Whatever happened to “nuance”? “Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s unequivocal proclamation that all settlement activity must stop is an uncharacteristic display of rigidity from an administration that, on other issues, is sensitive to nuance and advocates for dialogue and accommodation. Expropriating private Palestinian land to build a new settlement is not the same as adding a bedroom for a new baby in an existing community. The administration’s absolutist position is a no-win proposition, leaving no room for negotiation.” Well, it does leave room for Obama to retreat and embarrass himself in the region, which is what George Mitchell is trying desperately to avoid and/or disguise.
And what do you know, but Bibi and the White House are at odds (still? again?) about settlement-building. So I suppose all those “on the verge of agreement on settlements” stories were just spin. It seems that publicly (and privately), hollering at Israel didn’t prove to be a winning strategy. Maybe next they will try some “smart” diplomacy.
Virginia gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell ribs his opponent Creigh Deeds: “His whole campaign over the last month has been based on former presidents, former governors, and a 20-year-old thesis. That’s his platform. . . . He pledged three weeks ago in the debate that he’d never been a guy to talk about social issues. And now, for the last three weeks, that’s all he wants to talk about. . . . If that’s what he wants to do, then I think that’s a winning formula for me.” Ouch.
With Van Jones’s background, how did he get through the FBI background check and White House vetting?
From Politico: “The fate of health care reform may top the political worries of Democrats at the moment, but the economy could prove the issue that really hurts the party in the 2010 midterm elections.” Hmm. Perhaps if job creation was the top worry for Democrats, they might be in better shape for 2010.
Hillary Clinton rules out free and fair elections in Honduras. Elliott Abrams observes: “The Obama administration’s weak-kneed support of human rights in places like Egypt and China being obvious, the policy in Honduras appears to reflect not so much enthusiasm for democracy as a ‘no enemies to the Left’ view of Latin America. One could laugh at the foolishness of this policy were it not for the six and half million Hondurans, fighting poverty, fighting Chavez and Zelaya and the effort to turn their political system into another Venezuela–and now, fighting Uncle Sam.” And this is the gang that bestows legitimacy on Ahmadinejad, mind you.
The Washington Post editors aren’t any better than Clinton — blithely asserting that the Honduran congress and supreme court’s removal of Zelaya was a “breach of democratic order.”
And while we are on the subject of embarrassing foreign policy performances, Jim Webb’s in Burma is worth noting.
With unemployment at 9.7 percent and the nonstimulus plan sitting on hundreds of billions of unspent dollars, the Wall Street Journal‘s editors suggest: “If the Administration really wants to fire up private job creation, how about taking the remaining $400 billion or more and using it to lower business taxes? The unspent stimulus is enough for a two-year down payment on repealing the U.S. corporate income tax, which studies show is a job and wage-increase killer.” And, they add, killing card check, ObamaCare, and cap-and-trade couldn’t hurt either.