Category Archives: Political Commentary

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Only Now In Doubt?

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Obama’s reelection has been in doubt since his first election:

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: yes, Obama beat McCain in 2008. Which is to say, Obama beat a Republican candidate who was too tired to fight, too slow to realize that his signature issue (national security) was temporarily downgraded, and too inflexible to switch gears away from the campaign that McCain expected to run against Hillary Clinton; and Obama did this in the atmosphere of a sudden collapse in the economy, at the worst possible moment for the GOP. Congratulations. Huzzah. Feel the magic – but since then? Well, let’s just say that the magic had a very, very short half-life…

It never existed, for me. Many others have seen through the charade as well, now.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Tom Friedman’s Latest Book

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Andrew Ferguson reviews it:

The slovenliness of our language, George Orwell wrote, makes it easier to have foolish thoughts, and while Mr. Friedman’s language has been tidied up a bit, the thinking remains what it has always been. The authors call themselves “frustrated optimists.” Their frustration is owing to the depredations of the last decade, which they call (Mr. Mandelbaum nods) the Terrible Twos. But self-contradiction is also part of the Friedman brand. In many other passages, the authors specifically trace the American slide to the end of the Cold War—though still elsewhere they remark that the 1990s were “positive for America.” It doesn’t help their argument, such as it is, that the evidence of decline they cite—crumbling infrastructure, a failing public-education system—predates both 2001 and 1989 by a long stretch. Our potholes and schools have been favorites of declinists for generations.

If the authors’ frustration is unoriginal and ill-defined, their optimism is terrifying. America will rebound—we will become the us that we used to be again, you might say and Mr. Friedman does—when we regain our ability to do “big things” through “collective action.” Collective action is a phrase that means “the federal government.” Among the big things that we will do are rework American industry, through regulation and taxation, to drastically cut carbon emissions. Another one of our big things is a big increase in the gasoline tax. We will also impose on us a new big carbon tax. We will use revenues to create a “clean energy” industry with millions of “green jobs” like the ones that were eliminated earlier this month at Solyndra. Readers will wonder, like the early environmentalist Tonto, “What do you mean ‘we,’ kemo sabe?”

Go read the whole thing. You know you want to.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Official Explanation For Gun Walker

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…is entirely false:

This is no longer about a ‘sting operation gone bad’ but a deliberate, sinister attempt to manipulate gun statistics in Mexico for political gain.

Given the outcome of effective acts of war on a neighboring country without congressional approval, and many dozens of deaths, on both sides of the border, sounds like a “high crime and misdemeanor” to me.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here’s more.

[Another update a couple minutes later]

And more at Pajamas Media, uncovered-Obama-scandal central.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

Less Government

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…more jobs.

Speaking of which:

The Environmental Protection Agency has said new greenhouse gas regulations, as proposed, may be “absurd” in application and “impossible to administer” by its self-imposed 2016 deadline. But the agency is still asking for taxpayers to shoulder the burden of up to 230,000 new bureaucrats — at a cost of $21 billion — to attempt to implement the rules.

Gee, I can think of a way to save the taxpayers $21B. And millions of jobs.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

The Middle East

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Walter Russell Mead just got back, and has a report, apparently the first of more than one:

President Obama fell into a trap when he made a settlement freeze a precondition for talks. Secretly, both Israelis and Palestinian leaders are, I think, delighted that the US is now so tangled up in this demand that it has lost most of its influence over negotiations. The Palestinians are happier than the Israelis; it looks to world opinion as if it is Israeli intransigence on the settlement issue that is the chief obstacle to peace. But the Israeli government — while angry at Obama for making them look even worse than usual to much of the world — is also relieved that the settlement demand is so unpopular in Israel that Prime Minister Netanyahu pays no domestic political price for rejecting it.

This is what happens when one puts a naif in the White House because he gives pretty speeches, and has a nice crease in his pants.

[Update a while later]

Lest anyone think from the excerpt that I provided that it is all about bashing the current president and not bother to read it, I’ll add this as well:

Each of the last three US presidents made poor decisions that have made this tangle worse. President Clinton had good intentions and many accomplishments to his credit, but his final, foolhardy rush to peace in the closing months and days of his administration was perhaps the worst decision made by any US president on this issue since the controversy began. His goal should have been to shore up a faltering peace process rather than pushing it to a premature climax. The failure of his peacemaking effort was predictable and expensive, and the absence of a legitimate peace process has been a serious problem in the region ever since.

President George W. Bush inherited a bad situation and made it worse. On the one hand, he inflamed Arab and world opinion by a confrontational approach on a range of issues and serial failures in both the development and presentation of policy alienated friends and antagonized enemies. His record was not entirely bleak; he managed to nudge the Israelis back toward some kind of negotiating posture and his strengthening of Palestinian institutions and the promotion of a strong West Bank economic miracle helped to reduce tension. Nevertheless, the US agenda was in worse shape when he left office than when he first took the oath.

President Obama added his own contribution to the record of failed US initiatives. While I personally agree with him that an extendable settlement freeze would greatly simplify the task of getting a good peace negotiation going, in the real world to make that demand was to lose all initiative on the issue — and to miss the opportunity to get the Israelis to make less dramatic but quite useful concessions in its place. He has allowed Prime Minister Netanyahu to outmaneuver him diplomatically and in US politics more than once. The US president’s optimistic speeches about building bridges to the Muslim world fell hollow and flat after he linked that effort to progress on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute which his own errors placed out of reach.

Really, read the whole analysis. It’s long, but worth it.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Every Single One

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Pajama Media has been very lonely, but very diligent, in uncovering the massive politicization of the Justice Department in this administration. If it were a Republican administration that had packed the department with conservatives, rejecting all others, the New York Times would be caterwauling about it every day, and Pulitzers in the offing for the people who uncovered it. But for this? Not so much.