SATURDAY,  DECEMBER 6,  2008

CONFUSION IN INDIA OVER MUMBAI ATTACK - AT 4:01 P.M. ET:  The Washington Post reported:

NEW DELHI --The ongoing probe into last week's Mumbai attacks widened late Friday night as Indian police began investigating the possibility of local support groups with the arrest of two new suspects in New Delhi and the eastern city of Calcutta.

Police arrested two men identified as Tausif Rehman,28, and Mukhtar Ahmed Sheikh, 35, for buying cell phone cards using forged documents. Officials now want to investigate whether the gunmen in Mumbai used these cards to make calls during their attacks last week.

But Fox News is reporting:

RINAGAR, India — One of the two men arrested for illegally buying mobile phone cards used by gunmen in the Mumbai attacks is a counter-insurgency police officer who may have been on an undercover mission, security officials said Saturday...

...A senior police official in Indian Kashmir said one of them, Mukhtar Ahmed, is part of a semiofficial counter-insurgency network whose members are usually former Kashmiri militants.

Calcutta police have been told Ahmed is "our man and it's now up to them how to facilitate his release," said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the information.

Flaps like this are one reason why there's been such a loss of confidence in India's security services.  This is still a very volatile situation with the potential for a clash between India and Pakistan.  Facts and public confidence are important.  They are in short supply. 

PLEASE NOTE, MR. OBAMA - AT 9:32 A.M. ET:  From AP:   WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Defense Department said Friday it shot down a missile in a simulated attack designed to test a proposed shield against strikes by long-range ballistic missiles from nations such as North Korea.

The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency used an interceptor missile launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to knock down a missile meant to simulate the speed and trajectory of a North Korean attack. It struck the target missile around 3:30 p.m., shortly after the target was launched from a location in Alaska.

COMMENT:  Missile defense is crucial, yet Obama has said in the past that he wanted to curtail our missile-defense programs.  Don't, sir.  I don't want this country blackmailed.

CHANGE?

Posted at  9:03 a.m. ET

With Hillary Clinton headed to the State Department, a Senate seat from New York opens.  Governor David Paterson will make the appointment.

This is an opportunity for change we can believe in - for an appointment based on merit.  Well, some chance.  We're already getting the first rumblings of standard Democratic politics:

WASHINGTON — Caroline Kennedy is interested in the Senate seat that would open once Hillary Rodham Clinton becomes secretary of state, according to a close relative who says the powerful Kennedy clan is fully behind her rising to the office previously held by her uncle.

"I know she's interested," Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Friday. "She spent a lot of her life balancing public service with obligations to her family. Now her children are grown, and she is ready to move onto a bigger stage."

I'm impressed.  That same description applies to several thousand other New Yorkers whose names don't happen to be Kennedy.

The Kennedy family's connections and history cannot force Paterson to choose Caroline, but the family's strong support could make it difficult for him not to.

Robert Kennedy said the family would come out en masse for her if she does get the appointment and has to run for election in 2010.

"If she runs, you will see more Kennedys than you have ever seen in your life," he said.

Look, I have nothing against her.  From all accounts, she's a fine individual, and the most mature and dignified of the Kennedys.  But the Kennedy family gave Barack Obama a big boost toward the presidency, as the story notes:

She made a splash in early 2008 by writing an op-ed column for The New York Times declaring her support for Obama, saying he had the potential to be as inspirational to Americans as her father was in the 1960s. She also spoke at the Democratic National Convention.

She then hit the campaign trail with Obama, and worked on the vice-presidential search that eventually settled on Joe Biden.

Appointing Caroline, ahead of many more worthy candidates in New York, would look like a blatant political payoff, which it would be. 

Further, New York is a big state.  I don't normally play the group-politics game, but it's been years since residents outside the downstate, New York City orbit have been represented in the U.S. Senate.  Maybe it's time for that kind of change we can believe in.

Finally, if her name were not Kennedy, would she even be considered?  Much of her public service, and it is admirable indeed, is no different from the service performed by legions of women in the state...and they aren't being considered for the nation's highest legislative body.

New York has a tradition of sending high-powered, sometimes larger-than-life figures to the Senate, symbolized by the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan.  With all due respect to Ms. Kennedy, she's not in that league.

December 6, 2008.      Permalink           

CONFIRMATION

Posted at 8:28 a.m. ET

It's gratifying when something we know in our gut to be true is confirmed by a respected study.  Consider this, from The Washington Times:

President-elect Barack Obama has received the most positive campaign news coverage on the main network news shows in the 20-year history of such studies by the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA).

Mr. Obama received 68 percent positive evaluations from the four major networks, according to the study released Friday.

"Obama's positive press is the strongest showing CMPA has ever recorded for a presidential candidate since we began monitoring election news in 1988," said Robert Lichter, director of the nonpartisan research group affiliated with George Mason University.

And now the contrast:

By contrast, his Republican rival almost set the record for hostile press coverage.

Just 33 percent of the stories on Sen. John McCain were positive in nature -- "the worst showing" since former President George H.W. Bush received only 29 percent positive press in 1988, Mr. Lichter said.

And McCain was said to be a "darling" of the press.  Some darling.  These reporters are unfaithful lovers.

NBC was the most Obama-friendly of the four networks, with 73 percent of the coverage being favorable. Fox News was the sole network to mix it up with Mr. Obama, with only 37 percent of the stories on him positive in tone, although that was only slightly less favorable than the 41 percent favorability of the network's McCain coverage.

The face of NBC News used to be Huntley/Brinkley.  Today it's Chris Matthews.  Gone slumming.

A Pew Research Center survey released in late October found, for example, that 70 percent of voters agreed that journalists "wanted" Mr. Obama to win the White House; the figure was 62 percent even among Democratic respondents.

A Harvard University analysis in early November revealed that 77 percent of Americans say the press is politically biased; of that group, 5 percent said it skewed conservative. Even The Washington Post's ombudsman, Deborah Howell, offered evidence of an "Obama tilt" in her own newspaper in a recent op-ed piece.

Despite all this, have you seen a single editor, publisher or head of a broadcast news division apologize?  Have you heard any pledges to do better, even to review their work?

The reality is that many journalists don't care.  They're in journalism not to report the news, but to "make a difference," and they made the difference they set out to make.  It's a sad time in journalism, and a dangerous time for this democracy.  Wise decisions depend on information that is fair, accurate and complete.  Clearly, we're not getting the information we, as citizens, deserve.  What does that say about the future of our democratic process?

December 6, 2008.      Permalink          

FRIDAY,  DECEMBER 5,  2008

I'M OFF TO A BRIEFING.  WILL BE BACK LATER WITH MORE.

BABY, IT'S COLD OUTSIDE - AT 3:14 P.M. ET:  From the UK's Guardian:  This year is set to be the coolest since 2000, according to a preliminary estimate of global average temperature that is due to be released next week by the Met Office. The global average for 2008 should come in close to 14.3C, which is 0.14C below the average temperature for 2001-07.

COMMENT:  Do not think what you're thinking.  It is not permitted in the new order.  The story goes on:

The relatively chilly temperatures compared with recent years are not evidence that global warming is slowing however, say climate scientists at the Met Office. "Absolutely not," said Dr Peter Stott, the manager of understanding and attributing climate change at the Met Office's Hadley Centre. "If we are going to understand climate change we need to look at long-term trends.

COMMENT:  Huh?  Did you get that title?  "...the manager of understanding and attributing climate change at the Met Office's Hadley Centre."  Help, help!  We are drowning in P.C. here!

LINGUISTIC OUTRAGE - AT 2:48 P.M. ET:  Sometimes I forget the exact meaning of a word, and look it up to be sure.  A few minutes ago I looked up the word "trope," using my online Oxford American dictionary.  This is what I found:

trope
noun
a figurative or metaphorical use of a word or expression : he used the two-Americas trope to explain how a nation free and democratic at home could act wantonly abroad.

Nothing like a little left-wing political propaganda in a dictionary.  I shall protest.

CAPITALIST PIGS!! - AT 2:39 P.M. ET:   Dec. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Harvard University, the oldest U.S. college, plans to sell taxable and non-taxable bonds to repay debt and terminate interest-rate swap agreements.

The university will offer $600 million of top-rated, tax- exempt bonds next week, Bloomberg data show. Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Harvard also plans a separate sale of 5-, 10- and 30-year debt as soon as today, according to a person familiar with the transaction.

Harvard’s endowment decreased 22 percent, or $8 billion, in the first four months of fiscal 2009, putting the fund on course to have its worst performance in at least four decades.

COMMENT:  The revenge of Larry Summers.  Harvard forced him out as president, and look what happens.

HOW DOW? - AT 1:41 P.M. ET:  The Dow is down 103.

AREN'T WE LUCKY - AT 8:51 A.M. ET:  From The Times of London:  Fidel Castro, the former President of Cuba, has offered to talk to Barack Obama, in Havana's latest overture to the US President elect.  "With Obama, talks could happen anywhere he wants," the former head of the Communist regime wrote in the latest of a series of columns he has published in state-run media since falling ill in 2006.

COMMENT:  If he's the former president, why is he making the invitation?  Don't they have a current president?  Oh, it's his brother.  I guess it's okay.  Family businesses are like that. 

THEY DROVE ALL THE WAY TO D.C. FOR THIS? - AT 8:22 A.M. ET:  From The New York Times:  WASHINGTON — The chief executives of America’s foundering automobile manufacturers returned to Capitol Hill on Thursday and found themselves confronting years of pent-up anger, the harsh politics of a recession and the realization that even their strongest supporters might not be able to muster the votes to save them.

COMMENT:  No matter how you feel about it, every story like this gets the automotive Titanic closer to the iceberg.  Who wants to go into a showroom today and buy an American car from a company that may go under?

UNILATERAL SURRENDER

Posted at 7:48 a.m. ET

We've visited this subject before, but it bears emphasis again: Many don't realize that our nuclear weapons, the heart of our deterrent, are aging and becoming obsolete, while other nations forge ahead with modernization.  The Washington Post reports on a dilemma facing President-elect Obama, and the opinions of one especially nutty California congresswoman who's causing all kinds of trouble.

The leader of the U.S. Strategic Command said yesterday that "time is not on our side" to modernize the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile, particularly as China and Russia upgrade their nuclear warheads and delivery systems.

"The path of inaction is a path leading toward nuclear disarmament. . . . The time to act is now," Air Force Gen. Kevin P. Chilton told an audience of government, military and civilian arms experts attending the Nuclear Deterrence Summit in Washington.

Problem is, to some Americans nuclear disarmament is just fine.  Isn't that what the "good" people do?

Chilton said he was concerned that Congress had effectively killed the Bush administration's Reliable Replacement Warhead program, which is designed to provide a modern, safer warhead with no new capabilities before the end of this decade. Expressing concern that the nation's Cold War stockpile is aging, Chilton said that "a reliable [nuclear] inventory supports nonproliferation goals."

The Dem California congresswoman, Ellen O. Tauscher, weighs in.  Here it comes:

Tauscher, whose California district is the site of one of the nation's leading nuclear weapons labs, became a leader in Congress's effort to eliminate the RRW program. She said the Obama administration should "take the high ground" internationally by developing a comprehensive nuclear weapons policy that includes ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, extending the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia and modernizing a sharply reduced warhead stockpile.

Oh, just ducky, Ellen.  Let's take that high road...and be the only one who does.  That'll sure be a gift for our children.

The key phrase is "...whose California district is the site of one of the nation's leading nuclear weapons labs..."  She represents the university crowd out there.  You know, anthropology and such.  By the way, she's considered a moderate among California Democrats.

She called on the United States to boost funding for the International Atomic Energy Agency and prepare a multilateral program to be presented at the 2010 U.N. review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Increase funding for what?  The IAEA?  Aren't those the worthies who've been so effective in Iran?  Aren't they led by that ElBaradei chap, who spends his time attacking the U.S.?  More money?  Maybe we should raise taxes for that purpose.

The RRW program, Tauscher said, was "sound" because it was designed "to extend the life of the stockpile while adding security and safety features." It failed before Congress, she said, because it was "poorly presented." In its place, Tauscher proposed upgrading a tested warhead design while making clear it would have a lower yield than older weapons and would use less-toxic components and contain safety elements to prevent its use by terrorists.

Less toxic components?  Does she understand what we're talking about here? 

And she tells us the program failed before Congress because it was "poorly presented."  Are members of Congress that childish?  Is it the show that counts?  It failed because her party just wasn't that interested.

In a Foreign Affairs article released yesterday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates stressed the need for a strong nuclear deterrent and expressed support for the RRW. "As long as other nations possess the bomb and the means to deliver it," Gates wrote, "the United States must maintain a credible strategic deterrent. . . . Congress needs to do its part by funding the Reliable Replacement Warhead Program -- for safety, for security, and for a more reliable deterrent."

That says it.  At least he's staying on as defense secretary.  We could do a lot worse. 

December 5, 2008.      Permalink          

WONDERS

Posted at 7:15 a.m. ET

Sometimes we read something that just sticks, and reminds us of how lucky we are.  Peggy Noonan, in today's Wall Street Journal, reports the following, about John McCain's return to the U.S. Senate:

He's come quietly back to the Senate, where one of his colleagues told him of an amazing thing. The colleague had been touring the young democracies of Eastern Europe during the American election, and he found it wasn't so much Barack Obama that immediately knocked out observers but Mr. McCain's concession speech. This is the first American transfer of power they'd seen in eight years, and they couldn't get over the peacefulness and grace with which Mr. McCain accepted the people's verdict. "It really impressed them," the colleague told Mr. McCain, and later me. It gave them a template, a guide to how the older democracies do it.

When he told me of this, I remembered the observation of a journalist who had covered Russia. The Russian newspapers had generally played down Mr. Obama's victory, she said, because it got in the way of the establishment line: that the corrupt American democracy is composed of two warring family machines that have the system wired and controlled with the help of their corporate oligarch cronies. It's not a real democracy but a pretend democracy, and a hypocritical one. This helps the Russians rationalize and excuse their infirm hold on democratic ways and manners. And then the black man from Chicago with no longtime machine or money is elected . . .

So the Russian press muted its coverage. Mr. Obama's victory upset their story line. They have to think up a new one now. They will.

We still await the new story line from the American left.  Apparently, if the nutroots out there are any indication, it will be something like, "Barack was good, Barack was pure.  But then he was elected with the help of the corporations and the militarists, and he's been forced to give in to them.  He's a prisoner in the White House, which shows how far we have to go."

Yeah, that sounds right.

December 5, 2008.      Permalink          

THIS JUST IN, AT 6:54 A.M.!!  From The Times of India: 

KATHMANDU: At a time when Maoist affiliated women's rights activists have been opposing beauty contests in the country, a gays' beauty pageant was held in Western Nepal's tourist hub Pokhara.

The All Nepal Women's Organisation (Revolutionary) in Nepal had, earlier, launched a campaign against beauty contests forcing the Indian joint venture Dabur Vatika to withdraw its sponsorship from the proposed Miss Nepal 2008 contest, which is now in limbo.

But the group did not oppose when Federation of Sexual and Gender Minorities (FSGM) organised the "Miss Beauty and Brain Pageant" in a jam-packed city hall of Pokhara.

COMMENT:  There are no words.