The American Spectator

Palin, Pipes, Iran, and Rallying Around the Flag

Posted by Brian O'Connell on 2.9.10 @ 5:14PM

In an interview with Chris Wallace this past Sunday, Sarah Palin made the suggestion that if Obama went to war with Iran, it could possibly save his presidency politically. The idea arose last week in an NRO column by Daniel Pipes, titled "How to Save the Obama Presidency: Bomb Iran." Pipes's prediction is that military strikes against Iran's nuclear capacities would have the effect of bolstering Obama's perceived toughness. He cites polls that indicate the American people would support such action against Iran.  He then predicts: "after a strike Americans will presumably rally around the flag, sending that number much higher."

Looking at historical presidential approval ratings, I am somewhat doubtful as to whether Obama would receive a lasting boost in approval. Regardless of the Iranian nuclear capability, such military action would have to be sold in the same way that the 2003 Iraq intervention was: a preventive military operation. 72 percent of Americans supported the Iraq war in 2003, yet there was no approval spike for George W. Bush even after the initial invasion was shown to be successful.

An Iranian military strike would be sold to the American public as a bombing, and hypothetically free of casualties and boots on the ground, which would make it substantially different from the Iraq example. Proponents of the invasion could also avoid using the "n-word" -- nation-building.  But even in other military operations, such as the April, 1986 bombing of Libya, President Reagan did not get much of a boost for that strike and quickly dipped after Iran-Contra. President Clinton's numbers mainly stayed flat during the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia.

Even if President Obama did receive a boost in approval after a successful military operation, that would not conclusively save his presidency. President George H.W. Bush saw his approval numbers jump to over 80 percent during the Gulf War in 1991, but then watched his support fall off as the 1992 recession dragged on. In 1992, he was kicked out of office while only receiving 37.5 percent of the popular vote.

The American people are already war-weary and are doubting the president's ability to command the military. I do not mean to imply that bombing Iran would not cause a jump in approval for the president, but military actions are risky business, and the operational as well as political outcomes are far from certain.

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Democrats' Cloture Vote on Labor Nominee Fails, 52 to 33

Posted by Philip Klein on 2.9.10 @ 4:52PM

Senate Democrats today failed to gain the 60 votes needed to block a Republican filibuster of Craig Becker's nomination to serve as chair of the National Labor Relations Board. The cloture motion failed by a 52-33 vote, with number of Senators absent due to the ongoing weather conditions in Washington.

The official roll call vote is not yet available, but hearing the names called on C-SPAN, I can confirm that Sens. Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln voted "no." Newly sworn-in Sen. Scott Brown also cast a vote against confirmation.

Becker, a counsel to the SEIU and the AFL-CIO, has written that "card check" could be enacted on the regulatory front by the NRLB. The measure, which has stalled on the legislative front, would deny workers a secret ballot on unionization, and thus enable labor to rapidly add members through intimidation.

Without being able to confirm Becker in the Senate, President Obama's remaining option is to issue a recess appointment during the President's Day break next week. He floated this idea in his press conference earlier today.

"If the Senate does not act -- and I made this very clear -- if the Senate does not act to confirm these nominees, I will consider making several recess appointments during the upcoming recess, because we can't afford to allow politics to stand in the way of a well-functioning government," Obama said.

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Fred Thompson's Summit Advice

Posted by Fred Thompson on 2.9.10 @ 4:44PM

This afternoon, on my radio show, I had a modest proposal for my Republican friends on Capitol Hill, which I've fleshed out a little more here:

The President is reaching out to Republicans; he says he wants to hear their best ideas on health care, and he wants them to help him get his health care agenda back on track. But boy, the American people sure aren't clamoring for that. I've got a message for them. Mr. President, the latest poll numbers show that 47 percent of the people say start over on health care. Another 23 percent say do nothing. In other words, a full 70 percent of Americans say do nothing or start over. So with that in mind, "do nothing or start over" is the beginning of your negotiating situation, not your position. Mr. President, it's over. And the Republicans better realize that, too. If they go into a high profile, televised meeting in one of the President's houses, Blair House, in this case, to talk about how they are going to work to achieve the details of his agenda, they are crazy.

Republicans, just take a deep breath, here. Consider this: basically, what President Obama is asking you, is this: "Save me. Come up with a plan. Come up with a plan to reach my goals."

Republicans should be saying: "Mr. President, how are you going to come up with a plan to fulfill your promise of no individual mandates? How are you going to fulfill your promise to have enough doctors to attend to people when you are sticking it to them left and right and they are getting out of the profession because of the rates you are forcing them to take?"

Also, let's be realistic. If the President and Republicans are really going to talk about the details of health care, as though two parties are negotiating, coming to the middle, a half-day wouldn't be enough time to determine the size of the conference table and who's going to sit around and what the procedures are going to be. This proposal is nothing more than a press conference. The president liked the press he got from the last time he surrounded himself with Republicans, calling them liars and accusing them of being disingenuous, though some of the Republicans weren't smart enough to know what he was saying to them. It worked out great for Obama, not so great for Republicans.

So if I were a Republican in Congress, I'd counter with this: Okay Mr. President, if we are going to do this at all, we have a proposal for you. We are a co-equal branch of government. Congress is in the first article of the Constitution. The Executive branch doesn't make it until the second. So our suggestion is that you come over and visit us. We'll decide who stands at the podium, and when and how you share the time. We'll decide the agenda and who the cameras are on, and how we divide the time, and so on. We'll do one under your set of suggestions and then we'll do one under ours.

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Obama's Lack of Business Sense

Posted by Robert P. Kirchhoefer on 2.9.10 @ 4:40PM

Some baffling comments by President Obama in today's press conference.

Asked how how and why small business loans would help small business, President Obama replied:

"If [small businesses] can get the bank loans to boost their payroll... they will do so." He further claimed that in his "travels" he has spoken with small business owners nationwide, and they see optimism and new customers.

I'm curious where these travels took him? A land inhabited with a fairy, children, and a flying boy in a green suit?

Unfortunately, a Presidential decree that small businesses are ready to hire, even from this President, does not make it so. In truth, small businesses are not excited about their 2010 prospects. They need to be. As a Wall Street Journal economic report states, small businesses are stymied:

"Optimism has clearly stalled in spite of the improvements in the economy in the second half of 2009," said William Dunkelberg, chief economist for the lobbying organization. "Small-business owners entered 2010 the same way they left 2009 -- depressed."

Yet, our President advocates taking loans for the purpose of boosting payroll -- in the middle of an economic draught. It just makes no sense. Unnecessary risk is not what strengthens and repairs the backbone of our economy -- small business.

Going into debt for the purpose of maintaining payrolls you cannot afford is not how capitalism works. It's not how industries recover.

It was how the Soviet Union worked, however -- before it imploded.

And to think McCain was the one who claimed a weakness in economics. Would that other leaders were as honest.

Small businesses need a long term commitment to conditions necessary for growth -- long term. They need to be shown that their taxes will stay low, and they need to be shown that their government will help them, by getting out of the way.

They don't need false hope, and neither do we. 

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New Stimulus Package Includes Money for Medicare "Doc Fix"

Posted by Philip Klein on 2.9.10 @ 4:13PM

Senate Democrats just leaked a draft of their new stimulus package, formally called the "Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act."

As the Hill reports:

The 362-page draft bill touches on a vast array of areas, including extensions for unemployment benefits and COBRA health insurance premiums, tax incentives designed to spur hiring, spending programs on transportation initiatives, low-income housing credits, energy programs, disaster relief, extensions of Medicare payment programs, and tax proposal aiming to raise revenue from foreign-held assets and trusts.

Specifically, on page 107, the program delays a scheduled reduction in doctors' payments under Medicare -- even though the Congressional Budget Office assumed that those cuts would actually happen as part of its analysis of the Senate health care bill that passed in December.

By way of background, back in the 1990s, Congress attempted to slow the growth of Medicare costs by limiting the rate of growth of doctors payments, but Congress has consistently voted to avoid those scheduled cuts. Democrats couldn't pass a 10-year, $250 billion bill to "fix" the problem last fall, so in December they threw a temporary measure into the must-pass Defense appropriations bill that delayed the cuts until March 1.

The draft of the new stimulus package (which Democrats are trying to rebrand as a "jobs bill"), would delay the cuts yet again until October 1, which is the start of the 2011 fiscal year.

However, in its analysis of the Senate health care bill, the CBO assumed that "the 21 percent reduction in (physician) payment rates that is scheduled to occur in 2010 under current law would take effect."

Ultimately, the move underscores why many of us have been skeptical of the deficit reduction claims Democrats have been making about their health care bills, given that they are contingent on future Congresses cutting Medicare. As the CBO cautioned in each of its reports on those bills, its "calculations assume that the provisions are enacted and remain unchanged throughout the next two decades, which is often not the case for major legislation."

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Anonymous But Clever

Posted by Nicole Russell on 2.9.10 @ 2:54PM

Contrary to some of Al Franken's techniques, some Minnesotans know how to get their message across. As MPR reports, that's the case with the small group of business owners who paid for this billboard near Wyoming, Minnesota because they feel like "Washington is against them." The group wishes to remain anonymous.

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If Health Care "Reform" Sinks,Then What for the Drugmakers?

Posted by Doug Bandow on 2.9.10 @ 1:56PM

Oops.  That presumably is the reaction of Big Phrma and other industry advocates of Democratic health care "reform."  By playing footsie with the politicoes who most hated them, the big health care lobbies expected to mitigate the damage.  Now the strategy is in ruins.

Kim Strassel looks at Pfizer under CEO Jeffrey Kinder, who was seemingly chosen to make peace with the Democrats:

The sight of ObamaCare on life support has many Democrats disappointed. It could be worse. They could be Pfizer CEO Jeffrey Kindler.

The twin events of an Obama presidency and a financial crisis rattled corporate America. Public anger put companies on the defensive. A liberal president vowing to punish firms that didn't aid his agenda got companies scared.

Fortune 500 execs could stand up for a free market that benefits consumers and shareholders, or hitch their cart to the new Democratic majority. Pfizer's Mr. Kindler is a case study in the hitch-and-hope mentality-a CEO who became the motivating force behind Big Pharma's $80 billion "deal" on reform, and industry support of ObamaCare. With that health agenda burning, the choice isn't looking so grand.

Pfizer was long a company that zealously guarded against government interference. Prior CEOs had seen how European governments had ruined its industry and recognized the threat. When the board made Mr. Kindler CEO in 2006-picking a relative newbie over insiders-it was a vote for shakeup. Mr. Kindler changed a lot more than the business.

Already known as a Democrat and political junkie, Mr. Kindler was primed for the Obama ascendancy. Like many big CEOs, he started playing footsie with groups that had long despised business but would now have the president's ear. Pfizer quietly created a board of "notables" to advise it on policy. A top recruit: Andy Stern, fiery head of the Service Employees International Union. (It also includes Newt Gingrich.)

With health care "reform" coming undone, where will Pfizer and the other drugmakers turn?  Stay with their new friends, many of whose fondest wish is to turn pharmaceuticals into public utility? Or turn back to the Republicans, who have no incentive to be nice to industries which actively pushed to further nationalize American health care?

If the drugmakers try the latter, the GOP should enjoy a good laugh and suggest that the pharmaceutical producers check back with Nancy Pelosi & Co.  There's no reason to take political bullets defending an industry that refuses to defend itself.

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Al-Qaeda-Linked Radical in London Sees Terrorist Attacks "Even Bigger Than in 2001"

Posted by Philip Klein on 2.9.10 @ 11:34AM

CBN's Erick Stakelbeck has an eye-opening new report in which he interviews some of London's leading Islamic radicals. Several of them are wanted on terrorism charges in other nations, but free to live in Britain -- in some cases receiving government welfare benefits.

Among the anecdotes:

CBN News recently conducted an off-camera interview with al-Faqih in his London home.

He was designated by the U.S. and U.N. as a global terrorist in 2004 for alleged links to al Qaeda but maintains his innocence. Al Faqih says he meets with British government officials regularly and that they respect his work.

He believes there will be more confrontation between the West and the Muslim world, including terrorist attacks "even bigger than in 2001."

British officials have pushed to deport men like al-Faqih and Yasser al-Sirri back to their home countries. But the European Union and a number of British judges have blocked these efforts over human rights concerns.

Full story writeup here. Video below.

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Daily Must-Reads

Posted by Brian O'Connell on 2.9.10 @ 11:25AM

• $3 million of stimulus money going towards constructing a high school football stadium in Mississippi (Hattiesburg American)
• Minnesota drivers are puzzled as to who paid for a billboard that has a photo of Bush with the caption "Miss Me Yet?" (NPR)
• Taliban leader says it will "shake hands" with Americans when they come into Helmand province, say the Taliban are gone, and then start waging guerrilla war (MSNBC)
• Swedish court rules that a Muslim man who refused to shake hands with a woman in the company was guilty of employment discrimination (NY Daily News)

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New Hampshire Not So Blue

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 2.9.10 @ 11:14AM

Like Virginia, New Hampshire was a red state -- in fact, the Granite State had been Republican longer -- that dramatically turned blue in the 2006 and 2008 election cycles. Also like Virginia, it is showing some signs of shifting back, though not as dramatically.

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Nelson Will Join GOP Filibuster of Union Lawyer Nominee

Posted by Philip Klein on 2.9.10 @ 10:39AM

Sen. Ben Nelson has announced he would support a Republican filibuster of the nomination of union lawyer Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board, putting Becker's Senate confirmation in serious doubt.

As I've note in previous posts, Becker has served as a lawyer to SEIU and the AFL-CIO. He has also written that "card check" -- which would deny workers a secret ballot on unionization, and thus enable labor to rapidly add members through intimidation -- could be enacted on the regulatory front by the NRLB, which he has been nominated to chair. 

"Mr. Becker's previous statements strongly indicate that he would take an aggressive personal agenda to the NLRB, and that he would pursue a personal agenda there, rather than that of the Administration," Nelson said in a statement. "This is of great concern, considering that the Board's main responsibility is to resolve labor disputes with an even and impartial hand. In addition, the nominee's statements fly in the face of Nebraska's Right to Work laws, which have been credited in part with our excellent business climate that has attracted employers and many good jobs to Nebraska. Considering these matters, I will oppose the upcoming cloture motion and the nomination."

The vote on Becker was originally scheduled for Monday and then got pushed back until today, but given the forecasts of yet another blizzard in DC that has shut down the federal government again, it isn't clear when it will actually take place.

If Becker cannot get confirmed by the Senate, President Obama could still use a recess appointment, a strategy that Majority Leader Harry Reid has already floated.

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Wieseltier Takedown of Sullivan

Posted by Joseph Lawler on 2.9.10 @ 10:26AM

Leon Wieseltier has a brilliant takedown of Andrew Sullivan at Sullivan's old outlet, the New Republic.

Hardly a day goes by when I don't stop myself from posting a rebuttal of some argument Sullivan's made or some falsehood that he's promoted. And that's true of everyone here at TAS: if you didn't hold back, the blog would devolve into a catalogue of his errors and misstatements. Especially when Sullivan writes about the pope or Catholicism, I, as someone who knows the first thing about it, am always shocked by his craziness. Wieseltier's topic is Sullivan's treatment of Israel and American Jews, and it's pretty damning.

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Tom Campbell's Anti-Israel Voting Record

Posted by Philip Klein on 2.9.10 @ 9:59AM

U.S. Senate candidate Tom Campbell, currently leading in polls for the Republican primary in California and perhaps more famous as the target of Carly Fiorina's "demon sheep" ad, is coming under fire for his anti-Israel voting record in Congress.

Over at Contentions, Jennifer Rubin uses Fiorina's call for tougher sanctions on Iran as a jumping off point to note that:

One of her opponents, Chuck Devore, has in the past voiced strong support for Israel’s right of self-defense.

Tom Campbell, who has zipped into the lead in early polls, is quite another story. During his time in the House, Campbell was one of the few Republicans with a consistent anti-Israel voting record. In 1999, he introduced an amendment to cut foreign aid to Israel. This amendment, titled the Campbell Amendment, was defeated overwhelmingly on the House floor by a vote of 13-414. In 1999, Campbell was one of just 24 House members to vote against a resolution expressing congressional opposition to the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state. In 1997, Rep. Tom Campbell authored an amendment (also titled the Campbell Amendment) to cut foreign aid to Israel. The resolution failed 9-32 in committee. In 1990, Campbell was one of just 34 House members to vote against a resolution expressing support for Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.  The resolution passed the House 378-34. But Campbell has taken positions on more than just aid that have raised concerns about his views on Israel. As the Los Angeles Times reported in 2000, Campbell, in his losing race against Dianne Feinstein, “told numerous crowds–including Jewish groups–that he believes Palestinians are entitled to a homeland and that Jerusalem can be the capital of more than one nation.”

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President Obama's Poll Ratings Underwater

Posted by Doug Bandow on 2.9.10 @ 8:20AM

The latest Marist Poll has bad news for the president.  Reports the New York Daily News:

President Obama's job approval rating has taken another dive, putting him underwater for the first time in the latest Marist poll.

Just 44% of the country approve of the work Obama is doing, while 47% don't like what they see.

The tough reviews come as Americans still find the commander in chief likable, with 50% rating him favorably, and 44% viewing him negatively.

And they still blame former President George W. Bush for the dismal economy.

Only 29% of voters say the poor economy is Obama's fault; 62% agree that Bush left the problem on Obama's desk.

"With this part of voters' mind-set, it's no wonder the White House would like to make 2010 a choice between President Obama and past GOP policies," said Lee Miringoff, director of The Marist Institute for Public Opinion.

Still, people think Obama's policies are not change they can believe in.

Forty-seven percent of voters say Obama has not lived up to their expectations, with just 42% saying he has.

A narrow plurality - 38% - think Obama's change has been bad, and 37% think it's been good.

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Islamic Censorship in Europe

Posted by Doug Bandow on 2.9.10 @ 7:48AM

Free speech in Europe is dying.  On January 20 the Netherlands, once thought to be a tolerant, liberal country, opened criminal proceedings against Geert Wilders, head of the Dutch Freedom Party.  He is accused of religious hate speech for his film Fitna, which pointed out the obvious, that Islam ain't the most tolerant of religions, as well as statements made in support of proposals to limit Muslim immigration and ban the Quran just as the Netherlands bans Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.

Paul Marshall of the Hudson Institute worries:

The American media's silence about the Geert Wilders trial is puzzling - the trial is explosive, much more so than most of America's perennial "trials of the century." Wilders, leader of the Freedom party, is arguably the Netherlands's most popular politician, but for years he has had to live in safe houses, including on military bases. He now faces the possibility of imprisonment on charges of "group insult" and "incitement to hatred," as defined by articles 137 (c) and (d) of the Dutch penal code, for his public speeches and op-eds criticizing Islam.

Apart from its direct and immediate threat to free speech, the trial exposes the growth of political violence and repression in the Netherlands, long lauded as the most tolerant country in Europe, if not the world. Thirty years ago, I interviewed then-prime minister Dries van Agt simply by strolling into his unguarded parliamentary office and asking his secretary if he could spare me a couple of minutes. Now it is a country where politicians and artists are targeted by vigilantes and the state.

In 2002, popular Dutch politician and gay activist Pim Fortuyn was murdered by an environmentalist who took offense at Fortuyn's criticism of Islam. In 2004, one of the country's leading documentarians, Theo Van Gogh, was murdered, and almost beheaded, on the streets of Amsterdam in retaliation for a film he made about Islam (Submission). In 2006, a gathering of scholars and commentators critical of Islam and Islamism led the Dutch security service to invoke an alert level just short of "national emergency." In 2008, the prospective release of Wilders's film Fitna led to special sessions of the Dutch cabinet. The country's best-known member of parliament, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, for many years had to live in hiding, and even briefly fled the country. This is the situation in the heart of liberal Europe.

The worst religious persecutors abroad are Islamic states--think Saudi Arabia, for instance.  Persecuting Islamic states like Pakistan are leading the campaign against the "defamation" of religion through the United Nations.  And even more ominously, as evidenced by the Wilders case, intolerant Islamic extremists are turning European governments into their de facto agents. 

One does not have to agree with every proposal and statement made by Wilders to recognize the danger posed by his prosecution.  Americans have to remain on alert to ensure that this sort of outrageous political correctness is not allowed to curb free speech in America, including the right to criticize Islam and Islamic extremists.

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