Obama's Hostage Crisis (Carter in a dress)

At least Carter attempted to rescue the American hostages.  It's just that his complete incompetence led to its failure).  Obama hasn't even bothered to try, making him Jimmy Carter in a dress.  The pirate threat has been a well known, growing threat for months now, yet Obama is the first President since THOMAS JEFFERSON to let pirates take Americans hostage.  And Jefferson went to war over it - hence the "Shores of Tripoli" in the Marines Hymn. Even Jimmy Carter, a good Navy man, wouldn't tolerate piracy threatening U.S citizens or business interests.

If George W. Bush were still President ,or Hillary Clinton were elected President instead, a SEAL team already would've rescued the Americans and killed all the pirates. And the pirates should be killed. I'd like to see the part of the Geneva Conventions that allows piracy.

The lack of action to date makes it obvious Obama doesn't know what to do about this. He doesn't want lose World Opinion by authorizing a military action so soon after succeeding George W. Bush in office. And if he does, he doesn't want to alienate World Opinion by killing the pirates.

So he'd have to imprison them somewhere for their unnecessary trial.Piracy isn't like other crimes. When you beat/capture the bad guys, you know they're guilty. There's no need for a trial to determine that. All that's left is to determine their punishment/fate.

Traditionally, pirates have been executed. But Obama doesn't have the balls to do it. So he'll have to find something to do with them. There's not really anyone to turn them over too, so he'll have to stick them in a military prison. But if you bring them to the states, the obviously guilty pirates get a trial which uses U.S. taxpayer resources.  He really should just execute the pirates.

Then again, some pan-European Court (the International Criminal Court) may decide his allowing their execution is some kind of war crime and try to indict him. Life is so much harder when you care if the Europeans to like you more than you care about doing the right thing by your own citizens . . .

Oh, and I guess he'd alienate he hippie-peacenik supporters too. That mike make his approval ratings plunge. Can't risk losing a little political capital to rescue American hostages, can he? Not if he wants to push his radical leftist agenda. But then, the longer range view should be that NOT acting will diminish his political capital and ability to lead even more in the long run.

Uneven Steven's 2008 Political Wrap Up

Just to close some loose ends from the election:

Barack Hussein Obama proved that America truly is moving past its racist past, and Americans will get over his middle name, though pockets of racism still persist. He also achieved election by being as hopeful and direct as Reagan, and being FOR something as opposed to being against something.

Nancy Pelosi won the Battle of the Alpha Females by using her lieutenants to push Sen. Clinton out of the Presidential race and getting President Obama elected. Though given Hillary's predominance on Foreign Policy as Secretary of State now, I'd say Hillary ended up ok.

George W. Bush finished the dismantling of the Reagan Coalition which he started by imposing tariffs on foreign steel early in the decade and accelerated by using the federal government to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case in 2005. Of course firing Don Rumsfeld at two years too late and getting new management at DoD didn't help; neither did his failure to override the poor decisions of Louisiana Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco.

John McCain was doomed by his "Mavricky" past (thank you Tina Fey) which had alienated most of the GOP's campaign foot soldiers; everything. He will now return to being a thorn in the side of conservatives of all stripes.

Sarah Palin became an instant Rock Star with her speech at the Republican National Committee. She then imploded in a manner which will haunt her future ambitions. This implosion was caused either because (a) she's an idiot; or (b) she listened too much to her McCain campaign handlers, depending on whom you believe. I opt for option (c): Steve Schmidt didn't give her enough notice she would be the VP nominee and she was unable to get up to speed on the issues she needed to.

A Woman WILL become president in the near future. Both major parties have now nominated women as Vice Presidential candidates, and Sen. Clinton ran an amazing campaign that could've been won with better strategy and if Mark Penn had actually understood the nominating process.

Republicans continued to lose Congressional seats, further retreating towards being a regional (Southern) party; this is not good for Republicans or the nation. Arguments over rebuilding the party essentially now pit social conservatives (whose positions have driven away the moderate middle) against libertarians and others whom the party has marginalized, and whom the social conservatives can't tolerate. IMHO leaving the social conservatives ascendant will doom the party for years to Minority status.

The Democrat Party became more ascendant by becoming a somewhat bigger tent (most of their gains in the last two cycles came from electing more conservative Dems in Congressional Districts that usually go Republican). However, these conservative Dems will be rolled repeatedly by Speaker Pelosi and her liberal California allies in their quest to rollback every conservative achievement from the Reagan-Gingrich era.

How Bush Fractured the GOP

I originaly blogged about the Democratic and Republican party crack ups here. While I said the crack up was coming, Peggy Noonan correctly points out in yesterday's Wall Street Journal that the Republcian party already is fractured and George W. Bush caused it. She is 100% correct, but doesn't detail his actions that caused this. Therefore below I have briefly outlined the actions of the Bush Administration which have torn the party asunder. You can read her op-ed below my comments or here.

First, in mid-2001 he alienated free traders by imposing anti-trade steel tariffs in a blatant attempt to buy votes in West Virginia. Then after after 9/11 he alienated civil libertarians by pushing through the Patriot Act (however, much of the Patriot Act simply gave the FBI the same legal authority that the DEA already had in terms of certain investigatory techniques) and then pushing for wireless warrant tapping and blatantly violating our civil rights. He alienate fiscal conservatives by creating the largest entitlement since LBJ - the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit - which is bankrupting the Medicare Trust Fund at an even faster rate than before. He further alienated this crucial block by increasing domestic spending at a faster rate even than LBJ. On that last point, I believe the President is only guilty of acquiescing to the actions and desires of former Republican Whip and Majority Leader Tom DeLay in his attempt to buy more House seats to preserve power for its own sake instead of to enact positive public policies.

Now to Peggy Noonan's Piece

DECLARATIONS

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do
By PEGGY NOONAN
January 25, 2008; Page W14

We begin, as one always must now, again, with Bill Clinton. The past week he has traveled South Carolina, leaving discord in his wake. Barack Obama, that "fairytale," is low, sneaky. "He put out a hit job on me." The press is cruelly carrying Mr. Obama's counter-jabs. "You live for it."

In Dillon, S.C., according to the Associated Press, on Thursday Mr. Clinton "predicted that many voters will be guided mainly by gender and race loyalties" and suggested his wife may lose Saturday's primary because black voters will side with Mr. Obama. Who is raising race as an issue? Bill Clinton knows. It's the press, and Mr. Obama. "Shame on you," Mr. Clinton said to a CNN reporter. The same day the Web site believed to be the backdoor of the Clinton war room unveiled a new name for the senator from Illinois: "Sticky Fingers Obama."

Bill Clinton, with his trembly, red-faced rage, makes John McCain look young. His divisive and destructive daily comportment—this is a former president of the United States—is a civic embarrassment. It is also an education, and there is something heartening in this.

There are many serious and thoughtful liberals and Democrats who support Mr. Obama and John Edwards, and who are seeing Mr. Clinton in a new way and saying so. Here is William Greider in The Nation, the venerable left-liberal magazine. The Clintons are "high minded" on the surface but "smarmily duplicitous underneath, meanwhile jabbing hard at the groin area. They are a slippery pair and come as a package. The nation is at fair risk of getting them back in the White House for four years."

That, again, is from one of the premier liberal journals in the United States. It is exactly what conservatives have been saying for a decade. This may mark a certain coming together of the thoughtful on both sides. The Clintons, uniters at last.

Mr. Obama takes the pummeling and preaches the high road. It's all windup with him, like a great pitcher more comfortable preparing to throw than throwing. Something in him resists aggression. He tends to be indirect in his language, feinting, only suggestive. I used to think he was being careful not to tear the party apart, and endanger his own future.

But the Clintons are tearing the party apart. It will not be the same after this. It will not be the same after its most famous leader, and probable ultimate victor, treated a proud and accomplished black man who is a U.S. senator as if he were nothing, a mere impediment to their plans. And to do it in a way that signals, to his supporters, How dare you have the temerity, the ingratitude, after all we've done for you?

Watch for the GOP to attempt swoop in after the November elections and make profit of the wreckage.

* * *

As for the Republicans, their slow civil war continues. The primary race itself is winnowing down and clarifying: It is John McCain versus Mitt Romney, period. At the same time the conservative journalistic world is convulsed by recrimination and attack. They're throwing each other out of the party. Republicans have become very good at that. David Brooks damns Rush Limbaugh who knocks Bill Kristol who anathematizes whoever is to be anathematized this week. This Web site opposes that magazine.


The rage is due to many things. A world is ending, the old world of conservative meaning, and ascendancy. Loss leads to resentment. (See Clinton, Bill.) Different pundits back different candidates. Some opportunistically discover new virtues in candidates who appear at the moment to be winning. Some feel they cannot be fully frank about causes and effects.

More on that in a moment.

I saw Mr. McCain this Tuesday in New York, at a fund-raiser at which a breathless aide shared, "We just made a million dollars." What a difference a few wins makes. There were a hundred people outside chanting, "Mac is back!" and perhaps a thousand people inside, crammed into a three-chandelier ballroom at the St. Regis. When I attended a fund-raiser in October there was none of this; perhaps 200 came, and people were directed to crowd around the candidate as if to show he had support. Now you had to fight your way through a three-ring cluster. (When I attended a Giuliani fund-raiser this summer I saw something I wish I'd noted: The audience was big but wasn't listening. They were all on their BlackBerrys. That should have told me something about his support.)

Mr. McCain is in the middle of a shift. Previous strategy: I'm John McCain and you know me, we've traveled through history together. New strategy: I'm the old vet who fought on the front lines of the Reagan-era front, and I am about to take on the mantle of the essentials of conservatism—lower spending, smaller government, strong in the world. He is going to strike the great Reagan gong, not in a way that is new but in a way that is new for him.

In this he is repositioning himself back to where he started 30 years ago: as a Southwestern American conservative veteran of the armed forces. That is, inherently if not showily, anti-establishment. That is, I am the best of the past.

Mr. Romney, on the other hand, is running as I Am Today. I am new and fresh, in fact I'm tomorrow, I know all about the international flow of money and the flatness of the world, I know what China is, I can see you through the turbulence just as I saw Bain to success.

It will all come down to: Whom do Republicans believe? Mr. Romney in spite of his past and now-disavowed liberal positions? Or Mr. McCain in spite of his forays, the past 10 years, into a kind of establishment mindset that has suggested that The Establishment Knows Best?

Do conservatives take inspiration from Mr. Romney's newness? Or do they take comfort and security from Mr. McCain's rugged ability to endure, and to remind?

It is along those lines the big decision will be made.

* * *

On the pundit civil wars, Rush Limbaugh declared on the radio this week, "I'm here to tell you, if either of these two guys [Mr. McCain or Mike Huckabee] get the nomination, it's going to destroy the Republican Party. It's going to change it forever, be the end of it!"

This is absurd. George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party, by which I mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against each other. He did this on spending, the size of government, war, the ability to prosecute war, immigration and other issues.

Were there other causes? Yes, of course. But there was an immediate and essential cause.

And this needs saying, because if you don't know what broke the elephant you can't put it together again. The party cannot re-find itself if it can't trace back the moment at which it became lost. It cannot heal an illness whose origin is kept obscure.

I believe that some of the ferocity of the pundit wars is due to a certain amount of self-censorship. It's not in human nature to enjoy self-censorship. The truth will out, like steam from a kettle. It hurts to say something you supported didn't work. I would know. But I would say of these men (why, in the continuing age of Bill Clinton, does the emoting come from the men?) who are fighting one another as they resist naming the cause for the fight: Sack up, get serious, define. That's the way to help.

See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on The Editorial Page.