A Critical Stage in Iraq

Iran is waging an aggressive covert-action campaign to derail the agreement, U.S. officials say. The new commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, highlighted Tehran's push last week when he said Iranian operatives had been seeking to bribe Iraqi members of parliament to reject the pact when it comes up for a vote.

The Iranians obviously want to limit U.S. influence in the new Iraq by defeating the status-of-forces agreement and in the process hand America a strategic defeat. But some top U.S. officials think the Iranians have a more fundamental goal in pushing U.S. forces out before the Iraqis are ready to take over -- namely, bringing a final, decisive resolution to the Iraq-Iran war that ended in a 1988 truce. "Now, 20 years later, they have an opportunity to win that war," the official argued. [snip]

A final complicating factor in the deadlock is the expectation among many Iraqi politicians that Barack Obama will be elected president on Nov. 4, and that they'll be able to get a better deal from him. If Obama does indeed win, he could make an early show of leadership by telling Baghdad not to expect any sweetheart concessions -- and make clear that he backs the agreement Crocker is working so hard to pin down...

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Dangerously unfit to be president

I have followed American politics closely since I was a child in the 1940s. No election of my lifetime has left me as apprehensive as the current one. There are compelling reasons why Barack Obama is dangerously unfit to be president of the United States. [snip]

Obama appears blind to the dangers posed by rogue states and international terrorism. Most criticism of him has concentrated on his inexperience, which can be overcome with time. Unfortunately, his naivete, vacillation and aversion to logical analysis cannot.[snip]

Obama promises billions of dollars worth of new "entitlements," accompanied by a stifling regulatory bureaucracy. His claim that he wants to help the middle class is in fact a plan to tax it out of existence and transform all but a small political elite into wards of a state on the east European model. There has been no case in history of state socialism stimulating growth anywhere in the economically developed world.

After six years of strong growth, the economy is now in a cyclical downturn, which has allowed Obama to get away with telling the most materially prosperous people in the history of humankind that they are living in misery. An Obama presidency would mean fewer jobs and less disposable income for most jobholders and retirees. [snip]

"We are the ones we have been waiting for!" Waving one's hands aloft and screaming "Yes we can!" is Obama's calculatedly emotional response to complex issues that require careful, thoughtful analysis. The record of history is a mournful litany of the horrors wrought by cynical demagogues whose sole message was themselves.

[serious business, serious article {short} - Highly Recommended > ]

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The Metastatic Gaffe

Obama cited Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman as presidents who met with enemies. Does he know no history? Neither Roosevelt nor Truman ever met with any of the leaders of the Axis powers. Obama must be referring to the pictures he's seen of Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta, and Truman and Stalin at Potsdam. Does he not know that at that time Stalin was a wartime ally?

During the subsequent Cold War, Truman never met with Stalin. Nor Mao. Nor Kim Il Sung. Truman was no fool.

Obama cites John Kennedy meeting Nikita Khrushchev as another example of what he wants to emulate. Really? That Vienna summit of a young, inexperienced, untested American president was disastrous, emboldening Khrushchev to push Kennedy on Berlin -- and then nearly fatally in Cuba, leading almost directly to the Cuban missile crisis. Is that the precedent Obama aspires to follow?

A meeting with Ahmadinejad would not just strengthen and vindicate him at home, it would instantly and powerfully ease the mullahs' isolation, inviting other world leaders to follow. And with that would come a flood of commercial contracts, oil deals, diplomatic agreements -- undermining the very sanctions and isolation that Obama says he would employ against Iran...

[Recommended > ]

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Biden: Obama Will be 'Tested' by World in First 6 Months of Administration

Speaking in Seattle on Sunday, Biden said he could guarantee that the world will want to find out if Obama is up to the job, which he assured voters he is.

"Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking,"

"Remember I said it standing here. if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy. And he's gonna have to make some really tough -- I don't know what the decision's gonna be, but I promise you it will occur. As a student of history and having served with seven presidents, I guarantee you it's gonna happen,"

The Delaware senator's remarks were the second of their kind over the weekend...

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The Fate of Jerusalem under a President Obama

Senator Obama's newest Middle East Advisor Daniel Kurtzer, of whom we have written about here has recently telegraphed that an Obama Administration will place the fate of Jerusalem as part of the peace process that a future Obama Administration will push. Kurtzer articulated these views in a very undiplomatic way-as a mandatory reuqirement for any peace talks to proceed.

"It will be impossible to make progress on serious peace talks without putting the future of Jerusalem on the table,"

Then Kurtzer continues to inform Israel ( a sovereign nation) that future Israeli governments "will have to deal with the issue of Jerusalem, as opposed to the current Israeli Administration which is not."

This is yet another sign that a future Administration plans quite a different approach towards our ally, Israel, than any previous Adminsitration-whether Democrat or Republican-ever has in recent history.

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Where’s next in Vladimir Putin’s sights?

When Barack Obama, the US presidential candidate, stood up to deliver his speech at the Democratic convention in Denver, he was never likely to dwell long on foreign policy before an audience concerned mostly about domestic economic problems.

Even so, he gave short shrift to the crisis in Georgia, a measure of America’s startlingly relaxed response to Russian aggression. In his 44-minute address, Obama devoted just two sentences to the Russian threat, with a bland promise of “tough, direct diplomacy . . . that can curb Russian aggression”.

The candidate’s swift dismissal of what may prove the next US president’s most difficult foreign policy challenge confirmed a curious effect of the Russian invasion of Georgia. Despite warnings from numerous US officials that Moscow’s actions represent a serious long-term threat to the West, neither the US media nor most of the American public have shown the remotest interest in the turmoil in the Caucasus.

Indeed there was a widely expressed belief that this was a crisis that Europe ought to be able to handle. But the prospects for an agreement among 27 countries on anything, let alone sanctions against Russia, are not good.

The key to their timidity is energy security...

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Energy Myths

[part 3]
Many in Congress seem either disconnected from reality or intentionally disingenuous about our energy crunch. They have well-honed negative responses to common-sense ideas about solving our energy crisis.

These responses are based on a number of widely held myths. Sadly, they've somehow [read: media] become the backbone of our energy 'policy'. They include:

• "Even if drilling works, it'll take a decade or more for the oil to flow."

This is quite an argument coming from a Party, which has made keeping oil off the market a linchpin of its energy policy for decades. Even so, the larger point is false anyway.

The impact on prices will be immediate. Why? Because markets would suddenly have to discount future oil prices for the expected gain in oil supply. That would cause oil prices, especially in futures markets, to drop.

By the way, this isn't just conjecture. President Reagan, within a week of his inaugural in 1981, removed domestic controls on oil. Energy prices began tumbling almost immediately, with oil falling from $34 a barrel in early 1981 to just $11 by 1986.

It worked before, and it'll work again.

[Recommended > ]

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Straining a Point

Obama released a national ad saying he has "fast-track alternatives" to imported oil. On closer examination, those turn out to be his proposal to spend $150 billion over the coming decade on energy research. Ten years doesn't sound all that "fast" to us, and there's no guarantee that the research will result in less oil being imported.
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Forced servitude in America?

In his speech on national service at the University of Colorado, Obama promised that as president he would

"set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year."

He would see that these goals are met by, among other things, attaching strings to federal education dollars.

If you don't make the kids report for duty, he's essentially telling schools and college kids, you'll lose money you can't afford to lose. In short, he'll make service compulsory by merely compelling schools to make it compulsory...

[this is a perennial distinction of liberalism v conservatism: doing right by choice v doing right by force]

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Barack Obama's Health Care Rx has Dangerous Side Effects

Barack Obama is claiming that John McCain wants to run health care like Republicans have been running Wall Street - implying that McCain would let greedy private companies take advantage of average Americans.

The ironic truth is this: Obama wants to run health care like Washington, and especially Democrats, have been running Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...

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Obama Suffers 'Blind Loyalty' to Economy-killing Policies

So argued on-air editor Charles Gasparino in an op-ed in the New York Post, where the CNBC talent mentioned that even Obama's Wall Street backers are nervously telling him to change course on his economic plans:

Obama's plan includes some of the most lethal tax increases imaginable, including a jump in the capital-gains rate. He'd expand government spending massively, with everything from new public-works projects to increases in foreign aid to a surge in Afghanistan - plus hand out a token $500 welfare check that he calls a tax cut to everyone else.

This is clearly the wrong way to go in the wake of an economic meltdown - yet Obama, for all his talk of how willing he is to compromise, of how he'd bring people together, is sticking to his tax guns.

I know at least one top Wall Street executive, an Obama supporter from the start of his campaign, who has recently urged Obama to rethink his tax plan - and that was before last week's record losses on the Dow.

Gasparino summarized Obama's blind loyalty as policies that bring together the worst elements of Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter." Last week Gasparino slammed the Obama tax plan, likening it to "throwing gasoline on the fire"...

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What’s Spanish For Hypocrite?

At a Georgia town hall meeting, Barack Obama found himself pontificating about American ignorance:(Snip)

". . .But understand this, instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English, they’ll learn English, you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish."

So to be clear: Americans must learn Spanish. Here’s the thing, though: Barack Obama, who holds several impressive first-tier degrees, does not speak Spanish...

[oh, but it would be good for us]

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MSNBC Teams Up With ACORN, La Raza

MSNBC has launched a news project with a variety of left-wing special interest groups to boost their Election Day coverage and help viewers experiencing problems at the polls. One of the groups involved in MSNBC's ''Election Protection'' project is the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now. (Snip) The National Council of La Raza, U.S. Pirg, NAACP, the Human Rights Campaign, the National Gay and Lesbian Law Association, ...

[objective reporting
at its best]

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Thomas says Constitution forbids racial preference

WASHINGTON (AP) - Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said Tuesday that African-Americans are better served by colorblind programs than affirmative action.

Thomas, addressing leaders of historically black colleges, said affirmative action

"has become this mantra and there almost has become this secular religiosity about it. I think it almost trumps thinking."

A longtime opponent of race-based preferences in hiring and school admissions, Thomas said,

"Just from a constitutional standpoint, I think we're going to run into problems if we say the Constitution says we can consider race sometimes."

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Graffiti wall is vandalised

A blank wall built for teenage graffiti artists has been vandalised by an angry resident writing – ''I paid my tax and all I got was this lousy wall''. The £3,000 6ft high by 30ft long wall was installed so youths could practice their graffiti artwork without using local property. But ahead of its opening on October 31 the fed-up resident sneaked behind a security fence and daubed a protest about the use of taxpayer’s money.

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