THURSDAY,  JULY 23,  2009

OVEREXPOSURE - AT 11:30 P.M. ET:  Although health care is a critical issue for most Americans, the president's press conference last night was not exactly in American Idol territory:

In a continued push for congressional support of health care reform President Obama held his fourth prime time press conference on Wednesday July 22, 2009. The conference was carried live from 8:00PM to approximately 9:00PM on 11 networks. The sum of average audience for those networks was 24,682,519 viewers and had a combined household rating of 16.3. The networks carrying the press conference were ABC, CBS, NBC, Univision*, Telemundo*, BBC-A, BET, CNBC, CNN, FOX News Channel, and MSNBC.
Viewing to last night’s press conference was down 14% from his April 29 press conference and down 50% from his first primetime conference on February 9.

COMMENT:  Maybe next time there could be an opening act - the comedy stylings of Al Franken, the unintended comedy of Joe Biden, Chris Matthews singing of a tingle up his leg.  You know, it might revive things.

In the meantime, the president might reflect on the fact that Americans are much more intelligent and informed than he thinks.  His rhetorical style may be superior, but it doesn't make up for the lack of substance we saw last night.  There's simply a point when even the best salesman has to have a good product to sell.

July 23, 2009   Permalink

THE STORY IS GROWING - AT 5:18 P.M. ET:  The story, that is, of President Obama's disgraceful comments toward the end of last night's press conference, injecting himself into a local dispute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, involving the arrest of his friend, Harvard Professor Louis Gates Jr.  The president, with no independent information, and the absence of an investigation, proclaimed that the Cambridge police acted "stupidly."  Even Bill Cosby was shocked by this breach of basic legal protocol:

On a Boston radio program this morning, Bill Cosby suggested that President Obama spoke too soon on the controversial arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates.

“I’ve heard about five different reports [on the details of the arrest],” Cosby said on Boston’s WZLX. “If I’m the president of the United States, I don’t care how much pressure people want to put on it about race, I’m keeping my mouth shut.”

“I was shocked to hear the president making this kind of statement,” Cosby said referring to the president’s remarks during last night’s press conference.

The White House was apparently concerned enough to put out a statement "clarifying" Mr. Obama's ill-considered remarks:

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, questioned about the flap as the president headed for two health care events in Cleveland, stressed that Obama "was not calling the officer stupid." He said Obama felt that "at a certain point the situation got far out of hand." Gibbs said Obama has not spoken with Gates since the incident.

The president, however, continues to blunder on the issue.  Apparently, his delicate ego can't take the criticism:

President Barack Obama said Thursday he was surprised by all the hubbub over his comments that a white police officer in Cambridge, Mass., had acted "stupidly" in arresting a prominent black scholar for disorderly conduct. The president didn't take back his words, but he allowed that he understood the sergeant who made the arrest is an "outstanding police officer."

"I have to say I am surprised by the controversy surrounding my statement," Obama said in an interview with ABC News, "because I think it was a pretty straightforward comment that you probably don't need to handcuff a guy, a middle-aged man who uses a cane, who's in his own home."

COMMENT:  Given that the president wasn't there, didn't know the facts, and didn't study police procedure in Cambridge, maybe an apology was in order.  The incident may well have been a preventable misunderstanding, but we won't know that until there's an investigation.

It turns out that the police officer involved has an outstanding record, and is an expert on racial profiling:

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - The white police sergeant criticized by President Barack Obama for arresting black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his Massachusetts home is a police academy expert on racial profiling.

Cambridge Sgt. James Crowley has taught a class on racial profiling for five years at the Lowell Police Academy after being hand-picked for the job by former police Commissioner Ronny Watson, who is black, said Academy Director Thomas Fleming.

This officer's career may well be over now, or at least severely damaged.  Wherever he goes in chic Cambridge, home of Harvard University, he will be pointed out as "that cop."

And Henry Louis Gates Jr?  He relishes it.  He now says he wants to keep the incident alive and make a documentary about it.

Thanks, Mr. President.  Now that you've cold-shouldered American allies like Britain, Poland, the Czech Republic, Israel and the freedom fighters of Iran, add our police officers.  Great work.

There are, of course, problem police officers.  But the mishandling by the president of an incident like this does nothing to deal with them, just as the false rape charges against three Duke University lacrosse players helped in the battle against sexual violence.

July 23, 2009   Permalink

MORE POLL PROBLEMS FOR OBAMA - AT 4:43 P.M. ET:  A new Fox poll reflects the general trend downward in approval for President Obama:

Though Americans still blame former President George W. Bush for the ailing economy, President Obama faces dropping approval ratings amid doubts that he has a clear plan for fixing the economy.

A FOX News poll released Thursday shows approval of Obama's job performance at a new low of 54 percent. That is down from 62 percent in June. The president's job approval rating has averaged 61 percent over the first six months of his term.

As Democrats continue to be happy with their party leader (86 percent approve) and Republicans continue to be cool to Obama (75 percent disapprove), everyone is tracking how independents feel. Some 54 percent of independents approve of the job Obama is doing, down from 66 percent last month, and 36 percent disapprove, up from 26 percent (9-10 June 2009).

The 12 percent drop among independents should be especially troubling for the White House.  But these are tentative figures.  An economic turnaround, for which Obama will take full credit, can send him upward again.

Obama's approval rating is lower on the top issues of the day. On health care, 43 percent of Americans say they approve of the job the president is doing and 45 percent disapprove. On the economy, 50 percent approve and 43 percent disapprove.

COMMENT:  Okay, but this still doesn't tell us how people feel about Republican ideas.  The GOP simply must come up with a coherent program, easily explained, and practical.  Without it the Republicans simply depend on Obama's misfortunes, and that's no way to conduct a campaign.

July 23, 2009   Permalink

HE'S BAACK - AT 10:34 A.M. ET:  John Kerry won't go away.  Maybe he thinks he's got a shot in 2024.  Now he has a new gimmick - the effect that "climate change" will have on national defense.  This is a rehash of an old Washington rule that, if you want anything to get done, attach it to national security:

WASHINGTON -- Massive crop devastation, melting glaciers, water shortages, millions of displaced people -- all of these will drag the US military into conflict if global climate change goes unchecked, a Senate panel was warned today.

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, convened by Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, focused on what so far has received only modest attention in the climate change debate: the effect it is bound to have on national defense.

It's received modest attention because the crowd that's pushing the "climate change" agenda has only minimal interest, if that, in national defense.

Sadly, some military officers are going along with Kerry.

The whole thing is so cynical.  Anyone who knows anything about the military knows that weather is always a factor in military operations, and is taken into consideration.  I've seen military briefings - many Urgent Agenda readers have as well - and they normally begin with the weather in the region under review.  And yes, weather can change military history.  Reference the great Pacific typhoon of 1944, Typhoon Cobra, which extensively damaged an American fleet under the command of William F. Halsey Jr. 

If there is, indeed, climate change, in will not occur in the next ten minutes.  It will probably affect some military calculations, just as increased storm activity affects aviation.  Can climate change start wars?  Well, theoretically, almost any change can provoke economic consequences that can lead to conflict.  But again, there is really nothing new about this.  Climate change, if it actually occurs, might increase tensions in one region, but make other regions more fertile and hospitable, leading, maybe, to lesser tensions.

Climate change is the cause of the year on the left.  Wait.  It'll be something else next year.  Nominations?

July 23, 2009   Permalink 

KRISTOLIZED - AT 9:15 A.M. ET:  Bill Kristol takes on President Obama directly, pretty much slicing up the president's performance at last night's "reform health care or die" news conference.  (Charles Krauthammer had actually expected Kristol to be attacked by the president directly because he's been such a thorn in the side of the White House, but Kristol was spared.) Kristol agrees with the overall consensus emerging this morning - that the president didn't change many minds:

President Obama spent most of his press conference tonight denying what President Kennedy famously affirmed -- that to govern is to choose. Obama promised us health care this is at once better and cheaper, with both more regulation and more freedom to choose, featuring an assurance that government won’t limit our care and a commitment to a government panel that will save money by restricting care.

Yeah, that's right.  Obama didn't exactly come off as a detail man.

The juvenile happy talk reached its peak with this presidential statement: “If there's a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half price for the thing that's going to make you well?” Now, there’s good idea. Why hasn’t anyone else thought of that? For this reform, we need to spend $1 trillion?

No we don't.  And more and more Americans are coming to that conclusion. 

The president exhibits the disdain for the public, and its reasoning, that is typical of some elites:  We, the smart ones, understand things.  We have the grandest conversations at parties.  We talk to experts.  What do those people out there know?  Is there a Marxist reading room in Omaha? 

Kristol also comments on what we discussed at Urgent Agenda in our last post last night - Obama's bizarre entry into a legal case involving a friend of his in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Obama answered a question about his friend Henry Louis Gates’s run-in with the Cambridge cops, after acknowledging “not having been there and not seeing all the facts,” by nonetheless asserting that “the Cambridge police acted stupidly.” Does he really know enough about what happened to say that? Maybe it was Professor Gates who behaved stupidly, or at least arrogantly. He is, after all, a Harvard professor. I was once a Harvard professor, and my instinct is to side with the Cambridge cops. But if I were president of the United States, I might pause before casually accusing other Americans of acting stupidly unless I were confident I knew what I was talking about.

COMMENT:  Kristol nails it.  Let's see how many mainstream commentators express outrage over the president of the United States injecting himself into a local legal dispute involving a friend.  If a Republican had done that, it would have been called obstruction of justice, attempting to influence the outcome of an investigation, and an act of corruption even worse than the "outing" of Valerie Plame.  Remember her?

July 23, 2009   Permalink

ONLY FOOLS THOUGHT THEY WOULD CHANGE - AT 8:04 A.M. ET:  During the big financial bailouts, late last year, and early this year, some starry-eyed Washington types predicted that the culture of Wall Street would change.  We wrote at the time that this was a childlike view of the world, that the culture of Wall Street never changes.  Even the great Depression didn't change it.  Wall Street is about money, and only money, and lots of it.  Most people don't dream of big jobs on Wall Street to exercise financial restraint or responsibility:

NEW YORK, July 22 -- Wall Street's biggest banks are setting aside billions of dollars more to pay their executives and other employees just months after these firms were rescued with a taxpayer bailout, renewing questions about compensation practices in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

The recent outcry over bonuses at bailed-out firms prompted public alarm and promises of reform from financial leaders, who acknowledged that pay and bonuses should not reward risky short-term business decisions -- such as those that contributed to the meltdown -- but instead longer-term financial performance.

Felix Rohatyn, one of the true statesmen of Wall Street, once described the stock market as a casino. 

Goldman Sachs caused a stir last week when it disclosed it had set aside a record $6.6 billion for compensation expenses in the most recent quarter, bringing the total for the first six months of the year to $11.4 billion. If that pace continues for the rest of the year, Goldman's employees will earn an average of about $773,000, more than double the figure last year and even exceeding the $700,000 paid in 2007.

COMMENT:  There are some who defend those practices as part of the "free enterprise system."  I don't.  Many of the "executive compensation packages," as we've seen in the last few years, seem to be based more on who you know, or how fast you talk, than on real performance.  And many of Wall Street's "investment products" seem to produce results only for the investment bank, and not for the real economy.

Wall Street is actually doing reasonably well right now.  But remember that there was a stock market rally between 1933 and 1936, at the height of the Depression.  It had no effect on the real, Main Street economy.

The Wall Street firms that failed in the last few years clearly weren't run by financial geniuses, or business visionaries.  They were run by hustlers, and, sadly, they will be again.

July 23, 2009   Permalink

MEDIA MEDIOCRITY - AT 7:48 A.M. ET:  A number of observers have commented on the anemic performance of the press at last night's presidential news conference.  The questions were almost as flabby as the answers.  The president was never seriously challenged, and the reporters didn't seem to know, or care about, the details of the health bill up in the House.  Other serious issues were completely ignored.  As Mike Allen reports in The Politico:

WORDS NOT USED DURING THE PRESSER: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Korea, Guantanamo, war, troops, terror.

And the White House press corps is, presumably, the top of the profession.  No wonder Obama likes to hold news conferences. 

We learned very little last night.  I'd love to see the audience ratings.  I'll bet they slipped from the last presidential performance.

July 23, 2009   Permalink

THE PENNSYLVANIA JOKER - AT 7:21 A.M. ET:  The changing poll numbers around the country over the past month or two have been quite dramatic.  Consider Pennsylvania.  A new Quinnipiac poll tests the fate of former pseudo-Republican and now kind-of-Democratic Senator Arlen Specter.  The great switcher isn't faring well:

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter's 2010 reelection lead over Republican challenger Pat Toomey has shrunk to a tie with 45 percent for Specter and 44 percent for Toomey, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. And voters say 49 - 40 percent that Sen. Specter does not deserve reelection.

President Barack Obama gets a 56 - 37 percent job approval, compared to 62 - 31 percent in a May 28 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University. By a bare 50 - 43 percent majority, voters approve of the President's handling of the economy.

Specter, first elected to the Senate as a Republican in 1980 but who switched to the Democratic Party earlier this year, holds a commanding 55 - 23 percent lead over U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak in the race for the Democratic nomination. On the Republican side Toomey buries Peg Luksik 47 - 6 percent.

On May 4, Specter led Toomey 53 - 33 percent in a trial heat; his favorable unfavorable ratio among Pennsylvania voters was 52 - 34 percent and voters said 49 - 41 percent he deserved reelection. In a May 28 Quinnipiac University poll, Specter led Toomey 46 - 37 percent.

COMMENT:  We should savor the moment.  Three months ago a number of major pundits were pronouncing the death, or at least terminal illness, of the Republican Party and conservatism in general. 

But a cautionary note:  Things can switch back.  Don't underestimate the Obama-university-media axis.  Hillary Clinton made that mistake in the Dem primaries last year.  And any improvement in the economy can boost the Dems, even if they have nothing to do with it.

Tough fight next year, but winnable.  The 2010 midterms are a bit more than 15 months away.

July 23, 2009   Permalink

WEDNESDAY,  JULY 22,  2009

A DISGRACEFUL MOMENT - AT 11:03 P.M. ET:  President Obama startled many reporters, and I'm sure many viewers, when he expressed an opinion about the arrest some days ago of Henry Louis (Skip) Gates Jr., the distinguished Harvard professor of African-American studies, and a personal friend of the president's:

WASHINGTON — President Obama bluntly accused the police of acting “stupidly” by arresting the Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. last week after an officer had established that Mr. Gates had not broken into his own home in Cambridge, Mass.

Mr. Obama stopped short of accusing the police department of racial profiling, as Mr. Gates has done. But during a prime-time White House news conference that was otherwise largely devoted to health care, Mr. Obama weighed in full bore on the Gates case and suggested that the police should never have arrested him.

COMMENT:  Professor Gates was returning home when he had difficulty opening the door to his home.  His cab driver helped as the two men tried to force the door open.  A neighbor, witnessing the scene, called police, thinking a burglary was in progress.  When the police responded, Professor Gates was already in his home.  A police officer, perhaps believing Gates had broken into the house, asked him to step outside and show some i.d.  There, the story becomes murky, with Professor Gates claiming he was mistreated and the officer claiming that Gates became unruly and made charges of racism.

Whatever the facts, it is stunning that the president, a lawyer, should prejudge them.  The president wasn't there.  He should have declined comment.  Instead, he charged that the Cambridge, Massachusetts, police acted stupidly.  How could he know that?  Maybe they did, maybe they didn't.  By tradition (and wisdom), high government officials don't comment on legal cases.  Maybe the president doesn't believe that someone from his cultural class, a professor, could act badly.  Maybe he's simply taking the word of a friend.

We certainly know that African Americans have often been treated unfairly.   We certainly know that racial profiling does happen.  But we also know that one aspect of historic racism was (and sometimes still is) the propensity of white officers automatically to believe the word of a white over a black.  In his statement, the president did exactly that - in reverse.  He seemed automatically to believe his friend over the word of the police.  And it's fair to point out that police officers always risk their lives when they respond to a report, correct or not, of a crime in progress.

The president made a serious mistake.  He should apologize and stress the importance of waiting for facts.

July 22, 2009   Permalink

REACTION TO OBAMA - AT 9:42 P.M. ET:  The president's news conference is over.  That's the good news.  As always, the president spoke beautifully.  We all know that he's an effective campaigner.  If he wasn't, he wouldn't be where he is.  And he did make some perfectly valid points.  Yes, we must cut health-care costs where we can show waste.  Yes, there are inefficiencies and inequities built into the current system.  Yes - and here he was most effective - insurance companies are making record profits at a time when the rest of the country is hurting, and yet keep raising premiums.  Yes, the system can be better.

The problem is, there was no solution.  What we needed from Mr. Obama was what Walter Lippmann called "the picture in our heads."  His job tonight was to give us a clear image of how his health-care plan would work.  Do I choose my doctor?  Can I get a second opinion?  Will my doctor be able to treat me his way, or will he be dictated to by a government agency?  If a claim is denied, what do I do?  How can I avoid the long waits that are characteristic of other systems in other countries?  What the president needed was a simple checklist.  Instead, we got a kind of rambling "yes we can" moment that came down to, "We're in bad shape, we've got to save ourselves, it's got to be done fast.  Trust me."

What we saw tonight is what we feared before November's vote - a man with no executive experience, without any concept of how to lead.  Americans may think the president has a health plan, one, perhaps, that he's thought about over the years.  Instead, he essentially gave over control of this most important measure to his party in Congress.  He kept talking about "what comes out of this" or that committee.  Shouldn't he have something to say about that?

We want to see a better, more modern, more efficient health-care system.  It should not be built around either corporate profits or government bureaucracy.  To get what we need will require detailed information on the nature of our problems, and carefully constructed solutions.  And, sometimes, a patchwork solution is better than an overhaul, as it zeroes in directly on a problem.  The American system of checks and balances is, at base, a patchwork solution and series of compromises.

The president must lead.  In so doing, he must take into account the legitimate objections of his critics.  He's got to do better than he did tonight.  And we always wish him well.

July 22, 2009   Permalink

HIGH NOON AT 8 P.M. ET:  The president will be on TV tonight, again, this time trying to separate his health care liner from the iceberg.  No, his administration will not live or die by this bill, but a defeat on health care will bring Mr. Obama down to the level of a mortal, something his political team desperately fears.

We understand from excellent sources that the White House has run DVDs of "The Wizard of Oz" over and over, trying to understand what happens when the man behind the curtain is exposed as a fraud.

July 22, 2009   Permalink 

LIBS DEFEAT GUN AMENDMENT, BARELY - AT 1:25 P.M. ET:  When pro-Second Amendment forces get this close to winning in the U.S. Senate, it gives the ultra-libs something to think about, not that thinking is one of their favored habits.  Behold:

By the narrowest of margins, the Senate's liberal bloc of Democrats defeated an amendment that would have allowed gun owners to carry their weapons across state lines without regard for stricter laws in many jurisdictions, giving preference to states with looser standards.

In a 58-39 vote, supporters of the looser gun law -- including all but two Republicans and almost 20 moderate Democrats -- fell two votes short of the 60 they needed to approve the measure. The amendment, sponsored by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), showed the bitter divisions among a Democratic caucus that now holds 60 seats, many of whom got to the Senate by winning in conservative states as they proudly supported gun rights. It also divided the party's leadership, as Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), campaigning for re-election in 2010, sided with gun rights supporters. His top lieutenants, Sens. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), led the push against the measure.

COMMENT:  There is an assertion of power by moderates and conservatives in Congress.  The liberals have clearly overplayed their hand.  Clearly, next year's congressional midterm elections will be critical.  If our side can pick up a reasonable number of seats, we can show once again that America isn't Berkeley.

July 22, 2009   Permalink

PAKISTAN HEADACHES - AT 9:13 A.M. ET:  This story is sneaking up on us, but it could have major implications in a very short while.  From The New York Times:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan is objecting to expanded American combat operations in neighboring Afghanistan, creating new fissures in the alliance with Washington at a critical juncture when thousands of new American forces are arriving in the region.

Pakistani officials have told the Obama administration that the Marines fighting the Taliban in southern Afghanistan will force militants across the border into Pakistan, with the potential to further inflame the troubled province of Baluchistan, according to Pakistani intelligence officials.

COMMENT:  This creates the old "fight with one hand tied behind our back" problem.  One of the tragedies of both Korea and Vietnam was that we allowed sanctuaries for our enemies.  If Pakistan gets its way, we'll have to restrict operations, tying one hand again.  We'll be watching this.  Pakistan is key to our efforts to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

July 22, 2009   Permalink

DEMS BLAST OBAMA - AT 8:18 A.M. ET:  What a difference some diving poll numbers can make.  Democrats, who just recently had only praise for the esteemed leader, are now taking shots at President Obama's handling of health care.  The president will appear on all the networks tonight, in another all-Obama-all-the-time moment, to try to rescue his stumbling health-reform campaign.  (If we see any more of him he'll need one of those image-makeover specialists to keep him off TV.  Overexposure indeed.) 

He has a tough sales job, with even his own party skeptical, as CNN reports:

WASHINGTON (CNN) – As the prospects for passing health reform by the time Congress leaves for its August recess look bleaker, Democratic grumbling about President Obama is growing louder. One Democratic senator tells CNN congressional Democrats are “baffled,” and another senior Democratic source tells CNN members of the president’s own party are still “frustrated” that they’re not getting more specific direction from him on health care. “We appreciate the rhetoric and his willingness to ratchet up the pressure but what most Democrats on the Hill are looking for is for the president to weigh in and make decisions on outstanding issues. Instead of sending out his people and saying the president isn’t ruling anything out, members would like a little bit of clarity on what he would support – especially on how to pay for his health reform bill,” a senior Democratic congressional source tells CNN.

COMMENT:  Inexperience shows.  Mr. Obama has never run anything but his Senate office, and he wasn't there most of the time.  He's not exactly a detail man, but seems to see himself as a philosopher.  Well, Barack, let's get down from Mount Olympus, or Mount Rushmore, or whatever mount you're on, and get into the scrimmage.

July 22, 2009  Permalink 

THE LURKING ISSUE - AT 7:58 A.M. ET:  There is a familiar, lurking issue that can turn the entire health-care debate on its head.  From The Politico:

ABORTION DEBATE: This could overrun the health reform debate if it gets traction. From Ben Smith in POLITICO: “A coalition of anti-abortion groups is set to open a new front against Democrats’ efforts to restructure American health care, claiming the plans open a back door to publicly financed abortions.

“The groups, which are launching a broad campaign on the issue this week, claim that existing health care proposals constitute a stealth “abortion mandate” that will spend taxpayer money on abortions and require insurance companies to cover abortions — allegations that health care reform supporters call misleading. “President Obama keeps on talking about common ground, and there is really, really common ground on funding issues,” said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, the group organizing the planned three-week campaign on the issue. “Almost no one wants to fund abortion, regardless of their position on abortion as a whole.”

COMMENT:  Remember that some months back a new poll showed, for the first time, that more Americans are pro-life than pro-choice.  Now, one can question the accuracy of that poll, but there's no doubt that anti-abortion forces have great passion, strength and organizing ability. 

The Obama White House, not exactly the well-oiled machine that we'd expected, can't be pleased by a possible major entry into the health-care debate by pro-life organizations.

July 22, 2009   Permalink

THE SAME OLD OBAMA STORY - AT 7:25 A.M. ET:  With all the attention paid to the health-care farce in Washington, we tend to forget that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (remember?) is on a trip to Asia, where policies are declared and positions announced.  Her latest, clearly reflecting what passes for deep thought in the Obama administration, should send us out to buy survival supplies:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned Iran on Wednesday that the United States had a plan on how to safeguard the region should the Islamic republic go nuclear.

Whoops.  Nothing like letting the intellectual cat out of the bag.  I thought our policy was to prevent Iran from going nuclear.  A statement like Clinton's instantly sends a signal, consistent with the do-nothing foreign policy of this administration, that we've given up.

Speaking on a Thai TV talk show, she said "We want Iran to calculate what I think is a fair assessment: that if the United States extends a defense umbrella over the region, if we do even more to develop the military capacity of those [allies] in the Gulf, it is unlikely that Iran will be any stronger or safer."

"We will still hold the door open (for talks with Iran) but we also have made it clear that we'll take actions, as I've said time and time again, crippling action, working to upgrade the defense of our partners in the region," Clinton was quoted by Reuters as saying.

COMMENT:  This is pathetic, surprising for Clinton, who must know better.  It shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the role, military and psychological, of nuclear weapons.  The mere possession of such weapons changes the attitude of every other nation on Earth toward the new nuclear power.  And building the "military capacity" of threatened countries is not much of an answer.  All it takes is one nuclear warhead to get through, either on a missile or in the hold of a cargo ship, to change the fate of the target nation.

Further, we are dealing with a theocratic, fanatical regime in Iran.  The Soviet Union was the evil empire, but it was run by rational people.  It could be deterred. 

And we are dealing with proliferation.  If Iran chooses, secretly, to share its nuclear technology with, say, Venezuela, we might never even know it, until we see a flash in the skies over some desolate Venezuelan wasteland.

The kind of thinking reflected in the Clinton statement is a relic of the Cold War, not the kind of thought needed in the 21st century, where proliferation can extend to unstable, reckless regimes.

This pretty much signals to Iran that Jimmy Carter is back in town.  As far as Clinton's threat of "crippling action," tell it to the Europeans, especially the Germans, who enjoy their bountiful trade with Iran.

North Korea is watching.  So is Chavez in Venezuela, and so is Al Qaeda.  What do you think they see?

July 22, 2009   Permalink