The farm bill disgrace

Excerpt from DAVID BROOKS at the NYT, pointing out that it wasn't Obama who defied the old corrupt Washington system; It was McCain. Once again we see the paradox that McCain actually is what Obama falsely claims to be

Farm net income is up 56 percent over the past two years, yet the farm bill plows subsidies into agribusinesses, thoroughbred breeders and the rest. The growers of nearly every crop will get more money. Farmers in the top 1 percent of earners qualify for federal payments. Under the legislation, the government will buy sugar for roughly twice the world price and then resell it at an 80 percent loss. Parts of the bill that would have protected wetlands and wildlife habitat were deleted or shrunk.

My colleagues on The Times's editorial page called the bill "disgraceful." My former colleagues at The Wall Street Journal's editorial page ripped it as a "scam." Yet such is the logic of collective action; the bill is certain to become law. It passed with 81 votes in the Senate and 318 in the House - enough to override President Bush's coming veto. Nearly everyone in Congress got something. The question amid this supposed change election is: Who is going to end this sort of thing?

Barack Obama talks about taking on the special interests. This farm bill would have been a perfect opportunity to do so. But Obama supported the bill, just as he supported the 2005 energy bill that was a Christmas tree for the oil and gas industries. Obama's support may help him win Iowa, but it will lead to higher global food prices and more hunger in Africa. Moreover, it raises questions about how exactly he expects to bring about the change that he promises.

If elected, Obama's main opposition will not come from Republicans. It will come from Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill. Already, the Democratic machine is reborn. Lobbyists are now giving 60 percent of their dollars to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The pharmaceutical industry, the defense industry and the financial sector all give more money to Democrats than Republicans. If Obama is actually going to bring about change, he's going to have to ruffle these sorts of alliances. If he can't do it in an easy case like the farm bill, will he ever?

John McCain opposed the farm bill. In an impassioned speech on Monday, he declared: "It would be hard to find any single bill that better sums up why so many Americans in both parties are so disappointed in the conduct of their government, and at times so disgusted by it." McCain has been in Congress for decades, but he has remained a national rather than a parochial politician. The main axis in his mind is not between Republican and Democrat. It's between narrow interest and patriotic service. And so it is characteristic that he would oppose a bill that benefits the particular at the expense of the general.

In fact, in this issue, McCain may have found a theme to unify his so far scattershot campaign. He has always been an awkward ideological warrior. In any case, this year may not be the best year for Republicans to launch a right versus left crusade. But McCain has infinitely better grounds than Obama to run as a do-what-it-takes reformer. He has a long record of taking on not only the other party, but his own. In the current Weekly Standard, the brilliant young writer Yuval Levin suggests that McCain put reforming America's decrepit governing institutions at the center of his presidential race. Levin points out that the health care system, the immigration system, the regulatory system and the entitlement system all need reforms. Instead of talking about personal honor or perpetual tax cuts, McCain should focus relentlessly on modernization. In fact, Monday in Chicago, McCain declared: "In all my reforms, the goal is not to denigrate government but to make it better, not to deride government but to restore its good name."

Obama, sad to say, failed the farm bill test. McCain may have found a theme for a nation that has lost faith in its own institutions.

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52 Seconds of Obama Unilaterally Disarming America

In 52 seconds, he rattles off what an Obama presidency would mean for our national defense; slowing down of existing programs to build new weapons, cutting "tens of billions" of dollars in "wasteful" spending, scrapping missile defense completely, and setting up an "independent defense priority review board" (you can imagine the anti-defense liberals sitting on that board) to make sure we don't waste any money building "unnecessary" weapons.

That's not all. Obama wishes upon a star for a "nuclear free world" and to that end, he will not allow any new designs for nukes nor will be build any new ones. He wants to talk to the Russians about re-targeting our missiles and "deep cuts" in our nuclear arsenal.

This is dangerous and stupid. Slowing down current weapons projects only makes them more expensive over the long term (but it looks good politically because of the money saved up front). He calls the anti-missile system "unproven" - and thank God for that because the only way to "prove" that it works is to shoot down an incoming missile. Recent successes have been incredible - shooting down a target traveling at Mach 7 is no simple matter. And almost every test shows improvement. Why scrap the system now after spending tens of billions of dollars and when we are close to success? Lunacy!

I shudder when I think his 1960's style liberal friends have a go at the defense budget. Considering the fact they don't think we face any threats, we'll be lucky to keep the Army band.

Then there's his pie in the sky notion of a nuclear free world. Everyone wishes for that. Heck, I wish that the moon was made of Velveeta cheese but wishing will never make it so. And somehow, I just can't picture him and Putin on the same page about much of anything. Obama, the charmer, the ideologue and Putin, the aggressive, canny, ruthless autocrat. Maybe we can convince a grown up to hold his hand during those negotiations.

In effect, Obama wants to gut the military to make sure we never go to war again. He has said as much on the campaign trail. And if a time ever comes, God forbid, where we would find it necessary to project our power to the far flung corners of the earth in order to protect Americans or American interests under an Obama presidency, I fear the military would be forced to tell him that it wouldn't be possible.

Obama is McGovern, Carter, and John Kerry all rolled into one when it comes to maintaining and improving our defenses. He would be a disaster as president and this video shows very clearly why

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The uncool Obama

Based on Barack Obama's hysterical, paranoid reaction to President Bush's remarks to the Israeli Knesset condemning the practice of appeasing terrorists, one might infer Obama was lying in wait for just such an opportunity to capture some national security street cred. After all, Democrats begin any presidential race with a national security credibility deficit, and this one should be no different, notwithstanding the unpopularity of the Iraq war. Democrats like to think they gained congressional seats in 2006 because of the war, but a better read is that Republicans did themselves in through reckless spending, scandals and other abandonment of conservative principles.

Despite his puffed-up posturing, Obama probably recognizes this, as well. Otherwise, why would he have lashed out so nastily at both Mr. Bush (and Sen. McCain) for assuring our closest Middle Eastern ally that we would stand by it? Obama was so sure Bush's remarks were aimed at him that he shed his nice-guy facade and gave the nation a little glimpse of his inner anger. For those who insist Obama is all sweet and light, I challenge you to listen to his tantrums in response to the president's non-attack. Obama shouted: "I'm a strong believer in bipartisan foreign policy, but that cause is not served with dishonest, divisive attacks of the sort that we've seen out of George Bush and John McCain over the last couple days. They aren't telling you the truth."

Let me ask you: Where does Barack Obama get off proclaiming himself the high arbiter of civility and bipartisanship while he is engaged in a sputtering tirade of abject incivility and partisanship? Obama apparently expects us to assess his civility not on the basis of his conduct, but solely on the strength of his distorted self-description.

Like so many other liberals, Obama exempts himself from behavioral accountability through identification with liberal policies, which confer upon him the irrebuttable presumption that he is kind and compassionate. But those not subject to the self-deluding spell of liberalism or Obamaphilia will not be fooled by such hypocrisy. They will judge Obama's claim to civility not on his self-elevating but empty words, but on his self-damning, nasty ones.

Obama's joining with other Democrats to bear false witness against President Bush is a perfect example of the type of incivility for which he disingenuously excoriates President. Obama also decried the president's remarks as "exactly the kind of appalling attack that's divided our country and alienated us from the rest of the world." No, Sen. Obama, what have divided this country and alienated us from the rest of the world are the nonstop Democratic assaults against President Bush -- assaults that you not only did not condemn as uncivil, dishonest and divisive but also have embraced and echoed.

What has placed America in a falsely negative light to the world is the Democratic chorus of lies that President Bush misled us into war in Iraq; that he is responsible for the killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians; that the United States is torturing and otherwise violating the "rights" of our enemy prisoners at Guantanamo Bay; that this very detention center is comparable to a Soviet Gulag or Nazi prison camp; that the Bush government is spying on its own citizens; that America, because of its corporate greed, refuses to lead the world against apocalyptic global warming; and that the heartland of America is inhabited by jingoistic, imperialistic, intolerant, homophobic, xenophobic, racist and reality-challenged Bible-thumpers.

President Bush is not guilty of leveling a partisan attack against Barack Obama in Israel. But if he were to change course after seven long years on the receiving end and start returning cheap shots at Democrats, say, at the rate of 10 per day for the remainder of his term, he still would be behind Democrats in this department by a sizeable multiple. Truly, it amazes me how civil, composed and un-reciprocal President Bush has been in the face of this incessant barrage of partisan vitriol.

Shame on Barack Obama for falsely accusing the president of behavior he and his party have perfected through meticulous practice. Shame on him for pretending that he offers bipartisanship when his actual record is one of extreme liberalism and is strikingly bereft of aisle crossing or compromise. Shame on him for defining bipartisanship and civility, in effect, as acquiescing to his dictates.

Obama likens his own foreign policy approach to that of Presidents Kennedy and Reagan, but reality places him closer to George McGovern or Michael Dukakis. But there is a method to his madness. He has assumed the offense against his Republican rivals to divert our attention from his demonstrable lack of toughness in the war on terror.

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Obama To Meet With A Leader To Be Named Later

Oh, for heaven's sake - now the Obama people want to pretend that Obama's pledge to meet, without preconditions, with the leader of Iran didn't actually represent a pledge to meet with its current President. Joe Klein of TIME wants to ride this pony right into the barn - go, Joe! Their gist - Ayatollah Khamenei, not President Ahmadinejad, is the "Supreme Leader" of Iran.... Well, if Ayatollah Ali Hoseini-Khamenei is the go-to guy, I suppose it is fair to ask whether he is also noxious. Let's ponder this quote reported in Dec 2000:

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Friday for the destruction of Israel, describing it as a "cancerous tumor" in the Middle East. "Iran's stance has always been clear on this ugly phenomenon (Israel). We have repeatedly said that this cancerous tumor of a state should be removed from the region," Khamenei told thousands of Muslim worshippers in Tehran. "The Palestinian issue is not an internal Israeli matter. It involves the interests of the whole Islamic world, including Iran. All should strive to return that piece of land to Islamic hands."

Khamenei offered an alternative solution which he said might be more "internationally acceptable": "Palestinian refugees should return and Muslims, Christians and Jews could choose a government for themselves, excluding immigrant Jews. "No one will allow a bunch of thugs, lechers and outcasts from London, America and Moscow to rule over the Palestinians," the ayatollah said in remarks broadcast on state radio.

And can we find a bit of Zionist conspiracy-mongering from Iran's latest leader? Yes We Can!

"Today, I can clearly see that there are certain hands at work to create rifts and schisms between the Shia and the Sunni. The Zionists and arrogant powers are definitely involved in the bloody incidents and explosions taking place during congregational prayers at the mosques and Friday prayer grounds. Muslims have nothing to do with the incidents taking place in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries."

I should add that the footnote claims that is from a June 2005 speech but the link now fails and Google is not delivering other references to the phrase. That said, here is a conciliatory bit from Ayatollah Ali Hoseini-Khamenei that everyone attributes to Wikipedia; the source is this Guardian article, with no cite at all:

Finally, Ahmadinejad's own call for regime change in Israel - "the occupying Zionist regime of Jerusalem should cease to exist in the page of time" - has been mistranslated and distorted into the notorious phrase, "Israel should be wiped off the map" by the western media. What is never reported is that Ayatollah Khamenei stated unequivocally immediately afterwards that "the Islamic Republic has never threatened and will never threaten any country".

As to who's on first in Iran, President Ahmadinejad took the lead in 2007 when the British sailors were seized (Joe Klein's comical assertion that Ahmadinejad "has no power over Iranian foreign policy" notwithstanding), spoke at the UN, and came to Columbia, so he is the person one might reasonably expect to meet with an American President.

Regardless, it is absurd that Obama is making these bold promises with no apparent forethought; imagine if, as President, he had made a similar "no preconditions" pledge to meet with the leaders of Iran, Ahmadinejad tried to take him up on it, and Obama then explained that Ahmadinejad was not actuallly the leader he had in mind. Faux pas.

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Obama's vulnerable on national security

Barack Obama says the United States should not negotiate with Hamas "unless they recognize Israel, renounce violence and are willing to abide by previous accords" that Israel reached with neighboring Arab states and the Palestinians. Which of those objections does not apply to Iran? The Democratic presidential candidate has said he's willing to meet, "without precondition," with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The difference between Iran and Hamas, Obama says, is that Iran is a country and Hamas is a terrorist organization. It's also true that the State Department describes Iran as "the most active state sponsor of terrorism," a provider of "extensive funding, training and weapons" to Hamas, Hezbollah and other groups, and an opponent of the Middle East peace process with "a high profile role in encouraging anti-Israel terrorist activity -- rhetorically, operationally and financially."

Obama further muddied the waters last week when he told David Brooks of the New York Times that Hamas and Hezbollah need to understand "they're going down a blind alley with violence that weakens their legitimate claims." What would be the "legitimate claims" of Hamas, an organization founded for the purpose of the destruction of Israel? What are the "legitimate claims" of Hezbollah, also dedicated to the death of Israel, as well as serving as the agent of Iran and Syria in trying to kill democracy in Lebanon?

Obama has asserted unequivocal backing for Israel. But his "legitimate claims" remark gives you pause, making you wonder a bit about his worldview. Would the "legitimate claims" of Hamas be on the table in "no precondition" talks with Iran? National security has been a weakness for Democratic presidential candidates and doubly so for Obama because of his inexperience. Only four years ago he was an Illinois legislator.

That vulnerability explains the touchy reaction from Obama and his supporters to President Bush's speech in Israel likening negotiations with "terrorists and radicals" to the 1930s appeasement of the Nazis. Obama's defenders immediately jumped to argue that the problem with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain wasn't that he talked with Hitler, but what he did in those meetings.

The problem is a little more complicated than that. Chamberlain entered those talks without the simple precondition that the integrity of Czechoslovakia was not negotiable. Besides leading to the sellout of Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain's flying to Munich to talk to Hitler undermined the fragile German opposition to Hitler. Military leaders, convinced his intention to go to war over the Sudeten issue would lead to defeat, plotted to overthrow Hitler.

William L. Shirer in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is scathing in condemning the generals for failing to depose Hitler, but he wrote, "If, as the conspirators claim, their plans were on the point of being carried out, the announcement of Chamberlain's trip to Munich certainly cut the ground from underneath their feet." He added "such a golden opportunity never again presented itself to the German opposition to dispose of Hitler."

Presidential meetings carry consequences, for good and ill. Leaders are subject to misjudgment and miscalculation. Soviet boss Nikita Khrushchev saw John Kennedy as weak after the Bay of Pigs fiasco and left a 1961 summit over Berlin with his belief about the young president confirmed. According to the New York Times, "Kennedy naively thought he could make a breakthrough with face-to-face talks." Two months later, the Berlin Wall went up. The next year, Khrushchev moved to put missiles in Cuba. He was wrong about Kennedy, but it took the Cuban missile crisis to convince him. This is not an argument against summits, only a cautionary tale of how they can go wrong.

The issue here is not whether America should at some diplomatic level engage rogue nations like Iran. The issue is whether a president should hold talks without preconditions with the world's worst despots.

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Barry honey, can we talk?

By Kyle-Anne Shiver

Senator Obama, I think it might be time for you to do a bit of adjustment on that attitude of yours. Time to ditch some of that peevish audacity and pick up an ounce of humility. For one thing, you might want to remember that when you're out on the campaign trail, the professional female reporters are not your little maidservants, nor your girlfriends, not even your adoring groupies. And they don't fetch your coffee or even want your autograph. Calling them, "sweetie," as you condescendingly brush off their legitimate questions is starting to cause voters concern that you are somewhat uncouth without your programmed teleprompter.

But since you adopted an informal tone when speaking to members of the fairer sex, I will return the favor here, and call you Barry honey, as if we were talking across the counter of a diner in my own South.

As a lawyer, you must know that if you had called this woman, "sweetie," in the workplace, you could have been on the receiving end of a sexual harassment charge, the kind of the thing you liberals seem to love in theory but can't seem to live up to in practice. Bill Clinton is the model for this unseemly Democrat trait, but he is probably not the kind of man that someone like you, trying to pass himself off as an unblemished new kind of candidate, would want to emulate.

And, Barry honey, these lordly asides of yours might work for the little tyrant calling himself the president of Iran, and other narcissistic dictators like Chavez and Castro, but it would seem wise for you to start remembering that you are attempting to get yourself democratically elected as the President of the United States of America. And we Americans prefer our Presidents to be quite a bit more egalitarian.

They did teach you that word, "egalitarian," at Columbia and Harvard, did they not? Our all-are-created-equal "thing" in the U.S. Constitution is something we bitter folks in mainstream America cling to -- like we do our religion and our guns. But you ought to know that. You are, after all, a constitutional lawyer, are you not?

And, Barry honey, you ought not to assume that just because you send tingles up the leg of Chris Matthews, you do the same to every female. A few of us are actually immune to what you apparently deem your universal sexual appeal. David Axelrod, confirmed this mysterious allure of yours, with numerous focus groups of white women before unleashing you upon the campaign trail. But it does come across as quite conceited, arrogant, narcissistic and impervious when you automatically assume that every woman in the entire world equally shares this mystical attraction.

Barry honey, take a word of caution from this wiser, older woman: Untamed conceit puts a gaping dent in the armor of any would-be Lancelot.

Thinking you are God's gift to women will get you nowhere fast with those of us smart enough to see through your perfectly polished, wearing-thinner-by-the-day veneer.

Which, Barry honey, brings us to the matter of your wife. It has come to my attention that you have taken grave umbrage at the words of your wife, Michelle, being used in political ads. I believe I read that you sent a message, via network television, that you expect Republicans to "lay off" your wife, and that you consider using her campaign speeches in ads reflecting badly on you to be "unacceptable" and downright "low class."

Barry honey, at the risk of seeming picayune here, I would like to remind you that your wife has, for months now, been speaking in public as your other half, your surrogate, your marriage partner, your equal in every single way. Much has even been made of her own professional cred. Michelle may dress and style her hair like Jackie, but she certainly has not been the quiet, unobtrusive helpmate staying in the shadows while you, her husband, take to campaigning. And she is a lawyer herself, is she not?

So, as a simple matter of common sense, we Americans would have expected you to ensconce your little woman safely on the home front, if she is too squeamish to handle the scrutiny we necessarily give to our candidates for the highest office in the Land.

Which brings us to the matter of the current ongoing job interview for the Presidency. You seem, Barry honey, to be of the opinion that you, the interviewee, set the guidelines and behavioral rules for the interview. We, the voters, should not need to remind you that we are the interviewers, and we, not you, make the rules. We are not your doting grandparents, willing to look the other way while you dabbled in drugs and who knows what else. You, Barry honey, are not the object of undying adoration of all of us. Probably not even of a majority, though you are able to draw quite a crowd in towns like Madison and Portland.

And we are not your mommy either. As you poignantly revealed in your memoir, you felt that you were one of your mother's "social experiments," a real personal encounter with a racially mixed, more perfect society. It must feel horrible to be used in such a callous fashion, and I feel great empathy for the boy forced to endure it. But, Barry honey, it's time to grow up now and fully understand that the Presidency is much too big, much too harrowing and far too dangerous to us all to be conducting social experiments. We, the guardians of this great Nation, are duly charged with taking responsibility for the person who largely guides our own fates and those in dependent countries around the world. This is not something to be taken lightly or even with too much audacity. Seeking the Presidency of the United States of America requires a great deal more humility than audacity.

So, Barry honey, if you think now that you and your wife, Michelle, are not up to withstanding the harsh glare and critical nature of this interview, we will certainly understand if you decide that it's in the best interests of America and the world for you to withdraw from our consideration. We will understand and we will not fault you for brashly jumping the gun a bit when you made the monumental decision to place your hat in this awesome ring. At the end of the day, Barry honey, we Americans tend to save electing geniality and social-experiment presidents for peacetime. In times of war, we generally go with the one who garners our respect.

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Obama and the Jews

Does he really believe he understands Israel better than Israelis themselves? Even if he is sincerely pro-Israel, his overall policies bode ill for Israel

America's Jews account for a mere 2% of the U.S. population. But they have voted the Democratic ticket by margins averaging 78% over the past four election cycles, and their votes are potentially decisive in swing states like Florida and Pennsylvania. They also contribute an estimated half of all donations given to national Democratic candidates. So whatever his actual convictions, it is a matter of ordinary political prudence that Barack Obama "get right with the Jews." Since Jews tend to be about as liberal as the Illinois senator on most domestic issues, what this really means is that he get right with Israel.

And so he has. Over his campaign's port side have gone pastor Jeremiah Wright ("Every time you say 'Israel' Negroes get awfully quiet on you because they [sic] scared: Don't be scared; don't be scared"); former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski ("I think what the Israelis are doing today [2006] for example in Lebanon is in effect - maybe not in intent - the killing of hostages"); and former Clinton administration diplomat Robert Malley (an advocate and practitioner of talks with Hamas).

The campaign has also managed to clarify, or perhaps retool, Mr. Obama's much-quoted line that "nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people." What the senator was actually saying, he now tells us, is that "nobody has suffered more than the Palestinian people from the failure of the Palestinian leadership to recognize Israel, to renounce violence, and to get serious about negotiating peace and security for the region." Still more forthrightly, Mr. Obama recently told the Atlantic Monthly that "the idea of a secure Jewish state is a fundamentally just idea, and a necessary idea, given not only world history but the active existence of anti-Semitism, the potential vulnerability that the Jewish people could still experience."

I can think of no good reason to doubt the sincerity of Mr. Obama's comments. Nor, from the standpoint of American Jewry, is there anything to be gained from doing so: The fastest way to turn whatever dark suspicions Jews may have of Mr. Obama into a self-fulfilling prophecy is to spurn his attempts at outreach.

Yet the significant question isn't whether Mr. Obama is "pro-Israel," in the sense that his heart is in the right place and he isn't quite Jimmy Carter. What matters is whether his vision for U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East - and the broader world view that informs it - will have ancillary effects favorable to Israel's core interests. Take Hamas and Hezbollah, which pose the nearest threats to Israel's security. Mr. Obama has insisted he opposes negotiating with Hamas "until they recognize Israel, renounce terrorism and abide by previous agreements." He also calls Hezbollah a "destabilizing organization."

But if Mr. Obama's litmus test for his choice of negotiating partners is their recognition of Israel and their renunciation of terrorism, then what is the sense in negotiating without preconditions with Iran and Syria? Alternatively, if the problem with Hamas and Hezbollah is that neither holds the reins of government, what happens when they actually do? Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections in January 2006; Hezbollah sits in the Lebanese cabinet. Would Mr. Obama be willing to parley if, in the course of his administration, either group should come to power?

Or take Iran, which Israelis universally see as their deadliest enemy. Yes, there are arguments to be made in favor of presidential-level negotiations between Washington and Tehran - perhaps as a last-ditch effort to avert military strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. But does anyone seriously think Mr. Obama would authorize such strikes?

Instead, Mr. Obama says he favors "tough diplomacy," including tighter sanctions on Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps. Last fall, however, he was one of only 22 senators to oppose a Senate resolution calling for the IRGC to be designated as a terrorist organization, a vote that made him a dove even within the Democratic Party. Mr. Obama argued at the time the amendment would give the administration a pretext to go to war with Iran. It was an odd claim for a nonbinding resolution.

Or take Iraq. Israelis are now of two minds as to the wisdom of the invasion of Iraq, mainly because they fear it has weakened America's hand vis-a-vis Iran. Maybe. But is it so clear that a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq wouldn't further strengthen Iran's hand, and consolidate the so-called Shiite crescent stretching from southern Iraq to the hills overlooking northern Israel?

Finally, there is Israel itself. In the Atlantic interview, Mr. Obama declared that "my job in being a friend to Israel is partly to hold up a mirror and tell the truth," particularly in respect to the settlements. Yes, there are mirrors that need to be held up to those settlements, as there are to those Palestinians whose terrorism makes their dismantlement so problematic. Perhaps there is also a mirror to be held up to an American foreign-policy neophyte whose amazing conceit is that he understands Israel's dilemmas better than Israelis themselves.

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Lieberman on Obama

Via Taranto

Last night found us at the annual dinner of the Commentary Fund, publisher of Commentary magazine (proud member of the OpinionJournal Federation), where Sen. Joe Lieberman delivered the Norman Podhoretz Lecture. Truth be told, it was more campaign speech than lecture. It was dramatic because Lieberman, a senior Democrat, was speaking on behalf of John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee.

Most interestingly, Lieberman was very tough on his own party's likely nominee, Barack Obama. (As far as we remember, he did not mention, or even allude to, Obama rival Hillary Clinton.) Lieberman noted that unlike McCain, and despite Obama's "unity" rhetoric, Obama has no significant record of working across party lines in the Senate.

He described Obama as McGovernlike, a comparison at least one backer of the Illinois Democrat, Rep. Fortney Hillman Stark Jr. of California, has also endorsed: "I think he has captured the imagination of the American public, I think he's responsible for bringing millions of new voters, new Democrats into the party, and I haven't seen that kind of movement among young voters since I first ran and saw McGovern do the same thing in 1972," Stark told the Oakland Tribune last week.

Lieberman cited at length a 1999 National Review article by Norman Podhoretz, in which Podhoretz credited President Clinton with saving Democrats from McGovernism. "I think the Democrats have been pretty thoroughly purged of the McGovernite spirit," Podhoretz wrote. "It pains to me [sic] to admit this, but I would estimate that there is now more isolationist sentiment in Republican than in Democratic ranks." Lieberman argued that in many ways, the 2000 ticket of which he was a part was more hawkish than its Republican counterpart.

Since then--really, since the end of 2002--the Democrats have turned hard to the left on foreign policy, with Lieberman a rare dissenting voice. The Connecticut senator praised President Bush for his Knesset speech last week, and said that Bush's criticism of those who advocate appeasement applies to Obama, whether the president meant it to or not.

In his most devastating criticism, Lieberman noted that Obama favors talks without preconditions with anti-American dictators in North Korea, Venezuela and Iran, while taking an antagonistic approach toward democratic allies in South Korea, Colombia and Iraq, opposing trade deals with the first two and threatening to withdraw U.S. military support from the last.



It's reminiscent of John Kerry, the Democrats' 2004 nominee, who traipsed about the country denouncing America's allies as a "coalition of the bribed and the coerced" while promising to subject American foreign policy to a "global test."




The Obama-Ahmedinejad Summit

"Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct, presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions." - Barackobama.com

[Since when was ANY diplomacy "tough". It's deeds that are tough]

Barack Obama has enshrined the principle of unconditional summitry with Iran as one of the central foreign policy planks of his campaign for President. This despite recent efforts by Obama surrogates to confuse the electorate.

The statement above is found on the campaign website of Senator Obama and reflects his view -- repeated a number of times by himself in debates and question and answer sessions -- that the thrust of his foreign policy will be personal Presidential engagement with tyrannical regimes across the globe, including Hugo Chavez in Cuba or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran. But the focus clearly will be on Iran as the campaign moves along. Iran is the leading state sponsor of terror and is developing the means to construct nuclear weapons.

What would be the consequences of such a Presidential meeting between President Obama and President Ahmadinejad? Michael Gerson has written eloquently about the moral stain that will color the mere act of meeting with a Holocaust denier who boasts of his yearning to repeat the effort to exterminate the Jews. Obama, a man who on the campaign trail has declared that "nobody has spoken out more fiercely on the issue of anti-Semitism than I have," will be extending the honor of a Presidential meeting to the most dangerous anti-Semite of all. For what benefit? As Gerson wrote,

"having made Iranian talks without precondition: his major foreign policy goal, Obama is left with little leverage to extract concessions, and little choice to move forward"

There will inevitably be pressure to offer concessions to Ahmadinejad to help ensure a successful summit. To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, who will bear the burden? Who will pay the price?

Ahmadinejad has been crystal clear about his goals. He is fanatic towards Jews and toward Israel -- a type of obsession the world has witnessed before. Israel will certainly be on the agenda of any presidential meeting.* Obama would meet and perhaps even shake hands with a man who has repeatedly condemned Israel, has called it "filthy bacteria" and will hear the ritual denunciations of Israel. Perhaps, he has become inured to such bombast. He has heard it all before.

When a summit meeting occurs, there is considerable pressure to "accomplish" something, to come to an agreement. What exactly would a President Obama be willing to give to Iran in order to get back something that could be touted as an achievement of his summitry? The boost a summit (even one that led to no agreements) would give to the image of Ahmadinejad would embolden him within Iran (he faces internal pressures that directly blame him for Iran's diplomatic problems) and without. Furthermore, reformers throughout the region will be demoralized and our relations with Sunni nations,including Saudi Arabia, will be damaged as these Sunni regimes also seek to accommodate Iran.

More significant will be the impact on the one group in the region that has warm feelings toward America: the Iranian people themselves. There is a huge Baby Boom generation that is restive and angry towards the regime. As a consequence of pro-natalist policies formulated in the wake of the Iran-Iraq War, there was a surge in births in Iran. Two-thirds of Iranians are now estimated to be under the age of 30; and, significantly, only 40 percent of them are ethnically Persian. They resent the regime.

Iranians are also heirs to a culture that was historically very cosmopolitan and proud of its sophistication and openness to the outside world. Already many Iranians complain of Ahmadinejad's policies that have led to global isolation In a poll taken by the regime itself, one half (and this is probably understated because the regime was running the poll) affirmed that Washington's attitude towards Iran are "to some extent" correct. As much as they abhor the regime, they also have the most positive feelings towards America of any population in the region.

There is an old Middle Eastern aphorism: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. If Obama meets with Ahmadinejad, it will be a sign to Iranians that the world is willing to accept and to respect their regime. The reservoir of goodwill -- the hope for the future as this bulge of youth moves forward -- will be drained. They will feel the sting of defeat -- a betrayal they can lay at the feet of President Obama and America.

But what will be the reaction of the rest of the world? The consequences have already been presaged by the world's reaction to the release of the deeply flawed National Intelligence Estimate late last year. When the NIE was released, it infamously stated, "in the fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program". The report was immediately criticized across the political spectrum in America and by foreign leaders among our allies in Europe. Notably, Barack Obama endorsed the conclusions of the NIE and has continued to do so despite its revision a few months later. Paul Mirengoff of Powerline noted the irony of his accepting the validity of the earlier intelligence findings because they conform to his political plans and rejecting later revisions because they would challenge his views and plans. Nevertheless, the mere release of the report, with its imprimatur of government approval, had a disastrous effect on efforts to restrain Iran.

Over the last few years America, working with our allies and with the United Nations, assiduously (if all too slowly) has worked to impose a sanctions regime against Iran. While the breadth and strength of the sanctions have not been what many would have wanted -- and their enforcement has been spotty -- the release of the NIE all but squashed any efforts to move forward with a tougher set of sanctions. Nations rushed with an unseemly alacrity to reach deals with Iran. Russia resumed nuclear cooperation on the Busher nuclear reactor in Iran. China stepped up its opposition to further sanctions. And European nations slid back toward apathy to Iran's threat. The sanctions regime had lost its rationale and has all but collapsed.

The conclusions of the report have been all but repudiated and certainly have been superseded by Iran's success in enriching uranium and developing ballistic missiles. Yet all forward momentum toward further sanctions against Iran has halted. The NIE gave all parties who opposed the sanctions -- business interests, Russian oligarchs in charge of their nuclear export program, Chinese leaders eager to extend their influence -- a reason to oppose further efforts to halt Iran's nuclear program.

But the world's powers until now have diplomatically isolated the regime. Other world leaders have refrained from meeting with a leader who has continually issued a string of odious statements such as "Israel will be wiped off the map" and "Israel is a stinking corpse" and who denies the Holocaust.

A meeting between President Obama and President Ahmadinejad would trigger a parade of other foreign leaders to Tehran. They are merely waiting for a pretext, an excuse, that would absolve them from the shame of meeting with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Our strongest allies in Europe, Angela Merkel in Germany, Nicolas Sarkozy in France, Gordon Brown in England, face internal pressures to engage in Iran from commercial interests and political and diplomatic figures within their nations. Until now they have courageously resisted this pressure. No leader wants to bear the burden, the odium, the shame, of being the first Western leader to grant respectability to Ahmadinejad. Diplomatic pressure from America has provided them with another reason to deny such a bestowal of prestige upon Ahmadinejad. President Obama would radically change these policies.

When other high profile political leaders will come a calling, they may not bear the bowler of Neville Chamberlain, but they will bring hats in hand, newly ready and able to strengthen diplomatic (and hence all) ties to the mullahcracy. Under the cover of diplomatic outreach, sanction-busting deals will naturally follow. European nations are eager for energy deals that will provide the wherewithal for Iran to step up its nuclear weapons program.

Indeed, just this past week, OMV, an Austrian energy company with a multibillion dollar deal with the tyrants of Tehran, gave us a glimpse into the future. The chief executive officer of the company has openly declared that a political change in America -- one that he apparently believes in and hopes for -- will make it far easier to transact deals with Iran. Most assuredly he is not referring to John McCain.

If President Obama believes in the value of such meetings, perhaps he will be bold enough to meet with Iranian dissidents and reformers, to use the prestige of his office and that of America (remember Iranians admire America) to help them and not their oppressors. President Reagan -- whom Barack Obama professes to admire -- offered such support to Soviet dissidents. So far, Barack Obama has not shown any signs that he is willing to do so.

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On giving Obama the benefit of the doubt

Senator Barack Obama's repudiation of Reverend Jeremiah Wright has inspired the praise of some and the denunciation of others. This broad spectrum of opinion reflects the strange opacity of Obama's character and motivation.

We know all too well what makes Hillary tick and McCain seems to be an open book. But Obama is a man of mystery; someone has called him "a man in a fog". And he himself admits that voters ask "what do we know about him?" To date, we are still not sure whether he is mendacious or confused, open or deceitful, an idealist or a shamelessly glib opportunist.

Therefore, since we conservatives pride ourselves on our objectivity, I propose that we follow the legal dictum of "innocent until proven guilty" and give him the benefit of the doubt, just as he says he did with Rev. Wright. Let us, at least provisionally, try to construe all of his actions in the most favorable possible light.

Let us first concede his strengths. He has an excellent stage presence and is a gifted and persuasive speaker. Admittedly, most voters over thirty do not necessarily consider these to be virtues; they tend to associate such qualities with con men and used car salesmen. But one can be winning and eloquent and still be honest; think of Ronald Reagan.

Let us accept Obama's claim that, throughout twenty years of close association, he never noticed that Wright was a cesspool of anti-white hatred. Let us assume that, like many of us in church, he slept through the reverend's sermons and never heard Wright call on God to damn America or describe AIDS as a government plot against blacks. Let us further accept his reluctance to repudiate Wright as a noble loyalty to an old friend and mentor.

Let us also accept the innocence of his associations with questionable characters like Tony Rezko, Emil Jones, Robert Blackwell, Hatem El-Hady, and William Ayers. Let's attribute these and other unfortunate liaisons to an inability to judge people, or perhaps to a naive nature, so high minded and forgiving that it only sees the good in others. This view would be in keeping with the idealistic character of the speeches that have made him famous.

Let us accept his habit of abstaining from voting, even in critical issues such as abortion and the budget, and his refusal to respond to Votesmart's 2008 Political Courage Test to a conscientious man's reluctance to make decisions hastily. This would also explain the vague, ill advised, or even inane statements that he has made about many important issues. Similarly, his inaccuracies of statement and occasional deviations from fact might be ascribed to honest human fallibility.

Let us also assume that the vagueries of his political philosophy, such as his failure to define "change" and his apparent flirtations with Marxism, black liberation theology, and the Black Muslim movement, are not attempts to deceive the public but merely reflect the vagueness of his innermost thoughts.

But if all this is true, then however much we may admire Obama's character, we must dismiss his candidacy on the grounds that he is utterly unfit to be President. The President of the United States should have an attractive image and be an imposing and persuasive speaker. Obama, in his own boyish way, does have these qualities. But unfortunately, they are not enough.

The President of the United States must be a shrewd judge of competence and character as he selects associates and advisors for his administration. If any of his appointees fall short of his expectations, he must be quick to dismiss and replace them with a pragmatic disregard for old friendships. Unfortunately, as we have concluded above, Obama is much too trusting and loyal to make such choices wisely and much too slow in disaffiliating himself from untrustworthy associates. He might become another Warren Harding.

The President of the United States must be quick and decisive in dealing with sudden crises. Obama has shown, by his indecisive voting record and slowness in severing unsavory associations, that he is too dilatory and hesitant to make such decisions in a timely manner. He is simply not the right person for the three a.m. phone call.

The President of the United States must express himself precisely so as to avoid any unintentional ambiguities. If Obama is as open and honest as he claims to be, then his frequent gaffes must be attributed to a mental or verbal fuzziness that might endanger the country by causing him to "misspeak" in critical situations.

The President of the United States must protect the interests of the people from a world full of hostile and devious schemers. He must be wary and tough in his international dealings. If Obama is as naive and gullible as we have charitably assumed him to be, and as other Democrats accuse him of being, then he would be no match for the belligerent heads of state in Islamic and Marxist countries. The very thought of such a child (as Maureen Dowd has described him) negotiating with deceptive and shrewd bargainers like Putin and Ahmadinejad is horrifying. Moreover, he has been accused of frequent timidity when confronting evil. Hitherto, we have often been tempted to liken Obama to Jimmy Carter. But if our assessment of his naive and pussilanimous nature is correct, then he might well be another Neville Chamberlain.

Of course our assumption of Obama's probity might be wrong. Perhaps he is the unscrupulously devious poseur that his critics see him to be and that his words-versus-deeds gap seem to indicate. His questionable political maneuverings and his dealings with lobbyists and favor seekers lend credence to such a view of him. This cynical assessment would absolve him from some of the shortcomings cited above. But some of us believe that such hypocrisy should of itself be an absolute disqualification for public office.

Either way, Senator Obama is utterly unfit to be President of the United States. But he would make a dandy White House press secretary.

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Bush was right about appeasement

And it does apply to Obama as far as we can see so far

By Victor Davis Hanson

Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: `Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is - the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

So spoke President's Bush to the Israeli Knesset on the 60th anniversary of the birth of the Jewish state last week. Ostensibly the president's historical references made perfect sense for a variety of reasons. First, the state of Israel is inextricably a result of the Holocaust - a genocide that was in itself the logical consequence of an ascendant Nazi state, whose industry of death might could been circumvented by concerted action earlier in the late 1930s by the then stronger liberal democracies.

Bush was assuring the Israelis that the United States would not, in contrast to liberal democracies of the past, appease states and organizations intent on killing Jews by the millions.

Second, Bush's warning came in a climate of fear and weariness in the West, in which calls to meet without preconditions with both Iran and Hamas - the former state whose president has forecast the impending destruction of Israel, the latter terrorist organization whose charter hinges on the end of the Jewish state - have been voiced by several public figures, most prominently in recent days by former President Carter.

Third, the warning about appeasement comes not just after, and in implied defense, of military action in both Afghanistan and Iraq, but in the case of the United States, also after the September 11 catastrophe, which itself followed a decade of bipartisan inability to confront and respond to a number of al-Qaeda serial provocations.

The speech caused outrage among Democrats who insisted that it was "appalling" and a "smear" on Barack Obama, who has advocated talks, without preconditions, with Iran, and who had been informally endorsed by a Hamas official, and who had recently fired a Middle Eastern adviser, Robert Malley, for meeting with Hamas leaders. Obama fired off the following reply:

It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack...It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel.George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel.

Three questions are raised by this controversy. First: What constitutes appeasement in the 21st-century age of globalization? Second: If President Bush had wished to imply a connection with the unnamed Barack Obama, how fair would such a charge have been? Third: Has President Bush himself followed his own advice and shunned the appeasement of "with terrorists and radicals"?

Most define appeasement not by the mere willingness on occasion to negotiate with enemies (i.e., the heads of nation states rather than criminal terrorist cliques). Rather, appeasement is an overriding desire to avoid war or confrontation to such a degree so as to engage in a serial pattern of behavior that results in an accommodation of an enemy's demands - and ultimately the inadvertent enhancement of its agendas. Key here is the caveat that there must muscular alternatives to appeasement, as was true with a rather weak 1936 Nazi Germany or a non-nuclear theocratic Iran.

Talking with an Iranian theocrat like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad per se might not necessarily constitute appeasement. But continuing such talks without preconditions that made no progress in curbing Iranian nuclear agendas, or support for Hezbollah terrorists and Shiite militias in Iraq would not only be futile, but encourage further Iranian adventurism - by the assurance that negotiations were infinite and there would be few lines in the sand and little chance of military opposition to follow. In our era, the locus classicus of appeasement is the near decade of negotiations, empty threats, and drawnout diplomacy with Slobodan Milosevic, in which with virtual impunity he butchered thousands of Croats, Kosovars, and Bosnians - until a belated bombing war forced him to capitulate.

Bush in his Knesset address may have acknowledged that expansive notion of appeasement when he elaborated on his "negotiate with terrorists and radicals" line, with the proviso of futility - namely that such talking assumed an "ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along." In addition, Bush's example - that when "Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided" - suggests that his reference to appeasement meant not just one-time talking, but delusional and persistent engagement that is oblivious to facts on the ground.

If the president also meant to include Obama among those who would engage in such appeasement, would there be any evidence for such a view? Obama himself has never been in a position of exercising executive judgments, so we have only his campaign statements from which to surmise. In this regard, we certainly know that Obama is willing to meet any and all our enemies without preconditions. During a televised debate he was asked directly whether he would agree "to meet separately, without precondition . . . with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea," Obama replied: "I would."

His website amplifies that answer with the boast that "Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions." The problem here would not be in theory talking with an Iran or Syria - Sec. of Defense Gates on numerous occasions has advocated negotiations with Teheran - but in a priori signaling to tyrants such an eagerness to elevate their grievances to head-of-state diplomacy. Under what conditions, how long, and to what degree Obama would be willing to exercise non-diplomatic options when talks proved futile would adjudicate whether his preference for unconditional talks devolved from diplomacy to appeasement.

If a President Obama were to enter into multiple negotiations with Iran, and if Iran were to continue to subvert the Lebanese government and threaten Israel through its surrogate Hezbollah, and continue to develop a nuclear arsenal while promising the destruction of Israel, at what point would he be willing not merely to cease talking, but to accept that his negotiations had done more harm than good and thus required a radical change of course - and would it be in time?

Given President Bush's admonitions about appeasement, does the president practice what he preaches?

That depends on a variety of factors such as whether enemies are nuclear or not, whom exactly we define as adversaries - Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the Sudan, Libya? - and to what degree our existing negotiations are proving not only futile, but emboldening our enemies by the assurance that we will neither cease diplomacy nor threaten the use of force.

Both the president and Obama, in arguing abstractly over appeasement, do not factor in such realist concerns of leverage that govern decisions to negotiate, such as exporting ten million barrels a day of scarce oil (Saudi Arabia), the possession of nuclear weapons in the hands of an unstable government (Pakistan and North Korea), or the unwillingness of American public opinion to support an armed intervention (Darfur).

In that regard, Barack Obama shows his own inexperience when he evokes past summits that a John Kennedy or Ronald Reagan conducted with the nuclear Soviets - contemporary rivalries in which escalation to nuclear annihilation was a real worry, and at the time Soviet combatants (as is true in Iraq) were not killing our own soldiers.

In short, nothing in the president's speech was inaccurate, inflammatory, or hypocritical. Whether Barack Obama believes he was a target of the president's rhetoric, or whether he would engage in appeasement, hinges on whether his overeagerness to talk without preconditions to the world's thugs and rogues would persist in the face of unpleasant facts - and so make the likelihood of eventual military action more, rather than less, likely.

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What a charming and gracious First Lady Mrs Obama would make!

Given Obama's recent angry demand to stop mentioning his wife, I thought that we should in fact look a little more at her



Michelle Obama, wife of presidential candidate Barack Obama, known for saying what's on her mind - candidly, spontaneously and frequently - has exposed this trait yet again in a profile in the London Guardian. Asked how she feels about Bill Clinton's use of the phrase "fairytale" to describe her husband's characterization of his position on the Iraq war, she first responded: "No." But, after a few seconds of contemplation, and gesturing with her fingernails, she told the reporter: "I want to rip his eyes out!"

Noticing an aide giving her a nervous look, she added: "Kidding! See, this is what gets me into trouble." It was the latest of a series of gaffes by the potential first lady - the first of which set off a chain of events that led to her husband's fall from grace as the clear front-runner in the Democratic presidential primary campaign.

In February, Obama set off a national firestorm with comments she made at a Milwaukee rally: "What we have learned over the past year is that hope is making a comeback. And let me tell you something - for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment."

Many commentators were offended by the idea that a successful woman of privilege would say she had never been proud of her country until her husband's presidential campaign. That remark was followed up with reports of a stump speech she delivered throughout South Carolina in which she characterized America as "just downright mean." She said the country is divided, life is not good, the people are "guided by fear" and cynicism. "We have become a nation of struggling folks who are barely making it every day," she told churchgoers in that primary state. "Folks are just jammed up, and it's gotten worse over my lifetime."

It may have been Michelle Obama's off-the-cuff and seemingly unpatriotic remarks that led to further examination of the sermons of the couple's pastor of 20 years, Jeremiah Wright. Reports on Wright's explosively controversial views prompted a public break between the candidate and his spiritual mentor and new questions about the viability of Obama as a presidential candidate and potential leader of the country.

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(For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

A letter sent to Obama

Dear Mr. Obama,

I am sick. I am sick of your lies, your racial hypocrisy, your pointing fingers at "Reagan Democrats", members of the Likud Party because they want an Israel of the Brave, not the Grave like your friends do, and even your own Grandmother when you don't even have the guts to confront "Rev." Wright.

I am sick to death of your Blame America, Jew Baiting friends and advisers including Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn, both of whom should be where the 58,000 who died fighting for us while they were trying to murder Americans; of Rashid Khalidi, of Senator KKK Byrd, of Samantha Power, Merrill McPeak, Zbigniew Brezinzski, Rob Malley and his Baker Boys friends - Dennis Ross, Aaron David Miller and Danny Kurtzer, all of whom are self-loathing scum out to stick it to Israel (and they DO REFLECT your core values too), your wife, and that bigoted Reverend whom you sat through 20 years of virulent hate without saying a damn word.

Now you have the gall to chastize a President of the United States because he hit it on the head concerning Islamonazi appeasers and cowards - you've never served one day in the military - like you and Jimmy Carter. You even make derogatory remarks towards Cowboys.

Well, let me tell you something. The Cowboy is the Best American. They loved their animals, protected and loved their women and children, honored the flag and this country, and braved many hardships to do the job they were tasked to do. I'd sooner a cowboy as a friend than someone who has NO guts, No principles, Nothing. That's you, Mr. Obama.

Better a Cowboy than a Coward and Race Hypocrite.

In fact, Mr. Obama, you're not fit, morally or ethically to be my - or our President. I am just sick to death of you. Please go away, I hear Tehran or Gaza just might be your kind of place, and do take all of your friends and advisers and your spouse with you. You won't be missed.

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Don't know much about geography--Obama 2nd edition

The man is clueless



Barack Obama is already explaining his anticipated loss to Hillary Clinton in the Kentucky primary this coming Tuesday. In part, Obama blames FOX News. In part, Obama invokes improbable geography:

Obama conceded that he has a steep challenge to get his message and background to voters in states such as Kentucky - where he trails Sen. Hillary Clinton by 27 points, according to a poll published earlier this week - and West Virginia, where voters chose Clinton over Obama by 40 points on Tuesday. "What it says is that I'm not very well known in that part of the country," Obama said. "Sen. Clinton, I think, is much better known, coming from a nearby state of Arkansas. So it's not surprising that she would have an advantage in some of those states in the middle."

Obama does not note that Illinois and Kentucky are close enough to each other that they share a border.... Arkansas borders Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma, but it does not share a border with Kentucky. This is Obama's second big US geography gaffe. You know the big media would give Dan Quail and George Bush a lot of air time for this kind of statement, but for Obama, I suspect they will just say he was tired. He seems tired a lot lately for such a young guy. I think it raises questions about his energy level and stamina not to mention having a poorer memory than his 71 year old opponent.

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Another Obama fantasy

Obama has a very shaky relationship with any reality at all, not only geography and history. He can't even tell the truth about his own recent past

This is pretty funny - in a recent speech Obama practically separates his shoulder patting himself on the back for entering the lion's den and, in a Detroit speech from May 2007, telling automakers they need to improve the fuel efficiency of their fleets:

"We're going to have do what I did when I went to Detroit and told the automakers that they're going to have to raise fuel-efficiency standards on cars. We can make more efficient cars right here in the United States. There's no way they have to be made in Japan. But, it requires that Detroit changes its ways. And I have to say that when I delivered that speech, nobody clapped. The room was really quiet. But that's OK, because that's part of what is the task of the next president."

There are just a couple of problems - the video of the Detroit speech is available, and in reality Obama was interrupted by applause at that point in the speech. And why might he have been interrupted? Well, Obama came laden with carrots as well as sticks; this is from the WaPo account of the Detroit speech:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) yesterday proposed federal assistance to help U.S. automakers cover the cost of their retired workers' health benefits if the companies invest in technology to improve their vehicles' fuel efficiency.

In a speech at the Detroit Economic Club, the Democratic presidential candidate offered a plan to ease the pain of U.S. automakers even as he reiterated support for higher fuel-efficiency standards..... Obama proposed that the government pay for 10 percent of domestic automakers' health-care costs for retired workers through 2017 if the firms plow half the savings into equipment for making more efficient cars and trucks. Obama's campaign estimates that this would cost taxpayers roughly $7 billion over the next 10 years.

In addition, Obama proposed tax incentives for retooling auto assembly plants and the extension of tax credits for hybrid vehicles beyond the current 60,000-cars-per-manufacturer limit. His campaign put the 10-year cost of his plan at $20 billion and said it would be covered by auctioning greenhouse gas permits under a cap-and-trade program that Obama also supports.

Let's hear it for taxpayer subsidies! Greg Mankiw was scathing; the NY Times was laudatory, and barely mentioned the carrot part of the Obama speech. However, they included this:

Despite Mr. Obama's sometimes harsh words Monday, the diverse audience interrupted him 10 times for applause. "I think it took a lot of courage to come to Detroit and lay it on the line," said Peter Eckstein, a retired labor union economist from Ann Arbor, Mich.

He's a hero! And I know it's true because I read it in the Times.

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Socialism as the cure for terrorism?

The tired old Leftist idea that "poverty" is the cause of everything bad. A pity that Bin Laden is a billionaire!

David Brooks must have noticed, as I did, Barack Obama's bizarre statement on the Lebanon crisis. So he called Obama on the phone to find out if he really meant what he said:

I asked him what he meant with all this emphasis on electoral and patronage reform. He said the U.S. should help the Lebanese government deliver better services to the Shiites "to peel support away from Hezbollah" and encourage the local populace to "view them as an oppressive force." The U.S. should "find a mechanism whereby the disaffected have an effective outlet for their grievances, which assures them they are getting social services."

The U.S. needs a foreign policy that "looks at the root causes of problems and dangers." Obama compared Hezbollah to Hamas. Both need to be compelled to understand that "they're going down a blind alley with violence that weakens their legitimate claims."

Brooks might not have noticed, but Obama just doubled-down on the message of his initial Lebanon statement. Samantha Power may no longer be with the campaign, but Obama articulated precisely her prescription for combating Islamic supremacist groups, who, in the Obama/Power worldview, rise to power and retain political saliency because they seek to address the legitimate grievances of a "disaffected" (Obama's word) people.

There are several assumptions at work here: that Hezbollah is popular among the Lebanese Shia because of its provision of material benefits, like medical clinics, instead of a compelling ideological message; that Hezbollah will peacefully acquiesce to western social-services projects in Lebanon; that the Shia will be inspired by promises to improve their standard of living, rather than Hezbollah's promise of religious glory and political dominance; that Hezbollah is a manifestation of domestic Lebanese conditions, and can thus be addressed by solving domestic Lebanese problems. None of these premises comes close to being true.

Obama's mention of Hamas was appropriate, but not in the way he thinks it was. Hamas slaughters Israelis on behalf of the "legitimate claims" and "grievances" of a group of people whose plight has rarely in history been more thoroughly salved with social services. The West Bank and Gaza are awash in UN- and EU-funded schools, medical clinics, and sinecure jobs programs. Even the trash in the West Bank is collected by large white garbage trucks with the letters "UN" stenciled on the sides. If social services "peel support away" from groups like Hezbollah, as Obama insists, why has Islamic radicalism become more and more popular in the Palestinian territories precisely while outside social services have gotten ever more expansive?

Make no mistake: Obama is not backing down from his promise of a dignity-promotion foreign policy. In its first act, he will insist on recognizing the legitimacy of the "grievances" of Iran's proxy terrorist groups, Hamas and Hezbollah. The message is clear: terrorism and savagery will win an audience with the American president. Please pardon me for calling this appeasement.

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More 'Chicago Way' Politics from Obama

ABC News, the only news outlet among the Big 3 of the old network news shows doing commendable work covering Barack Obama, has a report that Barack Obama boasted about steering large amounts of state money to African-American owned investment firms in Chicago. He neglected to mention that the head of one of these firms has been a key fundraiser for him over the years, that the firm's employees have given quite generously to his campaigns, and has allowed him to use company-owned jets (hasn't the New York Times attacked John McCain for using his wife's company's private jet?).

Obama claimed that the investment firms had excellent investment performances that justified the steering of funds to them. Well, time for a fact-check (Washington Post-time to step up to the plate). In fact, the major beneficiary of Barack Obama's efforts has been the Ariel Fund headed by John Rogers, whose mother is a power broker in Chicago and Illinois politics. The fund's investment performance among its various offerings have been sorrowful for years. The flagship fund-the Ariel Fund (ARGFX)-has a record of underperforming its peers and the market for years.

Morningstar, the premier mutual fund advisory firm, rates its return as being "Below Average". That is an understatement. Yet John Rogers and the firms employees have done quite well over the years regardless of how their investors have fared. He seems to have inherited his mother's power broker status, with a close friend headed towards the Democratic Presidential nomination. Family dynasties are a tradition in Chicago.

The company relies on investments from city and state government and union pension funds who are under a mandate (whether official or not) to boost investments and deals with minority-owned firms. Who suffers? Pensioners, government employees and urban residents. Ironically, a large number of them are African-Americans. To enrich a few lucky and well-connected African-Americans, many others suffer subpar (to say the least) returns on their retirement savings.

As our population ages, the future viability of Social Security and Medicare has come into question. Remedies have been proposed and suffered from endless rounds of political flak. How will Barack Obama fare when he is in the Oval Office, backed by a Congress that will likely be more solidly Democratic and more likely to support his policies. What will those policies be? Will any privatization proposals introduced by him fare better than those of George Bush? Who will be the beneficiaries?

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A Single Chicken Wing in Every Pot

Obama in Oregon yesterday:

Pitching his message to Oregon's environmentally-conscious voters, Obama called on the United States to "lead by example" on global warming, and develop new technologies at home which could be exported to developing countries. "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," Obama said.

First Michelle Obama threatens to take away our pie, and now her husband demands that we eat smaller portions. Can the American people subsist on a diet of extra spicy hope and saut‚ed change? Yes we can!

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(For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Obama looks to seal deal over Hillary

Heading into the Democrats' latest round of primary voting, Barack Obama is bidding to seal the deal against Hillary Clinton and unite the party for its larger battle to come against John McCain. Senator Obama campaigned in the north-western state of Oregon today while the former first lady was set for a rally in Kentucky ahead of the two states' nominating contests on Wednesday, when the Illinois senator could clinch a majority of elected delegates. Senator Obama was not planning to spend the election night in either state, heading instead to Iowa - the scene of his triumph in the very first Democratic faceoff in early January -- before a trip later in the week to Florida.

According to one report, fundraisers for Senators Obama and Clinton are tentatively joining forces to adopt a general-election footing against Senator McCain, the presumed Republican nominee. The Washington Post quoted Mark Aronchick, a Philadelphia lawyer and top fundraiser for Senator Clinton, as saying her supporters recognised the need to start preparing for November's presidential vote. "Only if we do this right, and see this through in the right way, will there be a chance for a full, rapid and largely complete unification of the party," Mr Aronchick said, while insisting he was not giving up on Senator Clinton's bid.

Senator Obama's campaign said he needs just 17 more pledged delegates - won through state contests - to reach a majority of 1627, not counting "superdelegates," party leaders who can vote for the nominee of their choice. Including superdelegates, the winning line to clinch the Democratic nomination is 2025. According to RealClearPolitics.com, Senator Obama has 1897 delegates in total to Senator Clinton's 1717. Polls show Senator Obama leading in Oregon, where 52 delegates are up for grabs, while Senator Clinton is ahead in Kentucky, a state with 51 delegates that has a similar demographic to West Virginia, where she won by a landslide last week.

At a fundraiser in Portland last night, Senator Obama predicted victory in Oregon and said he believed the delegates from the win would "put us over the top". "We will be able to say we have won a majority," he said. "But we have a lot of work to do ahead of us."

Roy Romer, a former governor of Colorado and ex-chairman of the Democratic National Committee who is now backing Senator Obama, said the Illinois senator's delegate lead "can't be overcome". "And the primaries that are left are going to divide about equally. So this race is over, and Obama is going to be the candidate," he said overnight on CBS television.

Senator Clinton, however, is vowing to battle on until the end of the primary season. After Wednesday, there will be just three Democratic contests left - Puerto Rico on June 1, and Montana and South Dakota on June 3. "There is no standard under which Senator Obama will have secured the nomination on Tuesday night (local time)," Senator Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson, said.

The Obama and McCain campaigns meanwhile pursued a war of words after President George W. Bush, in a speech last week to the Israeli parliament, implied the Democrats wanted to appease terrorists. A furious Senator Obama took the remark as an attack on his stated intention to talk to US foes such as Iran and Syria. "That kind of leadership, I think, is what people are looking for," Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd said on Fox News Sunday, pointing to US engagement during the Cold War with the Soviet Union and Mao Zedong's China.

But Republican Jon Kyl, Senator McCain's fellow senator from Arizona, said no US presidents had parlayed face to face with "state sponsors of terrorism", citing Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Senator McCain took time out from the heated exchanges to poke fun at himself on the US comedy show, Saturday Night Live. "I ask you, what should we be looking for in our next president? Certainly, someone who is very, very, very old," he joked. At 72 next January, the Republican would be the oldest president sworn in to a first term.

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Obama strikes back



It took a town hall meeting in Watertown, South Dakota, but, after days of sniping, Senator Barack Obama has fired back at President George Bush and Republican presidential candidate John McCain. The senator and Democratic frontrunner said failed Republican policies had made the United States less secure, and he welcomed a general election showdown on foreign policy.

"If George Bush and John McCain want to have a debate about protecting the United States of America, that is a debate that I am happy to have any time, any place, and that is a debate that I will win, because George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for," he said, noting the Iraq War was in its sixth year, Osama bin Laden was still at large, al-Qaeda was stronger than ever, Iran was emboldened and Hamas was in control of Gaza.

The Democratic frontrunner for president was responding to remarks Mr Bush made to the Israeli Parliament on Thursday that compared talks with rogue regimes to the appeasement of Adolf Hitler before World War II. While the White House officially denied the remarks were aimed at Senator Obama, the Democratic candidate took them as a direct criticism of his pledge to use diplomacy to improve ties with unfriendly regimes - and as a direct challenge on national security, the issue Republicans have ridden to the White House in the past two elections.

"After almost eight years, I did not think I could be surprised by anything that George Bush says, but I was wrong," Senator Obama said. He said that instead of celebrating the 60th anniversary of Israel's founding, the President had flouted tradition and launched a political assault before a foreign audience. "That's exactly the kind of appalling attack that has divided our country and that alienates us from the world, and that's why we need change in Washington," Senator Obama said. "They are trying to fool you and trying to scare you. They're not telling you the truth, and the reason is they can't win a foreign policy debate on the merits, but it's not going to work."

Senator McCain, who used the row over Mr Bush's speech to argue again that Senator Obama was inexperienced in the ways of the world, did not back down at all, saying that no issue was more important than national security. The senator said he would not add to the prestige of dictators by meeting people such as Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"It is reckless to suggest that unconditional meetings will advance our interests," Senator McCain told the National Rifle Association in Kentucky. "It would be a wonderful thing if we lived in a world where we don't have enemies, but that is not the world we live in, and until Senator Obama understands that reality, the American people have every reason to doubt whether he has the strength, judgment, and determination to keep us safe."

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The party of appeasement

At Real Clear Politics and Hot Air, Ed Morrissey points out Rookie mistakes again: Obama owns appeasement

No one in the US who runs for public office has suggested that the US break with Israel to appease terrorists. Obama certainly hasn't suggested that, and perhaps apart from the really lunatic fringes of both Left and Right, that notion doesnƒ_Tt get any oxygen at all here. Obviously, Bush wasn't referring to American politicians in this passage, but instead politicians in Europe and elsewhere who have either an animus towards Israel or appreciation for dhimmitude. Nothing - and I mean nothing - in this speech points to any candidate or the Democratic Party, unless they identify themselves as the reference.

Let's see why: The Democrat party has a long history of appeasement. You can look back to Jimmy Carter's entire administration, Madeline Albright's meetings with Arafat and Kim Jong-il, and many other instances. Let's not forget Nancy Pelosi's Hermes tour of Damascus. More recently, Jimmy Carter's "give Hamas a chance" tour and Bill Richardson's heartwarming handshake of Chavez continue to show you that the Dems can't stop loving the murderous thug-du-jour. As the Wall Street Journal said,

When the party's top four Democrats come roaring out of the blocks in unison, something has hit a nerve.

In this particular instance of Pres. Bush's speech, however, Marc Armbinder reports that President Bush was referring to Carter's Hamas junket when talking about appeasement. Noel Sheppard posted the entire transcript of Pres. Bush's speech. Obama took it personally. Thin skin doesn't wear well on presidential candidates.

But the important thing here is that Obama himself has declared that he would hold unconditional face-to-face talks with Iran and that Hamas and Hezbollah have legitimate grievances (h/t Pamela); and that now he's saying that he's under "a false political attack" and that discussing his foreign policy is "dishonest and divisive"

"I'm a strong believer in civility and I'm a strong believer in a bipartisan foreign policy, but that cause is not served with dishonest, divisive attacks of the sort that we've seen out of George Bush and John McCain over the last couple days,"

Absolutely not: Discussing where any Presidential candidate stands on foreign policy is an essential issue of a campaign, as it has world-wide repercussions. The Obama campaign doesn't want people to discuss why Hamas is Betsy asks,

Why isn't it a legitimate question to ponder why Hamas supports Obama?

After all, Hamas is phone banking for Obama: Indeed, we should be asking why do the Palestinians like Obama so much. Ed says that the Obama campaign's made a rookie mistake in taking offense at "appeasement" charges. Or you can say that the Obamanians have identified themselves with appeasement to the point that when the word is mentioned, they hear their names called.

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CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER ON OBAMAPPEASEMENT

Obama and his defenders here are really a piece of work. Remember how all this started - we saw it earlier in the show in the clip in which he answered the question in that debate, would you speak with these thugs who run Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, et cetera. He said yes, and then he immediately said that he was saying this because it is, quote, "a central diplomatic principle of this administration not to talk to them," and that, he then said, is ridiculous and disgraceful. That was in his answer.

He has repeated that in one form or another at least 20 times over the course of this campaign. So he makes it an issue of an attack on the Bush administration and its diplomacy, and if the president defends himself and defends the policy of not speaking with these thugs, all of a sudden it's illegitimate, disgraceful, and unworthy of the president.

Of course he should defend himself on this, and of course he should include Obama with Jimmy Carter, who spoke with Hamas, and with Pelosi, who went cap in hand to Damascus and spoke with Assad.

And the question John McCain asks is a good one - what exactly is he going to say to these thugs that has not already been said? If he doesn't have anything new to say, then a trip to Iran or a negotiation with Ahmadinejad is an exercise in redundancy, and in honoring him. And if he has new stuff to say, what is it going to be? It's not going to be more sticks. He is not going to be tougher on Iran than Bush and Cheney. It's going to be carrots.

So let's ask Obama - are you going to offer Iran Lebanon? Are you going to offer sway over Iraq? Are you going to offer it domination of the Gulf? Or are you are going to offer it America squeezing Israel? So it is about appeasement, and Israel is a place in which he wants to make that statement.

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Bush 'hit the nail on the head yesterday in Jerusalem. And today, the nails started to complain'

That succinct and so apt quote from former Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton who sadly is likely to have no place in a McCain administration. But nailing the leftist whiners is apparently the meme, thank God, and Steve Schippert is playing hammer:

"Tough Diplomacy" is little more than a 2008 re-branding of 2007's Diplomatic Offensiver. And it should be noted with both amusement and sobriety that those who hustle these soon-to-be-trademarked marketing phrases least embody the identities of either "tough" or anything resembling an "offensive" when it comes to American foreign policy.

So following the earlier observation that "[e]veryone seems to have their media-seeking knickers in a bind," and while there is no shortage of keen observations by many others, permit me to add just one more.

Isn't it astounding how the peddlers of today's 'Tough Diplomacy" and yesterday's Diplomatic Offensiver are so thin-skinned and race with alacrity to declare themselves directly offended by what was (at best) an indirect comment about an idea?

Diplomacy, and especially the imagined embodiment of "tough" diplomacy as is being sold, is a skins game. And one fundamental requirement - among many - is decidedly thick skin. For those who want what they envision as "tough" diplomacy or a Diplomatic Offensiver, are these the individuals you want guiding the process?

Not just no but hell no. And while we're on the subject of denying the place of "tough diplomacy", we need to go straight to Morgan Freeberg who does his own impression of a hammer:

This is a hot, controversial issue, with each side intent on convincing the other how correct they are. Why, then, do these mint-tea-and-crumpet talkers never seem to furnish me with any details that would inspire me to see the correctness of their point of view? What's going on in these "talks"? All I see is a bunch of compromises from the reasonable people, while the unreasonable people just do whatever they want. If the unreasonable people do make compromises, they just violate them later. Just like the extended-family visit-trip plans.

Another thing I see is that when these "talks" result in an agreement, somewhere down the road it turns into a big ol' crap-fest. Yes, the mint-tea-and-crumpet talkers have their moment in the sun. They get to prance off planes with signed papers in hand that they can brandish before the cameras, and say like little kids, "Lookee What I Did!" just like Neville Chamberlin himself. But without exception, it seems the longer a "talk" takes to turn into a crap-fest, the bigger the crap-fest it becomes.

Bang. Bang. Bang. A most sweet sound.

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Don't Know Much About History

Barack Obama continued to display his surprisingly flimsy grasp of American history yesterday. "This whole notion of not talking to people," began the longtime community organizer. "It didn't hold in the '60s, it didn't hold in the '70s ... When Kennedy met with (Soviet leader Nikita) Khrushchev, we were on the brink of nuclear war."

There's only one problem with this analysis - Khrushchev and Kennedy met in the first months of Kennedy's term. The Cuban Missile Crisis didn't happen until 16 months later. Furthermore, if we really want to dig into the history, many historians believe that the Vienna Summit between the two leaders did much to trigger the Cuban Missile Crisis. Khrushchev, relying on the Bay of Pigs fiasco and what he later saw at Vienna, determined that his American counterpart was a weak sister who could be bullied.

Since Obama obviously knows nothing about the Vienna Summit, he surely doesn't know that in some circles it's viewed as a cautionary tale regarding the inherent risks of diplomacy with malevolent regimes (or "talking to people" as Obama prefers to think of such activities). Besides, Kennedy at Vienna was quite frankly a much tougher and more hard-headed leader than one can imagine Obama being. At one point, Kennedy responded to Khrushchev's blustering by declaring, "Then, Mr. Chairman, there will be a war. It will be a cold, long winter."

More on point, what are we to make of Obama's ignorance regarding relevant historical events? Mind you, these are historical events that he chooses to talk about. I realize the senator is the victim of an Ivy League education, but he's had decades to repair that damage.

Truth be told, in yesterday's comments, Obama showed trademark characteristics of a callow, young Ivy League grad - he thinks he knows more than he does, and has the audacity to lecture others when he doesn't know what he's talking about. Obama seems perversely intent on transporting an old adage regarding Harvard over to the Crimson's law school: "You can always tell a Harvard man, but you can't tell him much." A few exit questions for you to mull:

1) Seriously, Obama's a bright guy - how is it possible that he doesn't know such basic facts of American history?

2) Is there any chance Obama really isn't so ignorant but instead misrepresents historical events to better suit his political arguments? (I doubt it, but I figured I'd put it out there.)

3) Every time Obama opens his mouth, there's a chance he'll let loose a whopper like yesterday's. Will Obama say something so foolish before this campaign's end that it will dwarf all previous political blunders?

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Obama Repeats Jamie Rubin's Lie On McCain

Jamie Rubin wrote a dishonest report in the Washington Post yesterday claiming that Senator John McCain holds the same position as Barack Obama on appeasing terror-sponsoring regimes and terror organizations such as Hamas.

But, later yesterday it was discovered that although Jamie Rubin was the one to interview McCain two years ago-- He had cherry-picked clips from the interview with McCain in his article. Here is what John McCain actually said:

"I think the United States should take a step back, see what they do when they form their government, see what their policies are, and see the ways that we can engage with them, and if there aren't any, there may be a hiatus."

Of course, this is very different from what Rubin reported and from Barack Obama's pledge on his website to meet with terror regimes without preconditions.

But, that did not stop Jamie Rubin and Barack Obama from repeating the lie on McCain today. Geraldo Rivera had Jamie Rubin on his show on FOX News on Saturday: Here is what Obama said today:

Barack Obama: The irony is yesterday just as John McCain was making these attacks a story broke that he was actually guilty of the exact same thing that he's accusing me of.

That, of course, is not true. It looks like Obama is just another cheap politician trying to bring John McCain down to his level. If he was not so ashamed of his positions he probably wouldn't have to resort to this dishonest tactic. Sad.

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(For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Obama the appeaser

President Bush, marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel, reminded the Knesset yesterday that the appeasement of evil is the route to catastrophe.

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," he said. "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is - which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

How could anyone with even a Classic Comics understanding of history quarrel with that? Who could doubt that negotiating with terrorists is an exercise for fools? Who doubts that we've heard delusional appeasement talk all through history? Who would quarrel with the proposition that "the comfort of appeasement" has been repeatedly discredited by history? Where better to say this than to those who live with the risks and perils of appeasement of Islamist thugs in the Middle East?

Well, a lot of prominent Democrats, beginning with Barack Obama, that's who. The orator prince of the South Side of Chicago was reduced to splutter and slash. "It is sad ... this false political attack ... it's time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally in Israel."

Then he repeated the naive musings of inexperience that could be taken for appeasement talk, prescribing "tough, principled and direct diplomacy to pressure countries like Iran and Syria." Nancy Pelosi, the dowager queen of San Francisco Democrats, said the president's remarks were "beneath the dignity of the office" and Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the Clinton utility man, asked whether "this president has no shame." Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, ever eager to steal the cliches of others, couldn't decide whether to affect the voice of the barnyard or reflect the twitter of the ladies' tea room: The president's remarks were "[the effluvia of a bull]" or "malarkey."

A White House aide noted that the president had sounded similar warnings before, and if the president's hysterical critics wanted to identify the appeasers, they could look to Jimmy Carter and his passionate embrace of Syrians and Palestinian terrorists on his merry prankster appeasement tour of the Middle East, just now concluded. Mzz Pelosi demanded that John McCain disavow the president, presumably in the way that she and other prominent Democrats did not disavow the peanut farmer from Plains.

"The American senator" in the president's citation, who imagined that he could have led Hitler to the Lord with a few well-chosen words in 1939, was William E. Borah of Idaho, an isolationist Republican of the early 20th century, a ladies' man of Clintonian appetite and an orator with Barack Obama's reputation for spinning smooth appeasement talk. Sen. Borah, like Sen. Obama, thought his golden tongue would resolve all arguments in his favor, and, like Bill Clinton, imagined that his sexual prowess was irresistible. Sometimes it was. He left a small-town law practice in Kansas early in the century when he got a young woman "in the family way" and her male relatives suggested that he leave town on the next train. He departed for distant Idaho. Once elected to the U.S. Senate, he cut a wide swath of notoriety in Washington, where he conducted a long affair with Alice Roosevelt Longworth, whom delighted capital gossips called "Aurora Borah Alice." You might think Sen. Obama, Mzz Pelosi, Mr. Emanuel and Joe Biden would be flattered that the president cited someone of skills and appetites so familiar to them.

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Telepathy or a guilty conscience?

The fact that Obama saw himself in what GWB said tells us all we want to know, I think

Barack Obama, today:

"He accused me and other Democrats of wanting to negotiate with terrorists, and said we were appeasers no different from people who appeased Adolf Hitler," said Obama. "That is what George Bush said in front of the Israeli parliament. Now that is exactly the kind of appalling attack that has divided our country and alienates us from the world. And that is why we need change in Washington, that is part of the reason I am running for president of the United States of America."

Let's go back and review the section of Bush's speech that triggered this apoplectic response:

That is why the founding charter of Hamas calls for the "elimination" of Israel. That is why the followers of Hezbollah chant "Death to Israel, Death to America!" That is why Osama bin Laden teaches that "the killing of Jews and Americans is one of the biggest duties." And that is why the president of Iran dreams of returning the Middle East to the Middle Ages and calls for Israel to be wiped off the map.

There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in these men and try to explain their words away. This is natural. But it is deadly wrong. As witnesses to evil in the past, we carry a solemn responsibility to take these words seriously. Jews and Americans have seen the consequences of disregarding the words of leaders who espouse hatred. And that is a mistake the world must not repeat in the 21st century.

Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is - the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

Some people suggest that if the United States would just break ties with Israel, all our problems in the Middle East would go away. This is a tired argument that buys into the propaganda of our enemies, and America rejects it utterly. Israel's population may be just over 7 million. But when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million strong, because America stands with you.

The whole prepared text can be found here.

That first sentence of Obama's response is flat out false. Bush offered no such accusation of Obama and other Democrats, unless they are using mental telepathy to identify those Bush refers to as "some."

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Can Somebody Explain to Me ...

... how Obama sat in Wright's church for 20 years and managed never to hear anything, but hears 20 seconds of a Bush speech that doesn't mention him and perceives a shameful personal attack?

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Obama Proves Bush Right-- Talks About "Legitimate Claims" of Hamas & Hezbollah

Well that took about 24 hours... President George W. Bush on Appeasement, May 15, 2008--

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before.

Barack Obama on Appeasement, May 16, 2008--

"The U.S. should find a mechanism whereby the disaffected have an effective outlet for their grievances, which assures them they are getting social services... The U.S. needs a foreign policy that looks at the root causes of problems and dangers. (Obama compared Hezbollah to Hamas.) Both need to be compelled to understand that they're going down a blind alley with violence that weakens their legitimate claims(?)... If they decide to shift, we're going to recognize that. That's an evolution that should be recognized."

Ok... "legitimate claims?" Did Obama really say that? What kind of legitimate claims is Obama talking about?

-- The right to Jerusalem?

-- The right to never recognize the raping enemy?

-- The right to burn the Zionists?

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OK, So What Are The "Legitimate Claims" Of Hezbollah And Hamas?

David Brooks chatted with Barack Obama on Hezbollah and Hamas, with eyebrow-raising results:

The U.S. needs a foreign policy that "looks at the root causes of problems and dangers." Obama compared Hezbollah to Hamas. Both need to be compelled to understand that "they're going down a blind alley with violence that weakens their legitimate claims."

He knows these movements aren't going away anytime soon ("Those missiles aren't going to dissolve"), but "if they decide to shift, we're going to recognize that. That's an evolution that should be recognized."

As a former community organizer himself I suppose Obama might admire the efficacy of the Hamas and Hezbollah street level operations. But what "legitimate claims" does he have in mind? Beats me. The Confederate Yankee and Noah Pollak of Commentary are also concerned.

But I have a Bold Suggestion - since Obama is backing away from his "I'll meet with any rogue fool without preconditions" pledge anyway, why doesn't he announce one pre-condition - any bad boy dictators or lunatics who want to meet with Obama must load onto YouTube a video of themselves singing a chorus of Kumbaya. That should be reassuring.

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OBAMA MEETS WITH HEZBO TIED IMAM

Yes, Obama will spin this the way he is spinning his desire to meet directly with annihilationist Ahmadinejad.