Wimpy Leadership and Waterboarding Free Speech!

It's all about politics, criminalizing free speech and the "gotcha game." Who gives a damn about the nation - certainly not the prostitutes who roam the halls of Congress. (See 1 below)

Ed Rollins is often partisan but on this one he sees it clearly.

What we have been witnessing is a president so weak kneed and lacking principle he can't even stand up against members of his own Party, respond to a bullying Chavez so how will he do when he sits down with Ahmadinejad?

Obama waffles over his decisions then runs to Langley to buck up the troops he just threw to the wolves - what pitiful leadership. (See 2 and 2a below.)

Jose Jiminez used to say "not my yob!" Well when it comes to Obama it is never his fault. He has so many pinatas to blame. (See 3 below.)

More evidence of how free speech is trampled on college campuses. If Liberals do not like what they hear they "waterboard" you by drowning you out! (See 4 below.)

In essence what Obama, the Harvard trained lawyer and University of Chicago law professor, is basically agreeing to is a witch hunt that allows lawyers, who give advice to presidents, to be criminally sued. Lawyers may give bad advice, it may even prove to be un-constitutional but only the rankest of partisan politicians would conclude that they be sued for rendering legal opinions to a president.

Title of a book I would love to write in the vein of Theodore White: "Obama and the crippling of the presidency." (See 5 and 5a below.)

Roubini not a happy puppy. (See 6 below.)

What is is about Clinton and Obama that make them so focused on self they fail to comprehend the implications of their acts? The world might have rotated around them before becoming president but once in The Oval Office they must be more expansive in conecting the dots of their behaviour (See 7 and 7a below.)

Dick

1)Congress Knew About the Interrogations: Obama should release the memo on the attacks prevented.
By PETER HOEKSTRA

Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair got it right last week when he noted how easy it is to condemn the enhanced interrogation program "on a bright sunny day in April 2009." Reactions to this former CIA program, which was used against senior al Qaeda suspects in 2002 and 2003, are demonstrating how little President Barack Obama and some Democratic members of Congress understand the dire threats to our nation.

George Tenet, who served as CIA director under Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, believes the enhanced interrogations program saved lives. He told CBS's "60 Minutes" in April 2007: "I know this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us."

Last week, Mr. Blair made a similar statement in an internal memo to his staff when he wrote that "[h]igh value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa'ida organization that was attacking this country."

Yet last week Mr. Obama overruled the advice of his CIA director, Leon Panetta, and four prior CIA directors by releasing the details of the enhanced interrogation program. Former CIA director Michael Hayden has stated clearly that declassifying the memos will make it more difficult for the CIA to defend the nation.

It was not necessary to release details of the enhanced interrogation techniques, because members of Congress from both parties have been fully aware of them since the program began in 2002. We believed it was something that had to be done in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to keep our nation safe. After many long and contentious debates, Congress repeatedly approved and funded this program on a bipartisan basis in both Republican and Democratic Congresses.

Last week, Mr. Obama argued that those who implemented this program should not be prosecuted -- even though the release of the memos still places many individuals at other forms of unfair legal risk. It appeared that Mr. Obama understood it would be unfair to prosecute U.S. government employees for carrying out a policy that had been fully vetted and approved by the executive branch and Congress. The president explained this decision with these gracious words: "nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past." I agreed.

Unfortunately, on April 21, Mr. Obama backtracked and opened the door to possible prosecution of Justice Department attorneys who provided legal advice with respect to the enhanced interrogations program. The president also signaled that he may support some kind of independent inquiry into the program. It seems that he has capitulated to left-wing groups and some in Congress who are demanding show trials over this program.

Members of Congress calling for an investigation of the enhanced interrogation program should remember that such an investigation can't be a selective review of information, or solely focus on the lawyers who wrote the memos, or the low-level employees who carried out this program. I have asked Mr. Blair to provide me with a list of the dates, locations and names of all members of Congress who attended briefings on enhanced interrogation techniques.

Any investigation must include this information as part of a review of those in Congress and the Bush administration who reviewed and supported this program. To get a complete picture of the enhanced interrogation program, a fair investigation will also require that the Obama administration release the memos requested by former Vice President Dick Cheney on the successes of this program.

An honest and thorough review of the enhanced interrogation program must also assess the likely damage done to U.S. national security by Mr. Obama's decision to release the memos over the objections of Mr. Panetta and four of his predecessors. Such a review should assess what this decision communicated to our enemies, and also whether it will discourage intelligence professionals from offering their frank opinions in sensitive counterterrorist cases for fear that they will be prosecuted by a future administration.

Perhaps we need an investigation not of the enhanced interrogation program, but of what the Obama administration may be doing to endanger the security our nation has enjoyed because of interrogations and other antiterrorism measures implemented since Sept. 12, 2001.

Mr. Hoekstra, a congressman from Michigan, is ranking Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.


2) Commentary: Obama waffled on torture -- and looks weak
By Ed Rollins

Editor's note: Ed Rollins, a senior political contributor for CNN, was political director for President Ronald Reagan and chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Ed Rollins says President Obama mishandled the aftermath of his decision to ban the use of torture.

Like so many politicians I have known, the man we elected president wants to be loved. He wants to be loved passionately and daily by the 69 million who voted for him and even some of the 60 million who voted for John McCain.

He wants to be loved by the Democrats on the Hill and even the Republicans who have still not given him any love.

He wants to be loved by the Europeans who have made a career out of badmouthing U.S. presidents and their policies.

The real example of searching for love in all the wrong places was last week's lovefest south of the border when, in effect, he appeared to be hugging Castro, Ortega and Chavez who have spent their lives fighting everything the United States stands for.

The problem, President Obama will find out as time goes on, is that he is not a rock star or a celebrity. He is certainly famous, and for the foreseeable future everyone will want to see him, touch him and hear him. But the job of president is about making choices. And right now he has the toughest job in the world at one of the toughest times in U.S. history. Every time he makes a choice, he will make the losing side mad.

This last week was the best example. The president decided, as he promised in the campaign, that he would ban torture -- a decision I agree with but many don't. Then he decided to release four Bush-era Justice Department memos that gave legal guidelines to the executive branch on "enhanced interrogation techniques."


Many wanted these documents released, and the president, after a month-long internal debate, gave them up. At the same time he said he had no intention of prosecuting the drafters of those memos or anyone else in a federal agency, mainly the CIA, who followed those guidelines.

The Right went nuts over the release of the documents. The CIA felt betrayed. The Left went nuts over the contents of the memos and pressed to have the authors -- high Justice Department officials in the Bush administration -- prosecuted, investigated and maybe even tortured! The president went to the CIA and gave them a cheerleading speech.

The next day he reversed himself and said it's up to Attorney General Eric Holder and the Congress to determine if any laws were violated by the former officials.

He waffled big time. Now all sides are mad at him and he looks weak. Weakness is the death knell for a president. With 1,366 days to go before this term is up, Obama's got to get tougher or he will be viewed as a personality who reads well from a teleprompter.

The president obviously knows the war on terror is not over. I imagine every morning when he gets the National Security briefing from the Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, he takes a deep breath because he knows the world is not a very safe place.

Things aren't as simple as they were in the old days, when, for the most part, countries had conflicts with each other and they went to war wearing different-colored uniforms so you knew who your enemy was and where they might be found.

Fortunately, because of the enormous talents of many federal agencies comprised of extraordinary Americans who work very hard at their jobs, the United States has not been struck in 2,781 days. That was the day we all remember and always will remember as 9/11 -- when four aircraft hijacked by 19 al Qaeda terrorists crashed into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing 2,974 people.

On that day and the days that followed we felt a new sense of vulnerability and said, "never again." We know now in hindsight that our intelligence mechanism failed us in regard to the threat posed by al Qaeda. A lot of things were done in the days after that to gather intelligence and protect ourselves, our families and our neighbors.

We were playing under a new set of rules and in a way making it up as we went along. What I am trying to say is the CIA doesn't need to be handcuffed again or demoralized. It needs to know its mission.

Historically it has been an agency that has done a lot of heavy lifting. It has often also done the dirty work that other agencies didn't want to do. Some of it benefited this nation immensely and some may have hurt us abroad. But it has been an important element in battling the bad guys. It's now Obama's agency under the direction of his people and he has to earn its trust. His visit to the agency's headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and his speech to the employees was helpful, but only a first step.

Releasing the Justice memos opened a door and the contents repulsed many people. But these were not evil men who drafted the memos. These were not evil people who carried out the methods authorized by them. They were our fellow citizens who were trying to protect us from the real evildoers.

The president has got a lot on his plate. If his fellow Democrats in Congress want to try to impeach a federal appeals court judge who oversaw the memos and interrogate or prosecute former Justice Department lawyers, an attorney general or two and maybe a former vice president, then the battle will be drawn in the courtroom and in the political arena.

The losers will be us. All of us.

2a) America's Foes Have Only Bad Lawyering to Fear
By Debra Saunders

After 9/11, Americans wanted one thing from Washington: to prevent future terrorist attacks. President George W. Bush, the CIA and other hard-working officials delivered. For their trouble, a handful of those individuals now have reason to fear that they may be ruined.

My guess is that President Obama realizes it was a big mistake for his administration to release four memos written by Bush administration lawyers sanctioning enhanced interrogation techniques. Already, rage on the left has prompted Obama to go squishy on his once-insistent opposition to prosecuting any Bush administration officials. Now he says he might let his attorney general prosecute Bush lawyers.

That would be criminalizing the politics of 2002. George Tenet wrote in his book "At the Center of the Storm," "After 9/11, gripped by the same emotions and fears, Congress exhorted the intelligence community to take more risks to protect the country." Civil rights? Then-Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., noted at a 2002 Senate intelligence committee that "we are not living in times in which lawyers can say no to an operation just to play it safe." Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz defended the use of rough treatment -- "the third degree" -- in order "to elicit information from terrorists about continuing threats." The Bush administration authorized techniques that the ACLU calls torture.

Seven years later, Obama banned those techniques, as he promised. But in releasing the memos last week, Obama unwittingly reinforced Osama bin Laden's view of America as a country of pantywaists. Now America's enemies know they have nothing to fear but bad lawyering if U.S. forces catch them.

The memos describe "enhanced" techniques used on 28 high-value detainees. Protocol called for operatives to begin with tamer methods. To wit: the "attention grasp," the "facial slap" and "dietary manipulation -- that is, "presenting detainees with a bland, unappetizing but nutritionally complete diet." Read: Ensure Plus. Really.

"Walling" involved pushing a detainee into a wall -- but a phony wall to prevent injury. The CIA was going to try to scare al-Qaida biggie Abu Zubaydah with insects, but the bugs had to be harmless and not cause an allergic reaction. I can see the al-Qaida boys chortling in their cave over the very idea that these techniques would even be controversial -- not to mention out of bounds under the Obama administration.

If the tamer methods did not work, operatives could ask CIA headquarters for permission to use more daunting techniques -- such as sleep deprivation and waterboarding. Three detainees were waterboarded before the last waterboarding in March 2003. The memos revealed that two detainees -- Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (aka KSM) -- were water boarded a total of 266 times.

Some maintain that the CIA might have learned what it needed to know without waterboarding. But as one memo reported, before the questioning got tough, "KSM resisted giving any answers to questions about future attacks, simply noting, 'Soon you will know.'"

The questioning got tougher. As the memo noted, the CIA believes that "the intelligence acquired from these interrogations has been a key reason why al Qaeda has failed to launch a spectacular attack in the West since 11 September 2001."

And: Once "enhanced techniques" were used on KSM, interrogations "led to the discovery of a KSM plot, the 'Second Wave,' ... to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner' into a building in Los Angeles."

Do I like waterboarding? No, but it is not life threatening; in extreme cases, I can live with it. And I'll take waterboarding over a 9/11 in Los Angeles any day.

One last point: The Navy has used waterboarding in training. Obama put a stop to the "enhanced" techniques because he believes they have tarnished America's image abroad, which makes Americans less safe. People of goodwill can disagree on that point.

But when Obama opened the door for his attorney general to prosecute Bush lawyers, that flip-flop told U.S. intelligence and law enforcement operatives that Obama's assurances cannot be trusted. That can't be good for America's safety.

Former California Gov. Pete Wilson, who served on the Bush Defense Policy Board, was appalled. "If they try to prosecute that, that should spark mass resignations in the government," he told me Tuesday.

As for Obama, Wilson said, "This is a guy who was teaching law. Good God."

3) The Obama Doctrine: "Don't Blame Me"
By Ben Shapiro

President Barack Obama's recent foreign policy triumphs have his supporters cheering. From his European tour, where he apologized for American arrogance, to his most recent trip to Latin America, where he gladly accepted an anti-American screed from Hugo Chavez, Obama has soared from triumph to triumph.

At least that's what E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post would have us believe. This week, Dionne celebrated Obama by enshrining what he calls "the Obama Doctrine," in which America "seeks to regain the world's sympathy by acknowledging that while the United States is a great nation built on worthy principles, it is not perfect."

There's a shorter way to phrase the Obama Doctrine: "Don't blame me."

On Saturday, at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, Daniel Ortega spoke for 50 minutes. In his filibuster, Ortega bragged about Central America's opposition to U.S. foreign policy: "We all got together, united so we could defeat the expansionist policy of the United States."

Obama responded with patriotic fervor, defending his country. Or not. "I'm grateful President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old," President Obama mewled. In short: don't blame me.

It's an answer that echoes back to the 2008 campaign. When Obama was questioned about his association with unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers, he famously scoffed, "I was 8 years old." In short: don't blame me.

In Obama's own mind, the globe began spinning only with his glorious exit from Ann Dunham's uterus. He can't be blamed for things that happened when he was a child; after all, how was he supposed to stop Bill Ayers from blowing things up, or JFK from botching the Bay of Pigs? He can't even be blamed for subsidizing Ayers' terrorist sympathizing or Ortega's dictatorial ranting -- after all, he can't rewrite history, can he? Hence the Obama Doctrine: it wasn't me. I'm busy junking America's philosophical past, says Obama. Give me a few years to remake America. Then we'll talk.

Obama seems to believe that if he just discards American history -- if he apologizes for our actions in Europe, in Latin America, in the Muslim world -- the rest of the world will offer America a clean slate. That demonstrates, first and foremost, a tremendous lack of pride in America's legacy of freedom and liberty around the globe. America generally needs a clean slate far less than any other country on the face of the earth.

Secondly, the Obama Doctrine demonstrates Obama's massively overweening sense of self-importance. Foreign leaders are not idiots -- if they sense they can elicit concessions from America simply by inflating Obama's confidence, they'll do it. Even assuming Obama's supposed international popularity, that popularity does not translate into a better international deal for America. Foreign leaders can stroke Obama's ego while undermining America's strength in the world. The world's fawning patronage of Barack Obama does not mean the world will treat America as an ally.

That is because nations view each other historically, not based on what they've done the past few months. Viewing Germany as a peaceful socialistic country, ignoring its fascist past, would fail to explain their panoply of foreign and domestic policies. Viewing Russia as a corrupt mobocracy ignores its undercurrents of communistic thuggery, relics of the Soviet era.

Similarly, other nations identify America with the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the toleration for and bloody elimination of slavery, the liberation of Europe, and the fight against communism (all of which our enemies label racist imperialism). They identify America with a philosophy of private property and capitalistic entrepreneurship (all of which our enemies label greedy exploitation). They do not identify America with Barack Obama -- hence their shock at America's election of this "international man."

The Obama Doctrine is Obama's suggestion to the world that he is more representative of the New America than American history itself. The Obama Doctrine states that Obama's election has completely redefined America. America's philosophical roots have been hewn away, replaced with the more humble conciliation of Obamaism.

The international community couldn't be happier. If Obama is right, they have decades of American surrender in store. And if Obama is wrong -- if America comes to its senses and decides to stand up once again for its traditional philosophies -- the international community will, at the very least, make hay while the sun shines.

The Obama Doctrine is a mea culpa for America from a self-obsessed president who puts himself before country. And it's a godsend for America's enemies.

4) Before You Know It, Your Speech Could Be Offensive
By Cathy Young

Those who charge that modern-day liberalism has become fundamentally illiberal toward speech and ideas that challenge its own dogma could ask for no better illustration than the recent events at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, a bastion of the academic left.

On March 11, the Republican Club at UMass hosted Don Feder, a conservative journalist and former columnist for The Boston Herald, addressing the controversial subject of hate speech and hate crimes. Feder believes that legislation which singles out hate crimes with special penalties, rather than treating all violent crime equally, amounts to unconstitutional punishment of bad speech or bad thoughts. He also disputes the notion of a hate crime epidemic in America. The event was, in part, the Republicans' response to the controversy over the case of Jason Varnell, a black UMass student who faces charges for stabbing two white men and has received strong support on campus for his claim of self-defense against a racist attack. (About two weeks after Feder's appearance, one of the men Varnell stabbed was acquitted of violating his civil rights.)

A group of left-wing students announced their intent to protest Feder's appearance. The campus police then demanded the organizers pay an added $444 for security, nearly tripling the costs to the club.

It's bad enough to place a burden on unpopular views by requiring student organizations to shoulder extra costs for hosting controversial speakers. It's doubly outrageous when, even with the extra costs, the controversial speech is still silenced.

While Feder was not shouted down or physically threatened as some other speakers have been, a video posted on YouTube shows that the protesters were blatantly disruptive from the start. They laughed raucously when Feder was introduced as an "author and intellectual." The announcement that no protests or disruptions would be tolerated during the speech was greeted with open jeers.

As Feder began to speak, the protesters hissed and hooted. At one point, a group of them noisily turned around their chairs to face away from the podium. Finally, a woman in the audience interrupted Feder, rising to shout out a statement about the murder of a transgendered African-American woman. Feder asked the police to escort her out; from the video, it appears that she walked out on her own, to the cheers her fellow protesters, and even paused to wave to her friends and yell a derogatory comment to Feder.

Finally, as the disruptions continued, Feder cut his speech short and left the podium.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a group that champions civil liberties in academia, took up the case on behalf of the Republican Club, asking UMass-Amherst to refund the extra security fee. On April 9, the day The Boston Globe featured an op-ed about the dispute by FIRE vice-president Robert Shibley, UMass associate council Brian Burke wrote to FIRE that the refund would be made, though denying any impropriety on the part of the college.

Ed Blaguszewski, UMass executive director of news and media relations, took the same position in his letter to the Globe published a few days later. He claimed that UMass is committed to "open exchange of ideas," that "the police handled the situation in the room without difficulty, which included removing one person," and that it was Feder's choice to stop speaking. However, in the video, which was put up by a supporter of the protesters' - and which includes the incident with the heckler in its entirety - the police are seen standing by idly.

Of course, freedom of speech does not protect speakers from criticism. But disruption and harassment are another matter. The students who objected to Feder's ideas could have engaged him in forceful debate him during the question period. (Who knows, they might have found that his ideas were not quite as worthless or demeaning as they assumed from the get-go.) They were also within their rights to hold up signs and posters expressing their objections. It is worth noting, however, that some of the signs captured in the video - "Abolish hate" and "Hate speech leads to hate crimes" - supports concerns that hate crime legislation ultimately targets thoughts and speech. This is particularly worrisome since some definitions of "hate" are broad enough to include opposition to affirmative action, abortion or same-sex marriage.

A genuine liberal would be embarrassed by these actions. But in some quarters, intolerance of dissent is now a cause for self-congratulation. When Feder remarked that he had spoken on numerous college campuses and had never experienced anything of the sort, one student could be heard shouting, "Go UMass!"

This is not to say that the right does not have its own hypocrisies and double standard when it comes to free speech. In 2003, when New York Times reporter Chris Hedges criticized the war in Iraq in a commencement speech at Rockford College in Illinois and was forced off the podium by protesters who booed loudly and disconnected the microphone twice, some conservatives such as Washington Times editor-in-chief Wesley Pruden were fairly supportive of the hecklers. More recently, concerns about protests and other security issues have led to the cancellation of controversial left-wing speakers like former Weatherman William Ayers and radical professor Ward Churchill. Much to FIRE's credit, despite having the reputation of a right-of-center group, it has consistently supported free speech in all these cases.

Most of us probably regard some speech and some speakers as so far beyond the pale of civilized discourse that there is no point in debating them, only in branding them unacceptable. But, however satisfying such a stance may be, it could be only a matter of time before the speech beyond the pale is your own.

Cathy Young writes a weekly column for RealClearPolitics and is also a contributing editor at Reason magazine.

5) Obama shouldn't torture nation with witch hunt
The Arizona Republic .

By opening the door to investigations - and, quite plausibly, criminal trials - of former Bush administration officials for the decisions they made in the aftermath of Sept. 11, President Barack Obama is threatening to untrack his ambitious political agenda.

Indeed, it threatens far more than just the president's policies. The potential consequences of the president's decision on this matter ultimately may mar Obama's entire promising legacy.

Health-care reform . . . tax reform . . . the many and sweeping social policies that the new president envisioned prior to his election . . . all of it could be consumed in the grand, spiraling, political spectacle that surely will erupt should hearings and investigations commence.
There will be no oxygen for anything else. Is this really what the president wants?

Wasted policy goals, however, may be the least of the president's concerns if he fails to resist the maelstrom he is helping to gather.

By acquiescing to his angriest, most vindictive, Bush-loathing base, Obama risks unleashing political and cultural divisions that would make the battles over the Clinton-Lewinsky affair seem like child's play.

Let us take at face value the president's expressed wish that investigations should proceed in some sort of detached, non-partisan manner. It is just . . . not . . . going . . . to . . . happen.

Exhibit A: Obama has made the discouraging mistake of placing the decision on whether to proceed with this impending battle royal in the hands of Attorney General Eric Holder.

For all his attributes, Holder's political history is one of intense political partisanship. By turning the matter over to the AG, Obama guarantees the trajectory of the investigation will not be for purposes of illuminating the historical record.

It will be toward building a criminal case - and toward the entire absurd spectacle that will surround the politically charged criminal indictments that almost surely will follow.

The White House is not morally pure in making this decision.

Last week, the administration released a portion of a memo written by Obama's own intelligence director, Dennis C. Blair, about the Bush-era interrogation techniques. The following observation by Blair was deleted from the publicly released version of the memo:

"High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al-Qaida organization that was attacking this country," Blair wrote.

The full memo, leaked to the media by an Obama critic, suggests the White House already is playing politics with this volcanic issue.

The president has been maddeningly unclear about whether he truly will torture the nation with this bitter witch hunt.

He has personally declared - many times - his distaste for pursuing this act of vengeance. Only Sunday, top aide Rahm Emanuel said the president believed "those who devised policy should not be prosecuted." Yet, just two days later, Obama laid out his framework for events that could lead to precisely that event. This is, charitably, a display of gross inconsistency.

George W. Bush is not the only 21st-century American leader who has made morally ambiguous decisions regarding his nation's enemies.

Since President Obama took office, missile attacks on suspected al-Qaida leaders - as well as dozens of reportedly innocent bystanders - have intensified in the mountains of western Pakistan.

Pakistani leaders have (officially) condemned the attacks and their terrible collateral damage as a lawless affront to a sovereign nation. Anti-Americanism in Pakistan is rising fast.

Even now, somewhere in White House files, memos outlining the administration's morally dicey choices - about where, when and why to kill people who may or may not have been our enemies - may await examination by the next administration.

For the sake of those officials who see their decisions as tough choices based on a desire to keep their nation secure, let us hope the next president demonstrates more discretion than the current one.

5a) The President's Apology Tour: Great leaders aren't defined by consensus.
By KARL ROVE

President Barack Obama has finished the second leg of his international confession tour. In less than 100 days, he has apologized on three continents for what he views as the sins of America and his predecessors.

Mr. Obama told the French (the French!) that America "has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive" toward Europe. In Prague, he said America has "a moral responsibility to act" on arms control because only the U.S. had "used a nuclear weapon." In London, he said that decisions about the world financial system were no longer made by "just Roosevelt and Churchill sitting in a room with a brandy" -- as if that were a bad thing. And in Latin America, he said the U.S. had not "pursued and sustained engagement with our neighbors" because we "failed to see that our own progress is tied directly to progress throughout the Americas."

By confessing our nation's sins, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that Mr. Obama has "changed the image of America around the world" and made the U.S. "safer and stronger." As evidence, Mr. Gibbs pointed to the absence of protesters during the Summit of the Americas this past weekend.

That's now the test of success? Anti-American protesters are a remarkably unreliable indicator of a president's wisdom. Ronald Reagan drew hundreds of thousands of protesters by deploying Pershing and cruise missiles in Europe. Those missiles helped win the Cold War.

There is something ungracious in Mr. Obama criticizing his predecessors, including most recently John F. Kennedy. ("I'm grateful that President [Daniel] Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old," Mr. Obama said after the Nicaraguan delivered a 52-minute anti-American tirade that touched on the Bay of Pigs.) Mr. Obama acts as if no past president -- except maybe Abraham Lincoln -- possesses his wisdom.

Mr. Obama was asked in Europe if he believes in American exceptionalism. He said he did -- in the same way that "the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks in Greek exceptionalism." That's another way of saying, "No."

Mr. Obama makes it seem as though there is moral equivalence between America and its adversaries and assumes that if he confesses America's sins, other nations will confess theirs and change. But he won no confessions (let alone change) from the leaders of Venezuela, Nicaragua or Russia. He apologized for America and our adversaries rejoiced. Fidel Castro isn't easing up on Cuban repression, but he is preparing to take advantage of Mr. Obama's policy shifts.

When a president desires personal popularity, he can lose focus on vital American interests. It's early, but with little to show for the confessions, David Axelrod of Team Obama was compelled to say this week that the president planted, cultivated and will harvest "very, very valuable" returns later. Like what?

Meanwhile, the desire for popularity has led Mr. Obama to embrace bad policies. Blaming America for the world financial crisis led him to give into European demands for crackdowns on tax havens and hedge funds. Neither had much to do with the credit crisis. Saying that America's relationship with Russia "has been allowed to drift" led the president to push for arms negotiations. But that draws attention away from America's real problems with Russia: its invasion of Georgia last summer, its bullying of Ukraine, its refusal to join in pressuring Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions, and its threats of retaliation against the Poles, Balts and Czechs for standing with the U.S. on missile defense.

Mr. Obama is downplaying the threats we face. He takes comfort in thinking that Venezuela has a defense budget that "is probably 1/600th" of America's -- it's actually 1/215th -- but that hasn't kept Mr. Chávez from supporting narcoterrorists waging war on Colombia (a key U.S. ally) or giving petrodollars to anti-American regimes. Venezuela isn't likely to attack the U.S., but it is capable of harming American interests.

Henry Kissinger wrote in his memoir "Years of Renewal": "The great statesmen of the past saw themselves as heroes who took on the burden of their societies' painful journey from the familiar to the as yet unknown. The modern politician is less interested in being a hero than a superstar. Heroes walk alone; stars derive their status from approbation. Heroes are defined by inner values; stars by consensus. When a candidate's views are forged in focus groups and ratified by television anchorpersons, insecurity and superficiality become congenital."

A superstar, not a statesman, today leads our country. That may win short-term applause from foreign audiences, but do little for what should be the chief foreign policy preoccupation of any U.S. president: advancing America's long-term interests.

Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.




6) Doctor Doom:The Global Economy In The Next Year
By Nouriel Roubini

More contraction in growth--and more job losses.

The global economy is in the middle of a synchronized contraction that will push global growth into negative territory in 2009 for the first time in decades. This will be the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and the worst global economic downturn in decades. Global trade volumes face their sharpest contractions of the postwar era--trade is expected to contract 12% in 2009 due to the severe and prolonged slump in global demand, excess capacity across supply chains and the continued crunch in trade finance.

Many analysts and commentators are pointing out that the second derivative of economic activity is turning positive (i.e., economies are still contracting, but at a slower rather than accelerated rate) and that the green shoots of an economic recovery are peeping out. My analysis of the data suggests that the global economic contraction is still in full swing with a very severe, deep and protracted U-shaped recession.

Last year's economic consensus forecast of a V-shaped short and shallow recession has vanished. While the rate of economic contraction is slowing compared to the free fall rates of the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, we are still a long way away from the economic bottom and from a sustained recovery of growth. In particular, in Europe and Japan there is little evidence of a positive second derivative of economic activity.

However, by the end of the first quarter of 2009, there were some signs that the pace of contraction had slowed in many economies, especially in the U.S. and China, where policy responses have been more significant and leading indicators in the manufacturing sector may have bottomed before they did in Europe and Japan. However, major economies, including all of the G7, will continue to contract throughout 2009, albeit at a slower pace than at the beginning of the year.

Moreover, the global recovery might be sluggish at best in 2010 given the overhang of the credit losses of financial institutions, the lingering credit crunch, the need for retrenchment by overstretched and over-indebted households in current-account-deficit countries, and a slow resumption of demand prompted by extensive government stimulus.

Some key elements of my outlook include:

--Global economic activity is expected to contract by 1.9% in 2009. Advanced economies are expected to contract 4% in 2009. Japan and the eurozone will suffer the sharpest downturns. U.S. gross domestic product will continue to contract, albeit at a slower pace throughout 2009, with negative growth in every quarter.

--Emerging markets will slow down sharply from the stellar growth rates of the past few years, with the BRIC economies growing at half their 2008 pace.

Deteriorated terms of trade, slower capital flows and tighter credit will push Latin America into recession from the 4.1% growth of 2008. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela will all shift to negative territory on a year-over-year basis, while smaller economies, like Peru, will experience a significant slowdown.

--Countries in Eastern Europe and the sphere of Russia will experience some of the sharpest contractions given the withdrawal of foreign credit and the risk of a severe financial crisis. The reduction in oil revenues and financial stress will contribute to a 5% year-over-year contraction in Russia, and some countries--especially in the Baltics--are at risk of double-digit contractions

--Export-dependent Asia's growth will slow significantly to less than 3% in 2009. China will have a hard landing with GDP growth falling to 5.5% while India will slow sharply to 4.3%. All four Asian Tigers (Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong) as well as Malaysia and Thailand will experience recessions.

--The Middle East and Africa will mark much slower growth, at half of their 2008 pace, given the reduction in capital inflows, reduced demand from the U.S. and E.U., and decline in commodity prices and output. Israel and South Africa will suffer slight contractions.

--The unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus may help alleviate the substantial contraction in private demand and reduce the risk of a global L-shaped near-depression. Debt financing may be a challenge for many countries though, especially emerging markets or the most vulnerable Western European economies.

--Job losses during the current global recession might exceed those in recent recession, contributing to increases in defaults and posing additional risks to banks. The unemployment rate in developed countries will reach double-digits by 2010 (as early as mid-2009 in the U.S.) and push more people in developing countries into poverty. Moreover, despite new funding from multilateral institutions, severe contractions will raise the risk of social and political unrest.

--Commodities, as a class, are likely to come under renewed pressure in 2009, despite some support from production cuts. I expect the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil price to average about $40 a barrel in 2009, as demand destruction continues to outweigh crude supply destruction.

Nouriel Roubini, a professor at the Stern Business School at New York University and chairman of Roubini Global Economics, is a weekly columnist for Forbes. (Analysts at Roubini Global Economics assisted in the research and writing of this piece.)

7) Obama Among the Dictators
By DANIEL HENNINGER

The now-famous photograph of Barack Obama sharing a handshake and mile-wide smile with happy Hugo Chávez recalled to mind a visit years ago of Philippine strong man Ferdinand Marcos to The Wall Street Journal's offices in lower Manhattan.


The Marcos entourage emerged from the elevators in a stream that included not only the dictator's entire cabinet but Philippine TV crews, cameras aloft, lights aglow. Some of the editors recognized the game and did a slow fade into the corners of the room. Others told the commando cameramen to shut down.

They had been sending the Philippines images of Marcos in the company of American symbols -- bankers, journalists, politicians. Propaganda. The message for the Philippine opposition was: Behold, the Americans are with me, not you. In 1986, that opposition defeated Marcos in Cory Aquino's "Yellow Revolution."

Hugo Chávez is a tin-pot dictator who has debauched Venezuela's democracy. Normally in such circumstances, an American president would show reserve. The weirdly ebullient Mr. Obama did not, and that image was the photo seen 'round the world.

In New York this week, I asked a former Eastern European dissident who spent time in prison under the Communists: "If you were sitting in a cell in Cuba, Iran or Syria and saw this photo of a smiling American president shaking hands with a smiling Hugo Chávez, what would you think?"

He said: "I would think that I was losing ground."

The hopeful way to view the Obama administration's openings to Chávez, the Castros, Iran and the others would be: This had better work. Because if it doesn't, a lot of people who've spent years working in opposition to these regimes -- in hiding or in prison in Iran, Syria, Cuba, Venezuela, China, Russia, Burma, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan -- are going to get hammered. North Korea's opposition is invisible.

Change in autocratic regimes doesn't come from talking to the dictators. Wonder Land columnist Daniel Henninger explains. (April 23)
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Other than physically controlling their populations, the biggest problem for autocrats -- most of them narcissistic monomaniacs -- is maintaining the legitimacy of their authority, which by definition is always on thin ice. To Mr. Obama and his handlers perhaps it was just a photo-op. For Mr. Chávez it was priceless. Merely being seen or photographed in the presence of civilized society -- at summits, negotiations, in state visits -- empowers the autocrat and discourages his opposition.

Within days of the Summit of the Americas, former Venezuelan presidential candidate Manuel Rosales formally applied for asylum in Peru, fearing a corruption trial at home.

When Barack Obama was a candidate for president, the main plank of his foreign policy, other than withdrawing from Iraq, was agreeing to "talk to our enemies," notably Iran and Syria. The intellectual rationale for this policy, as far as one can make out, is that because George W. Bush wouldn't commit the office of the presidency itself to direct negotiations with the leaders of these regimes, and because everything George W. Bush did was wrong, reversing that policy would bear fruit.

Iran just sentenced Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi to eight years in prison. Syria's leading pro-democracy dissident, Riad Seif, has spent the last year in Adra prison and is reportedly dying of prostate cancer. Syrian "president" Bashar Assad won't let him leave the country to get treatment.

In Cuba, Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet is serving a 25-year prison sentence. In China, the whereabouts is unknown of Liu Xiaobo, co-author of a new, online pro-democracy petition. His wife has written to Mr. Obama for help. Tens of thousands of North Koreans are hiding in China.

The Obama people seem to believe that talking top guy to top guy is the yellow brick road to progress. Why do they think that? They say Ronald Reagan negotiated over nuclear arsenals at Reykjavik. But virtually all desirable regime change in our time -- Soviet Communism, South Africa, the Philippines -- has come mainly from below, from the West protecting and supporting people in opposition to autocrats.

The origin of the change-from-below movement was the 1975 Helsinki Accords, which ratified the legitimacy of self-determination. There was no stronger supporter of this liberal turn than AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland. Where is his like today in the Democratic Party or its unions? Where is the left-wing blogosphere when the pro-democracy prisoners of Cuba, Iran and Syria need them? It's ranting about Bush "war criminals."

It is early in the Obama foreign policy. They say the right thing on political rights. But there appears to be no coherent strategy beyond "talk to our enemies." So far, what do we see? Hugo Chávez is smiling. His fellow prison wardens around the world are smiling. The joke must be on someone else.

7a) The President's Apology Tour: Great leaders aren't defined by consensus.
By KARL ROVE


President Barack Obama has finished the second leg of his international confession tour. In less than 100 days, he has apologized on three continents for what he views as the sins of America and his predecessors.

Mr. Obama told the French (the French!) that America "has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive" toward Europe. In Prague, he said America has "a moral responsibility to act" on arms control because only the U.S. had "used a nuclear weapon." In London, he said that decisions about the world financial system were no longer made by "just Roosevelt and Churchill sitting in a room with a brandy" -- as if that were a bad thing. And in Latin America, he said the U.S. had not "pursued and sustained engagement with our neighbors" because we "failed to see that our own progress is tied directly to progress throughout the Americas."

By confessing our nation's sins, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that Mr. Obama has "changed the image of America around the world" and made the U.S. "safer and stronger." As evidence, Mr. Gibbs pointed to the absence of protesters during the Summit of the Americas this past weekend.

That's now the test of success? Anti-American protesters are a remarkably unreliable indicator of a president's wisdom. Ronald Reagan drew hundreds of thousands of protesters by deploying Pershing and cruise missiles in Europe. Those missiles helped win the Cold War.

There is something ungracious in Mr. Obama criticizing his predecessors, including most recently John F. Kennedy. ("I'm grateful that President [Daniel] Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old," Mr. Obama said after the Nicaraguan delivered a 52-minute anti-American tirade that touched on the Bay of Pigs.) Mr. Obama acts as if no past president -- except maybe Abraham Lincoln -- possesses his wisdom.

Mr. Obama was asked in Europe if he believes in American exceptionalism. He said he did -- in the same way that "the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks in Greek exceptionalism." That's another way of saying, "No."

Mr. Obama makes it seem as though there is moral equivalence between America and its adversaries and assumes that if he confesses America's sins, other nations will confess theirs and change. But he won no confessions (let alone change) from the leaders of Venezuela, Nicaragua or Russia. He apologized for America and our adversaries rejoiced. Fidel Castro isn't easing up on Cuban repression, but he is preparing to take advantage of Mr. Obama's policy shifts.

When a president desires personal popularity, he can lose focus on vital American interests. It's early, but with little to show for the confessions, David Axelrod of Team Obama was compelled to say this week that the president planted, cultivated and will harvest "very, very valuable" returns later. Like what?

Meanwhile, the desire for popularity has led Mr. Obama to embrace bad policies. Blaming America for the world financial crisis led him to give into European demands for crackdowns on tax havens and hedge funds. Neither had much to do with the credit crisis. Saying that America's relationship with Russia "has been allowed to drift" led the president to push for arms negotiations. But that draws attention away from America's real problems with Russia: its invasion of Georgia last summer, its bullying of Ukraine, its refusal to join in pressuring Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions, and its threats of retaliation against the Poles, Balts and Czechs for standing with the U.S. on missile defense.

Mr. Obama is downplaying the threats we face. He takes comfort in thinking that Venezuela has a defense budget that "is probably 1/600th" of America's -- it's actually 1/215th -- but that hasn't kept Mr. Chávez from supporting narcoterrorists waging war on Colombia (a key U.S. ally) or giving petrodollars to anti-American regimes. Venezuela isn't likely to attack the U.S., but it is capable of harming American interests.

Henry Kissinger wrote in his memoir "Years of Renewal": "The great statesmen of the past saw themselves as heroes who took on the burden of their societies' painful journey from the familiar to the as yet unknown. The modern politician is less interested in being a hero than a superstar. Heroes walk alone; stars derive their status from approbation. Heroes are defined by inner values; stars by consensus. When a candidate's views are forged in focus groups and ratified by television anchorpersons, insecurity and superficiality become congenital."

A superstar, not a statesman, today leads our country. That may win short-term applause from foreign audiences, but do little for what should be the chief foreign policy preoccupation of any U.S. president: advancing America's long-term interests.

Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.