The White House's condemnation of Israel's East Jerusalem construction - something that was explicitly allowed under the temporary freeze Clinton hailed as "unprecedented" - triggered brutally harsh language from the Vice President and an extended tirade by the Secretary of State. So given Obama's claim that the Palestinians were "condemned in the same way" for inciting riots, just because they were pissed off about Jews being Jewish in Jerusalem...

Obama insisted that despite the highly-public criticism of Israel by various U.S. officials, including Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the U.S. is being fair to both sides. "Yesterday, when there were riots by the Palestinians against a synagogue that had been reopened we condemned them in the same way because what we need right now is both sides to recognize that it is in their interests to move this peace process forward," Obama told Fox.

... you'd think that the US's stance was an unequivocal and pointed criticism of Palestinian behavior. Not so much it turns out:

Speaking to reporters Monday, U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said there were American concerns "about the tensions regarding the rededication of a synagogue in the Jewish quarter of the Old City. And we are urging all parties to act responsibly and do whatever is necessary to remain calm."

Since I've been hammering away at them on Twitter, it's only fair that I direct you to the NJDC's much-delayed explanation of how their pro-Israel candidate turned out to be such an anti-Israel hack. Apparently it's your fault. Pointing out that the Democratic President is undermining US-Israel ties "abandon[s] the bipartisan history of strengthening U.S.-Israel ties."

It's the "partisans" who are using "unconstructive rhetoric" who are at fault. If you would refrain from pointing out that Obama's detonating the US-Israel alliance then that would be just like Obama not detonating the US-Israel alliance.

Because the NJDC's pretend world is the same thing as the real world.

References:
* WaPo: "Biden Flunked" On Israel Trip, Needlessly Alienated Netanyahu [MR]
* Compare And Contrast: Israeli And Syrian "Insults" To Clinton [MR]
* President Obama on Israel: Friends can disagree [Politico]
* Palestinians riot to protest synagogue reopening [CNN]
* NJDC Calls on American Jews, Partisans to "Move Away From Inflammatory, Unconstructive Rhetoric" [NJDC]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Jewish Politics
* Israel
* Israeli-Arab Peace Process

We're a little over an hour away from this week's Omri Ceren Show, courtesy of One Jerusalem Radio. This week's episode - to which you can tune in live via either the main show page or the episode page - will revolve around Obama's ongoing diplomatic broadside against Israel. Since it's already paying dividends in the form of maximalist Palestinian demands backed by riotous Palestinian violence, we might as well discuss the overwhelming evidence that it was obviously premeditated and blisteringly hypocritical. That it will also set the peace process back by boxing in Abbas - again - is probably also worth mentioning. As always the decision-making process is as important as the decision, since apparently the people advising the President are either being ignored out of pique or being listened to out of ignorance.

On the TOCS technical/housekeeping side: I'm slowly getting caught up on remastering old episodes and working through old interviews. I've eliminated much of the choppiness from the first month of episodes, which you can now revisit here. The full 38 minute interview with Larry Greenfield, highlights of which aired last week, is now available on the One Jerusalem Audio page. Look out in the coming weeks for more reedited old episodes and more full versions of past interviews.

Anyway, today's official blurb:

Omri covers the Obama administration's diplomatic broadside against Israel. From Biden's initial "condemnation" over a minor mishap to Clinton's aggressive tirade against Netanyahu - to President Obama's personal orders to do both - the last week has brought the US-Israeli special relationship to the breaking point. Meanwhile anti-Israel partisans have unleashed a flurry of articles insisting that the US should scale back its support for Israel, some adopting almost classically antisemitic terms. Dan Diker calls in to provide an insider perspective on how the Israeli government is working to repair the crisis and minimize its damage.

All in all this hasn't been the best week the US-Israeli special relationship. But at least the crisis wasn't all totally predictable during the campaign!

References:
* Double Standards And Non-Standards [Omri Ceren Show]
* The Crisis [Halevi / TNR]
* Compare And Contrast: Israeli And Syrian "Insults" To Clinton [MR]
* Maybe Obama Deserved That Nobel Peace Prize After All [MR]
* Confirmed: US-Israeli Alliance Plummets Into "Historic Crisis," Obama Triggers Worst Relations Since Carter [MR]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* The Omri Ceren Show
* Jewish Politics
* Anti-Israel Diplomacy

Noah Pollak already wrote the measured and reasoned version of this post yesterday so pretty much all that's left for me is vitriol. It's worth emphasizing, then, the unblinking, unthinking hypocrisy that this administration hides behind when they get called out on their Allies Last Enemies First diplomacy. A verifiable mix-up...

It was self-evident that Netanyahu's "stupidity not malice" explanation for Ramat Shlomo was accurate. Just days earlier, he had moved effectively to shut down Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat's incendiary plan to demolish dozens of Arab homes in Silwan. And yet, acting doubtless on the orders of her president, she resorted to what the ADL - no hysterical critic of the Obama administration - termed "gross overreaction."

... constitutes a mortal "insult" to Secretary Clinton. But Assad and Ahmadinejad standing side by side and actually literally insulting her by name?

Which part of the new "positive, constructive U.S.-Syrian relationship" involves having the US Secretary of State getting publicly mocked by grinning totalitarian thugs? "President Bashar al-Assad and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad signed a bilateral deal to remove travel visas and attended a Muslim ceremony in the Syrian capital... "We must have understood Clinton wrong because of bad translation or our limited understanding, so we signed the agreement to cancel the visas," Assad said. "I find it strange that they (Americans) talk about Middle East stability and peace and the other beautiful principles and call for two countries to move away from each other," he added. Ahmadinejad told a joint news conference: "Clinton said we should maintain a distance. I say there is no distance between Iran and Syria." He added: "We have the same goals, same interests and same enemies.""

Suffice to say that our outreach to Syria continues apace.

Also apropos of this nonsense, you should check out the NY Sun editorial on Clinton's credibility as she heads into AIPAC. It turns out that the woman who smooched blood libeler Suha Arafat before becoming pro-Israel before becoming mildly anti-Israel before detonating the US-Israeli alliance - it turns out that she actually has a history of strong Arab financial connections. Strange, that.

For what its worth Shmuel Rosner thinks she'll get plenty of applause. Presumably he imagines that she'll mouth empty banalities - "Israel's security" etc etc - and that the crowd will pretend to believe her. I think he's wrong. I think she'll go in there talking about how Israel's future requires concessions - "difficult choices" etc etc - and that she'll be greeted by stony silence.

Then I think that anti-Israel journalists will muse sophisticatedly about how Obama had to rough up Israel because "Netanyahu's intransigence" was stymieing the President's vigorous appeasement of the Muslim world (my language, not theirs). In between they'll gloat about how the all-powerful Israel Lobby has been cut down, which after all is what Jesse Jackson promised Obama would do.

References and related after the jump...

Mere Rhetoric, April 10, 2008:

2010 will eventually roll around and newspapers will be publishing ledes like "some analysts suggest that the Obama White House is facing the most significant crisis in American-Israeli relations in decades." In a desperate attempt to absolve themselves of their own pretentious complicity in the international ostracism of the Jewish State, the 75 percent of American Jews who voted for Obama will join the rest of the left in scapegoating Israel.

Washington Post, March 13, 2010:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton rebuked Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Friday about the state of the U.S.-Israeli relationship, demanding that Israel take immediate steps to show it is interested in renewing efforts to achieve a Middle East peace agreement. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley described the nearly 45-minute phone conversation in unusually undiplomatic terms, signaling that the close allies are facing their deepest crisis in two decades after the embarrassment suffered by Vice President Biden this week when Israel announced during his visit that it plans to build 1,600 housing units in a disputed area of Jerusalem.

As for the "pro-Israel" Jewish groups who are, along with gleeful anti-Israel partisans and thuggish former Arafat advisers, piling on the Jewish State - this propaganda from the Israel Policy Forum landed in my inbox as a press release last week. It gushes about how the US is becoming an "honest and credible mediator," which is strange since Clinton first acknowledged that East Jerusalem construction would continue under the freeze and then claimed to be "insulted" when East Jerusalem construction continued under the freeze. Not very honest or credible! The press release also declared "to the Israelis, we can communicate that moving forward with this East Jerusalem construction at this time would be considered an affront to the United States." Which means that in addition to being moronic, these idiots are also imperious pricks.

JStreet, of course, is exactly where you'd expect them to be. The group pioneered using manufactured media stunts to damage Israel, so it'd be churlish of them not to lend a hand here. They shamelessly lied about being snubbed by politicians on a trip to Israel, used the fabricated incident to whip up anti-Israel sentiment and then set up a dedicated webpage to gloat about the results. After the damage had been done they admitted that the whole thing was a huge mix-up on their part. How's that for "expanding the notion of pro-Israel"?

By the way, this post and the last one really aren't meant to be "I told you so" posts. Exactly the opposite. Everyone knew that this was how things would play out. Obama was obviously going to detonate the US-Israeli alliance because his advisers believe that it's in the US's interest to detonate the US-Israeli alliance. Anti-Israel Jewish groups like the IPF and JStreet were obviously going to side with Israel's opponents because they always side with Israel's opponents.

It was equally obvious that ostensibly pro-Israel Democratic voters would slide from "Obama will be pro-Israel" to "it's Israel's fault that Obama is anti-Israel." What else were they going to do? Admit that they desperately latched onto the National Jewish Democratic Council's smears and lies as pretexts for voting Democratic? Acknowledge that they willfully deceived themselves on the basis of the dumbest arguments because they wanted to guilelessly vote how they always vote? If they had that kind of intellectual honesty they wouldn't be in this position.

References and related after the jump...

Mere Rhetoric, October 18, 2008:

Memo to ostensibly pro-Israel Obama supporters: circa 2010 there are going to be headlines about the "severe crisis in US-Israel relations." You're not going to be able to say that you didn't know.

Reuters, March 15, 2010:

Israeli envoy sees "historic crisis" with U.S.:report - Israel and the United States are in a "crisis of historic proportions" over a settlement dispute that has brought relations to a 35-year low, Israel's ambassador to Washington was quoted on Monday as saying.

The Washington Post writeup about Clinton's over the top condemnation also included the line "the close allies are facing their deepest crisis in two decades." But the headline wasn't as on point and elegant as with the Reuters story, so that's what you got.

The idea is nonetheless the same throughout. Netanyahu had announced a temporary construction freeze that excluded East Jerusalem. Clinton had described the freeze as an "unprecedented" concession. Then Israel announced new construction within that framework.

But sensing the opportunity to pick a public fight with Israel, Obama personally ordered Biden to "condemn" the Jewish State. Clinton followed up by insisting that the US had been "insulted." For their part the Palestinians tweaked their ever-expanding construction halt demands, setting up Israel to take the blame for failed proximity talks. All over a neighborhood that borders two other Jewish neighborhoods and that had never, ever been controversial before.

Coincidentally - and just in time - there are a flurry of articles being published with different reasons why the US-Israeli relationship should be abandoned. This morning's is from Mark Perry, who "reports" how Israelis are getting American boys and girls killed. His FP article fails to note his previous job as an Arafat adviser, though that detail did seem salient to Laura Rozen. Also seemingly salient: "There seems to be more in the ether in recent days suggesting a diverging of perceived U.S. and Israeli interests in the region." Yes, there do seem to be that.

The really obnoxious thing? We're supposed to pretend that this policy is a reluctant recourse by an otherwise pro-Israel administration. Or that journalists are slowly discovering and objectively describing the situation. Come on now.

References and related after the jump...

We're a couple hours away from today's episode of One Jerusalem Radio's Omri Ceren Show. With Mitchell and Biden on the ground the show is going to be extremely diplomacy-heavy, making allowances for the time needed to cover this-week-in-Iranian-warmongering. You can tune in live via the show page or the episode page starting at 6:30pm PST, and as always I'll have the chatroom and the phone lines open for questions and comments.

There are functionally two full interviews this week. Larry Greenfield, Claremont Institute Fellow and Executive Director of The Reagan Legacy Foundation, comes on as a special guest to talk about "Israel's Increasingly Dangerous Neighborhood," the enormous writeup he just completed on the recent Jerusalem Conference. Given his role in conservative and Jewish politics - the Obama campaign banned surrogates from debating him when he was head of the California RJC and then NJDC moron Aaron Kayek targeted him in one of the dumbest attacks I've ever read - that comes up too.

Today's Diker segment goes for almost 20 minutes, which is what you'd expect given that the show topic is diplomacy and he's among Israel's top diplomacy analysts. One of the money lines from the beginning of the conversation: "we haven't seen this type of sympathy by an American administration... really since Carter, and even the Carter administration was somewhat more measured in its approach." Cf. the rest of the Israeli political world, where that exact conclusion is on its way to becoming conventional wisdom. You'll want to stay till the end where he evaluates whether Obama will actually succeed in detonating the US-Israel alliance. Tough to say, tough to say.

Official show blurb:

Omri interviews Larry Greenfield, Claremont Institute Fellow and Executive Director of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. They discuss Greenfield's recent missile defense talk at the 7th Annual Jerusalem Conference, the political climate in Israel and within American Jewry, and the future of the US conservative movement. Dan Diker also joins the show, talking about Israel's recent public and state-to-state diplomacy in the context of the Iranian threat. In between Omri runs down the week's news on global terrorism, Middle East geopolitics, and the left's Big Government push in the United States.

I'm also in the process of going over all the old shows and reediting them to make them listenable (or at least to remove cracks and pops - any unlistenable content will, alas, stay the way it is). More on that in the next week or so. In the meantime, see you in a bit.

References:
* Jerusalem's Misgivings with Larry Greenfield [TOCS]
* Israel's Increasingly Dangerous Neighborhood [Larry Greenfield]
* Obama Campaign Demands Ban On Republican Jewish Group, Escalates Thuggish Intimidation [MR]
* NJDC Tool Aaron Keyak Helpfully Illustrates How Liberal Activists Sneeringly Cocoon Themselves In Asinine Arguments And Dishonest Smears [MR]
* Politics: Not afraid to speak her mind [JPost]
* Israeli Officials: Hey, Do You Think That Maybe Obama's Going To Detonate The US-Israel Relationship? [MR]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* The Omri Ceren Show
* Anti-Israel Diplomacy
* Jewish Politics

The concrete and significant Israeli moves on settlements have all been in the direction of unreciprocated concessions. When Netanyahu announced his temporary freeze it was hailed by Clinton as an "unprecedented." Since that praise naturally sent the Palestinians into fits the Obama administration promptly backtracked. It also totally failed to deliver on its promise of international support for the freeze, a nice additional bait-and-switch. Instead the UN condemned Israel for not going far enough.

All that left Netanyahu feeling that there's nothing he can do to avoid US and international disapprobation, which is not where you want someone when you're asking them to take "risks for peace." An Israeli Prime Minister contemplating territorial concessions needs to know that he can count on international security assurances should things go wrong. So one of Biden's two goals for his trip was to give Netanyahu some much-delayed recognition and support.

Then a couple of Israeli officials from the government's most junior coalition partner made a symbolic announcement about East Jerusalem construction. Netanyahu didn't know about it. Biden's response - nonetheless - was to humiliate the Israeli Prime Minister, keeping Netanyahu and his wife waiting 90 minutes into dinner and then issuing an unprecedented condemnation. Netanyahu found out about the statement during dinner.

That treatment precisely mirrors what happened on Netanyahu's November trip to DC, when Obama dragged him around the carpet before approving a Monday meeting. The White House kept the Israelis in limbo until the night before, continuously creating new and changing prerequisites. The next day Obama arrived late, highlighting the priority he places on the US-Israeli alliance. Netanyahu offered to make additional concessions to the Palestinians anyway. Obama's response was to emphasize that East Jerusalem is not Israeli and to link Palestinian terrorism to Israeli construction in Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood. That last part was so stupid that lefty Jeffrey Goldberg accused the President of inventing issues and excusing Palestinian violence.

So say what you will about Biden's ham-fisted diplomacy. In this rare instance he's merely following the party line. First the insult - language, per the WaPo, that is "rarely used in diplomatic terms when criticizing the behavior of close allies" - and now the fallout:

At one point he actually called the cops, begging for water. I'll have to remember that strategy the next time I'm at the downtown Los Angeles post office, where one of the women posts a sign every Christmas that reads "your lack of planning is not my problem." Job security is a wonderful thing:

A man of 22 died in agony of dehydration after three days in a leading teaching hospital. Kane Gorny was so desperate for a drink that he rang police to beg for their help. They arrived on the ward only to be told by doctors that everything was under control. The next day his mother Rita Cronin found him delirious and he died within hours. She said nurses had failed to give him vital drugs which controlled fluid levels in his body. 'He was totally dependent on the nurses to help him and they totally betrayed him.'... 'They were lazy, careless and hadn't bothered to check his charts and see his medication was essential.'

Well-meaning liberals especially love government agencies because they get to use them for social experimentation. Think Michael Moore fantasizing about converting GM facilities into green tech factories. Or think British multiculturalism mixed with medicine, which is going roughly how you'd expect:

The third victim of the foreign doctor who left two patients dead in one day spoke last night of her 'horrific' treatment at his hands. Sandra Banks, 59, was left in agony two hours after Daniel Ubani treated her for an inflammatory problem normally dealt with by a painkiller. But the Nigerian-born weekend locum - who had flown in from Germany and started work after only three hours' sleep - gave her a weak dose of a diuretic instead, which lowers blood pressure... There was a language problem and he didn't seem to understand what my condition was. 'When my partner passed him a note with details of my condition and the drugs I was usually given, he just glanced at it and put it aside.'

I guess there's also an argument to be made that the need to import foreign doctors in the first place - probably more of a factor here than multiculturalism - also weighs against socialized medicine. Socialized medicine being where this thing is going, as Obama has recently taken to subtly reminding House liberals.

What I'm most looking forward to are the inevitable cycles of scapegoating. "Your health care costs are so high because of the overweight and/or smoking and/or soda-drinking guy next door." First will come the taxes - and yes, of course soda taxes are moronic - and then will come the "well you brought this on yourself" rationing. It's going to be delightful. (h/t: Jerry L)

References:
* Neglected by 'lazy' nurses, man, 22, dying of thirst rang the police to beg for water [Daily Mail]
* My horrific ordeal at the hands of the awayday GP who left two patients dead [Daily Mail]
* Obama comforts House liberals: Don't worry, this bill is just the beginning of what we'll do with health care [Hot Air]
* Shh... Massachusetts Proves Mandate-Based Health Reform Will Be A Disaster [Mere Rhetoric]
* Have a Coke and a Tax [Reason]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Health Care
* American Politics
* Britain

No word on whether those contracts included replacements for the thousand or so computers they lost last year. Or the 235 night vision scopes they misplaced. Or the $116,349 international harvester truck they can't find. Maybe this is why they can't seem to muster the necessary resources to put even one percent of "known or suspected terrorists" on the no-fly list.

Your tax dollars at work:

Even when awarding contracts to companies without competitive bidding, federal agencies are supposed to follow certain rules and guidelines. But that has not been the case at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which gave out $3.4 billion in non-competitive contracts last year. The inspector general for DHS found that officials often failed to do sufficient research and document decisions when awarding these types of contracts. Consequently, DHS is at risk of wasting taxpayer dollars if work is given to businesses that aren't the most suitable.

Here's an article about how Napolitano ditched a hearing by the House Committee on Homeland Security, where she was scheduled to answer tough questions about the Christmas Day terrorist attack. PA Democrat Rep Chris Carney on the incident: "I am very dismayed that the secretary herself isn't here. I mean, it's probably fair to ask, 'Where the hell is Secretary Napolitano?'"

And here's a post about how she doesn't think that illegal immigration is "a crime per se." Both of which fit the tone she took during her confirmation hearings, when the words "terror" nor "vulnerability" were both excluded. Because we needed to get away from the "politics of fear."

And to think, some people doubt the Obama administration's seriousness when it comes to protecting our borders from terrorists.

References and related after the jump...

Each week, in a contest for the week's best post, the members of the Watchers Council nominate one of their own posts and a second from outside the Council for consideration by other council members. This week's submissions span foreign policy, domestic policy, and have a healthy dose of media criticism. There are also a couple posts on antisemitism and Judaism, an appropriate theme given how the world's favorite aid recipients have taken to destroying certain Arab products for being just too Jewy.

To better help you cope with the onslaught of lefty weasel pseudo-sophistication - from "engagement will work" to "giving terrorists civil liberties will make them like us" - here is a slow loris getting tickled. Watch the video, read the posts, watch the video again to cheer up, and then head over to the Mere Rhetoric Facebook page and sound off about the posts you liked best:

Have at it...

Because if there's one quality that the TSA has consistently demonstrated - from pranking coeds with fake drugs to harassing fans of rival sports franchises - it's seriousness. And professionalization. Seriousness and professionalization are the two qualities that the TSA has consistently demonstrated. Good times:

About 10,000 airport security workers will get access to secret intelligence that could help stop terrorist attacks on planes. The [TSA will give]... them more detailed information about tactics and threats... [TSA] hopes to empower its higher-level workers as part of an effort to professionalize airport security. The 10,000 people in line to get classified information are managers, supervisors and "behavior detection officers" who roam airports looking for suspicious people. They represent about 20% of the TSA's airport workforce and exclude screeners who scan passengers and bags... The information could include copies of terrorist training videos or tips vaguely describing a terrorism suspect, experts said. "Some classified information seems innocuous but is classified because it was derived from an intercepted phone conversation," said Steven Aftergood, an intelligence-policy specialist for the Federation of American Scientists.

Seems fair. Insofar as TSA agents need to watch out for terrorists, it's a good idea to educate them about what terrorists look like (we weren't doing that already?) There are probably a few straightforward downsides Giving behavior profilers information about ongoing plots - if that's a part of this new plan - might throw them off their game by focusing them in a single direction. There's also an argument to be made that you don't "professionalize airport security" by giving the officers security clearance. That's usually a prerequisite.

But those are process considerations.

The real concern is that TSA has a habit of hiring and employing - sometimes for years at a time - out and out drug dealers. They've also recently taken to hiring convicted felons and then badgering airports into badging them:

The TSA hired a guy... to do security work at the airport. It turns out that Giancarlo committed a robbery when he was 17 and was convicted when he was 18. According to the TSA, that's not an issue. He was still qualified for the job. But the TSA doesn't do badging; the airport does. So, Giancarlo went to the airport to get his Security Identification Display Area (SIDA) badge which allows for access to all secure areas without an escort... [Richmond] airport uncovered the robbery in a background check, even though Giancarlo left it off his application, and refused to give him a badge... the TSA started threatening the airport until they buckled and issued the guy a badge.

An agency that won't and can't keep out petty criminals seems pretty vulnerable to, say, determined foreign double agents seeking data on what TSA "thinks a terrorist looks like." They already know some of that because of past TSA idiocy. But still.

References and related after the jump...

Each week, in a contest for the week's best post, the members of the Watchers Council nominate one of their own posts and a second from outside the Council for consideration by other council members. This week's nominations run the gamut across liberalism in comic books, liberalism in government, and liberalism in anti-Israel circles. Two submissions - mine and the non-Council submission from the Colossus Of Rhodey - even dealt with liberalism in academia. Which is to say: there's a theme.

As preparation for poring over the nominations - and they really are quite good - here is a playground of baby pandas. Watch it, read the entries, and then head over to the Mere Rhetoric Facebook page and post which ones you'd choose.

And now you're ready...

Via TIME, an uncommonly clever spot from the National Republican Senatorial Committee. It's not an on-point debunking of the the fake economic reality that Obama apparently inhabits. But as a way of explaining the brazen corruption behind the stimulus, it's not totally ineffective:

High point: "most ethical Congress evuh" voice-over. Missing: any mention of the time when Reid chided angry citizens for not electing more pork-seeking, vote-trading Senators. It came after he bought votes on health care so it's not directly applicable, but I would've wanted to see it just as a gesture. Anything to better to highlight what a monumental prick this guy is:

Far from embracing calls for bipartisanship now that Republicans have a 41st senator, Harry Reid is acting as though he has nothing to lose and is taking down Republicans at every turn. The majority leader opened the Senate on Tuesday with a caustic floor speech accusing Republicans of undermining national security because they had filibustered a series of high-level national security nominations... His tirade, in which he blamed Republicans for blocking homeland security nominations while terrorists plotted domestic attacks, came a day after he told a Las Vegas talk show host that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has to "get over" his 2008 presidential loss... Another aide said Democrats were motivated by Obama calling out Republicans in his State of the Union address for playing partisan politics.

You'd think Reid would be a little more circumspect, given what a confused, confirmed moron he is. But it's probably nothing a few more "evil mongers" smears can't paper over. Almost difficult to understand how the Senate atmosphere became so poisoned.

References and related after the jump...

References:
* Madison Avenue Loses To Silicon Valley In Stimulus Political Ad Race [TIME]
* Obama Now Just Making Up Economic Theories To Justify Stimulus Success [MR]
* Reid: Didn't Make a Deal? SUCKER [Ace]
* Harry Reid comes out swinging at Republicans [Politico]
* EXCLUSIVE! Harry Reid challenging Nancy Pelosi for the title of World's Dumbest Bag Of Hammers [Transsylvania Phoenix]
* Harry Reid: Town-hall protesters are "evil-mongers" [Hot Air]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* American Politics
* Democratic Politics
* Republican Politics

Obama's self-congratulatory back-patting from yesterday - which echoed Biden's much dumber Early Show smirking - assumes a lot of things. One of the things it assumes is that the multiplier for government spending is above two:

Did the stimulus help? Sure. But Recovery.gov currently has a nifty graphic showing that of ARRA's $787 billion in budget authority, the government has currently disbursed about $287 billion. You'd have to posit some really remarkable multipliers for the stimulus to think that this prevented us from sliding into the Great Depression. For comparison's sake, in 1930, GDP fell by 8.6% in real terms. In 2009, the BEA says that it fell about 2.4%, or about $300 billion. Had it fallen by anything close to 8%, that would have meant a decline of roughly a trillion dollars. So the administration is claiming that by spending less than $300 billion, it managed to prevent more than $700 billion in economic decline--in other words, that the multiplier for their spending was higher than two. They're saying that every dollar they spent increased GDP by more than $2.

Unsurprisingly, the multiplier is not above 2. Per CBO projections it's actually much lower than 2. And the CBO assumed that funds were being allocated efficiently, not getting bottled up by state-level Transportation Departments or channeled into signs touting the government's awesomeness.

Still, it's good to see that the WH resolved that little internal disagreement they were having about stimulus numbers. Trotting out three different advisers with three different estimates on the same morning - that was just too reminiscent of Obama's knowledge-challenged Afghanistan dithering. It was distracting from all those places where the President was just outright lying.

Like his smug statement about how "every economist from the left and right" agreed that the stimulus created or saved two million jobs. That was a pretty brazen lie.

Seriously. Some of his statements can be explained by simple narcissism. I'm assuming that's his "century of law" Supreme Court attack got into the SOTU because he wanted it to be true, regardless of what even HuffPo acknowledges. Ditto for his declaration that stimulus funds would create Caterpillar jobs, even though Caterpillar's CEO said the opposite. In both cases you can see kind of sort of see how the thinking went: "my theories about the world are super-keen, they say stimulus funds create jobs and campaign funding limits are Constitutional, ergo..."

But he can't really believe that every rightist economist credits the stimulus with two million jobs, right? I mean, not if he has even a basic sense of reality. Right?

References and related after the jump...

It's probably unfair to call this sharia-advocating radical cleric a puppy shooter. The animal he tried to put three bullets into - this in the course of an FBI raid targeting him on weapons charges - was probably a full-grown dog. Still though. He tried to kill a dog.

That said, I don't doubt the outrage. The antipathy to puppies thing is pretty well established in these circles. Ahmadinejad uses it as an anti-Western insult, presumably including even those Westerners who really, really want to appease him. There were those UK Muslim students who threatened to kill the dog of an epileptic student-teacher, which the school responded to by developing better "communication" so as to avoid "misunderstandings." And Lebanese Arabs were somewhat petulantly willing to starve themselves rather than eat Iranian food aid that sniffer-dogs had cleared.

But you'd think American Muslims would be more concerned about how the Dearborn community nurtured a high-profile criminal imam who wanted to transform the US into a sharia state. Or about how he was swimming in stolen goods and illegal weapons. But nope. It's the dog that bothers them:

The indictment identified Abdullah, 53, also known as Christopher Thomas, as "a highly placed leader of a nationwide radical fundamentalist Sunni group" that sought to establish a separate state within the United States governed by Sharia law. Muslim and community groups have accused the FBI of excessive force in the raid... Among the concerns is the number of gunshot wounds detailed in the medical examiner's report and the fact Abdullah's corpse was left handcuffed while an FBI dog allegedly shot by Abdullah was airlifted for medical treatment...

Agents would have been justified in firing if Abdullah had reached for a weapon, let alone having brandished a weapon and fired three shots, as Stejskal said he understands Abdullah did... In a space of three to four seconds, four agents fired an average of five shots each, striking Abdullah 20 times, with one shot creating two wounds for a total of 21 entry wounds...

Nabih Ayad, an attorney representing Abdullah's widow, said it was needlessly confrontational to send a dog after Abdullah because Muslims view dogs as unclean and anyone attacked by a dog could react violently. Stejskal said he thought the concern about the use of the dog would be more legitimate if Abdullah was a Muslim from the Mideast, rather than an American who converted while in prison.

The entire incident is under investigation by the civil rights division of the U.S. Justice Department. Because a radical arms-running imam was shot by FBI agents after he took potshots at them - there was probably some racism involved there. How soon before Muslim communities start making the mere existence of anything dog-related a civil rights issue, ala the problems Europeans are having with anything pig-related? "The pet store in our neighborhood is selling dog potty pads! Racists!"

References and related after the jump...

Each week, in a contest for the week's best post, the members of the Watchers Council nominate one of their own posts and a second from outside the Council for consideration by other council members. The writeup for this week's batch of posts, I think, really shows off the Council's diversity. "A touch of vodka." How quaint:

Sit back while enjoying your personal potion and read the wonderful articles that have been passed on to us by the Watcher's Council. Upon reading what I consider to be some of the most egregious and fact finding exposes of weasels in your midst make note of each article and pass them on to your friends. Or better yet, pass on my prescription for warming up on this blustery winter day and point them directly to this article here! Whatever path you take, enjoy. As always, the Watcher's Council wishes you a warm winter wonderland. Make sure to come back and visit us on Friday for the results of this weeks contest!

My submission was last week's post about Israel's Apache fleet, where it looks like Obama might be blocking helicopter upgrades and eroding the Jewish State's Qualitative Military Edge. On the same subject, you should check out the first segment from yesterday's episode of One Jerusalem Radio's Omri Ceren Show. I got a couple of tips after I posted the initial story, and things are a little less straightforward than they might otherwise be. Still deeply suspicious. But not as straightforward.

In any case, here are this week's submissions. Feel free to sound of find on the Facebook entry for this post: which do you think should win?

They don't know much. But they're very certain that they're super-keen and that conservatives are stupid teabaggers so shut up that's why:

While many graduates of American colleges cannot answer basic civics questions, a higher education does make their opinions more liberal on controversial social issues,... The Intercollegiate Studies Institute, an independent group with a tradition-minded view of issues... found that people who had attained at least a bachelor's degree were more likely than Americans whose formal education ended with a high-school diploma to take a liberal stance on certain controversial social issues... in general, college does not bring students up to a high level of civics knowledge.

Combine this with overconfidence studies - the ones showing that today's students are more self-confident with less justification than ever before - and you understand why Rock The Vote is the perfect crystallization of young liberal political engagement. You get plucked off the street with - almost by definition - no background in what you'll be voting on. But since you're passionate and involved - motivated - presumably the vague things you really want to be true will magically get transformed into actual facts.

Listen. We've known for decades that you need a certain general awareness of what you're trying to learn - a certain amount of metaknowledge - before you can develop a sense for whether you're learning it. And the only way you get that general sense is by sitting down and just learning stuff. Otherwise you think you're learning when you're actually not, nurturing a growing sense of "illusory superiority" until you end up extolling the brilliance of Andrew Sullivan in the HuffPo comments section.

Backing up: take Rumsfeld's three categories. Known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. The starting situation when you're learning something new is a bunch of unknown unknowns. You don't know what you're looking for and you won't recognize it if you accidentally see it. Learning is getting to known knowns by passing through known unknowns. The trick is that there's a certain point where you've learned enough stuff that you get a sense for what's out there, what you're trying to learn, what you have to do to learn it, etc. Many of the unknown unknowns become known unknowns.

Just a quick jaunt down memory lane, the better to put into context the faux outrage being expressed at the gametime Tebow commercial. First the lighthearted Focus on the Family piece, which shows Tim Tebow tackling his mom and her jumping up and jokingly chiding him:

"Violence against Moms," intoned Amanda Marcotte. "Violence against women," declared Women's Media Center president Jehmu Greene. Which is weird, because it's much more outrage than they expressed at this much worse GOTV spot from the 2008, which had explicit hostility channeled into actual physical violence:

The Tebow commercial oozes affection and shows Pam Tebow as the opposite of injured. The Palin commercial celebrates rage, showing Palin getting physically battered, slammed to the ground, and verbally assaulted - and that because of her political views. You'd think all those images would be much more troubling to feminists, what with the whole "it's actual celebration of actual violence with actual misogynist undertones" thing.

But site searches on Marcotte's home blog don't show any hits for "terry tate" or for tate palin. Though in fairness the first hit for tebow is a post with the phrase "Tebow 'women are nothing but vessels for male offspring' clan." So there's that.

Maybe Marcotte really did upbraid her fellow liberals over the ad, except she did it somewhere that wasn't her blog. Like maybe in the comments section of the Gawker post about the commercial, where commenter Poodle_Heart echoed the author's enthusiasm at Tate "kicking Sarah Palin's ass," gushing "ya, know, golly, normally i'd be, uh, opposed to violence against women, you betcha' but, fucking hell, i can make an exception this time." That would have been a good place for some withering feminist anger.

But no, I don't really see her there either. Maybe her post is elsewhere on the Internet. Although it doesn't look that way. Maybe it's just somewhere Google doesn't index.

References:
* Horror: Gametime Tebow ad features domestic violence! Update: Prediction fulfilled [Hot Air]
* Tebow: Hey Mom! Tried to kill you from the womb and failed. How about a blind side tackle? Violence against Moms FTW! (via @MarcFaletti) [@AmandaMarcotte]
* Long-awaited Tebow ad airs on Super Bowl with soft-sell antiabortion message and light tone [LAT]
* Charming GOTV Videos: Commercial Icon Repeatedly Slams Palin Into The Ground (Plus: Severe PDS In San Fran Preventing Yuppies From Indulging In Effete Wine) [MR]
* Terry Tate is Back! And He's Kicking Sarah Palin's Ass! [Gawker]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* American Politics
* Liberals Unhinged
* Democratic Politics

So perfectly does this fit the "Obama is deepy anti-Israel" narrative that I'm almost inclined to doubt it's true. A story about how the WH is generically hamstringing weapons sales, fair enough. The Pentagon is again dragging its feet on Israel's Joint Strike Fighter requests, because apparently the two year delay created by WH "obstacles" hasn't sufficiently damanged US/Israeli relations. So there's some precedent.

But blocking Apaches that are critical to Israel's urban warfighting because Israel used them to fight an urban war - that's meat a bit too red. And yet, two separate sources:

The administration... is delaying an upgrade project for Israel's military on the grounds that it could be deployed against Palestinian militants. Industry sources said the Defense Department has taken measures to slow down an upgrade of Israel's AH-64 Apache attack helicopter fleet. The sources said at least three Apache helicopters have been awaiting an upgrade at Boeing, the prime contractor... The sources said the delay of the Apache project stemmed from the White House's concern that Israel was rebuilding its military for another war. They said... Obama was dismayed by the widespread use of the Apache and other U.S. platforms during the January 2009 war with the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip. "Everything having to do with Israel's Apache fleet has been delayed by the administration," another source said.

So much for that year-end Forward article about how US/Israeli arms sales demonstrate that "strategic security relations between the two countries are flourishing." It's become a standard lefty talking point in the last few months, and it really ought not be.

It's not just that Obama's anti-Israel diplomatic offensive has actually damaged strategic security relations across the board, though it has. It's that the entire article - from the headline about arms cooperation all the way through the stuff about promoting Israel's qualitative military edge - is the opposite of true. No arms deal has been made with Israel since Obama took office, while Arab countries have been the beneficiaries of unprecedented largess:

Each week, in a contest for the week's best post, the members of the Watchers Council nominate one of their own posts and a second from outside the Council for consideration by other council members. This week's nominations got posted in the aftermath of the Illinois primary, where "anemic turnout" produced a Mark Kirk nomination on the GOP side. It's somewhat heartening that Kirk, for all that he's a RINO's RICO, is now talking and acting like Scott Brown. Only a year ago the Obama model of utopian populism - plus the scapegoating it relies on when promises fall short - was the model to be emulated.

It'd be even more heartening if Kirk actually thought like Scott Brown, but there's only so much you can ask of Illinois politicians. Lets start with not holding knives to girlfriends' throats and go from there. Baby steps. In the meantime, here are the nominations. Feel free to sound off under this post on the Facebook page about which ones you'd vote for.

Council Submissions

* Mere Rhetoric - Yahoo Wipes "Ariel, Israel" Off The Map, Replaces It With "Jenin, Palestinian Occupied Territories"
* Rhymes With Right - But If She Wanted An Abortion, It Would Have Been No Big Deal
* Soccer Dad - The goldstone rumor mill
* Bookworm Room-Leftist tactics to scare the uninformed about America's religious freedoms *UPDATED*
* Wolf Howling - The Three Stooges Meet Al Qaeda In Undiegate
* The Colossus of Rhodey - The Colonel's Tiger
* Right Truth - GOP: You blew it!
* The Glittering Eye - The Really Hard Choices We're Avoiding
* Joshuapundit - The Valley Of Decision : Iran Crosses The Nuclear Threshold
* American Digest - Last Light
* The Provaocateur - Dr. Chacko to Afghanistan?

Non-Council Submissions

* Submitted By: The Watcher - Pamela Geller @ Big Government - Obama Recruiting Radicals in High Schools
* Submitted By: Mere Rhetoric - Smart Politics - 'Professor' Obama? President's State of the Union Address Notches 4th Lowest Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Score Since FDR
* Submitted By: Rhymes With Right - SCOTUSblog - Ending Racial Preferences
* Submitted By: Soccer Dad - Daled Amos - The Middle East: The New York Times hasn't learned its lesson and now it's teaching it
* Submitted By: Wolf Howling - Plumb Bob Blog - A New Political Term: Debt Reduction
* Submitted By: Bookworm Room - Commentary Contentions - When the Telling Starts
* Submitted By: The Colossus of Rhodey - City Journal - The Grasping Hand
* Submitted By: Right Truth - Atlas Shrugs - From Himmler with Love: "His Eminence, the Grand Mufti, In Remembrance"
* Submitted By: The Glittering Eye - KeithHennessey.com - The President's Bigger Budget
* Submitted By: Joshuapundit - American Thinker / Randall Hoven - The Lost Decade
* Submitted By: American Digest - Cobb - King Solomon's Mines
* Submitted By: The Provocateur - Dick Morris at Newsmax - Behind Obama's Phony Deficit Numbers

References:
* The Black and White of Being "Scott Brown" [Watcher Of Weasels]
* Dem candidate in IL has record of domestic violence [Hot Air]
* Mere Rhetoric Facebook Page [Official Site]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* American Politics
* Democratic Politics
* Republican Politics

I'm genuinely surprised. Given the previous oratorical heights to which our Vulcan Pericles had soared, I really expected more. Oh well:

Text of Obama's Address has a readability score for an average 8th grader - two grades lower than George W. Bush's Addresses and the historical average for modern presidents... A Smart Politics analysis of nearly 70 oral State of the Union Addresses since the mid-1930s finds the text of Obama's speech on Wednesday evening to have one of the lowest scores on the Flesch-Kincaid readability test ever recorded by a U.S. President. The Flesch-Kincaid test is designed to assess the readability level of written text, with a formula that translates the score to a U.S. grade level...

Obama's Flesch-Kincaid grade level score of 8.8 for his first State of the Union Address was the fourth lowest score since FDR's first Address in 1934... As such, the speech by 'the professor' stands in contrast to his predecessor, 'the cowboy,' George W. Bush... Bush averaged a Flesch-Kincaid score of 10.4 across his seven State of the Union Addresses - or nearly two full grades higher than Obama's speech. Bush's speeches also averaged 2.4 more words per sentence than Obama, at 19.0.

All drafts of all Presidential speeches are timestamped and archived. So some day we'll know whether the phrase "Americans are morons, use smaller words" was an actual margin note or whether it remained implicit. Even the critics who specifically question Obama's literary stylings - critics whose controversial theories are not exactly undermined by the mind-numbing shallowness of the SOTU - don't think that he reads at a junior high level. He just believes we do.

You'll be glad to know that CBS News concluded that "Obama's speech leveraged his strengths," which apparently include "his personal charm and integrity" but not a willingness to speak to Americans like adults. At least Ambinder waited until after the speech to announce that it had been awesome. USA Today knew even beforehand that the simplistic, mawkish crapfest would be rhetorical gold:

At least Obama's sanctions plan for dealing with Iran - which seems to be Obama's only plan for dealing with Iran - doesn't hinge on Chinese cooperation. Because if it did then alienating China, in addition to risking a Cold War with an existing hostile nuclear power, would all but guarantee the creation of a second one. So as long as the White House never indicated that "it needed China's support if progress is to be made in curbing Iran's nuclear programme," this shouldn't be a big deal:

The American administration has been trying to undermine relations, the deputy head of Chinese Embassy in Israel said in a special interview with Ynet on the heels of the dispute that has unraveled between China and the United States. While the US is trying to garner Chinese support to impose sanctions on Iran, the Chinese official said that the recent tensions could harm political cooperation. Zhang Xiao'an... mentioned that in several occasions, China's ties with new American president usually don't start off so well, but gradually improve with time. She said that now, there is an opposite process - after Obama was elected last year, ties between China and the United States got off on the right foot, and ever since the recent developments have been deteriorating.

It appears that Obama rhetorically raised diplomatic expectations and then, discovering that many of his promises were naive and unworkable, failed to deliver. Unbelievable, I know.

In fairness US/Sino tensions were probably inevitable. Putting aside Taiwan, Tibet, human rights in general, our distrust of their largest-in-the-world dollar reserves, their distrust of our China-baiting economic populists, Sudan, Iran, North Korea, and the possibility that they're taking potshots at our satellites - China is modernizing its military, developing a blue water navy, and projecting power into all kinds of places that we're physically in. Eventually someone was going to bump into someone else - it was already happening - with the results being less than salutary for international stability.

And let's be honest. China was never going to go along with sanctions anyway. If that wasn't always obvious it should have been by last October, when Beijing boosted its ties with the mullahs despite international objections. China has two priorities: securing energy reserves to ensure economic vitality and preventing the international community from meddling in the internal affairs of human rights abusers. Both are at stake in Iran. They said as much last week, prompting Clinton to urge them to embrace - and these are quotes - a policy that would be "counterproductive" to the "needs" of their "growing economy." Shockingly they declined to do that.

The exact same thing happened with climate change.

I only ask because when POTUS was in Mexico he blasted amnesty opponents as "demagogues." I understood that to mean that he didn't seriously credit the historically verified possibility of a post-amnesty illegal immigrant flood. And if he doesn't credit that possibility then he probably isn't thinking much about the very real potential for a refugee crisis in the aftermath of a Mexican collapse. Which is a problem, because Mexico pretty much looks like it's on the brink of collapse.

Between the routine mass murder and the ambushing of military patrols and the stitching of enemies' faces on soccer balls and the dumping of heads in town squares and the hanging of victims from overpasses and the revenge slayings of dead soldiers' entire families and the savage beheadings of women and disabled men and the murdering of investigative journalists and the dissolving of drug rivals in acid, it kind of seems like Mexican authorities don't really have a handle on their country. Which is what you'd expect given that the entire country runs on drug money:

Mexican cartels, which control most of the cocaine and methamphetamine smuggled into the United States, bring an estimated $25 billion to $40 billion into Mexico from their global operations every year. To put that in perspective: Mexico probably made more money in 2009 moving drugs than it did exporting oil, its single biggest legitimate foreign currency earner... drug cash is everywhere in Mexico. It has even propped up the country's banking system, helping it ride out the financial crisis and aiding the country's economy... narco money finds its way onto the books of restaurants, construction firms and bars as drug lords try to legitimize their cash and prevent police from tracing it."Mexico is saturated with this money," said George Friedman, who heads geopolitical analysis firm Stratfor.

Referring to his country's less than innovative agricultural industry, one Cabinet-level Mexican official emphasized that farmers "should follow the example of drug traffickers because they produce what the market demands." Memo to the OED: it's time.

References and related after the jump...

Given that the State of the Union is the worst political ritual evuh - to say nothing of tonight's likely content - we figure you'll be wanting an alternative about 30 minutes after Jesus Cicero starts talking. Ergo tonight's episode of One Jerusalem Radio's Omri Ceren Show, which will be kicking off at exactly 6:30pm PST / 9:30 EST. You can tune in live to call in, participate in the chat room, or just listen.

The only caveat is that I'll be playing my own version of the SOTU drinking game for the half-hour before the show, where instead of looking for specific phrases like "let me be clear" or "make no mistake" I just take a shot whenever Obama is obnoxiously condescending. Odds of tonight's show happening at all: middling.

More seriously, segments in the queue: health care, the administration's latest Iran spin, and whatever had happened in the SOTU as of 6:30pm. The WH just sent out an email preview, promising that Obama will detail - among other things - how he has "restored America's alliances and standing in the world... [and] restored our standing and leadership around the world." Since that's the opposite of true in Latin America and Britain and Eastern Europe and China and Russia and Israel and Japan, I'm really interested to know what he's going to say.

Dan Diker will join the show, as he always does, to lend a note of actual expertise. This week he'll be talking about Fatah/Hamas tensions, which have now reached the point where the PA is asking the EU not to engage their Palestinian brothers and sisters in Gaza. On the international stage Hamas is playing the old game where they say one thing to the West and then another in Arabic. Meanwhile there are signs that Fatah is playing an even more brazen double-game, accepting US security assistance while seeking rapprochement with Iran. Dan picks those controversies apart, explaining what's going on beneath the surface across various Palestinian factions and sub-factions.

References and related after the jump...

Given the choice between indulging in anti-corporate demagoguery or cutting bloated government bureaucracies, Oregon voters have chosen to go the California route. Presumably they looked at Sacramento, saw how well everything is going, and say "yup, that's exactly what we want." Just look how proud they are of their cheap, resentful demonization:

Oregon voters bucked decades of anti-tax and anti-Salem sentiment Tuesday, raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy to prevent further erosion of public schools and other state services... Measure 66 raises taxes on households with taxable income above $250,000, and Measure 67 sets higher minimum taxes on corporations and increases the tax rate on upper-level profits. The results triggered waves of relief from educators and legislative leaders, who were facing an estimated $727 million shortfall in the current two-year budget if the measures failed...

Tuesday's strong support also validated a strategy by Democratic lawmakers to single out the rich and corporations for targeted tax increases. Campaign ads by supporters highlighted banks and credit card companies and showed images of well-dressed people stepping off private jets... "They did a great job of pounding, 'It's only $10,'" said Bob Tiernan, chairman of the state Republican Party. "We got swamped by the union money."

Washington state Democrats are already planning to model their tax-increase campaign on the Oregon strategy. I'm honestly surprised it took them this long to come to a consensus. Obama has spent the last few months "blasting banks," though there's no word yet on whether he's back to threatening law-abiding bankers with pitchfork-wielding mobs.

I'm not sure if they had any ads about "fat cat bankers" - the eloquent phrase so beloved by our modern-day Pericles - but they did have eyeroll inducing stills of "rich people" holding up glasses of champagne in front of their ostensibly private pool tables. It's like what a high school student would create if they were tasked with caricaturing "the wealthy," which would be funny minus the part where the campaign is moving entire regions of the country:

I for one am glad that Obama told the GOP to stop scaring Americans with the prospect of Democratic wealth confiscation. Much better to go with 1980's stock photography of jet-setting bankers, champagne-swilling philanderers, and big-haired trophy wives. That's the path toward reasoned public deliberation.

References and related after the jump...

Each week, in a contest for the week's best post, the members of the Watchers Council nominate one of their own posts and a second from outside the Council for consideration by other council members. This week's nominations got posted just as the Scott Brown victory was sinking in, giving me an excuse to embed the best Daily Show clip ever since the last best Daily Show clip ever. This is the one from the night before the election and if you haven't seen it yet, by all means enjoy. This week's nominations are right afterward.

Council Submissions

* American Digest - Bring. It. On.
* Bookworm Room - A perfect statement about the balance of power between government, citizens and business
* Joshuapundit - Pat Robertson, The Devil And Me
* Rhymes With Right - Getting It Right On Palin
* The Glittering Eye - The Triumph
* Right Truth - Here Come the Orphans
* Soccer Dad - Rachel's tomb and the protection of jewish holy sites
* Mere Rhetoric - Government Labor Protections And Welfare Policies Keeping French Youths Jobless, Alienated
* The Colossus of Rhodey - Harry Reid, "light-skinned" and "Avatar"
* The Provocateur - Some Thoughts on Dr. Chacko's Dismissal
* Wolf Howling - Wailing & Lamentations

Non-Council Submissions

* Submitted By: American Digest - Sippican Cottage - Quincy Market (Election Day)
* Submitted By: Bookworm Room - A New Conservative Lesbian - Obama's 'Enabling Act' trial balloon
* Submitted By: Joshuapundit - Seraphic Secrets - Haiti: No One But the Israelis Has Come to Help
* Submitted By: Rhymes With Right - Volokh Conspiracy - The Supreme Court's Cult of Celebrity
* Submitted By: The Glittering Eye - The Coast Guard Compass - Guardians Report In: HS1 Larry Berman
* Submitted By: Right Truth - Fore-Left - The Ties That Bind - Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal
* Submitted By: Soccer Dad - The Muqata - Israel's emergency response
* Submitted By: Mere Rhetoric - Danger Room - Visualizing the Underwear Bomber's Online Life
* Submitted By: The Colossus of Rhodey - Common Sense Political Thought - My health care anecdata
* Submitted By: The Provocateur - American Spectator - The Scott Heard Round the World
* Submitted By: Wolf Howling - YouTube - Martin Luther King "I have a dream"

References:
* Scott Brown's Boston Tea Party, Twenty Ten! [Watcher Of Weasels]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* American Politics
* Democratic Politics
* Republican Politics

You could set your clock by this kind of nonsense. No seriously. Try it yourself. Set up a Google Alert for "unexpected and economy" or "unexpected and housing." Like. Clockwork:

U.S. home starts unexpectedly fell last month as unusually cold weather hampered construction, but a jump in building permits to a 14-month high indicated the housing market recovery was intact. The Commerce Department said on Wednesday housing starts fell 4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 557,000 units, pulled down by a drop in groundbreaking activity for single-family dwellings. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected housing starts to rise to 580,000 units.

Quite the relief to know that the housing market recovery is intact, huh? I guess all the liberal economists who were pushing for another stimulus package - NYT headline New Consensus Sees Stimulus Package as Worthy Step - were just overreacting.

That in itself is probably a good thing, given how the last stimulus totally failed to create surplus jobs even when money was allocated to real projects. Which it usually wasn't. Ergo the White House's asinine "pay raises equal new jobs" accounting. And their "we'll just make it up" approach to Wisconsin and Massachusetts employment. And of course the phantom districts.

At least this all wasn't painfully predictable months ago:

And while we're at it, I never did get around to blogging this from late last year:

The Democratic-controlled Senate on Saturday cleared away a Republican filibuster of a huge end-of-year spending bill that rewards most federal agencies with generous budget boosts. The $1.1 trillion measure combines much of the year's unfinished budget work -- only a $626 billion Pentagon spending measure would remain -- into a 1,000-plus-page spending bill that would give the Education Department, the State Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and others increases far exceeding inflation. The 60-34 vote met the minimum threshold to end the GOP filibuster.

All of which a roundabout way of asking: can someone please explain to me which of Obama's media cheerleaders I'm supposed to be listening to today? Is the economy still in a rut, proving that we need another spending spree on Big Government liberal pet projects? Or is the vaunted economic recovery "intact"? I don't really have a preference one way or another. It's the anxiety of not knowing that's just so gnawing!

References and related after the jump...

She spent the Gaza War hysterically hyperventilating about how the "the destruction of the jews in Israel has been assured." Then she insisted that Israel was firing missiles on itself so it could have a pretext for massacring Palestinians. Then she dressed up as Hitler, donned a swastika, and had herself photographed baking "Jew cookies" in ovens.

So naturally she's feeling pretty good about the latest Israeli medical ethics controversy turned media-fueled blood libel. Pretty good indeed:

Of course even the HuffPo piece she links to notes (a) that the controvery has nothing to do with what happened in Gaza "last year" but in fact is decades old and (b) that not "by a long shot" did Israelis specifically target Palestinians for organs. But whatever. It feels really good for her to believe that her bigoted anti-Jewish conspiracy theories are true, so true they shall be asserted to be.

References:
* The destruction of the jews in Israel has been assured [MR]
* The Day in Israel: Thurs Mar 5th, 2009 [IsraellyCool]
* Roseanne Barr Dresses Up As Hitler, Bakes "Jew Cookies" In Oven [MR]
* Obligatory Post About New Organ Harvesting Story That Provides "No Evidence" For Organ Harvesting Libel (UPDATED) [MR]
* POLL: What's The Next Anti-Israel Libel That Media Outlets Will "Prove"? [MR]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Liberals Unhinged
* Anti-Israel Journalism
* Global Antisemitism

At least we can be sure they'll get a full pat-down on their way over. Maybe:

The State Department is planning to welcome thousands of immigrants from terror-watch list countries into the United States this year through a "diversity visa" lottery -- a giant legal loophole some lawmakers say is a "serious national security threat" that has gone unchecked for years. Ostensibly designed to increase ethnic diversity among immigrants, the program invites in thousands of poorly educated laborers with few job skills -- and that's only the beginning of its problems, according to lawmakers and government investigations.

The State Department, for its part, insists that it's awesome it is to bring in poor and uneducated - and often unassimilable - immigrants from countries crawling with jihadists. Because they won't be anything like that "model assimilated immigrant" in Denmark, who ended up shooting two Jews in a mall because they were just too Jewish. They're going to be different kinds of model assimilated immigrants.

On the upside, this isn't going to make or break American border security. It's pretty frustrating when you consider to whom the State Department is denying visas, but it's not nearly as damaging as the administration's broader anti-enforcement policies. And trust the Council on Foreign Relations to have someone who thinks that loosening border enforcement is the height of nuanced sophistication. From the policy community that brought you circa 2006 op-eds about how Ahmadinejad wasn't a problem, 2009 op-eds about how locking down our borders is a wingnut overreaction to 9/11:

The Obama administration quietly announced last week that it would overturn one of the harsh immigration enforcement measures enacted by the Bush administration following the 9/11 terrorist attacks... The measure is the latest in a string of little-noticed initiatives by the Obama DHS to reconsider some of the most controversial enforcement policies of the past decade. The administration in August launched an overhaul of the immigration detention system... The Obama administration's new policy, which will end such routine incarceration, had been urged by everyone from the bipartisan United States Commission on International Religious Freedom to the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. And there is no reason to believe that the risks will rise significantly. There is considerable evidence, for instance, that alternative programs to monitor those released will ensure that they comply with whatever ruling a judge finally reaches.

Napolitano refused to even use the word "terrorism" during her March Congressional hearings, a lack of seriousness that more or less confirms Cheney's "they're trying to pretend we are not at war" criticism. From airline security to border security, it does kind of seem like they're happily traipsing through a pre-9/11 world.

Well, except for the 9/11 Commission's calls for new bureaucratic layers, federal expansion, and thousands of new government workers. That's a change Democrats - to judge by their weirdly coordinated defenses of Napolitano - seem to regard with something almost approaching warmth.

References and related after the jump...

An airline industry looking to "bounce back" in 2010 by bleeding $11 billion. A tourism industry coping with alienated Western travelers after Congress, at the behest of restaurant and hotel lobbies, imposed a $10 fine on incoming travelers to promote "Vegas-style tourism." And now this series of bizarre overreactions to the Detroit terrorism attack, which is being greeted with something less than fanfare on travel blogs and forums. Quoth the managing editor of several valuable online travel properties: "I just need the airlines to be honest with me: 'Do you guys want to be in business or not? If not, just let me know so I can start booking my cruise.'"

An Islamic male between the ages 18 and 45 was granted a visa despite known terrorist ties, because for some reason people on the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment list are "are not necessarily on the no-fly list." He smuggled contraband through multiple security checkpoints, moved about the plane unmolested despite likely being visibly high as a kite, and tried to blow up the flight during its descent.

The supple minds at TSA brought their incisive logical skills to bear on this near-disaster, abstracted the relevant principles, and concluded: what we need to do is ban tourists from peeing during the last hour of the flight! Ditto - per FlyerTalk - for blacking out in-flight GPS maps and prohibiting pilots from announcing things "if you look out to your left you'll see..." Because if terrorists don't know where they are they can't be terrorists! Next we'll learn that timers and watches are verboten.

This makes even less sense than the time the TSA and the FBI tried to legally persecute an American teenager for pointing out gaping holes in the no-fly list system. It even makes less sense than hiring digital document managers who release non-redacted "redacted" PDFs before unblinkingly spouting nonsense during TSA's subsequent whitewash.

You can't buy analytical skill like this. You certainly can't teach them. As a manager you just have to hope you're lucky enough to hire people born with them:

Lucky break for the Obama administration: the actual 11% drop in new home sales is nowhere near the starkest demonstration of general economic incompetence. That award goes to whoever settled on the figures indicating that the exact opposite would happen. Thomson Reuters polled economists who projected a 2.3 percent increase in new homes sales. They were off by about 13.5 percent. This follows the "unexpected" rise in new jobless claims last week, which echoed the "unexpected" rise in August jobless claims that Reuters reported.

We've now reached the point where the most generous thing you can say about the media's preferred economists is that they're intentionally making things up. Because if they're crunching numbers and building models and producing something they think is accurate, they really need to reevaluate what it is they think they're doing with their lives:

Sales of new homes plunged unexpectedly last month to the lowest level since April, a sign the housing market recovery will be rocky... The Commerce Department said Wednesday that November's sales fell 11 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 355,000 from a downwardly revised 400,000 in October. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected a pace of 440,000. Sales were down 9 percent from a year ago.

It's too bad. The AP was pretty psyched about getting to publish some good news for Obama. Their real estate writer Alan Zibel even filed an initial report last night. The headline was "November new home sales seen rising 2.3 percent" and the lede closed with "the housing market is finally on solid ground." This followed his writeup from yesterday about previously occupied home sales, where the headline was "Tax credit drives surge in home sales" and the first sentence was "Extraordinary government efforts to stabilize the housing market are paying off."

Now you might be inclined it's embarrassing for Zibel to have jumped the gun on a 13% mistake. Which it must be. But don't miss how he should be even more embarrassed about yesterday's declarations of "solid ground" given that today's figures (a) indicate the opposite and (b) trump those numbers:

New home sales data, released Wednesday, are a better indicator of future real estate activity than sales of previously occupied homes, but capture a smaller slice of the market. The new home figures tally sales agreements signed in November, while home resale numbers reflect contracts signed over the summer that were completed in November. So while home resales rose 7 percent last month, the National Association of Realtors reported Tuesday, most economists expect completed sales to decline during the winter months. "Buyer traffic is likely to be flat until spring," predicted Mark Vitner, senior economist with Wells Fargo Securities.

You have to look pretty hard for this morning's original celebratory article, incidentally. The only reason I even knew to look for it is because I had it in the AP RSS feed. As of about 8am PST there are exactly 3 copies of it left on Google News. Which is good, because if that sort of thing got around it might paint mainstream media outlets as Obama worshiping Big Government cheerleaders.

References:
* November new home sales sink 11 percent [Zibel / AP]
* New US jobless claims rise unexpectedly [AP]
* U.S. jobless claims unexpectedly rise [Reuters]
* November new home sales seen rising 2.3 percent [Zibel / AP]
* Tax credit drives surge in home sales

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Economy
* Media Bias
* American Politics

Right on cue, a nice little point on last month's news that government agencies wasted $98 billion in taxpayer dollars last year:

The U.S. Postal Service spent more than $792,000 "without justification" on meals and events in one five-month period even as it reported losing $3.8 billion this year, the agency's inspector general says in a report. Employees spent $792,022 on meals and external events "without justification for food purchases, purchased alcohol without officer approval and exceeded the dollar limit for meals," the report says. Among the purchases were crab cakes, beef Wellington and scallops at an installation ceremony for one of several postmasters in the United States, the report says.

Eh. Nothing that can't be covered with a few more Reid-driven soak the rich payroll taxes. And it's tough to begrudge USPS employees the occasional excess, given the superb level of customer service they provide. One of the employees in the downtown LA post office used to hang a sign reading "YOUR LACK OF PLANNING IS NOT MY PROBLEM," which was strange insofar as customer needs are in theory a service provider's only problem.

I don't know if it's still up - I go to the Fedex across the street, where the profit motive is still a thing - but that office has always been a nightmare. Two years ago I saw a rushed woman tear up because, like a schoolchild, she was instructed to go to the back of a huge line and "rewrite her shipping label" on her package. The USPS public servant actually drew a huge half circle in the air with her finger, the better to communicate where the back of the line was and how to get there.

Anyway, Paul Krugman says ReidCare is "an awesome achievement" and Mark Steyn believes it represents an unrecoverable loss of the American ethos of individualism and self-sufficiency. Which means that Paul Krugman and Mark Steyn more or less agree about the kind of welfare state at the end of this road. You'll know we're close when we pass the "liver cancer drugs 'too expensive'" signpost.

But at least in the meantime it'll help pay down the national debt. Gibbs said so himself and he wouldn't have made the promise unless the Obama administration was confident in its projections. Otherwise the press will totally hold them accountable.

References and related after the jump...

It wasn't just the total equipment breakdown, though counting on "unusable" phones to connect airports and military agencies is probably a bad idea. Stimulus money was supposed to be used to improve transportation and security infrastructure, but apparently we just ran out. Nonetheless, stuff is stuff and we can always buy new stuff. No biggie.

The real treat here is the way that no one at any level had any clue what they were doing. It ended up being a confused on-board flight attendant who alerted the pilots that something had gone dangerously wrong. It's almost as if large government bureaucracies, insulated as they are from competition and confident in their longevity, have no reason to stay sharp. Almost:

The FAA acknowledged last month that controllers and managers had been slow to react after the pilots went out of radio contact. Among the new details in the documents:

* The special phone line that connects the FAA's Minneapolis Center to the Domestic Events Network (DEN), which alerts the military and law enforcement agencies about aviation security emergencies, had numerous problems... the communication equipment "does not operate adequately in a consistent manner." ... it suffers from loud feedback and clicking noises that render it "unusable." The FAA said the DEN should have been notified within five to 10 minutes, but they were not called for more than an hour.

* Because of apparent mix-ups, controllers never tried to radio the pilots on the last radio frequency they had spoken on, according to the preliminary NTSB report. As a result, the pilots may never have heard controllers frantically trying to reach them.

* At least initially, the controllers did not attempt to reach the pilots on a radio frequency reserved for emergencies, the NTSB said. The pilots said they were monitoring the frequency.

Even if the equipment had been working perfectly, it was staffed by people who didn't think to call security or to ping the airplane on the last frequency. I know that this long ago became a cliche, but I really can't wait until the government takes over health care. All those sociological and organizational studies about how static bureaucracies atrophy - obviously just conservative scaremongering. Plus liberals mean well, so shut up.

References:
* Flight attendant caught wayward pilots unaware [AP]
* NTSB fills in details on errant Northwest flight [USA Today]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* American Politics
* Economy
* Health Care

I'm posting the streams from MR's Twitter and Facebook pages at the top, and then after the jump I've added a bit of context for these, plus a few other thematically relevant links. The full speech is here.

If you're a conservative the speech was good, then not good, then good again, then not good again, then you'd be ambivalent, then good, not good, not good, good. If you're a liberal it was bad, then not bad, then bad again, then not bad again, then you'd be ambivalent, then bad, not bad, not bad, bad.

If you're someone who thinks that even ostensibly balanced and abstract speeches should have some kind of structure, with implicitly defined sections that clarify central values and themes, then this was not the best speech, no:

* Final thoughts on Obama speech: good parts and bad parts but oh-so-rambling. Failure of me and my discipline: http://bit.ly/7oq2Oj #tcot

* Typo: "Truths: war is sometimes necessary, and war is... an expression of human feelings" He meant "failings" #tcot #irony #totus

* Obama: "I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence." Keep in mind this is after the passage about being "humble"

* "I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war." Thanks for clearing that up. #ffs #tcot

* Obama Nobel reax (1) Too much wiki-based pontification (2) Unusual sent struct is hackish not deep (3) VDH is going to have kittens #tcot

(1) The 38 uses of the word "I" may or may not be justified in an acceptance speech, but any sentence that begins with "I am living testimony" had better involve either a gulag, a disability, or a parody of someone who would say that without having survived a gulag or overcome a disability. Typical.

The punchline here - not included in the article - is that "savings" are a perennial anti-death penalty talking point. Housing a death row inmate in California costs the state three times more than housing a normal inmate, much of the extra burden coming from perks. Now some people might be inclined to view that travesty as a justification for reducing the privileges rather than the number of death row inmates. Those people obviously lack the subtle insight of California lawmakers:

In October in Orange County, Calif., Billy Joe Johnson, who had just been convicted of murder as a hit man for a white supremacist gang, begged the judge and jury, in all sincerity, to sentence him to death. Johnson knew that those on California's death row get individual cells and better telephone access, nicer contact-visit arrangements, and more personal-property privileges than ordinary inmates... Johnson was so eager to be put on death row that he tried to confess to two murders that no one yet knew about.

Now the disincentive that's supposed to prevent people from asking for the death penalty is - not to put too fine a point on it - death. But California has managed to execute a grand total of 13 out of almost current 700 death row prisoners since 1977. Compare that to the possibility of a prisoner like this getting killed in race-related violence over a lifetime, and those are pretty attractive odds.

And then there are the perks to consider. Individual cells and personal-property privileges? That's a new direction! I'd have to check, but I bet it's probably easier to find somewhere to smoke on death row than it is in Burbank, CA. Actually I don't have to check. Next up from the Sacramento nannie : soda.

Anyway, relative luxury for death row inmates but no more mammogram subsidies for women between 40 and 50. This state is magical.

References:
* News of the Weird: California's Death Row: Bigger cells, better privacy, more stuff, and almost no chance of being executed! [LAT]
* Smoking Ban in Burbank, CA
* UPDATE 1-Calif. lawmaker plans hearings on soda-obesity link [Reuters]
* Death Panel in California Ends Mammogram Subsidies for Women Between 40 and 50 [Ace]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* American Politics
* Democratic Politics
* Law

No of course that's not true. How does that even sound right to him? Is he really that contemptuous of people who disagree with him, that he thinks headlines about the "worst scientific scandal of our generation" are based on a few emails from 1999? Should the dissonance have engendered at least enough self-doubt to go and actually read the emails? And if he doesn't the have time - being a celebrity is hard - shouldn't he at least have enough self-awareness to avoid making easily disproven factual claims?

Apparently not. From the Slate interview they've got plastered all over their frontpage:

Q: How damaging to your argument was the disclosure of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University?

[Gore]: To paraphrase Shakespeare, it's sound and fury signifying nothing. I haven't read all the e-mails, but the most recent one is more than 10 years old. These private exchanges between these scientists do not in any way cause any question about the scientific consensus. But the noise machine built by the climate deniers often seizes on what they can blow out of proportion, so they've thought this is a bigger deal than it is.

It's awful bold of him to deride skeptics for having a "noise machine" when the CRU emailers bragged about the "publicity machine" they use to "shout messages." It almost has the feel of rank hypocrisy. Not that actual details seem to matter much. Later in the interview, in response to a question about "fair and open debate," he echoed the scientific conensus talking point. That's an tactic argument scholars might refer to as "begging the question." The rest of us would probably call it "being a condescending prick."

But let's ignore all that, because argumentative tactics and rhetorical tropes are hard to unpack. Much easier: point out flat out untruths. The emails obviously don't stop in 1999. They actually go right up to Nov. 12 of this year. The last one is from Peter Thorne, a British government official who wanted advice from Phil Jones about how to push climate legislation. Nov. 6 emails with Tom Wigley dealt with discrepancies in proxy data that needed to be smoothed out. Oct 28 emails with Graham Haughton had Jones berated Haughton for a colleague who publishes climate skeptics in her journal.

Now there are a number of issues in Climategate. There's the manipulation of the public sphere, where taxpayer funds - which these scientists seem to think are theirs by right - were used to study and target citizens. There's the specter of flat out bad data hidden by artificial adjustments, something that seems increasingly likely. There's the anti-scientific bullying of colleagues and politicization of peer review. And these emails deal with all of them. And they're from the last few weeks.

Some of you might remember friend-of-the-blog Larry Greenfield from the election, when the Obama campaign banned surrogates from debating him after he wiped the floor with the first few opponents. Others might recall him as the target of arguably the single dumbest smear in the history of the National Jewish Democratic Council - an impressive accomplishment given that the entire organization, to say nothing of NJDC Press Secretary Aaron Keyak, has the collective argumentative coherence and rhetorical acumen of a senile baboon.

In any case Larry now serves as a fellow at the Claremont Institute where, among sundry other responsibilities, he hosts their podcast BEDROCK With Larry Greenfield. Like the Institute itself, BEDROCK deals with the intersection of political philosophy, public discourse, and legislation.

He and I just wrapped up a series of interviews, with topics ranging from academia and conservative theory to Obama and anti-Israel diplomacy. Part I is now online, covering the conservative blogosphere, legacy journalism, and even a little bit about Mere Rhetoric. There are also extended digressions into a couple of specific controversies, and also a section on rhetorical theory. I'll post a reminder when the next sections - American domestic policy, the Jewish community, foreign policy, Middle East diplomacy, etc - get uploaded.

References:
* Obama Campaign Demands Ban On Republican Jewish Group, Escalates Thuggish Intimidation [MR]
* NJDC Tool Aaron Keyak Helpfully Illustrates How Liberal Activists Sneeringly Cocoon Themselves In Asinine Arguments And Dishonest Smears [MR]
* Democrats Outraged Over Jewish-Issues Poll Questions That Are... Umm... Demonstrably True [MR]
* NJDC: Biden Is Pro-Israel Because... Umm... Err... Because He Just Is OK? [MR]
* Bedrock: Omri Ceren Interview, Part 1 [Red County]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* American Politics
* Democratic Politics
* Jewish Politics

It's somewhere over 40 - MS Word is telling me 41, Charlie Foxtrot has it at 45 - but honestly I lost count in that section where he dropped "I" 15 times in less than 3 paragraphs. My eyes just kind of glazed over:

But there was too much "I" in the speech. George H.W. Bush famously took the word "I" out of his speeches... because of a horror of appearing to be calling attention to himself. Mr. Obama is plagued with no such fears. "When I took office... I approved a long-standing request... After consultations with our allies I then.. I set a goal." That's all from one paragraph. Further down he used the word "I" in three paragraphs an impressive 15 times. "I believe I know" "I have signed" "I have read" "I have visited."... About two-thirds of the way through, the speech degenerated into the faux eloquence that makes people listening across our nation want to gouge out their eyes and run screaming from the room. Lots of our children and our children's children, the dark clouds of tyranny, the light of freedom. Our strength comes from "the entrepreneurs and researchers who will pioneer new industries; from the teachers that will educate our children, and the service of those who work in our communities at home..."

You really have to wonder where The One got his reputation for peerless eloquence. It shouldn't have been the race speech, which objectively sucked. It wasn't the Berlin speech, since not even a sycophant could be inspired by the hackneyed infrastructure motif. It's not the Inaugural, which was so filled with treacly pompousness that the left resorted to insisting he spoke poorly on purpose.

And as an empirical matter it wasn't anything afterward. By March even deep blue outlets were admitting that "pundits are questioning Obama's ability to communicate."

This goes beyond the myriad teleprompter issues and the chronic inability to speak casually without resorting to grating cliches. It really is this juxtaposition between limitless self-declared grandiosity and increasingly obvious shallowness. In his Sermon To The Children that jarring contrast was forced - the President of the United States promising to roof schoolhouses and manage textbook inventories.

But by now the ethos of empty blustering has become all but pervasive. After so many Historical Speeches and Responsibility Summits, his ritualistic evocation of sweeping visuals and overwrought metaphors end up sounding - TNR's language, not mine - like so much gasbaggery. And when he's not preaching about his own splendor he's overcompensating for the growing impression that he's a beta male. The effect might merely be a consistent and comical - and comical because it's consistent - throwback to Bush. Except it's also disingenuous and unpersuasive:

I have come to the conclusion that the real reason this gifted communicator has become so bad at communicating is that he doesn't really believe a word that he is saying. He couldn't convey that health-care reform would be somehow cost-free because he knows it won't be. And he can't adequately convey either the imperatives or the military strategy of the war in Afghanistan because he doesn't really believe in it either... Obama all but held his nose as he delivered those words -- "bring this war to a successful conclusion" -- and never once mentioned the word "win"... I felt I was being told some Nordic myth from ancient times: Four score years ago and ten, fiery planes set out for the prosperous, peace-loving climes of the United States of America! And then, there was war. There was much war, and it was covered in a great fog, and it lasted unto eternity.

In fairness, I actually think that worshipful hosannas to Obama's rhetorical majesty have more to do with a widespread inability to distinguish genuine eloquence from turgid crap. But let's not totally abandon "his cultists swoon in ecstacy to his Holy Writ as delivered from On High." We've still got to account for Chris Matthews.

References and related after the jump...

Based on polling feedback from you - suitably normalized, ala global warming science, by throwing out responses we didn't like - One Jerusalem Radio's Omri Ceren Show returns from Thanksgiving with a new time slot and a new duration. We'll kick off today's show at 6:30pm PST, allowing families in homes across America to crowd around their computer, to dial in with questions, and to participate in the chat room.

Per your other suggestions, there will be more concentrated ranting by me and less careful analysis by guests. Dan Diker will drop in to contribute expert insights on Middle East geopolitics - today he talks Iran/Sryia/Lebanon and Israeli diplomacy - but the rest of the show will be handed over to a bevy of domestic and international news. That wasn't the first direction we thought of taking the program, but vox populi and so on.

Today's agenda: this Jerusalem broadside from Sweden, Obama's "present" vote on Afghanistan, the left's politicization of science, Iran's most recent fist clenching, and more. As always your questions, concerns, and feedback are solicited and greatly appreciated. Unless you're the lone reader who voted to move the show "to a non-Wednesday time slot, which I recognize will not happen but about which I nonetheless feel very strongly." In which case we'd like to talk to you over here for a second. It'll just take a second.

See you in a few hours!

References:
* The Omri Ceren Show - Martin Sherman Wrap Up, Changes To The Show (POLL!) [MR]
* Leaked Global Warming Docs: "Publicity Machine" Used To Manipulate Journalists And Intimidate Scientists [MR]
* Assault On Jerusalem [Blog Talk Radio]
* Sweden: It's Time For The EU To Lock In Jordan's Ethnic Cleansing Of East Jerusalem [MR]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* The Omri Ceren Show
* Israel Coverage
* American Politics

Democratic theory 101: there is a scientific sphere and a public sphere, and the two are by design separate and unequal. Scientists are supposed to produce grist for the deliberative mill, answering the objective questions "what's going on" and "how certain are we that we're right?" Then the public uses that information as part of a much messier debate over risk: "given the costs of action vs. the impact of inaction, how certain do we want scientists to be on this issue before we pass new legislation?" That's the deal modern democracies have with scientific institutions.

It's not the most empowering position for scientists to be in - they'd probably prefer to issue decrees directly - but that's why we compensate them with tens of trillions in public money. It's also not a perfect system, though it works well enough to balance nuclear meltdowns vs. necessary power production, epidemics vs. costly mass immunizations, and so on.

And it only works as long as scientists refrain from actively manipulating the public on legislative issues, either by working journalists or by pressuring lawmakers. The leaked emails and files from the Climatic Research Unit, at the UK's University of East Anglia, show that's exactly what AGW partisans have been doing. There has been a widespread and systematic breakdown in how climate researchers relate to the public that funds them and the media outlets that report on them.

This is a distinct issue from internal academic questions about shoddy research or contaminated peer review. Other posts have dealt with the damage that's been to scientific practice. I should probably add that I think the "hide the decline" email is overblown, with the caveats that they lied about grafting real temps for years and that the true scandal is how they actually don't know anything. Separately, there are credible legal accusations being raised.

In any case, what hasn't been unpacked is how the AGW crowd systematically undermined public debate by framing their media messages to provoke unjustifiable anxiety (a "certainty" issue), manipulating media institutions to untenably emphasize or deemphasize findings (a "what's going on" issue), and punishing scientists who strayed from the party line in media appearances. Climatologists could be model researchers and their shilling for prosperity-killing agreements and treaties would still be wildly inappropriate. That's not the deal we have with these people.

If these emails came from the other side, lefty magazines and academic journals would be screaming about the catastrophic erosion of contemporary democratic institutions. And they'd be right.

Asked...

The most interesting part of this is Fenstermaker's refusal to call 9/11 a case of murder. He could have conceded that it was while arguing that the defendants weren't responsible for it; the fact that he doesn't suggests at least the possibility that the defense will argue insanity or ... some form of justifiable homicide. Doubtless The One would love to see them try, as it would make conviction a foregone conclusion -- irrespective of how horrific relatives of 9/11 victims might find it.

... and answered:

At least one -- and possibly all five -- of the detainees with alleged ties to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, will plead not guilty in a "justification defense," arguing the attacks were responses to American foreign policy, according to a lawyer who met with one of the defendants. Attorney Scott Fenstermaker said he met with defendant Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility last week, and that when Ali and four other men face trial in New York, they likely will plead not guilty and then argue that the attacks were justified.

To repeat what I said over the weekend, it's interesting that we're supposed to listen intently to the pitter-patter of jihadi hearts when it comes to stopping our incredibly successful and cutting edge drone war. But when it comes to giving a gleeful jihadist the world's loudest megaphone to rail against the US, suddenly acknowledging the direction of jihadi sentiment is the height of cowardice. The contradiction almost gives the impression that it's actually the nature of the objectively anti or pro-terrorist action that's at stake for the left.

This is going to be spectacular:

Feeling a little nauseous? Coward.

References:
* O'Reilly to 9/11 defense lawyer: "You know people hate you, right?" [Hot Air]
* Lawyer: 9/11 suspect to plead not guilty, argue attacks justified [CNN]
* Watchers Council - The Left's Updated Definitions Of "Cowardice" And "Dangerous" [MR]
* Lawyer: 9/11 suspect to plead not guilty, argue attacks justified [CNN]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Islamic Terrorism
* Law
* American Politics

She sounds pretty pissed. Which is kind of what you'd expect given how she's always been against the entire auto bailout and its inevitable global market distortions. Even so, GM - which predictably filed for bankruptcy on June 1 - convinced Germany to save their European Opel division in a last-minute deal on May 30, in the midst of the company's freefall.

The deal, negotiated personally by Merkel even though it cost her massive political capital, had the German government underwrite Opel with the understanding that GM would sell the division, recoup the losses, and repay the loan. In the meantime tons of German jobs would be saved (as opposed to functionally fired right before Christmas, which is what just happened).

A normal company subject to normal market forces could be expected to follow through on the deal, since burning G8 countries after they extend you billions in currency is generally considered poor form. Apparently the board of our government owned auto corporation has different considerations, and they backed out of the deal. Now Germany is demanding their money back, though not before laying the entire mess at at Obama's feet:

"Without our involvement there would be no Opel today," Merkel told the Frankfurter Allgemeine (FAZ) daily in an interview to be published on Saturday. "We secured Opel's chances of survival." With US parent company GM struggling to survive, Germany gave Opel a "bridging loan" of 1.5 billion euros (2.2 billion dollars) to keep it running and Opel's 25,000 German employees, half the European total, in a job. In September, GM signed a preliminary deal to sell a majority stake in Opel, a deal backed by the German government with three billion euros in state loan guarantees, but last month GM decided not to sell after all. With Merkel having invested considerable political capital in securing the deal, Berlin was not amused. It is now demanding that GM pay back the money. "Now that the final decision has been taken, GM now has to pay back the bridging loan ... It has now taken over the responsibility of financing Opel itself," Merkel told the FAZ.

You'll be glad to know that GM's European spokespeople were pretty cocky about repaying the loan: "if we're asked, GM will repay the bridge loan in question." Sure it's infuriating to see them being generous with US taxpayer money as a way of brushing away their own incompetence. But (a) they're already bragging about paying back US taxpayer debts with money from US taxpayers and (b) they already gave $1 billion in bailout money to Brazil. Given how much Brazil's been flirting with Iran, it'd be churlish not to throw some money toward a reliable ally like Germany.

Maybe we can mollify Merkel by reminding her of all the sound economic reasons Democrats gave for the bailout. Like how not doing it would have been unpatriotic and "un-American." It's difficult to understand how a plan passed in such a nuanced argumentative context could fare so poorly.

References and related after the jump...

Each week, the members of the Watchers Council nominate one of their own posts and a second from outside the Council for consideration by other council members in a contest for the week's best post. Last week's submissions - helpfully rounded up by Council member Joshuapundit under the title "He's Bowing And Scrapin', We're All Watching Palin..." - set up a week of insane but not entirely unpredictable unhinged leftwing venom.

Just to sum up where the liberal catechism now stands, updated through last week: (1) it is vitally important to be concerned about the "hearts and minds" of Muslims who would have us abandon measures like drone attacks, where we kill terrorists (2) it is "cowardly" to be concerned about the "hearts and minds" of Muslims who welcome bringing KSM to NYC, a move jihadists are gleefully anticipating and (3) what's actually "dangerous" and worthy of non-cowardly fear - per the campaign brownshirts who became Obama's Organizing for America - is Palin's book tour.

Your intellectual and moral superiors at work.

Not coincidentally, the winners from last week's nominations revolved around this theme of deeply revelatory liberal incoherence. Bookworm Room had the top post, unpacking of how our super-keen Vulcan can be having so much trouble. The runner up was The Razor with a post about the ignorance of the Obama administration. Those are where you'll want to start, and all of the posts - listed after the jump - are worth taking a look at.

Each week, the members of the Watchers Council nominate one of their own posts and a second from outside the Council for consideration by other council members in a contest for the week's best post. With a new list coming out in a few hours, it's probably about time for me to post last week's nominated posts. That's the kind of tight ship we run here at MR HQ.

Why do these posts always go up at the last minute, even though they're basically cut and paste jobs plus a little commentary? Tough question. Without getting into too many details the answer involves a "happy hour," a "patio" and "how it's always 70 degrees in LA." There's also a bunch of stuff having to do with side projects and daily travel blogging and assorted other rent-targeted activities, rent being an unfortunate monthly necessity that if you could see your way to defraying I would be much obliged.

Anyway, here are last week's nominations from the Watchers Council and beyond. For the record, Joshuapundit's meticulously written post ended up squeaking past my own "liberals seem to have a lot invested in glittery displays of sham erudition" nit-picking, so if you're pressed for time that's the place to start.

Council Submissions
* Mere Rhetoric - Agitprop-Funding NEA Chief: "Barack Obama Is The Most Powerful Writer Since Julius Caesar
* The Glittering Eye - Triage
* Rhymes With Right - Just A Reminder - Hasan Not The First
* Bookworm Room - Watch the Democratic dominoes fall
* The Provocateur - Dr. Chacko Comes to Lahey
* The Colossus of Rhodey - The problem with Islamic terrorism and the Left
* The Razor - Suburban Perspective on Rural America
* Right Truth - A Small Nation
* Joshuapundit - Death By A Thousand Cuts

Honorable Mentions
* Okie On The Lam - Nanny Nancy Pelosi Shoving 1990-Page Health Care Up Our Collective Wazzoo!
* Tel-Chai Nation - Turkey's Erdogan continues with his bigotry

Non-Council Submissions
* Submitted By: The Watcher - Selwyn Duke/American Thinker - Jihad and America, the land that cried sheep
* Submitted By: The Glittering Eye - Tigerhawk - The myth of American heroism
* Submitted By: Rhymes With Right - Red County - Tragedy At Ft. Hood
* Submitted By: Bookworm Room - Villainous Company - Obama doesn't "get" the military he commands
* Submitted By: The Provocateur - WSJ Blog - Doctor: I Was Fired for Fighting Hospital's Ties to Medtronic
* Submitted By: The Colossus of Rhodey - The Scientist - Promises, Promises
* Submitted By: Right Truth - Right, Wing-Nut - A Nation, Hi-Jacked
* Submitted By: The Razor - MG Hoft - Wash U Shuts Down Freedom Memorial
* Submitted By: Mere Rhetoric - Danger Room - Is This China's Anti-Satellite Laser Weapon Site?
* Submitted By: Joshuapundit - Ron Radosh/Hot Air - The Nation, Jihad and General Casey

References:
* Watcher of Weasels » Watcher's Council Nominations, Veteran's Day Edition [Watcher Of Weasels]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* American Politics Coverage
* Democratic Politics Coverage
* Republican Politics Coverage

Each week, the members of the Watchers Council nominate one of their own posts and a second from outside the Council for consideration by other council members in a contest for the week's best post. Last week's submissions were written in the background of the grassroots victory over Scozzafava in the NY-23, polls showing a Republican crush in Virginia, and the promise of at least moral victory in deep blue New Jersey. The eventual top posts expressed a kind of justifiable sanguine confidence in the future of conservativism.

Post-PelosiCare, things are looking less rosy. In Britain even the Conservatives have to express "100% support" for the NHS, the political reality in a nation long ago infantalized by government paternalism. Promises of grassroots anger have a lot less sting when you project out 3 years into a political environment where taxpayers, having been drained of wealth and holding up an incredible national debt, have no choice but to turn to the government for their health care. The rationalizations will be fast, furious, and vapid - but they'll be ubiquitous.

This week is starting off badly enough, with Iranian triumphalism abroad and the possibility of an anti-Israel ambush in DC. You know, there's a theory under which a country that abandons its friends while supplicating its enemies isn't laying the foundation for future prosperity. Anyway, evaluate for yourselves:

Council Submissions
* Joshuapundit - Conservatives Win In NY 23
* The Provocateur - Interview With Wade Rathke II
* The Glittering Eye - What's A Foreseeable Rate of Taxation?
* Bookworm Room - Do They Even Listen to Themselves?
* Right Truth - Half of all U.S. children will be on food stamps according to study
* The Razor - Laws Need Limits
* The Colossus of Rhodey - Once again, the Democrats back vote fraud
* Mere Rhetoric - The Omri Ceren Show - 2pm PST - Barry Rubin On Lebanon's Crisis And Ours

Non-Council Submissions
* Submitted By: Joshuapundit - Big Government - The Public Option Deception
* Submitted By: The Provocateur - New Ledger - George Soros Assautl on the Free Market
* Submitted By: The Glittering Eye - E. D. Kain-American Tory - Nothing's ever certain except race and taxes
* Submitted By: Bookworm Room - Black & Right - Comment of the Day
* Submitted By: Right Truth - Sense of Events - Is Obama a milleniarian without a plan? Does he even need one?
* Submitted By: The Razor - Washington Examiner - Conservative revolt good news for Republicans
* Submitted By: The Colossus of Rhodey - The Boston Globe - Islam's Darwin problem
* Submitted By: Mere Rhetoric - Solomonia - SDS Still Alive and Planning Disruptions...at Brandeis
* Submitted By: The Watcher - Michael J. Gaynor at Web Commentary - ACORN 8 Supporter Tries to Disparage Michelle Malkin and Anita MonCrief in Halloween Hit Piece

References:
* Taxing: Policy and Tedium as a Result of Left Wing Beliefs and Attitudes [Watcher Of Weasels]
* 'I Am A Proud Conservative Day' - Taking Back The Republican Party [Watcher Of Weasels]
* PM heads to U.S. under threat of Palestinian statehood declaration [Ha'aretz]
* Iran expecting nuclear talks with world powers [AP]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* American Politics Coverage
* Democratic Politics Coverage
* Republican Politics Coverage

Buried on the second page of Politico's "don't believe the post-election conservative hype" article, this is going to have Mickey Kaus positively tickled. Couple it with how death panels got reinserted into House legislation, and everything old really does seem new again:

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs insisted Wednesday that the White House plans no changes whatsoever in its legislative strategy or agenda as a result of this week's contests. However, a White House aide told ABC that the administration will seek to bolster moderates by returning to an argument that health care reform will curb the deficit -- a talking point Obama aides have de-emphasized in recent months in favor of a focus on making the insurance system more secure and predictable.

The way I remember it, Obama aides de-emphasized Orszag's bend-the-cost-curve argument because it wasn't true. It wasn't true before Pelosi started outright lying about the cost of the House bill. It won't be true after politicians incite populist resentment against people who "choose" to be unhealthy - smokers, drinkers, people with dietary choices that Bay Area scolds frown upon, etc. Private ambulances are adding surcharges for obese patients. I'm just hoping they never discover that sex kills just like alcohol and obesity.

Six or seven years into nationalized health care - when citizens have to choose between higher taxes or scapegoating the overweight guy next door - won't that be a pleasant public sphere? I'm especially interested to see how the left handles the soda drinkers they're looking for excuses to tax. The race-infused classist condescension, already on display in some of our more refined liberal outlets, is going to be exquisite.

In fairness, that little dig about fashionable Bay Area health fads was probably unfair. Democrats are floating taxes on wine along with their sin taxes on beer. So it's not like they're being elitist.

References and related after the jump...

First of all - and I know this is ticky-tacky but the left's ubiquotous pseudo-sophisticated name checking gets obnoxious - Julius Caesar was not a particularly great writer. Even if that wasn't true, Marcus Aurelius was in every way a better scribe and at least equally as powerful. And as a purely historical matter, though it's distasteful to admit, Lenin and Mao also need to be included as writer-leaders who controlled huge swaths of territory. All of them obviously lived after Caesar.

This is why we have separate sandboxes for academics. People who study things like history - where precision is still at least gestured toward - play in one sandbox. Then we put theater and music experts like Landesman in a different sandbox, where there are no sharp facts for them to swallow or cut themselves with. There they can spin metaphorical tapestries of fancy and pass them off as profundity, and we pat their heads and assure them that they're bright and shiny.

The pursuit of the arts, of course, is irreplaceable in and indispensable to a well-cultivated society. But its practitioners should avoid political activism, lest they end up sounding like moronic protofascist bootlickers. And just to be clear, it's the "moronic" part that's particularly grating:

Three days after Landesman was confirmed as the head of the NEA, his communications director, Yosi Sergant, told NEA grantees in a conference call: "I would encourage you to pick something, whether it's health care, education, the environment -- you know, there's four key areas that the corporation has identified as the areas of service." Two days later, a host of arts organizations endorsed Obama's health-care plan... of the 21 groups signing the statement, 16 had recently received grants from the NEA or were affiliated with organizations that had...

Landesman debased himself with incandescently vulgar obsequiousness to his supreme leader. "There is a new president and a new NEA," he proclaimed. "This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln. If you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar. That has to be good for American artists."

Not for nothing, but the last time I got an email about the Cashill hypothesis it was from a far left academic. He found it highly unlikely that Obama metamorphosed from his crappy pre-Dreams self into the transcendent political author of our time. I'm not totally sold on that theory yet, though I agree that bad writers don't become a good writers without years of practice that Obama never had. But as a simple matter of public argument, invoking the President's literary brilliance might be two-sided.

The weird thing about the NEA dustup is how unnecessary it was. Was the White House worried that artists weren't consistently producing agitprop for the Messiah In Chief? Because they were and are:

What is unofficial Obama art? That's what I wondered when I heard there will be a display of such art in Chicago at the Chicago Tourism Center. Basically, it's art by any artist who was inspired by Obama's run for president to create a video, a painting, a poster or whatever to commemorate the occasion. This is not just any art, but good art. People whose work is represented in the exhibit sent it in for consideration. The result is more than 100 artworks. Some of the pieces may seem familiar like the Go Tell Mama series of posters or Sol Sender's Obama '08 logo--the one that ended up on yard signs and bumper stickers.

Website and exhibit:

Each week, the members of the Watchers Council nominate one of their own posts and a second from outside the Council for consideration by other council members in a contest for the week's best post. My submissions for this week are roughly "liberals always support the war we're not in" and "liberal American Jews always support Israeli self-defense except when Israel actually tries to defend itself." It's almsot like they're being insincere.

I think I've already locked down my favorites for the week, though I'm still in the air about my non-Council picks. Feel free to sound off which ones you would chose under the Mere Rhetoric Facebook page under this post.

In the meantime, make sure you check out the most current post on the Watchers site. TV stations won't show a picture of Muhammad delivering a pizza, but peeing on Jesus is oh so risque. Dumb.

Council Submissions
* Mere Rhetoric - Lefty Meme Congeals: The Real War Is In Pakistan Not Afghanistan
* Joshuapundit - J Street - A Particularly Nasty Dead End To Be Avoided
* Bookworm Room The march of the thought police
* The Provocateur - My Interview with Wade Rathke
* The Glittering Eye - Are We Promoting Our Grand Strategy?
* Rhymes With Right - And To Think The Average Income Of American Families Dropped By 3.6%
* Right Truth - - Overwhelmed by current situation in America and the world

Council Submissions
* Submitted By: The Watcher - Dismantling America - Thomas Sowell at Real Clear Politics
* Submitted By: The Watcher - Riehl World View - Exclusive: How The NRCC Bungled NY - 23
* Submitted By: Mere Rhetoric - Pajamas Media - Showdown on J Street
* Submitted By: Joshuapundit - The Augean Stables - Investigate the investigators: A time to rebuke Goldstone
* Submitted By: Bookworm Room - GM's Place - Splitting: Fox News and the White House
* Submitted By: The Provocateur - Mercury News - Racial Skirmishes in our Own House
* Submitted By: The Glittering Eye - Daniel W. Drezner - Theory of International Politics and Zombies
* Submitted By: Rhymes With Right - JammieWearingFool - Why Is GE Exempt From Government-Ordered Pay Cuts?
* Submitted By: Right Truth - The Tygrrrr Express - Why not just kill all conservatives?

References and related after the jump...

Tune in tomorrow afternoon at 2pm for the fourth installment of One Jerusalem Radio's Omri Ceren Show. I wrapped up the interview with Norman Podhoretz this morning and will play you some highlights on the air, split about 66/33 between Podhoretz's new book Why Are Jews Liberals? and his previous work World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism. There just wasn't enough depressing material packed into the discussion of how American Jews are unshakably, myopically, religiously committed to an anti-Israel Democratic Party and an antisemitic liberal community, so we meandered between the two books. Nothing like the prospect of an apocalyptic nuclear war triggered by a downward deterrence spiral to darken the mood.

As always, to hear TOCS live you have to click over to the Blog Talk Radio show page while the programs is on between 2pm and 2:45pm. Once there you'll be able to stream the show, call in to get on the air, and - starting tomorrow - participate with other listeners in the chat room (more on that below). After the show ends you can download it as a podcast, plus we'll post the full 30 minute interview - the highlights plus what got cut for time - on the One Jerualem audio page.

Above and beyond the interview, two new features are debuting tomorrow on their way to becoming regular TOCS features:

(1) Dan Diker will be calling in from Israel for weekly discussions on two or three geopolitical issues of the day. In between being the Director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs and a foreign policy anaalyst at The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Dan gets asked with not infrequent consistency to unpack Israeli thinking on CNN, BBC, ABC, FOX, al Hurra, and Arabic al Jazeera. I'd say he's forgotten more about Israeli sentiment and strategy than most people know, but I haven't seen any evidence he forgets stuff. Tomorrow's topics: Turkey's swing away from the West and what Israeli leaders are saying about the P5+1 deal behind closed doors.

(2) I'm going to open up the chatroom on the show page, allowing you guys to complain about the segments in realtime. Anyone who's tuned in - which is to say, anyone who's streaming live from show page - will be able to log in and participate. I obviously won't be able to monitor the discussion so I'm going to have to trust the listeners to be on their best behavior. When that doesn't work I'll have to think of something else, like a script that randomly bans one third of the room whenever someone uses the words "Hope" or "Change." I've got a good feeling about this.

References:
* Why Are Jews Liberals? by Norman Podhoretz [Amazon]
* World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism (Vintage) [Amazon]
* Obama Complains: It's A Media-Fueled "Misperception" That I'm Trying To Detonate The US-Israel Relationship [MR]
* Collective Nutroots Wisdom: Lieberman Blocking Public Option So Israel Can Attack Iran Or Something [MR]
* Norman Podhoretz - Why Jews Are Liberals [TOCS]
* One Jerualem Audio [Official Site]

Previously:
* The Omri Ceren Show
* Jewish Politics
* Arab and Muslim World

Cherry picking nutroots comments sections and finding antisemitism - not a neat trick. Finding the same antisemitic meme in comments across six top nutroots blogs - still not a particularly neat trick because what do you expect from Daily Kos, Wonkette, HuffPo, ThinkProgress, FiveThirtyEight, and DU? But closer!

What would be really interesting is if blogs like HuffPo had been randomly filtering Lieberman's health care calculations through an Israel prism for weeks. Then their commenters' anti-Jewish dual loyalty canards would go from being mere seething bigotry to something more like institutionalized habits of thoughts that lends themselves to symptomatic outbursts.

HuffPo contributor M.S. Bellows, "Fate of Healthcare Reform Is in Joe Lieberman's Hands", October 9, 2009:

But if Lieberman intends to become a Republican next year, he will lose that chairmanship anyway. And, with Democrats holding both the White House and solid majorities in both houses, Lieberman has no realistic chance of advancing his hawkish, pro-Israel foreign policy agenda despite being chair. Lieberman has nothing to lose, and everything to gain, from jettisoning his chairmanship now and becoming a hero to the Right by singlehandedly stopping Barack Obama's signature domestic policy initiative in its tracks.

His duly incited audience responded with charming observations like "Joe is not an American supporter other than our military and welfare money to the theocratic state of Israel" and "If the fate of health care reform is in Lieberman's hands, it's doomed. Lieberman doesn't vote for anything that isn't Pro-MIC and Pro-Israel."

Fast forward to today's half bluff / half bombshell. Why would Lieberman do it? Tough to say. It could be because he's an experienced political hand who knows he has enormous leverage to insert specific health care reforms he's been pursuing for years. Or it could be, per this self-styled analyst at FiveThirtyEight, that he wants Obama to give Israel the green light to expand settlements and start a war across West and Central Asia:

Liebermann is playing political games for Israel. He wants this administration to let them do what they want, ie, expand settlements to their hearts content, use Iraqi air space for an attack, etc. He knows he can get concessions on Israel on his HC vote.

Of course there's room for nuance here. This DKos strategist doesn't think Lieberman wants Israel to bomb Iran. Apparently the Senator's actual plan is to install a warmongering GOP President who will have America do the bombing, albeit 4 years from now when it would no longer matter (?):

The full rankings for last week's Watchers contest are worth reading in full. The top Council blogs focused mostly foreign policy and the top non-Council posts did almost precisely the opposite. A good mix.

The top Council post from Joshuapundit dealt with the latest round of "anti-Zionst" government and media witchhunts. Two notable things: (1) any concrete accusations against the Jewish State are demonstrably and admittedly false and (2) those false accusations all happen to sound exactly the same as age-old antisemitic dual loyalty canards. Strange how that keeps happening:

And speaking of paying attention, that's brings me to another piece that hit the news today. Laura Rozen, one of the Politico's Leftist 'foreign policy experts' ran a story under this cheerful headline: "Maryland scientist arrested for attempted espionage for Israel." Here are some more headlines on this story: "Moon scientist Stewart Nozette held as Israeli spy in FBI sting" (The London Times), "Top US scientist accused of trying to spy for Israel" (The British Telegraph), US scientist charged with attempting to sell military secrets to Israel (al-Guardian), US scientist Stewart Nozette charged with trying to sell secrets to Israel (The Christian Science Monitor),

Only one thing wrong with these headlines. Israel wasn't involved in the least. What we actually had here was an FBI sting where someone posed as a Mossad agent, and Nozette made it known that he had secrets to sell for cold, hard cash. The agent could have just as easily said he was from Britain's MI5, or the French Sûreté, or the Russians. It would have made no difference.

The runner up Council post from Bookworm Room makes it clear that venom is being sprayed at our allies all over the world. Not so much at our enemies though.

The non-Council posts all focused in one way or another on the post-partisan era of unity we've entered since the Obama inauguration. Whoever's compiling Obama's enemies list, described by the top non-Council Real Clear Politics post, is apparently the one exception:

But this White House seems to feel they're different. It's not just that the current occupant of the Oval Office has a particularly thin skin when it comes to criticism - which is especially ironic given that he's been the recipient of more glowing press coverage than possibly any candidate or president in modern American history. But not since Nixon conjured up an "enemies list" have we seen the full weight of the Office of the Presidency brought to bear in such a targeted and deliberate effort to delegitimize a media organization critical of the President... The current presidency, as much perhaps as any in history, is built upon the foundation of the President's personal popularity. President Obama has, out of necessity, become the Salesman-in-Chief for his progressive agenda. But as the White House continues to struggle adjusting to the reality of governing versus campaigning, it is either unwilling or unable to brook criticism of the President or his policies. Thus FOX News is targeted as the enemy.

Almost difficult to understand how a Cult of Personality built on a utopian promise of unity could devolve into thuggishly scapegoating one group after another for "dividing" the country and blocking "the people's will." If only there had been historical examples that academics who unceasingly attacked Bush could have used to speak out against the dangers of charismatic leaders who run on promises of literally remaking the world.

Instead we just wrapped up another round sheer, incoherent political rancor. We were treated to left-of-Democrats Republicans calling the cops on journalists, Democrats rhetorically dismissing the conservative base from "this reality," and even to the eye-roll inducing spectacle of Obama being gushingly proud of his idiotic Nobel Peace Prize. All of that comes via non-Council runner ups The Weekly Standard, Rick Moran, and Toby Harnden, writing about lefties who also must have missed the post-partisan memo.

References and related after the jump...

Each week, the members of the Watchers Council nominate one of their own posts and a second from outside the Council for consideration by other council members in a contest for the week's best post. And each week I inexplicably end up waiting till the subsequent Monday to post the nominations and the winners. Not this time: Sunday!

My own post dealt with how influential public diplomacy expert Marc Lynch advised the Obama administration to pick a fight with Israel, saw that strategy backfire as the Palestinians hardened their demands and fractured, and is now accusing Israel of "intransigence" in every other post he writes. He's a little bit bitter and it's getting kind of unseemly, though there's probably room for sympathy - the foreign policy left's recommendations have been exposed as naivete-soaked delusions, and that can't be fun. Right Truth's post on the ongoing Middle East-wide disasters triggered by State Department diplomacy and foreign policy pseudo-sophistication is to the point.

The Glittering Eye's post on health care probes a question that comes up again and again for foreign policy hawks: putting aside that the left can be relied on to appease our enemies and endanger our allies - see Bookworm Room's post - why is it that they're also so consistently useless and ideological even on domestic affairs? The word "meltdown" makes a couple of appearances.

But at least the GOP seems to have approximated something like a spine on health care. The rest of their stunts have put them at war with their own base, a situation that Rhymes With Right unpacks nicely. Not that the conservative grassroots are without their own potential problems, something The Provocateur lays out.

All of which is really a shame, because - per the Colossus Of Rhodey - the left is becoming unhinged to the point of open racism again. Usually they save that for election season. Ditto for the fangs they're showing about double-loyalty towards the Jewish State - complete with witch hunters who totally fail to implicate Israel but imply the opposite. See Joshuapundit on that last bit. Apparently the left is still addicted to the scapegoating rush they discovered during the campaign. It must feel really good.

References and related coverage after the jump...

As part of my determined and ongoing campaign to dilute the Mere Rhetoric brand - strongly linked as it is now to an ethos of online anonymity and amatuer ranting - I'm co-sponsoring a real-life expert event with Dore Gold on Monday Nov. 2nd at the Skirball. The official co-sponsor list: Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, One Jerusalem, the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and Mere Rhetoric Media, which is a fake entity I just made up to cover MR's "dyanmic and growing stable of political and academic blogs, social media assets, and multimedia offerings" (see? branding!).

More importantly: Dore Gold on Iran. Skirball. November 2nd. I've pasted the full flier, which is nicely laid out and includes some more logistical information, after the jump. Click on it to download a full-sized copy.

You can also click through to the CJHS writeup or just RSVP preemtively because it's Dore Gold and he'll be talking about Iran on the week where the IAEA will be declaring "so we looked into that Qom site that we gave Iran weeks to clean out, and it turns out it was empty - nothing to worry about!" CJHS put on a Skirball event with Norman Podhoretz about a month ago that sold out and had an overflow line stretching almost out the door. So if you're going to attend - and you should, given how what Gold said in August is happening now and what he'll be saying next week will be happening in December - it behooves you to RSVP sooner rather than later.

Partial blurb:

One of Israel's greatest living foreign policy experts, Ambassador Gold will be speaking about his new book The Rise of Nuclear Iran: How Tehran Defies the West and about the threats posed by a resurgent Iran arming itself with weapons of mass destruction... The Rise of Nuclear Iran systematically lays out the elements of Iran's weaponization program: highly enriched nuclear material, long-range ballistic missiles, and nuclear-capable warheads. The revelation of the Qom enrichment facility and Iran's subsequent missile tests have confirmed all of Gold's warnings, making his book required reading for anyone who seeks to understand Tehran's current and future plans. Now Ambassador Gold will lay out a bleak case against the West's "sticks and carrots" engagement policy and highlight the consequences of its likely failure: a "nuclear umbrella" for global terrorists, a Middle East dominated by Shiite hegemony, a Western hemisphere subject to Iranian threats, and a ever-present genocidal shadow over the Jewish State.

RSVP: Click.

I know I speak for everyone when I thank the National Women's Law Center for injecting a note of levelheadedness into the health care debate. The pan of the abused elderly woman was a particularly subtle touch, though it was the body-length scar that really sold it for me.

But the shot of the woman looking at a pregnancy test was, I thought, confusing. When Obama says "reproductive care" it means exactly what you think it means, and it has since at least 2007. But dozens upon dozens of MSM fact checkers have established that ObamaCare won't cover abortions, so I'm not sure what it's doing in the ad:

In fairness, it counts as lying to quote The One on The One. So even though the Associated Press is now suggesting that ObamaCare might cover abortions, they could be making that up. No one - certainly not Congress - has really read the whole thing. Could go either way.

And not for nothing, but the good arguments implicit in the ad - apparently rape has been treated as a preexisting medical condition - are solved by health care reform that stops way short of the public option. You don't have to accept that interstate competition would fix things, though there's nothing like public shaming in an open market to motivate brand-conscious corporations. You just have to believe that passing a law saying "you can't treat rape as a preexisting condition, lest the government fine you into the ground" would prevent insurance companies from treating rape as a preexisting condition.

And then there's this shameless "deficit neutral" two-step:

"I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits, either now or in the future -- period," President Obama told Congress in a health-care address last month. Well, that depends on what the meaning of "plan" is. Senate Democrats wanted to protect doctors from scheduled cuts in Medicare payments over the next 10 years, but there was a problem: Doing so would add a quarter of a trillion dollars to the federal deficit, making mincemeat of Obama's promise. So Democrats hatched a novel scheme: They would pass the legislation separately, so the $250 billion cost wouldn't be part of the main reform "plan," thereby allowing the president to claim that that bill wouldn't increase the deficit.

Whatever. I don't want to spoil anyone's weekend, but the right is going to get clobbered on ObamaCare. Elections, it turns out, matter.

References and related after the jump...

This week's top Council posts, coming from an intimidating slate of nominations that mixed domestic and foreign policy issues, present a neat little juxtaposition between old-fashioned military honor at home and something less so abroad. The very top Council post came from Bookworm Room, who related several upshots from a family outing to see the Blue Angels at a fundraiser on the USS Hornet:

Despite the varied responsibilities of the people we met, all of the Blues have certain characteristics in common: First, and most obviously, they're all lovely to look at (men and women alike)... because its members are all in superb physical condition... Second, without exception, these people were gentleman and ladies in the old-fashioned sense of the term. They were kind to the children and courteous to everyone. They looked us in the eye, spoke clearly, and, despite the crowds around them, made every person feel as if he, or she, was important... Third, and this is something I tried to emphasize for the kids on the way home, the make-up of the Blue Angels shows that reputation matters... Fourth -- and this is something I've commented upon after every interaction I've had with men and women in the American military -- the Blues manifestly love their work. Each person with whom we spoke felt that his (or her) job has meaning and purpose

One of the two tied runner up Council posts, this one from Right Truth, paints a picture that some might characterize as a little bit unworthy of these men and women: our ongoing abandonment of women to sharia in the Middle East and in the AfPak. And per the non-Council post from Benjamin Kerstein at The New Ledger, Obama's betrayal of our natural friends and allies - freedom-loving people who are oppressed and besieged - goes all the way up to entire nations:

Obama's reputation in Israel might have survived... had it not been for his much-hyped "speech to the Muslim world" delivered in Cairo on June 4. Taken as a whole, the speech was simply a craven embarrassment; but the references it made to Israel could not have been more alienating and insulting had they been calculated for the purpose... Obama's speechwriters and advisors became convinced that equating the Holocaust with the Palestinian nakba (the word means "catastrophe," and Arabs use it to describe the establishment of Israel and its War of Independence in 1948), comparing Israeli treatment of the Palestinians to segregation in the United States, and pointing to the Jewish people's "tragic history" as the sole justification for Israel's existence would assuage Israeli concerns... this single speech (which everyone in Israel watched) did more to demolish Obama's credibility in Israeli eyes than any of his demands on Netanyahu ever could have.

Betraying allies, and the inevitable decline triggered by that kind of cravenness, doesn't have to be inevitable. The non-Council runner up article from Charles Krauthammer emphasizes that it's a reversible choice. Though given how our cultural bien pensants trash the complicated history of Columbus described by Council runner up The Glittering Eye, signs for a revival of national pride aren't exactly great.

References and previously after the jump...

References:
* Reputation Matters - Obama and Israel: Betrayal in the Broken Places [Watcher Of Weasels]
* Watchers Council Nominations - Who Needs Free Speech When You've Got A Post-Partisan Utopia? [MR]
* What's not to like about the Blue Angels? *UPDATED* [Bookworm Room]
* What about the women Obama? [Right Truth]
* Obama and Israel: Betrayal in the Broken Places [New Ledger]
* Decline Is a Choice [Weekly Standard]
* Columbus Day, 2009 [The Glittering Eye]

Previously:
* Watchers Council Results - Gratuitous Insults Are Especially Obnoxious Coming From Mindless Cultists
* Watchers Council Results - Dem's ObamaCare Strategy: If You Can't Beat Them, Bait And Switch Them. Failing That, Bully Your Own Hometown Newspaper.
* Watchers Council Results - Putting Israeli Self-Defense Out Of Bounds

But this time they pinky swear they'll be enthusiastic about supporting any US war effort. Not like when they promised to support "the necessary war" in Afghanistan if only we would abandon Iraq. For realsies this time.

This FP post from Carnegie Endowment for International Peace fellow David Rothkopf, subtly titled "Afghanistan is just not that important", is the second appearance in a week for this nuanced position. It includes the querulous insistence that Obama shouldn't be tied down by his over-the-top campaign posing, where he obnoxiously lectured Republicans about military priorities. Because why should Democrats have to run on what they actually intend to do? If they did that they might never get elected.

Of course changing circumstances require changing tactics, and if the left was making that argument it'd be a different debate. But that's not the argument they're making. They're not saying the Taliban or Al Qaeda have become less "the people who attacked us on 9/11," which was one of the left's tropes ad nauseam during the campaign. Instead they're saying - explicitly - that Afghanistan's just not that important. Now it's true that Obama convinced the American people to trust him as Commander in Chief by saying the exact opposite. But the left didn't really believe him at the time - they know Democrats have to say moderate-sounding things to get elected, and they don't hold that against them - so what's the big deal if he flip-flops now?

Of course The One will need a sophisticated-sounding excuse. And right on cue, here's the matriarch of the nutroots herself. In this post she's advocating that Biden should resign as part of a principled stance against putting more troops in Afghanistan, a decision she insists "generations to come will always be grateful for." Technically true, but obviously not for the reasons she thinks. Anyway:

If Biden truly believes that what we're doing in Afghanistan is not in the best interests of our national security -- and what issue is more important than that? -- it's simply not enough to claim retroactive righteousness in his memoirs. Though it would be a crowning moment in a distinguished career, such an act of courage would likely be only the beginning. Biden would then become the natural leader of the movement to wind down this disastrous war and focus on the real dangers in Pakistan.

That same post also had Huffington comparing Biden to Socrates. Unironically. Because when I think "the most honest and wisest of all men," I think about a a serial liar who, having declared that we have to bankrupt the country to avoid bankrupting it, this week announced that we're in a depressing. This is a thinker of such geostrategic genius that he managed to get every single thing wrong on Iraq, voting for the war, voting against the surge, and in between proposing a 3-way partition plan of such incandescent stupidity that factions engaged in a genocidal civil war came together to oppose it. This is ostensibly our military Socrates, a modern day warrior-scholar.

So in addition to being reflexive appeasers who coat their whimpering pro-surrender histrionics with tough-sounding pseudo-sophistication, leftists also appear to be thoroughly serious people.

References and previously after the jump...

Each week, the members of the Watchers' Council nominate one of their own posts and a second from outside the Council for consideration by other council members in a contest for the week's best post. Last week's posts focusing mostly on domestic issues and dynamics, though the foreign policy stuff was... biting.

There were three foreign policy posts, one of which pointed out that Obama has created a certain kind of Nobel-worthy tranquility (cf. my post using the exact same conceit, published a little more than a week after Joshuapundit used the theme - figures). The Razor pointed out that Biden's delusions of AfPak relevance have now become out and out dangerous, while Right Truth highlighted the President's amoral and illiberal foreign policy in that charming part of the world.

A few of the domestic posts mused about the post-partisan utopia in which Obama's America finds itself ensconced. The Glittering Eye outlined the historical Columbus, one which has been replaced in textbooks by a politically correct, vaguely anti-European caricatures. Fast forwarding to the current day and per the Colossus Of Rhodey, media outlets were willing to basically fabricate quotes as part of a leftist demonization campaign. The Provocateur explored partisanship from the other direction, finding more than a few argumentative slights of hand on the right. Partisan tensions are such that even levelheaded conservatives are talking about the de facto outlawing of conservatism. Rhymes With Right found himself actually having to justify the 1st amendment, which I'm pretty sure we used to rely on implicitly.

At least Obama can always count on the support of the American Jewish community. This is the same community that's recently taken to hosting venemous antisemitic hatefests - complete with calls for the destruction of the Jewish State - in San Francisco. Any port in a storm, huh? Though for what it's worth the Bay Area isn't totally toxic to conservatism or patriotism though. There are enough pro-military families there to justify hosting the Blue Angels show that Bookworm Room discussed. I know, I was as surprised as anyone.

References and previously after the jump...

You know, if I was a public diplomacy expert who spent the last decade staking my career on something like the Cairo speech, then I consulted for various principals in the leadup to the Cairo speech, then I watched the Cairo speech explode in Obama's face and send Israeli public opinion of the US President nosediving to levels heretofore unplumbed outside the Muslim world - if I was someone like that, I'd be pretty careful about sullenly blaming Obama's Mideast failures on Israel. At worst I'd casually mention it during Q+A's at invited University lectures. That way I could leave graduate students with the impression that it was the sophisticated opinion and link to them offhandedly if they ever published it.

I certainly wouldn't post it on my well-respected Foreign Policy blog, lest people read it and get the impression that I was overcompensating for something:

The [Goldstone Report] vote shows that Israel is paying a price for its short-sighted diplomatic strategy of confrontation with the Obama administration... Netanyahu has spent many long months doing everything in his power to subvert Obama's peace initiatives, defying the demand to freeze settlements and inciting American and Israeli public opinion against the President and against peace...

The passage of the [Goldstone Report] may slightly increase the odds of a Hamas-Fatah reconciliation agreement under Egyptian auspices... Given that the Egyptians are talking about holding two seperate signing ceremonies so that Hamas and Fatah don't have to be in the same room with each other, I doubt that any deal signed soon will amount to actual reconciliation...

Given how much importance the Israeli government has given to the Goldstone Report, [a US] veto might actually be used as a form of leverage. Obama's push for peace is at the brink of collapse almost entirely because of Netanyahu's intransigence. But the administration has thus far seemed highly reluctant to actually put any serious pressure on the Israeli government -- which has only emboldened Netanyahu and his enablers to dig in their heels further. The use of the veto to protect Israel from Goldstone should not be free.

See? Because Israeli public opinion used to be on the side of massive concessions but then Netanyahu "incited" Israelis "against the President and against peace." So any foreign policy experts who pushed Obama to "stand firm on settlements" as an anti-Netanyahu Israeli wedge issue in the context of currying favor in the Arab world - hypothetically, if such foreign policy experts were to exist - well, it wouldn't be their fault that their recommendations backfired spectacularly.

They couldn't have known that their expert expertise would have the President alienating Israeli leftists without much benefit in the Muslim world. The peace process isn't moribund because Obama's enemies-first allies-last strategy left Israelis feeling betrayed while inevitably failing to assuage eliminationist Palestinian sentiment. It's that Netanyahu mendaciously turned Israelis "against peace." Not their fault!

You know how sometimes nanny state regulations cause conservatives to throw up their hands in exasperation? "At this rate," a few have been known to exclaim, "the only place you'll be allowed to smoke is your own car." Canadians wish they were that lucky:

A Canadian truck driver has been fined for smoking in his vehicle because it is considered his workplace, a police spokeswoman said on Friday. A police officer saw the 48-year-old trucker driving on a highway in southwestern Ontario with a cigarette in his mouth on Wednesday, and gave him a C$305 ($290) ticket. The Smoke-Free Ontario Act, adopted in 2006, prohibits smoking in an enclosed workplace or enclosed public area, and that extends to work vehicles... "We enforce the legislation and this truck driver was in violation of that," she said.

At least there's no recent precedent for our federal government financially punishing "unhealthy behavior," including smoking, in the context of health insurance:

A U.S. Senate panel on Wednesday adopted a measure aimed at rewarding healthy behavior in a sweeping healthcare overhaul... The Senate Finance Committee voted for an amendment offered by Republican Senator John Ensign and Democrat Thomas Carper that would allow health plans to provide financial incentives for people to quit smoking, exercise more and engage in other healthy activities. "I believe that the key to achieving savings is to provide rewards for people who engage in healthy behaviors," Ensign argued. The measure passed on a 18-4 vote despite concerns expressed by some Democrats as well as committee Chairman Max Baucus that it could raise insurance premiums for people who do not participate in wellness programs.

I like that they're calling them "wellness programs" now but I don't think it's clear enough. Maybe something like "Two Minute Wellness Programs," with guidelines and procedures set down by a federal MiniWell agency. Go bold or go home, ya know?

We've already got Democrats identifying ordinary Americans as "enemies" of successful government health care. Right now their enemies list focuses on scapegoats who stand in the way of passage. Once they shove this crap sandwich down America's throat they'll switch to scapegoating patients for being too expensive because of their "unhealthy behavior." That's what they're ramping up to do and that's the way it always goes.

And just to be clear, there are absolutely no limits to how absurd this will get.

References:
* Canadian trucker fined for smoking on the job [Reuters]
* Health reformers targeting 'enemies' [Wash Times]
* Shh... Massachusetts Proves Mandate-Based Health Reform Will Be A Disaster [MR]
* Bake Sales Fall Victim to Push for Healthier Foods [NYT]

Previously:
* Health Care Coverage
* New Poll: Only 26% Consider Health Reform A Success In Massachusetts
* Health And Human Services Comes To Maryland School, Brings H1N1 Vaccines And Spectacular Failure

Almost difficult to believe that hubristically branded centralized economic control would end up with misallocated funds:

About $270 million in federal stimulus money awarded by the Federal Aviation Administration has gone to more than 90 airport projects that received low-priority ratings by the FAA, according to data by Subsidyscope, an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts. The funds make up about a quarter of the $1.1 billion the FAA has granted to airports for shovel-ready projects from March through September this year... The FAA says its project priority-rating system is "the first evaluation factor" to categorize airport development but is just one of several tools in determining appropriate projects to fund.

Unless you're Paul "Greenspan Needs To Create A Housing Bubble" Krugman and you really believe the Keynes line about paying people to dig holes and cover them back up, outright waste is probably a negative for you. And the airport fiasco isn't the only transportation-related waste keeping the stimulus a miserable failure. There's also the minor issue of straightforward cheating going all the way back to March:

With the $215 million in federal stimulus funds Metro received (it could go up to $315) for transportation projects, they are giving cities a minimum of $500,000. But... cities were taking that money and trading it for as low as 62-cents to the dollar... one city would trade their $500,000 earmarked for shovel ready transit projects with another city for $315,000 in cash that they could use for anything they wanted... "That was a misunderstanding on somebody's part," Katz told the paper in a follow up story... But another board member, John Fasana, said that "the cities felt the latitude to do this, and Metro frankly was allowing it within the last week.

I won't spoil the ending but suffice to note that the phrase "didn't want some investigation to put any of the money at risk" makes an appearance. Eyes on the prize.

This isn't just a corruption issue. By the White House's own logic it's the kind of thing that ensures the stimulus's failure. That's why Obama banned states from paying off debt with their funds. Even if you buy the Keynesian logic underwriting the stimulus - which I might not but which Judge Posner does so what do I know - you need to have the money used for consumption. The fact that it hasn't been used for that consumption is, then, probably worth noting.

If nothing else, you certainly can't have stimulus cash getting outright devalued as soon as it hits the streets. That's almost like the opposite of a multiplier effect.

References and previously after the jump...

They tried to inoculate an entire school for H1N1. Instead they inoculated one-fifth of a school because not enough permission forms had been lined up. We've now reached the point where it's a demonstrable fact that the federal government can't even handle stage-managed health care correctly.

Tough to know who to side with here. On one hand you side against the foot-dragging parents, since many of them are anti-vaccine Blue State morons who fear that H1N1 scientists neglected to take their kids' unique auras into account. On the other hand you have to blame the government too since this was their stunt and it was their responsibility to make sure everything went smoothly.

If you were a corporate PR lackey and your job was to set up an event and you screwed up this badly, you'd be fired:

A U.S. government media event to promote H1N1 school vaccinations on Friday included VIPs, cute kids and a phalanx of television cameras -- but only one in five children at the school had proper parental consent to get immunized. "This school was ready to go," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius... But 80 percent of the student body were ineligible for vaccinations due to missing paperwork during the day-long swine flu clinic. Federal officials did not want to discuss the turnout.

Of course the total number of people fired over this train wreck will be zero. In a large bureaucracy it's always easier to move someone elsewhere than to fire them. That's true for corporations as well, but do it long enough in a company and it collapses (cf. GM).

In government you can allow inefficiencies to build indefinitely. The post office, to take a random hypothetical, is hurtling towards bankruptcy and will soon need a bailout. So if we had a reason to believe that ObamaCare would resemble the post office, that would be a real cause for concern.

Speaking of which, the cost of the fed's H1N1 school campaign is projected to be $6.4 billion. So let's be generous and say it only ends up costing $7 billion. H1N1 has killed 76 U.S children since April, of which 20% were healthy when they got the disease (the rest had underlying conditions). So the US government has decided to spend roughly $500,000,000 per healthy child.

And to think - there are people who believe government health officials misallocate resources in response to faddish health trends and exurban hysteria.

References:
* US school swine flu event shows vaccine challenge [Reuters]
* How is that Post Office comparison working now? [Hot Air]

Previously:
* Health Care Coverage
* British Health System Denies Woman Treatment For 7 Years Because "Alzheimer's Is Not A Health Condition"
* Dems: We'll Finance Health Care With Cigarette Tax That Will Cause People To Stop Buying Cigarettes

Over at the NYT Politics blog it's very important that you know "Obama to Name Openly Gay Ambassador." This is presumably because The President needs to "make progress" on gay rights and now he is making progress so that's pretty wonderful isn't it? The foot dragging probably has a lot of reasons, not least among them the "civil war" threats coming from anti-gay marriage African American Dems whose minority status places them awkwardly in unimpeachable Absolute Moral Authority territory.

The strange thing is I don't remember this kind of MSM framing when Bush appointed Michael Guest Ambassador to Romania, making Guest the first openly gay Ambassador ever confirmed by the Senate. And it's particularly weird because in contrast to Obama's appointment - which may objectively set back gay rights by relieving leftist pressure on him to do something bigger - Bush's appointment of Guest demonstrably advanced the cause of civil liberties. It did so internationally by helping shame Romania into repealing anti-gay laws. And it did so domestically by starting a heated debate on the right, which is where that debate will have to happen if gay rights are ever going to go mainstream:

During his speech at Guest's swearing-in ceremony in the State Department Diplomatic Reception Room, Powell explicitly noted the presence of and positively recognized Guest's life partner, Alex Nevarez. LGBT rights groups viewed Guest's appointment, and Powell's remarks, as historic and indicative of greater recognition of gay State Department employees and same-sex partners. Socially conservative groups expressed opposition to Guest's appointment and to Powell's gesture.

Three weeks after Guest took up residence, the NYT ran a story headlined "Bucharest Journal: It's Still No Breeze for Gays, Even Diplomatic Ones." So don't even think about giving Bush any credit. I wonder if the NYT will be running similar stories about Obama's appointee? I'm thinking almost certainly, because they're so assiduous.

In unrelated news, the Obama White House is launching a major effort to stymie the anti-White House leanings of the press. Because that's obviously what's holding him back.

References and previously after the jump...

The Jewish Film Festival, duly funded by Jewish Federation, decided to hold a Rachel Corrie screening. They publicized the event to venomously anti-Israel groups. They organized a talk by Corrie's committed Israel-hating mother. They even went so far as to link up with some explicitly pro-Hamas extremists. Then they were surprised when their festival became a bubbling cesspool of antisemitism. Who could have predicted that?

There's really no way to describe the Mos Eisley Cantina feel of an anti-Israel San Francisco event. Suffice to say that "sea of black broken by the occasional green Hamas hat or banner" isn't too far from the literal truth.It's rare that you get to call out a leftist or Jewish organization for being openly pro-terrorist - usually they prefer to wallow in mere terrorist apologism - but the Jewish Voice for Peace, the American Friends Service Committee, the Rachel Corrie Foundation, and the International Solidarity Movement took that plunge a while ago.

Maybe that's unfair and they have some other way that their anti-Zionist fantasies about the destruction of Israel play out. But probably not and, in any case, they were pretty psyched to be there.

It's OK though. Because the Festival organizers - which, I should probably mention again, get their paychecks and their funding courtesy of Jewish donations - did all this in the name of opening up dialogue. That's why, per this post at The American Muslim, the festival gave Michael Harris of San Francisco Voice for Israel 5 whole minutes to suggest that maybe standing in front of military bulldozers to protect terrorist rocket smuggling tunnels is a bad idea.

Of course the assembled crowd turned on him and started celebrating the pro-boycott Jewish organizations that had hijacked the festival, transforming the entire spectacle into a clamorous morale-booster for the anti-Israel left. But whatever:

The audience settled back into subdued groans for a few phrases, but when Michael accused Jewish Voice for Peace and the American Friends Service Committee of being backers of terrorism, the audience erupted into applause at the mention of each name... The concern for respectful treatment of Cindy Corrie's presentation at the end of the film was also unwarranted. The audence was so completely supportive of her, her daughter and Palestinian rights that there was not a hint of the hateful messages with which the organizers had been deluged prior to the showing. It was astonishing. Although the audience was by no means all Jewish, a large number clearly were.

Oh, it's not all that astonishing.

I'm posting two videos from the festival, though they're both a bit overwrought and long. The first is an overview of the groups that attended and that are playing a not insignificant role in boycotting, isolating, and destroying the Jewish State. The second is difficult to describe but begins with Rachel Corrie's mom on stage explaining why Israel must be shunned and goes downhill from there.

Consider this the shallow starlet equivalent of the lefty schlock Hollywood filmmakers regularly churn out. Their endless stream of oh-so-complicated anti-American films never exceed "spectacular box office bombs," yet they keep producing and directing them as if there's some sort of extra credit at stake. Ditto for this delightful peach, Victoria Rowell, who wore what appears to be an Obama-emblazoned plastic sheet to the Emmys. Sure it's objectively hideous. But at least she made a statement!

Also, per MR's fashion correspondent, "the shoes look like those things the chick from The Neverending Story wore on her head." I have no idea what that means.

Brought to you by the same culture that brought you Garofalo's rants about conservatives and Jews, albeit with slightly less sophistication. I'd say something sarcastic about how it's going to be a huge loss to the state when Hollywood finally leaves town, except it really will be a huge loss. Ah well - California, the "uniformly under Democratic control" progressive laboratory in policy and sensibility.

No word on whether this fashion apex was subsidized by the NEA agitprop factory that Breitbart's about to detonate. Big Hollywood actually flagged the story in August without it getting the kind of attention it deserves. Not so much this time.

Given this level of unembarrassed Hollywood worship, though, why bother paying artists for their Obama worship? It's almost like this White House has some kind of reflexive need to fund liberal projects, necessary and otherwise.

References:
* Garofalo Goes Off On Conservatives & Jews [Gateway Pundit]
* As the Hollywood machine abandons L.A., its supporting workers struggle [LAT]
* California Dems Increase Salaries Of Personal Staff, Refuse To Release New Payroll Details [MR]
* EXPLOSIVE NEW AUDIO Reveals White House Using NEA to Push Partisan Agenda [Big Hollywood]
* The National Endowment for the Art of Persuasion? [Big Hollywood]

Previously:
* Finally! US Counter-Terrorism Ops To Start Torturing Hollywood Leftists
* Mainstreaming Of Anti-Semitism, Hollywood Edition
* Hollywood Helps Out In the Middle East

Whatever. "Anti-Zionist" organ harvesting blood libels are back in fashion in Europe and the Middle East. The editors of the Crimson should have stood their ground and insisted that they were "just airing questions." That's the problem with kids these days. They're unwilling to stand up to the neocon Zionists who are trying to stifle legitimate debate over Israel:

The head of Harvard University's student newspaper is blaming an ad that questioned the Holocaust on "a miscommunication." Harvard Crimson president Maxwell Child said in a letter to readers Wednesday that his staff initially rejected the ad. But Child said the decision "fell through the cracks" in the three weeks between the ad's submission and its publication Tuesday... The ad came from longtime Holocaust denier Bradley Smith and questions the Nazis' use of gas chambers. Smith's ads have appeared since the late 1980s in campus newspapers nationwide.

The ADL guy in the article expresses himself confused. How could an institutional culture develop on campus where venomous anti-Jewish incitement is close enough to legitimate discourse to slip through the cracks? Yeah, I can't figure it out either:

A recent paper co-authored by the academic dean of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government was "explicitly targeting American Jews," according to Alan Dershowitz... The paper was added to the Harvard Kennedy School Web site while students were on spring break. An abridged version of the paper was published in The London Review of Books. Some students at Kennedy School disagreed with Dershowitz. Debra Decker thought the paper was "just his [Walt's] opinion."

The best and the brightest.

References:
* Organ-Harvesting Zionists Trying To Stifle Brave Swedish Expose On IDF Atrocities [MR]
* Arab World Pretty Psyched About Swedish "Organ Theft" Blood Libel, Palestinians Launch Formal Investigation [MR]
* Harvard: Holocaust denial ad 'a mix-up' [JPost]
* Harvard dean accused of anti-Semitism [JPost]

Previously:
* NYT Now Getting Its Cutting Edge Political Analysis From Electronic Intifada
* Scholars Countering British Boycott, Circulating Petition
* NJDC Tool Aaron Keyak Helpfully Illustrates How Liberal Activists Sneeringly Cocoon Themselves In Asinine Arguments And Dishonest Smears

Two things. First: I forgot about this shadowy permanent transition team that's allowed to take unlimited amounts of tax exempt money without disclosing its donors, the better to employ Obama foot soldiers. What ever happened to those kids? More curiously: if this is where Obama sends loyalists who can't get security clearances and Van Jones isn't part of that group - who the hell are they employing? Who is less fit to hold federal office than a Truther Commie revolutionary who tells followers it's OK to "get rowdy" in the streets?

On the other hand, this does imply they know that some people shouldn't be in the West Wing or in charge of tens of billions of dollars. Or at least they used to:

Called the "Obama/Biden Transition Project," it is a 501(c)4 tax-exempt organization, with no limits on the contributions it can receive and no requirements to divulge the names of individuals or organizations that give it money... No one is certain that any political organization has ever set up a tax-exempt entity that would be shrouded in such secrecy, particularly when Obama claimed he would be more transparent about the way things were done...

As well, the nonprofit may also serve as a haven for Obama supporters and campaign loyalists who for one reason or another can't be employed by the Administration or in the federal government. "There are some people who have been with us from the beginning who are clearly political liabilities or who won't be able to qualify for a job, say, because they can't get a security clearance," says another aide, who was unaware of the unique Obama transition project's tax status.

Do you remember when American Presidents didn't have to worry about scoring sinecures for "supporters and loyalists" who couldn't get security clearances? I guess Obama really does speak to a part of the electorate that other leaders have neglected.

References:
* Wasting No Time [American Spectator]

Previously:
* Mel Levine's Defense Of Obama: He'll Make Obsessed Anti-Israel Lunatics Love The US. Presumably By Magic.
* Van Jones Haikus
* Flashback: Van Jones Mocks Rumsfeld For Resigning, Says He's "Serving Behind The Counter At Wendy's" [Video]

The scrupulous FogCityJohn, member of the reality-based Daily Kos community, currently has a top post intriguingly titled "If Joe Wilson Were A Democrat." He muses thusly:

Tonight a Republican congressman essentially called the President of the United States a liar during a nationally televised speech delivered before both Houses of Congress... But what if the shoe were on the other foot? What if a Democratic congressman had interrupted one of Bush's speeches to Congress by calling Bush a liar? What do you think would have happened then?

I can tell you what would have happened. There would have been immediate demands from Republicans that the offending Democrat resign his office. The next day, the Republican leadership in both houses of Congress would introduce resolutions condemning the congressman for his disrespect of the president. Naturally, the Democratic congressman would get no support from members of his own party. They would be falling all over themselves to condemn his outburst themselves, lest they be accused of tolerating that kind of behavior, or even worse, of being "Bush haters." The resolutions of censure would pass with the support of all Republicans and strong majorities of Democrats. The congressman might even be driven to resign. Even if not, he'd be subjected to protests in his district and in Washington. (Needless to say, the news media would join the baying hounds calling for his head.)

But Joe Wilson is a Republican. So I'm betting that none of the above will happen to him... And that, my friends, is the difference between the two parties in a nutshell. (Somehow seemed appropriate to quote John McCain.)

Remember the time when some deep-feeling member of some activist tribe hoisted up an anti-China sign reading "Would We Have Allowed Nazi Germany to Host the Olympics?" This is nowhere near as awesome as that. But it's still pretty cool. The best part is how he introduces his shrill portrait of grim partisan inequity with a brash "I can tell you what would have happened." Great ethos! Demonstrably idiotic followup made more embarrassing by the combination of seething resentment and righteous indignation. But still great ethos!

I've let the clip run a little long at the end so you can see how your moral betters stayed petulantly rooted to their seats after having shouted down Bush, so disgusted were they by the prospect of Social Security reform:

In fairness to the liberals currently wetting themselves over Joe Wilson's destruction of Congressional civility, maybe those shouts of "no" and "boo" were meant supportively. Like "No! Good God NO! Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention! Boo on reality!" Because otherwise this morning's histrionics seem kind of self-serving and hypocritical. And moronic.

References:
* If Joe Wilson Were a Democrat [Daily Kos]
* Would We Have Allowed Nazi Germany to Host the Olympics? [Right Mind]

Previously:
* The Ugly Left - Failed Singer Reunites With Harvard Brat, Threatens To Kill President Bush. Ms. Coulter Responds [Video]
* Progressive Democrats To Palin: Get Back In The Kitchen
* Roseanne Barr Dresses Up As Hitler, Bakes "Jew Cookies" In Oven

Here are last week's Council results, barely a day before this week's nominations get posted. I know that's the kind of timeliness and efficiency you've come to expect from MR, and I wouldn't dream of offering any less. Joshuapundit's exposition on the wide and wonderful ways that Kennedy degraded public discourse and public policy took top honors:

Senator Ted Kennedy could accurately be called the Godfather of our current immigration mess, starting with his role in creating and passing the Immigration Act of 1965, which radically changed the demographic face of America. It abolished the long standing quota system based on national origins that had regulated America's demographic composition based on the fair proportion of each group's existing presence in the US population... Kennedy assured the American people that immigration would remain at around 300,000 per year, as it was in 1965. It almost doubled the year after the bill was passed and is now running at well over a million legal immigrants per year.

Typical bait and switch. Kennedy probably would have approved of the left's increasingly obvious plan to smuggle in single payer health care under the umbrella of a public option. And by "approved" I mean "planned." And by "would have" I mean "did."

The runner up Council post was my interview with an auto industry insider who explained how Cash 4 Clunkers distorted the market, wiped out rebates, and cemented Japanese dominance. One of the runner up non-Council posts, from Big Hollywood's Leigh Scott, discussed the same "what's yours is ours and what's mine is mine" incompetence as a function of stoner ethics.

I can't wait to see how these geniuses justify their health care takeover now that the recess is over. If it's anything like how Reid was doing it during the recess, per the top non-Council post from the Las Vegas Review Journal, it's going to be entertaining:

On Wednesday, before he addressed a Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce luncheon, Reid joined the chamber's board members for a meet-'n'-greet and a photo. One of the last in line was the Review-Journal's director of advertising, Bob Brown, a hard-working Nevadan who toils every day on behalf of advertisers. He has nothing to do with news coverage or the opinion pages of the Review-Journal. Yet, as Bob shook hands with our senior U.S. senator in what should have been nothing but a gracious business setting, Reid said: "I hope you go out of business."

The other two non-Council runner up posts, from Jerold Auerbach and Zenpundit respectively, discussed the centuries-old Muslim campaigns to wipe out Jews and the broader apocolyptic theologies that drive them. On the plus side, peace will be here just as soon as Israel stops building grocery stores in East Jerusalem. Obama promises!

References and previously after the jump...

Another weekend, another scramble to bring your attention to the last round of great Watchers Council posts before the next one goes live. Kennedy's death was obviously the most topical subject, with sentiments running about the way you'd expect. Rhymes With Right actually titled her post Arlington National Cemetery Desecrated By Burial Of Traitor, which is harsh but not entirely untrue. Joshuapundit's extremely long post ran through Kennedy's legislative and public record, making the case that the Senator was something less than a force for good.

The Glittering Eye discussed the incoherence of treating health care as one of the sources for its inevitable failure. My post addressed the same issue tangentially, in an interview with an auto industry insider. The Obama administration - which wants to enforce said health care right by taking control of 15% of the US economy - managed to screw up a simple car rebate program in a genuinely impressive number of ways. Though given the myopic radicals that The Colossus of Rhodey convincingly argues are in charge of White House policy, that's hardly a surprise.

In the past the Obama administration's incompetence might have been successfully suppressed - at least for a time - by a worshipful media (cf. media blackout, Van Jones controversy). But in an environment where fiscal conservatives are able to go viral, per The Provocateur's post, gatekeepers have a much harder time deciding what people should get to hear.

Speaking of Obama worship, Bookworm Room extended her thoughts from the previous week about the reflexive anti-Americanism and denigration of conservatives that runs through Hollywood. Hollywood's denizens have latched onto a myriad of obnoxious tropes, from sneering anti-conservative contempt to faux-sophisticated anti-imperialism to repetitive smears of our military. Presumably they think these hack jobs earn them extra credit with critics because by traditional metrics like "do they make money" they're failures.

Shifting gears, it's still not peace in the Middle East. Soccer Dad suggested the situation might have something to do with the Palestinian refusal to accept the right of Jews to be alive in a Jewish State, but it could be anything really. Politically-inspired Islamic terrorism also came in the context of Right Truth's post on the disgraceful release of the Lockerbie bomber, which from one side looks like base appeasement but from another angle seems like a huge misunderstanding. There's a lot of that going around.

References and previously after the jump...

Because that's apparently where you go when you're forced out of the White House. The only difference being that Rumsfeld resigned in dignity, noting that he had obviously lost the confidence of the American people. Van Jones not so much:

Van Jones, special adviser for green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, resigned Saturday, following weeks of pressure from the right and a flurry of revelations about his past statements. "I am resigning my post at the Council on Environmental Quality, effective today," Jones said in a statement dated Sept 5 released around midnight on Sept 6. "On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me. They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide," he continued.

In fairness to him, those YouTube videos of his past speeches really were dishonest. How vicious of the right to use them, along with his other past statements, to discover what the media refused to acknowlege even after the controversy broke.

Speaking of YouTube videos and past statements, here are two minutes of Van Jones mocking Rumsfeld for being "out of work" and "serving behind the counter at Wendy's," much to the delight of the assembled sycophants. The full speech is 28 minutes and was posted at the time by these lefties but I took the liberty of clipping it down to the relevant 2 minutes.

If you have time for the full 28 minutes though, it really is a tour de force. Especially striking phrases: "slave ship on dry land," "a new Jim Crow," "you don't have to call someone the N-word if you can just call them a felon," and "in just 24 months 6 years of one party authoritarian rule would be shattered." Also: "you might have to get rowdy, and I understand." A nice juxtaposition with the left's new found emphasis on low-key deliberative dignity.

Anyway, it's not just that he's celebrating the left's victory in a particularly obnoxious way, and it's not even that he had already bonded with the crowd over how Rumsfeld was "at home watching [them] on TV." It's that he's just so pleased with himself about the joke, as if this is the most clever routine ever. The self-satisfaction, combined with the crowd's catcalls, creates a nauseating effect very similar to watching MSNBC anchors nod along to Obama sanctimoniously preaching about Teachable Moments. The great orators of our time, I guess.

Though remind me again - what is it they say about the gods and hubris?

If you want to contribute your own under this post on the Mere Rhetoric Facebook Page, I suggest you do it sooner rather than later. Kaus thinks he's gone by midnight.

Health care Waterloo.
Can't have any "distractions."
Warm up the bus please.

Communist Truther
ignored by White House vetters.
Now he goes away.

Left's "true progressive"
is a Truther Commie loon.
No argument here.

Obama Green czar
rants re "asshole GOP."
Post-partisanship!

San Fran radical
wants you to know he's reformed.
Because you're stupid.

"9-11 Truth"
is very ambiguous.
He just didn't know.

Recall: campaign smears.
Obama's radical friends
might get appointed.

White House dumping Van.
There's a "death panel" joke here
but it's kind of stale.

Left as an exercise for the reader: references to feverish anti-American, anti-Israeli hiphop.

References:
* Van Jones, Gone in 60 Seconds? [Kausfiles]
* Sing It... Van Jones Cut Nasty Hate-Filled Music Album, Too! (Video) [Gateway Pundit]

Previously:
* Change! Kos Finally Finds A Cop Killing Revolutionary He'll Criticize
* Nightstick Carrying Pro-Obama Thugs Intimidating Voters In PA
* Obama Campaign Demands Ban On Republican Jewish Group, Escalates Thuggish Intimidation

The wonderful thing here is that it's not just a story of glazed-eyed government incompetence breaking at the same time that the Obama administration is trying to nationalize 15% of the US economy. It's that the incompetence has its source in interest groups who issue diktats according to whatever the prevailing liberal pseudo-sophistication happens to be. 30 years ago it was preservation, then we decided that nature should always be allowed to take its course, then we decided we had to plant trees everywhere to enrich the atmosphere - opps! - and now we've got some kind of non-interventionist hodgepodge.

The upshot being that if you think this is bad, wait until panels of doctors and bureaucrats get to make calculations - and set premiums - based on which social groups they think are responsible for unreasonable costs. The public "blame the smokers no blame the drinkers no blame people who drive too much" populism is going to be exciting enough.

But when well-heeled Blue State bureaucrats start making decisions based on a combination of non-replicated studies, shrill urban hand-wringing, and a sensibility about healthy living derived mostly from the Barnes and Noble "Personal Enrichment" shelf - that's when things get really awesome. If someone in San Francisco has made a serious effort to ban or regulate something you enjoy consuming, bummer.

Anyway, yeah:

Federal authorities failed to follow through on plans earlier this year to burn away highly flammable brush in a forest on the edge of Los Angeles to avoid the very kind of wildfire now raging there... Months before the huge blaze erupted, the U.S. Forest Service obtained permits to burn away the undergrowth and brush on more than 1,700 acres of the Angeles National Forest. But just 193 acres had been cleared by the time the fire broke out, Forest Service resource officer Steve Bear said.

The agency defended its efforts, saying weather, wind and environmental rules tightly limit how often these "prescribed burns" can be conducted... Some critics suggested that protests from environmentalists over prescribed burns contributed to the disaster, which came after the brush was allowed to build up for as much as 40 years. "This brush was ready to explode," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich... "The environmentalists have gone to the extreme to prevent controlled burns, and as a result we have this catastrophe today."...

The blaze has destroyed more than five dozen homes, killed two firefighters and forced thousands of people to flee... Biologist Ileene Anderson with the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental organization, said burn permits should be difficult to get because of the potential damage to air quality. Clearing chaparral by hand or machine must be closely scrutinized because it can hurt native species.

Acres supposed to get cleared: 1,748. Acres actually cleared, according to official records: 12.8. In fairness, the fire service says that the records are wrong by a factor of 10 and that they actually managed to clear 193 acres.

So just over 10%.

References:
* Careful Where You Put That Tree [Wired]
* Shh... Massachusetts Proves Mandate-Based Health Reform Will Be A Disaster [MR]
* Feds didn't clear brush in wildfire area [AP]

Previously:
* Geithner Tells Reporters: "I'm Very Confident You... Will Do A Good Job Of Framing This Thing"
* Guy Who Accused Bush Of "Ethnically Cleansing" New Orleans Wets Himself Over Obama Hitler Poster
* Incompetence In Education, Foreign Policy, Economics. But Especially Education. (Plus: Uber-Competent Right Truth Joins Watchers Council)

Stupid:

As the President speaks, teachers can ask students to write down key ideas or phrases that are important or personally meaningful... they could think about the following: What is the President trying to tell me? What is the President asking me to do? What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about? Students could discuss their responses to the following questions: What do you think the President wants us to do? Does the speech make you want to do anything? Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us? What would you like to tell the President?

Teachers can extend learning by having students... Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals. [They can...] write goals on colored index cards or precut designs to post around the classroom.

I like the part about focusing on things that are "personally meaningful." We wouldn't want to miss out on a chance to reinforce vapid self-esteem pedagogy just because we're also busy breathlessly urging kids to do something for the Dear Leader. Speaking of which, remember that Obama children's book from the election about "the name the whole world knows"? I never would've been so skeptical about it if I knew it'd eventually make its way into federal documents.

All that said - eh. He's on TV. They're little children. Let them watch the President for a few minutes so they get a sense that it's important to watch the President. Would I prefer it if they were in a classroom getting drilled in reading, writing, and arithmetic? Obviously. But that isn't going to happen anyway. You think if you keep kids from school for a day they'll be dodging mindless liberal bromides and insipid drip drip drip indoctrination? Good luck.

That's who they are and that's what they do.

None of which necessarily excuses the creepy, almost symptomatic fascination that teachers and Department of Education bureaucrats have with pledging to help Obama. But you've got to make some allowances. It's not often they get to work under a President who affirms the empty banalities that got them through their Masters of Ed programs. The One's dexterity with "hope" and "change" means that he literally speaks their language. So you can see how they'd be over-enthused.

References and previously after the jump...

No word on whether the Hamas-linked group will be giving any more awards to wife-beheading "moderates" at tonight's Iftar dinner. Ditto for whether they'll again take the time to publicly laud MSM outlets for demonizing Israel.

But at a minimum I expect they'll be giving a hearty "thank you" to Democrat Dave Jones for putting the event together:

Dozens of California lawmakers are expected to gather in the state Capitol this evening for an Iftar dinner - the meal breaking the daily fast for Muslims during the month of Ramadan. In doing so, the politicians are partnering with a group that federal law enforcement officials say is a Hamas-front... Public use of the Capitol's Eureka Room requires a member of the California Assembly's sponsorship. Assembly Member Dave Jones, who has spoken at numerous CAIR functions, helped reserve the room, records at the Joint Rules Committee show. Jones did not respond to calls seeking comment. In addition, a message left with Speaker Bass' office was not returned. A spokesman in the governor's office referred questions to his office of external affairs, which has not provided additional information about the governor's apparent endorsement of the dinner.

CAIR has a much longer list of sponsors which lists politicians from both sides of the aisle. Even Schwarzenegger is listed, which was probably news to Schwarzenegger's office since he won't be attending.

It'd be interesting to know who is attending, a detail in which MSM outlets seem wholly uninterested. Though in fairness to them, they've undoubtedly got bigger concerns than which politicians are chumming it up with which terrorist-linked groups in the California State Capitol building (h/t: Anne).

References:
* CAIR gave award to moderate Muslim who beheaded his wife [Jihad Watch]
* CAIR Thanks CBS for 'Powerful' Report on Mistreatment of Palestinians
* California Pols Break Fast with Hamas Front [IPT]

Previously:
* CAIR: Complaining About The Anti-Semitic Attacks We're Inciting Is A "Distraction"
* CAIR Asks Obama To Restore "Respect For Rule Of Law" In Highly Nuanced Way
* Video: Obama Outreach Coordinator Meets With CAIR Reps, Terrorist-Endorsing Preachers (Plus: FBI Testimony Links CAIR To Terrorists)

Does pointing this out count as a "myth" or is it merely a "distraction"? I can see how the left might want to hold back "myth" for yes/no questions where they're demonstrably wrong and need to overcompensate. Under that strategy verifiably true statements like "ObamaCare will cover abortions" count as "myths," while "the White House is making shit up about preventative care savings" gets relegated to "distraction" territory:

Preventive services for the chronically ill may reduce health-care costs, but they are unlikely to generate the kind of fantastic savings that President Obama and other Democrats have said could help pay for an overhaul of the nation's health system... Using data from long-standing clinical trials, researchers projected the cost of caring for people with Type 2 diabetes as they progress from diagnosis to various complications and death... However, except for the youngest diabetics, the additional services would add to overall health spending, not decrease it, the study shows.

"There's no free lunch here. Prevention will not pay for everything. But it's not as expensive as it looks at first blush," said Michael J. O'Grady, a senior fellow at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.

Begging yet another question: why is Michael J. O'Grady a political terrorist who hates Ted Kennedy?

References:
* Factcheck.org: Tax money will pay for abortion in the health-care bill [Hot Air]
* Study Raises Questions About Cost Savings From Preventive Care [WaPo]
* Video: Democrat can't stop whining about "political terrorists" [Hot Air]
* No One Saw That Coming: Byrd Wants to Name Socialist Government Health Care Bill After Kennedy [Ace]

Previously:
* Liberal Defenses Of ObamaCare Now Literally Define Clinical Denial
* Old Political Terrorists: "Financial Companies." New Political Terrorists: "ObamaCare Skeptics."
* Obama: I'll Talk To "Folks Who Created" Iranian Mullahcracy But Not "Folks Who Created" US Health Care

The Council winners for last week got posted Friday so naturally I'm getting to them now. Joshuapundit had the week's top Council post, discussing the White House's power grab on interrogations and just about everything else:

Deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton announced today that President Obama has approved creating a brand new anti-terrorism interrogation squad that will report directly to the White House... First, the formation of this new unit reporting directly to the president is yet one more example of this Administration's obsessive consolidating of power in its own hands through minions and 'czars' and 'special envoys' who report directly to the White House and undercut the normal congressional oversight... Second, this statement is a clear indication that Obama has decided to reduce the CIA to a mere figurehead, and the fact that the FBI is taking the lead is a clear indication that this White House considers Islamist fascism as primarily a law enforcement problem.

The Council runner up was Bookworm Room. Her post on the smug condescension of the workaday Blue State liberal juxtaposed nicely with the top non-Council post, where Fouad Ajami discussed the creepy fascination the left has with Obama's Cult of Personality:

So we are to have a French health-care system without a French tradition of political protest. It is odd that American liberalism, in a veritable state of insurrection during the Bush presidency, now seeks political quiescence. These "townhallers" who have come forth to challenge ObamaCare have been labeled "evil-mongers" (Harry Reid), "un-American" (Nancy Pelosi), agitators and rowdies and worse.

A political class, and a media elite, that glamorized the protest against the Iraq war, that branded the Bush presidency as a reign of usurpation, now wishes to be done with the tumult of political debate. President Barack Obama himself, the community organizer par excellence, is full of lament that the "loudest voices" are running away with the national debate. Liberalism in righteous opposition, liberalism in power: The rules have changed.

The non-Council runner up was Oceanguy's eulogy for Scott Speicher. Suffice to say that it's not the easiest read.

References:
* Sowing the Seeds of Discontent [Watcher Of Weasels]
* Obama Versus CIA: New WH Interrogation Unit Created As Panetta Threatens To Resign [Joshuapundit]
* Why pay $10 for Julie & Julia just to suffer gratuitous insults? *UPDATED* [Bookworm Room]
*