TUESDAY,  AUGUST 18,  2009

OBAMA HITS NEW LOW IN GALLUP POLL - AT 7:40 P.M. ET:  Although the president's standing in the Gallup poll is still higher than in the Rasmussen survey, he's registering his worst numbers in Gallup since inauguration.

Gallup today has approval of presidential performance at 52%, and disapproval at 42%.  The figures a month ago were 61% and 32%.

Obama has already slipped below 50% in the Rasmussen poll, and is heading there with Gallup.  Not good, not good.  He's at the point now where moderate members of his own party are starting to ask, "Barack who?"

August 18, 2009   Permalink

POLLING FOR 2012 - SARAH WEAK AGAINST OBAMA - AT 7:20 P.M. ET:  Advance polling for 2012 is, at this stage, more entertaining than informative, but it does give an early sense of where potential candidates are.  From RealClearPolitics:

New Marist poll of 2012 shows the same thing we've seen from other polls in the Republican primary: Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and Mike Huckabee are clustered at the top, with others trailing far behind:

Romney 21%
Palin 20%
Huckabee 19%
Gingrich 10%
Jindal 5%
Pawlenty 1%
Undecided 11%

But Sarah doesn't glow in the general-election matchup:

In a hypothetical general election matchup against President Obama, Palin gets crushed 56 to 33. Other than winning Republicans by a margin of 73-20, Palin loses to Obama in every other data cut: by region, income, education, race, age, and gender.

COMMENT:  Sarah has taken a great deal of unfair abuse.  And, as we've written here before, she hasn't, at times, helped herself.  She has a great deal of work to do to raise those general-election numbers.  Her recent foray into the health-care debate was smart and successful, though, showing that she can do it if she bears down.

August 18, 2009   Permalink

WE CAN'T WAIT - AT 5:48 P.M. ET:  I never cease to be amazed at the level of irresponsibility of some people in Hollywood:

Oliver Stone is making his most ambitious stab at American history yet.

The controversial director is creating a 10-part documentary series for Showtime titled "Secret History of America."

Narrated by Stone, the series promises to focus on events that "at the time went under-reported, but crucially shaped America's unique and complex history of the last 60 years," according to Showtime.

Subjects will include President Harry Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, the origins of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, to "the fierce struggle between war and peace in America’s national security complex."

The project includes "newly discovered facts and accounts" from the Kennedy administration, the Vietnam War and the great changes in America’s role in the world since the fall of Communism in the 1980s “through this epic 10-hour series, which I feel is the deepest contribution I could ever make in film to my children and the next generation, I can only hope a change in our thinking will result," Stone said in a statement.

COMMENT:  It is simply incredible that this reckless "filmmaker" would be given a project like this.  Well, maybe it isn't so incredible.  Hollywood is run from the left, and many of those in its young executive ranks were educated in colleges where far-left thinking is considered mainstream. 

Stone made "JFK," which misinformed an entire generation of movie goers about the assassination of President Kennedy.  All you have to do is look at the subjects described in the story - the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan, the origins of the Cold War, and Vietnam - to know exactly what this series will be.  It was all our fault, we're militarists, and we've been deceived by our leaders.

What's sad is that some "educators" will undoubtedly use this "documentary series" in the classroom.  The minds of kids will be poisoned by Stone's obsessive anti-Americanism.

August 18, 2009   Permalink

WHAT WE'RE UP AGAINST - AT 9:57 A.M. ET:  Afghanistan may be an "ally" in the war on terror, but some of its practices teach us what we're presumably fighting against.  From The New York Times:

Bowing to international pressure and unprecedented protests by hundreds of women on the streets of Kabul, the Afghan government promised in April to review a new law imposing severe restrictions on women in Shiite Muslim families.

Last week, though, Human Rights Watch discovered that a revised version of the Shiite Personal Status Law had been quietly put into effect at the end of July — meaning that Shiite men in Afghanistan now have the legal right to starve their wives if their sexual demands are not met and that Shiite women must obtain permission from their husbands to even leave their houses, “except in extreme circumstances.”

The new law was signed by President Hamid Karzai, who is depending on support from Sheik Muhammad Asif Mohseni, the country’s most powerful Shiite cleric, in this week’s presidential election.

COMMENT:  Haven't heard a word from the "feminist" movement, which has been strangely silent on the oppression of Muslim women. 

There are plenty of Muslim moderates, but there are also plenty of extremists, and the extremists have essentially declared war on us.  Even President Obama, in a perfectly fine speech to the VFW yesterday, warned about this.  But too many Americans are forgetting.

August 18, 2009   Permalink

MAKES NO SENSE - AT 9:08 A.M. ET:  You know, I was wondering when someone would write an article like this.  You're probably all aware that General Motors, or Washington Motors, or the People's Car Company, or whatever it's called, is coming out with a car called the Volt.  Available next year.  Runs entirely on electric power, with a small gasoline engine providing only charging of the electric motor.

Incredible gas mileage.  Off the charts.

The only problem is, it will cost $40,000.  Yes, yes, there are federal subsidies under which all of us will help pay for Volt buyers to buy the car - our forced charity is a little grating - but it's still way more expensive than the kind of cars that someone looking for gasoline savings would buy.

Eric Peters, at American Spectator, does the math, and the numbers don't add up:

We live in incoherent times, but maybe someone can explain it to me: How does a $40,000 "economy" car make economic sense?

It doesn't.

Does it compute? Well, let's see... .

For the sake of discussion, we'll take GM's 230 mpg claim at face value. This figure is about four times the published mileage of the 2010 Toyota Prius (50 mpg, average). But the Prius costs just over half as much ($22k). So, the Volt buyer would have to "work off" the approximate $18,000 difference ($12,000 or so, if you subtract the proposed $7,500 government subsidy).

Twelve grand buys one helluva lot of gas -- even at $3 per gallon. Four thousand gallons, to be precise. If whatever you are driving now gets an average of 25 mpg (half what the Prius gets) that 4,000 gallons would keep you going for 160,000 miles.

That is a long time to wait to break even... .

A very long time.  And by the time you've gone 160,000 miles, the wheels are probably falling off, the car is long out of warranty, and the second, third, and fourth generation technologies are making your car look ridiculous.

Even leaving aside the operating costs, how many people who are really concerned about gas mileage (that is, about the expense of a car) are in a position (or desire) to spend $40,000 on a vehicle? By definition, if you are spending that kind of money on a car, you either don't care much about gas mileage -- or don't really have to care much about it.

And...

We are, truly, through the looking gas.

Forty grand to "save gas" -- with the government carjacking taxpayers (via the IRS) who are smart enough to live within their means by driving cars that are either low-cost or paid-for in order to provide a $7,500 bounty to those who either can't do supermarket math or just like the idea of a government-subsidized Ed Begley, Jr./Leo DiCaprio techno-toy they can toodle around in and tout how "green" they're being.

COMMENT:  I'd love to see how many Volts GM will sell, and to whom.  When the cars turn up in Aspen for some annual conference on global warming, you know we'll have gone completely mad.

August 18, 2009   Permalink

WATCH YOUR WALLET, AND EVERYTHING ELSE - AT 8:26 A.M. ET:  The Iranians are sending signals about "negotiations" with the West.  Be careful.  Be very careful:

TEHRAN (Reuters) - A senior Iranian official said Tehran was ready for negotiations with the West on its disputed nuclear program based on mutual respect and without preconditions, state television reported on Tuesday.

U.S. President Barack Obama has given Iran until September to take up a six-power offer of talks on trade benefits if it shelves sensitive nuclear enrichment, or face harsher sanctions.

A little caveat:

Iranian officials have made similar statements in the past about possible discussions on Tehran's nuclear activities, while vowing not to back down in the row with the West.

We have said here before that it's in Iran's interest to respond semi-positively to President Obama's "outreach."  It could then suck the United States into a prolonged negotiation, all the while spinning its nuclear centrifuges. 

We have to put a clear time limit on any talks, and the Iranian feeler, in the absence of any real action, should be viewed with extreme caution.  Remember, negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program have been going on for the better part of a decade, with absolutely no result.

August 18, 2009   Permalink

 
THE BEST WAY OUT - AT 8:07 A.M. ET:  Sometimes the best way out is a strategic retreat, to live to fight another day.  A Democratic "blue dog" congressman as much as said so, responding to a comment at a town-hall meeting about health-care legislation.  I expect this idea may grow in coming days as rational people realize that the health-care "reform" movement has gone off the rails:

PERRY, Florida (CNN) – Acknowledging his amazement at the crowds gathered to debate health care at his town halls, Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Florida, faced three large gatherings on Monday with many questioners voicing skepticism about the proposals being debated in Washington...

...When a questioner, Ray Evans, said he believed the President wants to do too much at once and asked whether Boyd would "be willing to scrap everything" and start over to do pursue reform more incrementally, the congressman responded: "I think that is an excellent idea … we may end up there."

In a later interview with CNN, he said the idea had been been floated with the congressional leadership. He said that with the strong emotions and heated opposition he is seeing, the idea of doing health reform in a more piecemeal fashion is something he is strongly considering.

COMMENT:  Good, good.  Finally, some light.  Get rid of that thousand-page bill and start from scratch, finally taking into consideration the concerns of the American people.

August 18, 2009   Permalink 

THE DEM DILEMMA - AT 7:54 A.M. ET:  There is a civil war brewing in the Democratic Party, and there is no Lincoln around to preserve the union.  Jake Tapper of ABC News has the story:

The president's liberal allies on health care reform have a message for the president: Don't think you can drop the public option without a fight.

"If the president thinks we're gonna get the votes without the public option, he's got another think coming," Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-NY, told ABC News. "That won't pass the House."

Over the weekend, the President seemed to change his tone on whether a final health care reform bill had to include a public option -- something that just two months ago, he indicated was a deal-breaker.

"Any plan I sign must include an insurance exchange...including a public option to increase competition and keep insurance companies honest," President Obama said on June 23.

But over the weekend, Obama seemed to downplay the importance of the inclusion of the plan in health care reform legislation.

COMMENT:  Yesterday the White House backtracked a bit on the president's compromising comments.  The whole health-care debate is a mess, and the fault must be placed with the president, and his breathtaking lack of leadership.  It seems to me that every major concern raised about Mr. Obama during the campaign last year has turned out to be valid - from his softness in foreign policy to his lack of executive experience.  There is a growing feeling that he isn't doing the job, and that maybe he doesn't have "the right stuff" with which to do it.

August 18, 2009   Permalink

MONDAY,  AUGUST 17,  2009

NO COMPROMISE - AT 7:24 P.M. ET:  Nancy Pelosi seems endlessly determined to be part of the problem, not the solution.  While saner voices are hinting that the public option in health-care "reform" is on its way to the morgue, Nancy shouts, "I feel a pulse, a pulse!"  From the Washington Examiner:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she will forge ahead with a health insurance bill that includes a robust government-run insurance plan, despite signals from Senate negotiators that they may exclude a government plan from legislation it is drafting.

"There is strong support in the House for a public option," Pelosi said on Monday, referring back to a statement President Barack Obama made in March in which he declared a public option will "give consumers more choices" and "keep the private sector honest."

Pelosi pointed out that a public option is the main component of all three versions of health reform legislation that are circulating in the House as well as the committee-passed Democratic version in the Senate.

But neither the House nor the Senate has been able to come up with enough support to pass the public option plan, and attention is now turning to a Senate bipartisan plan that would eschew a public option in favor of an insurance co-operative. Even the White House has signaled it will consider a co-op instead of a public plan.

COMMENT:  The public option is a favorite of the Democratic Party's left wing, whose members believe that European health plans are as good as European museums.  ("I loved the Prado during my junior year in Spain, dearie.")  Problem is, objects that hang in museums don't need heart surgery.

As the story says, the public option doesn't have majority support in Congress. So what is the fight about?  It's to show the folks back in the gated communes that their representatives in Washington have also read Marx.  Very important to show that.  Can't live without it.

August 17, 2009   Permalink 

ILLINOIS TIGHT - AT 4:21 P.M. ET:  This will be a very tough race - for the Senate seat formerly held by Barack Obama - but winnable.  From The Politico:

Illinois Republican congressman Mark Kirk holds a narrow lead over Democratic state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias in an early poll of the state’s Senate race by Rasmussen Reports.

The poll shows Kirk leading Giannoulias by 3 points, 41 to 38 percent, in a head-to-head matchup. Both candidates, however, hold high approval ratings — and the numbers undoubtedly will change once the campaigns start gearing up for the race in full force.

COMMENT:  I'd hoped that Kirk would be further ahead, but any lead is acceptable in that heavily Democratic state, still dominated by a Chicago machine that counts the departed among its most reliable voters. 

But polls now are meaningless.  The entire political landscape can be different in November, 2010, 15 months from now, when the election will be held.

August 17, 2009   Permalink

CONSERVATISM GROWING - AT 3:48 P.M. ET:  Conservatism is making progress in the United States, according to a new Gallup survey:

(CNSNews.com) - Self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals in all 50 states of the union, according to the Gallup Poll.

At the same time, more Americans nationwide are saying this year that they are conservative than have made that claim in any of the last four years.

In 2009, 40% percent of respondents in Gallup surveys that have interviewed more than 160,000 Americans have said that they are either “conservative” (31%) or “very conservative” (9%). That is the highest percentage in any year since 2004.

Only 21% have told Gallup they are liberal, including 16% who say they are “liberal” and 5% who say they are “very liberal.”

Thirty-five percent of Americans say they are moderate.

But...

“In fact, while all 50 states are, to some degree, more conservative than liberal (with the conservative advantage ranging from 1 to 34 points), Gallup's 2009 party ID results indicate that Democrats have significant party ID advantages in 30 states and Republicans in only 4,” said an analysis of the survey results published by Gallup.

COMMENT:  Go figure.  It's pretty clear that while conservatism is quite respectable in America, the Republican Party is less so.  It's also clear that elections are won in the great middle, the area between the 40-yard-lines.

The White House and the House of Representatives are run by liberals, and the Senate is close.  We have to figure out how that happened, and make sure it doesn't happen again.

August 17, 2009   Permalink

THEY NEVER LEARN - AT 9:41 A.M. ET:   Netroots Nation held a convention over the weekend.  Anyone notice?  NN is, bottom line, the fringe left wing of the Obama movement.  One of the guests was Jerry Nadler, who represents the congressional district in New York that contains Ground Zero.  You'd never know it.  Nadler is a True Believer, and he's still out for blood.  Unfortunately, it's not Al Qaeda's.  The Politico reports:

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) is warning President Barack Obama not to pressure Attorney General Eric Holder against appointing a special prosecutor to investigate potential crimes related to the Bush Administration's interrogation practices.

Speaking during a panel discussion at the Netroots Nation conference in Pittsburgh Saturday, Nadler said the White House has no business sending subtle or not-so-subtle signals to Holder to shelve the idea of naming a special counsel.

"That is properly a decision of the Justice Department to be made on independent grounds, regardless of the political convenience or inconvenience to the administration," Nadler said. "So I have nothing to say to the president on this, except let Mr. Holder alone. As far as I know, they are," he said, adding another "as far as I know" as the liberal crowd broke out in applause.

Nadler set up those comments by invoking alleged Bush Administration politicization of the Justice Department.

COMMENT:  That's all Obama needs right now - a highly partisan probe into the Bush era.  It will divide the country even more than it's already split, right in the middle of a midterm election year.  Great planning.  Brought to you by the same wonderful folks who gave you Obamacare.

And yet, the True Believers will not relent.  Their main purpose in life is to torment George W. Bush, who's looking better and better every day. 

Capable presidents know how to deal with the fringes in their political movements and parties.  FDR was a master at it, as was Ronald Reagan.  We look forward to seeing if Obama has perfected that art, or even addressed it. 

August 17, 2009   Permalink 

QUOTE OF THE DAY - AT 9:15 A.M. ET:  From Victor Davis Hanson, presenting a bill of particulars on why the Obama presidency is in such trouble.  Consider:

...there is a growing fear that Obamism is becoming cult-like and Orwellian. Almost on script, Hollywood ceased all its Rendition/Redacted–style films. Iraq — once the new Vietnam — is out of the news. Afghanistan is “problematic,” not a “blunder.” Tribunals, renditions, the Patriot Act, and Predators are no longer proof of a Seven Days in May coup, but legitimate tools to keep us safe. Words change meanings as acts of terror become “man-caused disasters.” Hunting down jihadists is really an “overseas contingency operation.” Media sycophants do not merely parrot Obama, but now proclaim him a “god.” New York Times columnists who once assured us that Bush’s dastardly behavior was proof of American pathology now sound like Pravda apologists in explaining the “real” Obama is not what he is beginning to seem like.

And...

Americans no longer believe this is our moment when the seas stop rising and the planet ceases warming. Instead, there is a growing hopelessness that despite all the new proposed income taxes, payroll taxes, and surtaxes, the deficit will skyrocket, not shrink. There is foreboding that while apologies abroad are nice in the short term, they will soon earn a reckoning.

COMMENT:  The rest of the article is equally fine.  Hanson nails it, especially about the reckoning in foreign policy that is sure to come.  That is the other shoe that will drop, with a thud, and we are not ready for it.

August 17, 2009   Permalink

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE - AT 7:53 A.M. ET:  When Barack Obama took office, we were presented with a picture of an almost saintly leader presiding over the Church of the Mesmerized Democrats.  Dissent would not be heard because all was so wonderful and wise.  Everyone was in place and in line.  Bishop Rahm Emanuel would observe each day for any sign of heresy.

Well, things apparently didn't work out, and not too many people are coming in to be ordained.  Indeed, more and more Democrats are declaring their independence, as they see the president's poll numbers drop.  The Politico reports the independent streak of a key player in health care:

Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) dismisses the Sept. 15 deadline given by President Barack Obama for Senate negotiators to produce a health reform bill.

“We are going to be ready when we’re ready,” he said on "Fox News Sunday."

Conrad, one of the key Senate negotiators on the health reform bill, said lawmakers hope to be done by mid-September. But if they don't have all the answers they need from the Congressional Budget Office, “we will not be bound by any deadlines,” Conrad said, stressing that the most important goal is to get reform right.

Conrad also shot down the public option, saying that "there are not the votes in the United States Senate” for it.

“There never have been," he said. "So to continue to chase that rabbit is just a wasted effort.”

COMMENT:  Poll numbers are to politics what Nielsen ratings are to television.  If your numbers are weak, your friends run away and you don't get the choice parking slots. 

Obama is now struggling.  He will always have the loyalty of most of the Democrats in Congress because most are liberals.  But there is an important group of moderates, and they are nervous.  They are the most vulnerable at the polls.  There is an election next year.  They can do the math.  Unless the president can reverse his decline in the polls he will face a divided party, with some members joining Republicans in restoring the old moderate Democrat - Republican coalition that was powerful for decades.

August 17, 2009    Permalink

THE RIGHT COURSE - AT 7:36 A.M. ET:  We have real doubts here about a federal role in education, which by tradition has been a local and state function.  Indeed, it seems to us that the best school systems in the country were built on local values and with local parental involvement, not by federal guidelines or grants.

But the reality is that the feds are involved, and will likely stay involved.  If that's the case, we'll at least want them to act intelligently, and it appears that there are some good things being done right now.  We give credit where it's due.  We hope the Obama White House doesn't fold under pressure from the teachers' unions.  The New York Times has the story:

Holding out billions of dollars as a potential windfall, the Obama administration is persuading state after state to rewrite education laws to open the door to more charter schools and expand the use of student test scores for judging teachers.

That aggressive use of economic stimulus money by Education Secretary Arne Duncan is provoking heated debates over the uses of standardized testing and the proper federal role in education, issues that flared frequently during President George W. Bush’s enforcement of his signature education law, called No Child Left Behind.

A recent case is California, where legislative leaders are vowing to do anything necessary, including rewriting a law that prohibits the use of student scores in teacher evaluations, to ensure that the state is eligible for a chunk of the $4.3 billion the federal Education Department will soon award to a dozen or so states. The law had strong backing from the state teachers union.

COMMENT:  Look, this isn't ideal, and there are different ways of looking at education issues.  But at least the federal government is demanding some standards.  True, Washington should listen to concerns by the states, and keep itself out whenever possible.  But if we're going to spend on education, we should demand results, not just more buildings and buses. 

There is also an important media role here.  The media often shortchanges education stories, especially at the high-school level, by rarely reporting what is actually being taught, especially in politically charged subjects like history and, yes, even English.  That must change.

What must also change is the avoidance of certain truths.  Good schools are built by good families and engaged parents.  The culture at home determines the culture that students bring to the classroom.  We know that, but it often seems to be a secret.

August 17, 2009   Permalink 

NOT THIS YEAR - AT 7:06 A.M. ET:  We enter the last two weeks of August, usually the laziest two weeks of the year.  It is the time, by tradition, that the nation's psychiatrists go on vacation, meaning some of the people we cover here at Urgent Agenda may seem especially jittery and paranoid during the next two weeks, unless they've arranged their prescriptions in advance.  In Hollywood, many stars won't know what to think, or whether to think, or will hire a personal thinker to think for them.

And yet, this year it's different.  Ordinarily, there'd be virtually no political activity in the last two weeks of August.  Newspapers would look for crime waves - two parking tickets are a crime wave in August - and TV news shows would feature the latest styles in back-to-school lunch boxes.  But look what's happening.  The political wars are ongoing, and intense.  Thousands of Americans are turning up at town meetings to protest health-care reform that ain't.  Talk radio has never been more active.

If this is August, imagine November. 

Some analysts say that Americans are just concerned about health care.  Others say that the anger, and activity, that we're seeing is a culmination of a great deal of pent-up frustration.  I think the second argument is correct.  Americans have watched a new president spend trillions of dollars, make promises that can't be kept, sponsor a cap 'n trade bill in the House that would lead to economic convulsion, go abroad and apologize for our country, and act more an emperor than a president.  They have seen attempts to change America in ways that most Americans never voted for.  They have seen a media that's forgotten the fact that 46% of voters went for John McCain, and that a good chunk of Obama voters believed they were selecting a moderate. 

A thousand-page health-care "reform" bill was the last straw.  It was really the last straw when Americans learned that a provision for end-of-life counseling was in the section of the bill on saving money. 

So there'll be no vacation from politics in the next two weeks, and we can expect major combat in the fall.  Maybe the psychiatrists should cut short their holidays this year.  They're needed back in the office.

August 17, 2009   Permalink