could have been far more imaginative. 

I'd like to see a real scientific analysis of how much air improvement the 30 percent will really produce.  I'm not expecting it.

May 18, 2009   Permalink

IMPORTANT INSTRUCTIONS - AT 10:05 A.M. ET:  For those of you planning to vote in the upcoming Iranian election, there is significant advice this morning from the Supreme Guide.  Please take notes:

Iran's supreme leader on Monday urged Iranians not to vote for pro-Western candidates in the June 12 presidential election, though he gave no clear indication of whether he was supporting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei holds ultimate power in Iran, at the top of the clerical hierarchy above elected figures. His position is crucial for any candidate to win the vote, though he has never made his choice public.

COMMENT:  The hilarity here is that we're regularly assured by Iran's flacks in America that we should not listen to Ahmadinejad because Khamenei is the major power, as if Khamenei were some kind of pacifist.  Khamenei is a vicious, America-hating fanatic.  He is no moderate.  The story tries to say that he has not endorsed Ahmadinejad, but Ahmadinejad could not remain in power without him. Of course he's backing Ahamdinejad.  Let's wake up, journalists.

May 18, 2009   Permalink

THE NEW COMEBACK KID - AT 8:43 A.M. ET:  Bill Clinton billed himself the comeback kid in 1992, when he resurrected his presidential campaign after revelations of an affair with a woman named Jennifer Flowers. 

Now we must ask, do we have another comeback kid?  Is his name Dick Cheney?

Even some Republicans are horrified.  They don't want Cheney as a symbol of their struggling party.  But Cheney not only refuses to go away, he's emerged as the most articulate spokesman in the party for a strong, tough, uncompromising national-security policy.  Conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt compares him to Churchill:

Scorn did not deter Churchill from using his immense visibility to sound the alarm about Hitler from 1932 forward, and his vast array of contacts within the government continually provided him with the updates he needed to push first Stanley Baldwin and then Neville Chamberlain to do more to attend to the U.K.’s defenses.

I thought of Churchill when Democrats and their partners in the mainstream media denounced former Vice President Dick Cheney last week. I remarked to Newsweek’s Howard Fineman on air that the left greets every Cheney appearance as Grendel escaped again from its den, but their defensiveness is extremely revealing.

Cheney isn’t appearing in order to advance his own career, or even to serve his party (as many unnamed Republicans are eager to tell their pals in the Beltway media). Cheney is talking directly to the American people about national security and the fecklessness with which the new president is taking decisions on matters of the utmost importance. 

COMMENT:  I've always thought of Dick Cheney as a superb public servant, willing to sacrifice popularity to do what he thinks is right.  Yes, he represents a risk for Republicans because he's so unpopular right now, but that can shift dramatically, as it did with Churchill.  I think Cheney is performing a valuable service, and I hope he continues to speak out, no matter what The New York Times might think of him.

May 18, 2009   Permalink

FROM THE HOTTEST FRONT - AT 8:15 A.M. ET:  Whenever possible, Urgent Agenda tries to develop private, trustworthy sources.  The following is from an American traveler to Afghanistan, very knowledgeable and well-connected, who reports on the reality on the ground in a conflict that is one of the main elements of Obama's foreign policy:

I think visitors to this theater are immediately struck by the lack of coherence in our message and in our strategy. There are so many power brokers, so many voices, so many players, that it is hard to quickly discern the overarching campaign plan that will lead us to success.

This is NOT McKiernan's fault.  It is due to a command structure here that is disfunctional because of ISAF (International Security Assistance Force)/NATO imperatives. We lack unity of command and unity of effort. McKiernan has tried heroically to generate these through a variety of means, but the nature of coalition warfare creates dissension, back-channeling, passive resistance to orders, and a variety of strategic/operational goals among the suborinate commands.

The civilian side of the civ-mil approach to COIN (counter-insurgency) is even more fractured.  Who is the lead?  Who speaks for all?  Who makes the tough decisions and makes them stick?

The Obama administration had NOT solved the problem by putting in a strong military leader, a strong US ambassador, and a strong regional ambassador. The fundamental problem is that we are trying to prosecute an American war through a NATO apparatus.  One or the other
is going to have to change significantly...shuffling the leadership does nothing to address the systemic, structural problems of the C2 system here.

Some important questions to be answered:

1.  Is NATO still the lead?  If not, key players may depart.
2.  If NATO is still the lead, have they embraced the AF-PAK (Afghan-Pakistan) strategy?  Pakistan presents a whole new set of challenges that some of the partners are not eager to tackle.
3.  How will (incoming commander, U.S. Army Lieutenant General) Stanley McChrystal be received by an ISAF headquarters that is not necessarily dominated by the US?
4.  Where is (U.S. Army Lieutenant General David Rodriguez) going? What is his role?  Has NATO agreed to this new role?

Bottom line...McKiernan's departure is change for change's sake.  He fully understands COIN doctrine and knows the population is the center of gravity and must have the confidence to step forward and reject the insurgents.  He didn't have the troops to do this for most of his tour,
and the troops he did have did not necessarily share his vision.  He also did not have a strong civilian counterpart who could galvanize the international community players that dominate the diplomatic scene in Kabul.

We have changed the leaders.  But what really must change are the organizational dynamics.

COMMENT:  From the horse's mouth.

May 18, 2009   Permalink  

THE MOTHER OF ALL MEETINGS, NOT - AT 7:30 A.M. ET:  The president meets today with new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  The press is building this up as a clash of titans.  Netanyahu clearly does not share Obama's almost adolescent belief in negotiations, whereas Obama believes that a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict is a key to solving almost everything in the Mideast, including obesity and a shortage of sunscreen.

This will be a day of leaks, and spin, but I don't anticipate any real fireworks.  Obama is shrewd enough to know that he gains nothing by public ugliness with a close ally, and smart enough to realize the damage he did to himself by his cold treatment of British Prime Minister Brown a few months back.  When people start saying that a president treats friends worse than enemies, that president is due for a revision.

Netanyahu was prime minister during part of the Clinton years, in the 1990s.  Despite his American background and his flawless English, he is not a popular figure in Washington.  I recall the feelings about Abba Eban, the revered late foreign minister of Israel, who was described as a man impossible to like, but impossible not to respect.  The same may apply here.  Netanyahu is tough, and conniving, but it is impossible not to respect his deep deep concerns about a nuclear Iran, an issue not taken seriously enough among the newly exalted sophisticates of the age of Obama.

May 18, 2009   Permalink 

OH SO JUICY - AT 7:14 A.M. ET:  Bill Kristol delightfully stirs the pot and makes things even more tense for establishment liberals as he wonders out loud, or out print, wy CIA Director Leon Panetta came down so hard on Nancy Pelosi, when San Fran Nan accused the CIA, for a day at least, of lying: 

Commentators have been struck -- though not perhaps as much as they should have been -- by the extraordinary character of CIA Director Leon Panetta’s blunt and stark rebuke of Nancy Pelosi...

...But did Panetta simply decide on his own to send this letter?...

Panetta would have understood the political implications of humiliating a House speaker of his own party. He surely at least ran the letter by White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to get clearance. It’s also possible that Panetta was encouraged to send the letter by Emanuel.

This is speculation, of course, but it's very informed speculation.  Kristol reminds us that the Bush 43 White House was instrumental in ousting Trent Lott as GOP leader in the Senate.  Maybe, Kristol theorizes, the president would prefer to deal with a new speaker, say House Majority Leader Steney Hoyer of Maryland.

What did Rahm Emanuel know about the Panetta letter, and when did he know it?

COMMENT:  Pelosi and Hoyer are not friendly.  Pelosi supported the morally questionable John Murtha for majority leader, and that is a wound that does not heal easily.  Pelosi also is a poster child for the political left, and Obama knows that he needs the middle to govern and get reelected.  Further, Pelosi is a symbol of a Congress that doesn't rank very high in the polls.

Should Pelosi start clearing out her office?  No.  She has her own power base, which extends beyond the powerful California delegation.  But if you get nicked enough, you bleed.  That is what we're seeing.

May 18, 2009   Permalink

SUNDAY,  MAY 17,  2009

OH DEAR, DID SHE HAVE TO SAY IT? - AT 11:45 P.M. ET:  Hillary Clinton is no longer senator from New York, but she strangely still feels the need to prove that she's a genuine New Yorker, and that she also knows something about baseball.  This, from her commencement address a few days ago at New York University:

You know, when the Yankees moved in to their old stadium next door in 1923, there was only person on the roster from west of St. Louis. Their team mostly looked the same, talked the same, and came from the same kind of cities and towns and rural areas across America. Think about the team that plays in this new stadium. It includes players from Mexico, Japan, Taiwan, Panama, four other countries. The Dominican Republic alone is home to seven Yankees.

COMMENT:  Yes, Hil, and we're sure that the Yankees signed all of them to make a statement about the beauty of diversity.  Right.  Let's see those hitting stats, amigo.

May 17, 2009   Permalink

GENERAL ERROR - AT 11:02 P.M. ET:  The Washington Times, not a liberal paper, alerts us to a problem involving the general who's now been appointed to lead our efforts in Afghanistan.  This is one of those frustrating stories about the right man for the right job, but one with a cloud over him.  The questions are entirely legitimate, and must be answered.  The old adage applies:  The higher the rank, the more we demand in competence and integrity.  The story:

The general picked to command U.S. forces in Afghanistan privately warned superiors in 2004 that Army Ranger Cpl. Patrick Tillman may have been accidentally killed by his comrades, even as he approved a Silver Star recommendation that inaccurately portrayed the ex-football star as having died from enemy fire, documents show.

Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal was cited by a Defense Department inspector general's report for being "accountable for the inaccurate and misleading assertions" contained in the medal citation, but he escaped punishment in an episode that scarred the Pentagon's credibility and upset the Tillman family.

Now five years later, the late soldier's father wants Congress to demand answers of Gen. McChrystal as part of his ascension to a new role on one of America's most important battle fronts.

"I still don't have all the facts," Patrick Tillman Sr. told The Washington Times in a short phone interview on Friday.

COMMENT:  The air should be cleared before the general takes command.  This, on a more serious level, reminds us of Patton's famous "slapping" incident.  Treatment of enlisted personnel is a serious issue in military leadership.  The family involve here is entitled to know the facts.

May 17, 2009   Permalink

PAKISTAN DESCENDS - AT 10:21 P.M. ET:  We've said in this space that Pakistan may turn out to be the biggest story of the year.  Today's well-reported piece in The New York Times only reinforces that belief:

WASHINGTON — Members of Congress have been told in confidential briefings that Pakistan is rapidly adding to its nuclear arsenal even while racked by insurgency, raising questions on Capitol Hill about whether billions of dollars in proposed military aid might be diverted to Pakistan’s nuclear program.

Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed the assessment of the expanded arsenal in a one-word answer to a question on Thursday in the midst of lengthy Senate testimony. Sitting beside Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, he was asked whether he had seen evidence of an increase in the size of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal.

“Yes,” he said quickly, adding nothing, clearly cognizant of Pakistan’s sensitivity to any discussion about the country’s nuclear strategy or security.

And...

Bruce Riedel, the Brookings Institution scholar who served as the co-author of Mr. Obama’s review of Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, reflected the administration’s concern in a recent interview, saying that Pakistan “has more terrorists per square mile than anyplace else on earth, and it has a nuclear weapons program that is growing faster than anyplace else on earth.”

COMMENT:  This is why it's wise to downplay all those false assurances we're given that Pakistan's nukes are "safe."  We don't even know how many there are, and how many are in the pipeline.  We may even be paying to manufacture them.  Pakistan's accounting system makes Hollywood's look honest.

May 17, 2009   Permalink

WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL - AT 9:05 A.M. ET:  Victor Davis Hanson is always reliable.  Now he presents us with the first 100 days of a Sarah Palin presidency, as the American press would report it: 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The first 100 days of the Palin presidency, according to a consensus of media commentators, have proven a near disaster. Perhaps it was Palin’s scant two years’ experience in a major government position that has eroded her gravitas, or maybe it was her flirty reliance on looks and informal chit-chat. In any case, the press has had a field day, and it is hard to see how President Palin can ever recover from the Quayle/potatoe syndrome. Here is a roundup of this week’s pundit mockery.

COMMENT:  Read the rest.  Good for a Sunday laugh, which we desperately need.

May 17, 2009   Permalink

MODERATES ASSERT - AT 8:55 A.M. ET:  Both Republicans and moderate Democrats are starting to find their voice, Republicans mostly on national security and moderate Dems on just about everything.  One of the lightning-rod issues to come up soon is health-care "reform," pushed by the president and his allies in Congress.  But, as The Politico reports, there are warning lights:

Two powerful groups of moderate Democratic lawmakers have met with their House leaders to warn against pushing health care reform proposals too far to the left.

The New Democrat Coalition and the Blue Dogs met separately Thursday with Democratic leaders to push for legislation they could embrace.

"We made it pretty clear that there are 51 of us, and if they want our vote on health care reform, we're going to be pretty involved in writing the bill," said Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.), chairman of the Blue Dogs' health care task force.

The first-of-their-kind meetings signaled that it could be more difficult than many expected for the House to pass a more progressive bill as a counterweight to a more moderate version expected to come from the Senate.

COMMENT:  This pushback from the center is bound to increase.  The moderate Dems' 51 votes provide the balance of power in the House.  They are not going to go down to defeat in next year's election just to satisfy the leftist fringe of the party.

Polls show that the president is far more popular than his policies.  Members of Congress read polls.

May 17, 2009   Permalink

BRACE YOURSELVES - AT 8:49 A.M. ET:  For some politically correct journalism.  First, the president speaks at Notre Dame today.  He is being politely protested by a number of committed Catholics who feel it was wrong for a Catholic university to honor a pro-choice president.  Some in the press, though, cannot restrain their contempt for the protesters.  As often happens, the best commentary comes from Britain, in this case from Damian Thompson of the Telegraph:

This is how Time Magazine chooses to begin its coverage of Barack Obama's humiliating PR problem at Notre Dame. "At the rate things are going, Pope Benedict XVI may find his next trip to the U.S. dogged by airplanes overhead trailing banners with images of aborted fetuses."

This grotesque purple flourish serves as the introduction to a thoroughly biased article by Amy Sullivan which dismisses the unprecedented Catholic opposition to Obama's commencement address as the work of, wouldn't you just know it, "a small but vocal group of conservative Catholics."

"Small but vocal group" is the the media's code for a protest that offends them. You rarely see small but vocal groups of liberals described thus. Then there's this gem: "Among those most eager to drive a wedge between the President and rank-and-file Catholics are Catholic Republicans."

That says it.  Who are these people who dare to exercise their First Amendment rights?  Why, haven't they ever heard of politeness, of respect?  Attitudes like that are coming from the same people who, a little while back, gave us BushHitler and similar constructions.

Now, also, the prime minister of Israel arrives in Washington today for talks with President Obama.  Brace yourselves again, for you are about to be bombarded with...

1) the term "hard-line."  It will be everywhere.  It will be in almost every news story.  The leads will read, "Israel's hard-line prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu..."

Now, the president of an entity called Palestine is a man named Mahmoud Abbas, who wrote in his doctoral dissertation of " "the Zionist fantasy, the fantastic lie that six million Jews were killed."  Mr. Abbas will soon be visiting Washington.  Try to find a single news source that will introduce him as "Palestine's Holocaust-denying president, Mahmoud Abbas..."  He will be called a "moderate."  It's the way of journalism.

Be on guard.

May 17, 2009   Permalink