Some New Year’s predictions from Victor Davis Hanson. He’s lot more optimistic than I am on the ability of this administration to correct course, or learn from mistakes.
He also takes Matthew Yglesias to school. Though that’s not hard — a typical eighth grader could do it.
…no thanks to the government, the plane was not destroyed, and we won’t get to the bottom of the larger conspiracy (enabling the likes of Napolitano to say there’s no indication of a larger plot — much less one launched by an international jihadist enterprise) because the guy got to lawyer up rather than be treated like a combatant and subjected to lengthy interrogation. But the terrorist will be convicted at trial (this “case” tees up like a slam-dunk), so the administration will put it in the books as a success … just like the Clinton folks did after the ’93 WTC bombers and the embassy bombers were convicted. In their minds, litigation success equals national security success.
Stooge Gibbs said today that the administration takes the war seriously, but you wouldn’t know it by their behavior. Attempting to blow up a civilian airliner while being Muslim is not a civilian crime — it is an act of war, by an illegal combatant.
[Update a few minutes later]
More thoughts from Victor Davis Hanson:
I think the year-long mantra of “Bush destroyed the Constitution” is now almost over, and we will begin again worrying about our collective safety rather than scoring partisan points by citing supposed excesses in our anti-terrorism efforts. With the delay in closing Guantanamo (from the promised shuttering on Jan. 20, 2010 to . . . sometime in 2011?), Obama’s quiet copy-catting of Bush security protocols (such as wiretaps, intercepts, tribunals, and renditions), and the popular outcry against the upcoming show trial of KSM in New York, a public consensus is growing that radical Muslims like Hasan and Mutallab will continue to attempt to kill Americans. Citizens increasingly understand that the last eight years of relative safety following 9/11 were due only to heightened security at home and proactive use of force abroad, that we should cease trying to appease radical Islam by dreaming up new euphemisms (“overseas contingency operations,” “man made disasters,” etc.), and that it is time to stop the apologetics and kowtowing, and grudgingly accept that thousands of radical Islamic fundamentalists worldwide want to kill Americans — and dozens of governments, at least on the sly, hope that they do. Such venom has nothing to do with past American behavior or George Bush’s strut, nor can it be ameliorated on the cheap by Barack Obama’s Nobel Prize, middle name, or reset-button diplomacy.
Even if he starts now, though, people will remember the naivety of the first year of office, and the left will remain angry at him that he’s acting just like the BusHitler. He’s in a no-win situation, politically. And I have no sympathy. He asked for the job, and lied his way into it.
I have some thoughts, over at PJM.
I don’t know why I have to do this, because there are people who get paid for it for a living in Washington, but apparently they’ve been asleep at the switch (at least if they’re Democrats, or maybe they just don’t give a damn). But I’ve been reading…(you know)… the Constitution. I’m assuming that it’s an accurate rendition, because it’s number one or two at Google (is that too broad an assumption?).
In Article 1, Section 8, it very clearly (to my innocent and unlawyerly mind) states:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.
Emphasis mine.
How in the world can Harry Reid’s deal with Ben Nelson possibly pass that test?
[Evening update]
Would they really have the audacity to claim that the provisions of this man-caused disaster are neither a “duty, impost, or excise”? That’s the only way that I can see them weaselling out.
Call it the “audacity of hope…
What kind of idiot puts themselves $125,000 in debt to get a theater degree?
Alfred said he owes more than $125,000 for his degrees in theater when he’s not even working in that field.
“I work at a call center, and I make $10 an hour,” he said. “It’s surreal. I feel like a loser.”
I continue to think that academia is the next big bubble waiting to pop.
[Mid-afternoon update]
Another reason to think that college degrees are a bubble waiting to pop: a goodly amount of the email spam I get is hawking them, with subjects like “Get the degree you need,” and “Nominate for the degree” (what in the world does that even mean? I’ve never heard of “nominating” for a degree). The latest one is “Get any degree you want.” If that doesn’t devalue the notion of a degree, I don’t know what does.
And change…
An interesting post. I’d be happy to make the distinction, but as Cliff May notes, the Islamists are eager to blur it, so that they can be viewed as the “vanguard of the proletariat,” so to speak. And yes, the Fort Hood shooter wasn’t just a Muslim, but an Islamist. And if he’s insane, then so are millions of others.
Some thoughts on petrodollar Jihad.
I haven’t had time to dissect the speech in real time, but I think that’s the headline, even with the attempted slams at the Bush administration. I could say a lot of other things, like his continuing speech quirk about Pahkeestahn, versus Afganistan (as in Laurel). The teleprompter apparently doesn’t do phonics…
But I think that’s the headline.
He seems to have finally learned that it’s a lot harder to govern than campaign.
[Update a few minute later]
Links to more thoughts. I’m sure I’ll have some as well, after seeing the transcript. That’s always the best way to evaluate The One’s speeches. And politicians’ in general, of course…
VDH has an interesting proposal to those protesting the anti-minaret vote in Switzerland:
In response to the Swiss model, Saudi Arabia or Gaza or Iran would in turn allow new Christian churches to be built to accommodate converts or immigrants, but would insist on no ostentatious spires. Who could object to such moral equivalence?
Who indeed?