Marty Peretz takes issues with just about all his colleagues at TNR, declaring Van Jones to be unfit for office, since he was a Communist, “does not wish America well,” and is “a racialist.” What’s more, he points out, “Jones’ vulgar hatred of Israel is, alas, also a hatred of Jews.” And he reminds us of the rest of the “loonie bin” set drawn to Obama, including Bill Ayers, Rashid Khalidi, and Reverend Wright. My! Read the whole thing and send it to your friends.
John Bolton is pleased that Sen. Frank Lautenberg is calling for an investigation into the release of Libyan terrorist and Lockerbie bomber Abdel Bassett al-Megrahi. The question remains whether the Obama team dropped the diplomatic ball. “It is simply inconceivable that Britain and Scotland would free Megrahi if President Obama had clearly and forcefully articulated his opposition.”
As I suspected, cap-and-trade appears headed for the legislative graveyard: “Several U.S. Senate Democrats, including a top leader, on Wednesday questioned whether it would be possible to vote on a climate change bill this year, especially with healthcare reform eating up so much of the lawmakers’ time.” Wonder how all the freshmen House Democrats forced to vote for it feel about it now.
From AP on Obama’s health-care speech: “The president’s speech to Congress contained a variety of oversimplifications and omissions in laying out what he wants to do about health insurance.” It is quite devastating and echoes just about every point the president’s critics have been making.
James Capretta on the health-care speech: “It’s as if the president and his team haven’t read anything that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has said about the health-care bills under consideration. The truth is that these bills would add an additional runaway health-care entitlement to the ones already on the federal books. CBO has said that the House bill would set in motion new spending that would grow at about 8 percent rate per year, while the revenue to pay for it would increase only about 5 percent per year. You don’t have to be a financial genius to see a problem here.”
Mickey Kaus unspins Marc Ambinder’s spin. It’s embarrassing, really.
Maybe an Ivy League education isn’t what it used to be: “First, Yale censors Muhammad cartoons in a new book, then the Harvard Crimson runs an ad from a Holocaust denier, notes Gawker. ‘Can you provide, with proof, the name of one person killed in a gas chamber at Auschwitz?’ asks the ad from the ‘Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust.’ A letter from the Crimson president explained the following day that the ad was run in error due to ‘miscommunication’ and that the remaining ad run has been cancelled.”
And if you think that’s a jaw-dropper: “A local district court in the West German city of Bochum fined a student 300 Euro on Wednesday for displaying an Israel flag at a demonstration organized by Muslim organizations against the IDF Operation Cast Lead in January. According to Der Westen, a regional paper in Bochum, the public prosecutor termed the Israeli flag as ‘provoking’ within a special situation.”
Almost like he wants to win in a solidly Blue State, huh? “Amid widespread conservative criticism of President Obama’s address on Tuesday to school children, former Pennsylvania representative Pat Toomey (R) sung the president’s praises. ‘The President’s emphasis on responsibility and the personal stories about his own education are exactly the kind of inspiring messages our children need to hear from our country’s leaders,’ said Toomey. Toomey continues to smartly move to the ideological center in advance of next year’s Pennsylvania Senate race even as Sen. Arlen Specter (D) and Rep. Joe Sestak (D) continue to brace for a no-holds-barred primary fight.”
Michael Ledeen explains succinctly why we can’t have losses in the battlefield against an Islamic fundamentalist enemy: “Nothing is more devastating to a messianic movement than defeat on the ground.” His pitch to the “Muslim world”: “You’ve tried the radical versions of both Sunni and Shi’a. They declared war on us, and we defeated them. We defeated Sunni regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a Shi’ite regime in Iran, and Sunni and Shi’ite terrorists in Iraq. We defeated them primarily because the Muslim peoples of those countries did not like them. There is a better way. Abandon the doomed doctrines of the defeated forces, and join the victorious modern world.” He adds: “I still think that’s the message we want to deliver, and I think it would be a devastating blow to jihadism.”
Abigail Thernstrom makes the good point that the problem with Obama’s school speech is that it was a bore and a missed opportunity. Why not take on the anti-testing crowd that wants to mask the very real, persistent gap between white and minority achievement?
Wow—the taxpayers are unlikely to get their money back from the car bailouts. Who’d have thought?
Daniel Henninger: “To save himself and his party from enduring another health-care debacle, Barack Obama should put his agenda on the back burner, bend his efforts to raising the economy, and rebuild his political capital by taking credit for the inevitable rebound. That just might minimize the impending loss of House seats and allow him to revisit his wish list in 2011. The alternative is promising big, accomplishing little and getting credit for nothing. This could be America’s greatest failed presidency.”
I know you’re shocked that the Washington Post seems to be out to get Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell, now making it seem that McDonnell’s qualms about the reappointment of a judge was based on homophobia. Actually, it seemed to have been based on concern about a sexual-harassment claim and the judge’s poor performance rating.
And John McCormack with a scoop prints the news not fit for the Post: it turns out Creigh Deeds was not so enlightened on gay issues. But there won’t be a page-one story in the Post—on that I am certain.
