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Don Rickles gets into the act. Has he been reading my memos? (See 1 below.)

High Noon in Iran? (See 2 below.)


The White House tried the hammer approach. It failed. Now it is backing into a fan and damned if they do and damned more if he don't. (See 3, 3a and 3b below.)

A political scientist professor, friend and fellow memo reader gives his thoughts on American leadership and the future of the GOP.

Another friend and fellow memo reader expresses his view of Obama. (See 4 and 4a below.)

Huckabee suggests Israelis would never tell Obama, Americans should not live in, say, the Bronx ,so why does Obama tell Israelis where they can live?

Obama tells Israelis where they can live because he wants to appease Palestinians in the mistaken belief they will see he is being even handed and they will bend towards the Israelis. Feed a bully and grow their appetite is something, obviously, Obama does not either understand and/or believe. (See 5 below.)

I guess we just have to get used to being spit in the face by pipsqueaks. (See 6 below.)

Like Dirksen said, a billion here a billion there and soon it adds up to real money. (See 7 below.)

Mubarak comes to D.C. say Sayonara, smooth the way for his son and offers parting advice re Iran the same as our State Department. (See 8 and 8a below.)

Has fear made Nasrallah come to his senses? (See 9 below.)

Diane West discusses our fading Iraq policy. (See 10 below.)

Commentary on the imbecillic attack on Whole Foods. (See 11 below.)

Whatever health care program is designed it will come at a very high cost. But we can afford it because we have large printing presses. (See 12 below.)

Dick

1)Don Rickles Roasts the Dems...


Hello, dummies! Oh my God, look at you. Anyone else hurt in the accident?

Seriously, Senator Reid has a face of a Saint - A Saint Bernard. Now I know why they call you the arithmetic man. You add partisanship, subtract pleasure, divide attention, and multiply ignorance. Reid is so physically unimposing, he makes Pee Wee Herman look like Mr. T. And Reid's so dumb, he makes Speaker Pelosi look like an intellectual. Nevada is soooo screwed! If I were less polite, I'd say Reid makes Kevin Federline look successful.

Speaking of the Speaker... Nancy Pelosi, hubba, hubba! Hey baby, you must've been something before electricity. Seriously, the Speaker may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. She really is an idiot. Madame Speaker... want to make twelve bucks the hard way? Pelosi says she's not partisan, but her constituents call her Madame Pelossilini.

Charlie Rangel... still alive and still robbing the taxpayers blind. What does that make, six decades of theft? Rangel's the only man with a rent-controlled mansion. He's the guy who writes our tax laws but forgot to pay taxes on $75 grand in rental income! So why isn't he the Treasury Secretary? Rangel runs more scams than a Nigerian Banker.

Barney Frank - he's a better actor than Fred Flintstone. Consider...he and Dodd caused the whole financial meltdown and they're not only not serving time with Bubba and Rodney, they're still heading up the financial system! Let's all admit it... Barney Frank slobbers more than a sheepdog on novocain. How did this guy get elected? Oh, that's right.... he's from Massachusetts . That's the state that elects Mr. Charisma, John Kerry -- man of the people!

You know, if Senator Dodd were any more crooked, you could open wine bottles with him. Here's a news flash, Dodd: when your local newspaper calls you a "lying weasel", it may be time to retire. Dodd's involved in more shady deals than the Clintons . Even Rangel looks up to him!

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, I really respect you... especially given your upbringing. All you've overcome... I heard your birth certificate is an apology from the condom factory. I don't know what makes you so dumb, but it really works for you.

Personally, I don't think you're a fool, but what's my opinion compared to that of thousands of others? Gibbs does his best expositional work in the bathroom every morning.

As for President Obama, what can I say? They say President Obama's arrogant and aloof, but I don't agree. Now it's true when you enter the room, you have to kiss his ring. I don't mind, but he has it in his back pocket. His mind is open to new ideas -- so open that ideas simply pass through it. Obama lies so much, I was actually surprised to find out his first name really was Barack. Just don't ask about his middle name! But Obama was able to set a record... he actually lied more in 60 days than Bill Clinton. As far as his administration -- what with the tax cheat and lobbyists -- well, in the words of Patches O'Houlihan, "It's like watching a bunch of retards trying to hump a doorknob out there."

With all due respect.

FOR THOSE THAT VOTED FOR "HOPE AND CHANGE"... BEND OVER AND PREPARE TO RECEIVE YOUR BOUNTY.


2)Iran's regime and opposition on course for deadly showdown

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his hard-line supporters are calling for opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi to be tried for sedition after he announced Saturday, Aug. 15, the formation of The Green Path of Hope movement to restore the people's stolen rights. Iranian sources report that Ahmadinejad is trying to build a puppet government composed of inexperienced, pliant cronies and officials known for their brutality to usher in a takeover of the regime by the Revolutionary Guards.

The two factions are set for a final showdown.

The regime hardliners are bent on smashing the opposition by brute force. Their leaders face trials on charges that carry the death sentence, such as sedition.

Sunday, Aug. 13, a third group of 25 protesters against the disputed presidential election goes on trial before the Revolutionary Court. The first two sessions were blasted as travesties of justice and "show trials."

Seven leaders of the Baha'i community are also to be tried for allegedly spying for Israel and desecrating Islam.

Although the president has muscled his way past many obstacles, he has been held back from forming by bitter factional strife within the regime, which is reflected in the Majlis, parliament, where the majority refuses to accredit his planned lineup. Many conservatives have turned him down after fired 14 ministers in humiliating circumstances.

The cabinet beginning to emerge now, according to our Iranian sources, is as follows:

The Ministry of Intelligence will go to one of three candidates: Hossein Taeb, commander of the Basijj thugs responsible for abusing opposition demonstrators in recent weeks; Esmail Ahmadi Moghadam, head of the security services, and Mohammad Rouyanian, chief of the Transportation Police, who is known for his brutal methods.

The candidates for Minister of the Interior are Rouhollah Hosseinian, head of the Revolutionary Archive, and Ahmad Reza Radan, deputy commander of the security service. Reza Radan resigned as warden of the Kahrizak prison on the southern edge of Tehran after extreme case of torture and murder were exposed. Contrary to the official claim, this chamber of horrors is still open and several dozen political detainees continue to suffer abuse.

There is a fierce struggle for the Petroleum Ministry which controls 85 percent of the national foreign exchange income and most of the funding for the regime's covert military, missile and nuclear programs.

The president has not yet decided whether to leave the hardline Mostafa Najar in the Defense Ministry or transfer him to the Interior department.

Manouchehr Mottaki may be dropped as Foreign Minister as Ahmadinejad and his clique finds him too soft. One candidate for the job is Iran's nuclear negotiator Said Jalili, who is secretary of the National Security Council.

The Iranian president promises to publish his cabinet in full by Tuesday, August 18, but he still has to overcoming factional infighting and win the support of parliament - and that could take weeks.

3) What's Scary About Health Care Reform?
By Steve Chapman

A hammer is a marvelous tool, but only for the right job. If you took an expensive watch to a repairman and he pulled out a hammer, you would be extremely nervous, if not aghast. Maybe he could find a way to do some good with that implement, but you would be more focused on the damage he could cause.

A similar scenario is playing out in the public anxiety over health care reform. Plenty of people think the existing system is in need of repair. But when they hear about expensive plans that require a more powerful and intrusive federal government, they fear that what is best in our approach to medicine may get smashed in the process.

What is best in our approach is the exceptional quality it provides. Americans grasp that: A 2006 poll found that 89 percent were happy with the medical care they get. But President Obama and his allies in Congress don't seem to realize how good we have it.

He says though the United States spends more per person on medical care than any other nation, "the quality of our care is often lower, and we aren't any healthier. In fact, citizens in some countries that spend substantially less than we do are actually living longer than we do."

That's one of the favorite rationales for a government-led overhaul. But it gives about as realistic a picture of American medicine as an episode of "Scrubs."

It's true that the United States spends more on health care than anyone else, and it's true that we rank below a lot of other advanced countries in life expectancy. The juxtaposition of the two facts, however, doesn't prove we are wasting our money or doing the wrong things.

It only proves that lots of things affect mortality besides medical treatment. Heath Ledger didn't die at age 28 because the American health care system failed him.

One big reason our life expectancy lags is that Americans have an unusual tendency to perish in homicides or accidents. We are 12 times more likely than the Japanese to be murdered and nearly twice as likely to be killed in auto wrecks.

In their 2006 book, "The Business of Health," economists Robert L. Ohsfeldt and John E. Schneider set out to determine where the U.S. would rank in life span among developed nations if homicides and accidents are factored out. Their answer? First place.

That discovery indicates our health care system is doing a poor job of preventing shootouts and drunk driving but a good job of healing the sick. All those universal-care systems in Canada and Europe may sound like Health Heaven, but they fall short of our model when it comes to combating life-threatening diseases.

Some of those foreign systems are great, as long as you don't get sick. Samuel Preston and Jessica Ho of the Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania examined survival rates for lung, breast, prostate, colon and rectum cancers in 18 countries and found that Americans fared best.

The U.S. also excelled on other measures, such as surviving heart attacks for more than a year. Why? Because our doctors and patients don't take no for an answer. The researchers attribute the results to "wider screening and more aggressive treatment." Another factor is that we get quicker access to new cancer drugs than anyone else.

Critics say all those great medicines and therapies are cold comfort to Americans who lack insurance -- which by any standard is our greatest shortcoming. People without coverage are more likely to do without needed treatment or preventive care and more likely to die from disease or accidents.

But they have it better than you might think. Some 62 percent of uninsured Americans are satisfied with their medical care. That is probably because they get a lot of uncompensated treatment from the most advanced, ambitious and capable medical system in the world.

In Britain, by contrast, having guaranteed access to care doesn't mean you'll actually get it. Twenty percent of British cancer patients who might be cured become incurable while awaiting the treatment they need.

The challenge in this country is to extend coverage to the uninsured without degrading quality for everyone. With a little caution and humility, the president and Congress can find ways to achieve that goal. But first, they need to put down the hammer.


3a) W.H. backs away from public option
By: Carrie Budoff Brown


President Barack Obama and his top aides are signaling that they’re prepared to drop a government insurance option from a final health-reform deal if that’s what’s needed to strike a compromise on Obama’s top legislative priority.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Sunday that the public option was “not the essential element” of the overhaul. A day earlier, Obama downplayed the public option during a Colorado town hall meeting, saying it was “just one sliver” of the debate.

He even chided Democratic supporters and Republican critics for becoming “so fixated on this that they forget everything else” — a dig at some liberals in his own party who have made the public option the main rallying cry of the health reform debate.

At the same time, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), one of six senators involved in bipartisan Finance Committee negotiations, all but declared the public option dead in the Senate.

“Look, the fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the United States Senate for the public option,” said Conrad, who has pushed an alternative proposal to create a network of consumer cooperatives, on Fox News Sunday. “There never have been. So to continue to chase that rabbit, I think, is just a wasted effort.”

A White House aide said in an e-mailed statement Sunday afternoon that the president is not backing away from the public plan.

"Nothing has changed,” said Linda Douglass, communications director for the White House Office of Health Reform. “The president has always said that what is essential is that health insurance reform must lower costs, ensure that there are affordable options for all Americans and it must increase choice and competition in the health insurance market. He believes the public option is the best way to achieve those goals."

But taken together, the remarks from Obama, Sebelius and Conrad suggest the White House is preparing supporters for a health care compromise that may well exclude the government option — which could help Obama win enough votes for a sweeping overhaul but touch off a nasty battle inside his own party between liberals and more moderate members who have resisted a bigger government role in health care.

It was only in June that Obama said in a letter to Senate Democrats that “I strongly believe that Americans should have the choice of a public health insurance option operating alongside private plans. This will give them a better range of choices, make the health care market more competitive, and keep insurance companies honest.”

A month ago, Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address that “any plan I sign must include an insurance exchange: a one-stop shopping marketplace where you can compare the benefits, cost and track records of a variety of plans – including a public option to increase competition and keep insurance companies honest – and choose what’s best for your family.”

But in the face of hardening opposition to the idea — even inside his own party — Obama appears ready to retrench. Obama and his aides continue to emphasize having some competitor to private insurers, perhaps nonprofit insurance cooperatives, but they are using stronger language to downplay the importance that it be a government plan.

“What's important is choice and competition,” Sebelius said on CNN’s State of the Union. “And I'm convinced at the end of the day, the plan will have both of those. But that is not the essential element."

The reaction in the liberal blogosphere and beyond was swift and negative Sunday.


“Ultimately, if the president decides he’s going to go with a reform effort that doesn’t include a public option, what he will have done is spent a ton of political capital, riled up an incredibly angry right-wing base that’s been told this is a plot to kill Grandma, and he will have achieved something that doesn’t change health care very much and that doesn’t save us very much money and won’t do much for the American people,” MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said on NBC’s "Meet the Press." "It’s not a very good thing to spend a lot of political capital on."

One diarist on the Daily Kos said the “public option is in the ICU. ... When you call something that once was the central tenet of reform is now a ‘sliver,’ it is very difficult to argue it is not being de-emphasized.” Another diarist wrote this headline: “Told you so: Public Option, Meet Underside of Bus.”

“It would be very, very difficult without the public option,” Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said on whether she could support a bill that dropped the public option. She spoke on CNN's State of the Union.

Liberals say a health care bill without a public option would fail to actually reform the system. They view the public option as the best way to hold insurance companies accountable and provide affordable coverage, and they say nonprofit cooperatives are an unproven model.

“Health Care for America Now believes that all of the elements that Secretary Sebelius spoke in favor of – a public option, insurance reform, making health care affordable to all – are essential to effective reform,” said Richard Kirsch, campaign manager of Health Care for American Now, a liberal organization pushing the government option. “There is no ‘the’ essential element – all are key to health reform that will work.”

Sebelius, following Obama’s lead Saturday in Colorado, sought to shift the focus of the debate from the public option to more popular reforms such as prohibiting insurers from denying or dropping coverage because of a preexisting condition. It’s a subtle, but potentially telling, window into the White House’s latest strategy on reframing the terms of a legislative victory.

“Those are really essential parts of the program, along with choice and competition, which I think we'll have at the end of the day,” Sebelius said.

At the Saturday town hall meeting in Colorado, Obama defended the rationale for establishing a public plan, but he also raised eyebrows for suggesting the final package may not include one.

“All I'm saying is, though, that the public option, whether we have it or we don't have it, is not the entirety of health care reform,” he said. “This is just one sliver of it, one aspect of it. And by the way, it's both the right and the left that have become so fixated on this that they forget everything else.”

On CBS's Face the Nation, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was asked if the government option had to be included in the final bill. He repeated the standard White House line that the president wants to "inject some choice competition into the private insurance market."

But then, he appeared to hedge.

"The president has thus far sided with the notion that that can best be done through a public option," Gibbs said.

"Is that a hedge?" asked host Harry Smith, referring to Gibbs's use of "thus far."

"No, no, no. What I am saying is the bottom line for the president is that we ought to have choice and competition in the insurance market," Gibbs responded.

3b) Obama fighting for his presidency, not reform
By: Chris Stirewalt

The big question for President Barack Obama right now isn't about health care, but his own political survival.

If he fails to deliver health legislation, Obama will prove right those who said he was in over his head. That would make him something of a lame duck after only seven months in office.

But if he does manage to squeeze a bill out of Congress, it would be a Pyrrhic victory. By delivering unwanted changes to unwilling voters on a life-or-death issue, the president would squander the goodwill he earned during the campaign.

Voters now say passing nothing would be better than any of the plans stewing in Congress, so it's hard to imagine that lawmakers will return from their recess ready to take political risks.

Contrary to Obama's stump speeches, poll after poll shows more than three-quarters of Americans, including Republicans, want to see health care reformed.

But a new Rasmussen Reports survey says 54 percent of voters think Congress should just drop the subject this year. Only 35 percent said that any of the three plans would be better than nothing. That should be even more alarming to the White House than the growing majority that opposes the president's plan.

The president is plenty smart, and has shown preternatural political instincts. But he made a rookie mistake on health care, and it could be the undoing of his once-promising presidency.

Obama refused to develop and sell a plan to the American people in a straightforward way. Even with the glow of his halo starting to fade, the president might have succeeded this summer with an honest pitch. In doing so, he would have also established the adult phase of his presidency and ended the awkward adolescence of his administration.

Instead, he outsmarted himself by trying a bait and switch.

Obama said he was letting Congress work. Instead, he tried to sneak his plan through.

The New York Times reported last week on the shadow negotiations between the White House and the bipartisan working group on the Senate Finance Committee.

The president was cutting sweetheart deals with the biggest drug makers, labor unions and other interest groups all contingent on the bill being crafted in Sen. Max Baucus' committee. Team Obama was in constant contact with the Senate group.

But in the House, the administration was nowhere to be found. As one House Democrat said, "They have been -- what is a good way to put it? -- available for consultation."

Rather than letting the process work, the White House was using the process as cover. By letting the House cook up some medical monstrosity, as it inevitably would, Obama was going to make the Senate bill look like a sensible choice.

Instead of a $1 trillion-plus takeover with scary provisions about end-of-life counseling and abortion coverage, Obama would accept a Senate plan that would provide some tweaks to the bad old insurance industry, common-sense cuts to wasteful spending, and a new health insurance cooperative no more menacing than a farmers market.

And when House liberals complained that he had let them down by not delivering a new government-run health program, Obama could just give them a wink. Just vote for the plan, Rahm Emanuel would whisper, and when the co-op is an inevitable bust, the national health plan will kick in. As a former director of Freddie Mac, Emanuel knows something about collapsing into the arms of taxpayers.

What a perfect solution for a president who grabbed General Motors and Bank of America not because he wanted to, but because he had no choice. Accidental socialism is the Obama way -- all of the government, none of the guilt.

But instead, the White House finds that voters understand health care to be a long-term problem in need of a long-term solution. The bad bills brewed up in Congress won't make a compromise plan look better. They've just made voters wary of the process.

But worse for Obama, his end run damaged what was once his greatest asset -- the belief among voters that he was something different.

Endless evasions and then a crackdown on opponents has made Obama look like just another president -- and a cynical one at that.

Emotionally invoking his grandmother's November death over the weekend to shame his critics was just the latest in a series of shoddy ploys.

Can President Obama escape the wreckage of his health care effort? Yes, but only if he stops being so slippery and starts leveling with voters.

Chris Stirewalt is the political editor of The Washington Examiner.


4) We're truly in deep doo-doo; no real leadership anywhere

Even in the darkest moments of the Carter years (which was pretty much all four of them), there were still leaders and potential leaders visible to any who wanted to look ahead, in both parties, including Republicans, in addition to reagan, who had not been tained by Watergate.

It's been many years since I thought this count had an adequate supply of strong national leaders, regardless of party. As I see it now, the problem for both the GOP and for the country as a whole is that the Democrats don't need to find a leader to rally behind; even though he's no truman or FDR, Obama will be leading the Dems in 2012 for better or worse. so, practically speaking, it is the that GOP must find a genuine leader who can take the independents and moderates back from the Democrats. but if they nominate someone who is from or caters only to the base, then the GOP will lose no matter how badly Obama screws up. (Which he seems to be in the process of doing, domestically. Remember, the elder Bush promised a "humble foreign policy" that would "work closely with allies" and the GOP ate it up; they don't like that same policy from Obama, for some mysterious reason.

I wondered during the Bush '41 years (who was a much better president than presently is realized, in my opinion), where the next national leaders were coming from, as I didn't see them in either party, save perhaps for Colin Powell in particular. in mulling this over, it helps to remember that bush '41 lost re-election not because of the Democrats but because of Republican short-sightedness (to put it charitably): Clinton won the presidency with only 43% of the popular vote; if the GOP base had remained true to the party instead of taking a flier on Perot (who received 19% of the vote, the great majority of it the GOP base), Bush would have been re-elected handily. that election was a serious indication that the GOP might have a potential problem with the base -- people who would rather give the election to the opponent than accept a less than perfect (from their perspective) candidate.

I thought it rather hypocritical for these same people who were genuinely responsible for putting Clinton into office to then spend eight years bitching about
Clinton and trying to impeach him (also, perhaps, the first indication that the GOP might be sore losers and dedicate themselves to destroying any future Democratic president, starting on inauguration day; in Obama's case the racial aspect also contributes, obviously, just as it is a positive thing for the Dems). Regardless, the GOP base elected Clinton, although today for some reason you can't find anyone in the GOP will admit to voting for Perot.

I never thought GW was presidential timber -- Reagan referred to him as Bush '41's
"neer-do-well son," and that pretty well sums it up for me. In january 1999 there were ten candidates for the GOP nomination, several much better qualifed than Bush and whom i would have gladly supported. but by fall of 1999 daddy Bush's connections had raised over $160 million in campaign funds for dubya, far more than any other candidate. six dropped out before the New Hampshire primary because they couldn't compete financially, and by the South Carolina Primary, all but McCain and Keyes had dropped out. In a very real sense, Bush '41 bought his son the nomination; no doubt many of the donors thought that daddy's advisors wouldn't let the son go terribly wrong.

I was a huge fan of McCain's in 2000; I thought then that South Carolina showed the true colors of Bush and Karl Rove in terms of ethics, and I was very disappointed that McCain reconciled with Bush over what was truly unforgivable. That was also the
first time I realized that McCain was willing to sell out for political ambition. still, I was in his camp and would still be if he had chosen Pawlenty or Romney. but McCain said he'd never do anything not in the national interest or compromise for political gain; and in choosing Palin he showed that he would indeed do just
that. "President Palin" is the scariest thought I've had since I was five.

So, first, the GOP base puts Clinton into office in 1992, and then McCain caters to the base with Palin rather than try to re-gain the moderates who bolted the party after 2006. the base now controls the party, and that doesn't look good for either Romney or Pawlenty in 2012 (both of whom, I agree, are truly presidentia material). so far as i can tell, there's no one else on the GOP horizon who can attract the independents and former GOPers who might want to return to the fold in 2012.

One observer has said that the birthers are not a problem for the GOP base, they *are* the base. to the extent that this might be true, it's also very bad news for the GOP, no matter how badly obama screws up.


Twenty of past 28 years have had GOP presidents, and despite the accomplishments of Reagan and Bush '41, the recent record was such that in 2008 the country (except the south) soundly rejected the GOP candidate, even though the dem candidate was obviously lacking in experience. of course, the GOP would not have treated Hillary any better or given her any more of break than Obama was; the GOP hates Hillary as much as they hate Obama. And here's the problem in this aspect: remember when it was learned that Palin's uneducated and jobless daughter was having a child out of wedlock, focus on the family and the rest of the GOP base said, gee, that's OK, because she kept the child; does anyone really think the GOP would have been as understanding if Hillary's Standford educated, employed and well compensated, daughter Chelsea had turned up pregant in January 2008? Now, it's the health care "death panels": how convenient the GOP forgets the Terri Schivao case, in which the GOP Congress and the President passed a law giving the federal govt the right to intervene in end-of-life cases against the wishes of the family. Jack Kingston told a local Tv station that he "didn't see any problem in allowing the federal government to take a second look" regardless of next-of-kin's wishes. And look at the brouhaha over a provision that exists in none of the five legislative drafts working through Congress.

It's this kind of hypocrisy that is partially responsible for keeping the moderates and independents away from the GOP, and which the GOP absolutely must stop if they are to regain the respect necessary to win a presidential election. (I know, I know, the Dems haven't been much better -- but they've also won, and isn't that what counts?)

In short (speaking as a political scientist), the GOP must: stop being, or at least looking like, the party of "no"; start putting forth serious and viable alternative policies (sorry, claiming global warming is a hoax doesn't count as a viable and serious policy, for example); expand beyond the base -- and do so genuinely, because doing so merely for political expediency will be readily seen; and allow someone like Pawlenty to be their nominee. (I do like Romney, but too many don't consider him to be a christian and never will, so his chances of the nomination in 2012 are, I think at present, nil. People who voted for Perot are still voting, and they'd rather the GOP lose than to compromise their beliefs.)

Cheers

4a)Regrettably, we are burdened by a "leader of the free world" with the mentality of a teenager.


5) Huckabee: Would Israel Tell Obama Who Can Live in the Bronx?
By Gil Ronen
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Monday that the United States
should not be telling Jewish people where they can and cannot live in
Jerusalem, and he compared such a policy with racial segregation.

“My question is how would the government of the United States feel if
Prime Minister Netanyahu began to dictate which people could live in
the Bronx, which ones could live in Manhattan, which could live in Queens,
and say, ‘We only allow certain people to live in those neighborhoods,’”
he said. “How would that go over? It wouldn’t go over very well.”
Huckabee spoke with reporters as he toured the ancient remains at
the City of David (Ir David) in eastern Jerusalem Monday.

“The position that our government has taken recently is far more harsh
[than the previous administration’s], even halting peace talks until
there is compliance with these demands,” he noted. “I’m not sure
where we would get the authority to demand of the Israelis what they
should do in their own country.”

After touring the Pool of Shiloach (Silwan) and Hezekiah’s Tunnel,
the governor said, “I think that there is some concern that many of us
have who have been coming to Israel for many years. I’m not Jewish,
so I am not trying to stand up for the Jewish people but for the freedom
of the Israeli people who I feel have an organic relationship to the
United States as the only democracy in the Middle East, as the only
place where freedom and liberty and personal capacity to make choices
really thrives. It’s in the vital interest of not just the Middle East but
the world that freedom exists.”

Asked if he would support an Israeli military strike against Iran,
the man touted as the leading candidate for the Republican presidential
ticket in 2012 stated he “would support Israel doing whatever Israel
needs to protect [itself].” He added that the United States would never
want anybody to tell it the boundaries of how it can protect itself.
“I think we can certainly advise as a friend to Israel,” he explained,
“but we have no right to dictate and outright tell another country what
it should or shouldn’t do. Heck, we don’t do that with North Korea!

“I’d like to think that the rights of Jewish people in their own homeland
would be the same as the rights of American people in their homeland,”
Huckabee said. “We take our rights very seriously.”

6)Anti-American Amigos: Why is the Obama administration trying to help Hugo Chavez?
By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY

Hugo Chávez took a break last week from lobbying Washington on behalf of deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to travel to Quito, Ecuador, for a meeting of South American heads of state.

There he launched a virulent assault on the U.S. military, reiterated his commitment to spreading revolution in the region, and threatened the continent with war. Mr. Zelaya was by his side.

The Venezuelan's tirade against the U.S. and its ally Colombia raised the question yet again of what the U.S. could possibly be thinking in pushing Honduras to reinstate Mr. Zelaya. He was removed from office by the Honduran Congress in June because he violated the country's constitution and willfully incited mob violence.

But that's not the only thing that made him unpopular at home. He also had become an important ally of Mr. Chávez and was quite obviously being coached to copy the Chávez power grab in Venezuela by undermining Honduras's institutional checks and balances.

If Honduras has been able to neutralize Mr. Chávez, it's something to celebrate. A Chávez-style takeover of institutions in Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua has quashed political pluralism, free speech and minority rights in those countries. There is now a heavy presence of Cuban state intelligence throughout the Venezuelan empire. Mr. Zelaya literally has become a fellow traveler of Mr. Chávez, leaving no doubts about the course he would put Honduras on if given the chance.

Among the theories making the rounds about Mr. Obama's motivations in trying to force Honduras to take Mr. Zelaya back, there is the hypothesis that this administration is tacking hard to the left. Mr. Obama has expressed the same views on Honduras as Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.), who holds that the interim government must be forced to reinstate Mr. Zelaya and who has, over more than two decades in office, consistently allied himself with socialist causes in Latin America.

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As a U.S. senator, Mr. Kerry has the luxury of treating Latin America like his playground, as Democrats have done for decades, foisting on it ideas that Americans reject. Venezuelans still recall how Connecticut's Chris Dodd played the role of chief Chávez cheerleader in the Senate while the strongman was consolidating power.

But Mr. Obama is the president and commander in chief, and millions of people in this hemisphere are counting on the U.S. to stand up to Venezuelan aggression. Playing footsie under the table with Mr. Chávez on Honduras while the Venezuelan is threatening the peace isn't going to fly in a hemisphere that prefers liberty over tyranny.

Both Colombian and U.S. officials allege that the Venezuelan National Guard and high-ranking members of Mr. Chávez's government are in cahoots with criminal enterprises that run drugs in South America. The evidence suggests an alliance between the terrorist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)—the largest exporter of cocaine from that country—and members of Mr. Chávez's cabinet. There is also evidence in documents and video captured from the FARC that the rebels have influence at high levels of the Ecuadoran government.

The cocaine business is a big revenue raiser for the terrorist organization and for its business partners on the continent. This is why Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has agreed to allow U.S. drug-surveillance planes to use Colombian military bases.

In Quito, Mr. Chávez flew into a rage about that agreement. "The U.S. is the most warlike government in the world," he told his South American peers and Mr. Zelaya. "The Yankee military pays no mind to its president," he said, artfully exempting Barack Obama from blame. "In Colombia [the U.S. military] has immunity. They can rape women, they can kill and they can destroy in every direction. You can't do anything to them. It's horrible."

The military-bases agreement is far more limited than what Mr. Chávez claimed, but he wasn't about to miss an opportunity to ratchet up the tension. "The winds of war are starting to blow," he warned.

His counterparts didn't buy it. Colombia was not condemned in Quito, largely because key members of the group didn't want their own sovereign decisions subject to continental review. But Mr. Chávez is not going away. He has pledged to continue with efforts to destabilize surviving democracies.

Honduras remains a target. Argentina is also in his sights. In an interview with the Argentine daily La Nación, he spoke of his alliance with Argentina's President Cristina Kirchner. "We are going to work to reinforce the Caracas-Buenos Aires axis, which is a central axis," Mr. Chávez said. "Like the Caracas-Quito axis, the Caracas-Buenos Aires axis is fundamental for the integration."

The U.S. war on drugs has been a colossal failure because of the large cocaine market in the U.S. The tragedy—beyond the violence it creates—is that criminal enterprises, flourishing because of U.S. customers, wreak havoc on frail institutions. That's bad enough. But the Obama administration pours salt in that gaping wound by refusing to support the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement our ally has asked for, and now by backing Mr. Chávez's Honduran pawn.


7)Fannie Mae Enron, the Sequel: The mortgage giants, now taxpayer wards, belong on the federal balance sheetWhen Larry Summers and his White House economic team next take up the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, one idea up for debate will be shifting the mortgage giants' bad assets into a government-owned "bad bank." Fannie and Freddie would be left with clean balance sheets and a new lease on life.

But shifting around bad assets is the least of the Obama Administration's problems with these two failed "government-sponsored enterprises." The bigger issue is that all of Fan and Fred's liabilities, whether kept inside the companies or hidden in a dark corner of the Treasury, are now Uncle Sam's responsibility. Moving their bad assets into a new Baddie Mae would only preserve the fiction that there is a difference between the government's obligations and those of Fan and Fred. Not even Barney Frank could believe that any more.

The best long-run solution would be to put the two into run-off mode, paying their debts as they come due and collecting whatever they can from the portfolios they currently hold. Relieving them of their mistakes so they can gamble again on the taxpayer dime would merely re-create the moral hazard that landed them in federal conservatorship. We know how that movie ends.

Mr. Summers has long said that mixing private profit with public risk is bad policy, and we trust he doesn't want to repeat the mistake. A starting point for permanent reform would be to treat Fan and Fred, in the budget and on the federal balance sheet, as the government-owned creatures that they are. For the moment, despite 80% government ownership, their $85 billion bailout cost (with more losses to come) and their $5.4 trillion in taxpayer liabilities remain off-balance-sheet in the mold of Enron's special purpose vehicles or Citigroup's SIVs.

The politicians who created and pampered Fan and Fred like it that way. They know that offering federal "guarantees" looks much cheaper, in the official accounting, than actual outlays. But whether it's Fan and Fred, or the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation or the Federal Housing Administration, these deferred promises seem to come due sooner or later. Perhaps the politicians would be less profligate in issuing such guarantees if they had to admit the cost up front.

Putting Fannie and Freddie on the national books would in an instant increase the national debt held by the public by 75%—to $12.7 trillion, from $7.3 trillion today. The nearby chart shows that this takes debt as a share of GDP to nearly 90%, or nearly double the peak it reached in the 1980s when the political class was hyperventilating even as the Reagan deficits were falling as a share of GDP. Congress would have to add that $5.4 trillion to the increase in the federal debt limit that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is now requesting. But that would be truth-in-budgeting. Wall Street has sold Fannie paper to the world as if it were as taxpayer guaranteed as Treasury bills, and now we know it is.

Even as the companies careened toward failure a year ago, the Bush Administration was desperate to show it would cover all Fan and Fred debt. The Obama Treasury has been no different and has ginned up the two companies to expand their debts amid the housing meltdown by guaranteeing more residential mortgages. The Federal Reserve has bought $543 billion of Fannie and Freddie mortgage-backed securities and has plans to buy up to $1.25 trillion worth by year end. Foreign debt holders get the message. The only people who still might be fooled are the American taxpayers, who are ultimately responsible when the bills come due.

The larger issue is the integrity of the national balance sheet. As government spending soars, the political temptation to use off-balance-sheet vehicles of various sorts will only increase. Barney Frank is even pushing a bill to make the feds guarantee U.S. municipal debt. The danger is that the federal government will itself become the next Enron, with its biggest liabilities hidden from view, officially denied or tucked away in special purpose vehicles like Fannie Mae. Until the next crisis hits.

It's bad enough that the political class has played this dishonest game with the long-term liabilities of Social Security and Medicare, which are also kept off the balance sheet. But at least those IOUs are held by another branch of the government and can be legislated away by some future Congress. Debt held by the public can't be repudiated without the U.S. descending into Argentina-ville. It's time to come clean about the debts our government is racking up, and Fannie and Freddie are a good place to start.


8)Ailing Mubarak seeks Washington's backing for his son as successor


According to Washington and intelligence sources, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's trip to Washington this week, his first in four years, is primarily a farewell visit and a bid to assure his son Gemal Mubarak's smooth accession to the presidency, rather than in-depth discussions on the Middle East.

With him are foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit and intelligence minister Gen. Omar Suleiman, his point man in policies on Israel, the Palestinians and ties with Washington on peacemaking.

From Monday, Aug. 17, they have been sitting down with an impressive array of US administration leaders, starting with Vice President Joe Biden, secretary of state Hillary Clinton and National Security Adviser James Jones. Tuesday Mubarak meets President Barack Obama. Before he leaves the US capital, Mubarak, 81, will also see the heads of eight Jewish-American organizations.

His arrival was greeted by news comments such as: When Egypt's leader meets…with President Obama, US officials may find themselves caught up in the Egypt's No. 1 guessing game: How much longer can Hosni Mubarak go on? And… who would succeed him as head of the Arab world's most populous nation.

At the G8 summit in the first week of July he was described as looking "weakened and pale, He was photographed being helped up the stairs."

The real purpose of his trip to Paris two weeks later, in the third week of July, ostensibly for talks with French president Nicolas Sarkozy, was surgery for an unknown ailment in a French military hospital.

Later,sources reported the French doctors discharged him the next day after diagnosing his condition as untreatable. He returned to Cairo to devote himself to expediting the handover of rule to his son, Gemal (Jimmy), 45, a former investment banker and deputy head of the ruling National Democratic Party.

The state of the Egyptian president's health has never been officially revealed and has therefore given rise to wild rumors.

A western source in Cairo expects the transition from Mubarak senior to his son to be a slow and arduous process that could take months. The next presidential election would normally take place in 2011 but Hosni's state of health could force the vote to be brought forward to next year with Gemal running as the NDP's candidate.

In his 28 years at the helm, Mubarak has never appointed a vice president or shared his duties with a deputy. Prime minister Ahmed Nazir deals solely with the economy; all diplomatic, military and domestic security policies were and remain the sole province of the president. Since his health began to deteriorate, much important state business has fallen into neglect.

In the last two weeks, our sources report that that the ruling party's secretary Safwat El-Sherif has summoned party branch secretaries for rallies on Gemal's behalf in Egypt's main cities and getting them organized for a snap election.

8a) Mubarak to US Jews: Attack on Iran risky
By Yitzhak Benhorin

During first visit to Washington in five years, Egyptian president tells Jewish leaders best way to deal with Tehran is to 'wait and see how leadership rift unfolds,' adding 'strike on nuclear facilities would rally Iranians around their government.' On Shalit deal: Question of where freed Palestinians will settle once released is one of main obstacles







WASHINGTON – Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Monday warned against an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.


Speaking in Washington during a closed meeting with Jewish leaders, Mubarak said, "There is a rift within the Iranian leadership, and the best way (to deal with its nuclear program) is to wait. An attack would only rally the Iranians around their leadership."



The Egyptian president, who last visited the US five years ago, was set to hold a series of meetings on Monday with top American officials, headed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Mubarak already met Defense Secretary William Cohen and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. He is scheduled to meet with President Barack Obama on Tuesday.



During the meeting with the Jewish leaders, Mubarak praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and said he was optimistic about the Mideast peace process. He urged those involved in the process not to press the Arab states regarding the normalization of ties with Jerusalem.



As for Egypt's efforts to advance a prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas that would secure the release of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, Mubarak estimated that the current situation is similar to the one at the end of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's term.





According to the Egyptian president, the question of where the Palestinian prisoners will settle upon their release remains one of the main obstacles holding up the deal. Hamas wants them to be sent to the West Bank, while Israel is insisting that they settle in Hamas-ruled Gaza.



Mubarak's visit to Washington is also part of Egypt's effort to cement its status as the US' main Arab ally after years of tension between the countries. In the past Mubarak refused to visit the US in protest of former President George W. Bush's Mideast policy, including the war in Iraq. Bush also criticized Egypt's policies and human rights record.

9) Nasrallah is scared: Hezbollah knows it may lose everything in case of another war with Israel
By Guy Bechor


Please relax. Hassan Nasrallah has no intention to, interest in, or desire to embark on a military move vis-à-vis Israel. The opposite is true: He is in fact scared that Israel will attack him.



There are many reasons for this. The military techniques adopted by Hezbollah in the Second Lebanon War are today apparent to the IDF. Back then, Hezbollah was an invisible enemy that emerges for a few seconds, fires, and then disappears. The army had trouble contending with a well-fortified enemy that enjoys the home front’s sympathy and plenty of supplies.


However, today the IDF is aware of this modus operandi and is ready for it. Nasrallah knows this well.


Overall, the IDF in 2009 is different than the 2006 IDF in at least two strategic areas that change the entire picture, and Nasrallah realizes this. The advanced tanks that back in 2006 were vulnerable to rockets are now equipped with an active defense system. The system includes radar capable of detecting and eliminating anti-tank missiles. And when tanks are protected against all sorts of rockets, they can again decide the battle. The burden has turned into an asset.


Secondly, laser systems have been upgraded to an extremely high level in respect to firing bombs, marking targets, etc. Hezbollah has no answer for these new capabilities, and it knows it.


It is also clear to Nasrallah that at this time there is no legitimacy for a military move vis-à-vis Israel; not even among the Shiites. After he was defeated in the last elections, because of his rashness and arrogance in the war, he will be very careful not to repeat the same terrible mistake. After sustaining such a terrible blow form the IDF, Nasrallah has no urge to fight again.


Sophisticated, sly military force
Knowing how severe Israel’s revenge was, how many casualties he suffered, and what kind of destruction he brought upon Shiite villages, Nasrallah gambled and presented his defeat as though it was a victory, while hiding his losses. However, only a few people bought into this campaign of psychological warfare – that is, the Israelis.



Ever since then, Hezbollah’s and Nasrallah’s rhetoric no longer works. Nobody buys it in the Arab world, and this was proven by Egyptian President Mubarak, who dwarfed Nasrallah to his natural dimensions in the last conflict. The Israelis are also aware of it today. Our public opinion has matured and will no longer automatically buy into his overzealous statements.


Moreover, Israel was very scared by the Lebanon War, as the campaign was shifted into its own territory, in contradiction to our classic defense doctrine. Yet the fears abated, and we saw it during the Gaza War. Israel’s citizens realize that missiles may be fired at them for a limited time, and they will go into bomb shelters until the IDF can eliminate the threat. The terrible psychological effect we saw in the war three years ago will not be back.


The IDF proved itself in Gaza. A successful war that did not lead to an entanglement and ended quickly created deterrence among the ranks Advertisement



of Hamas, and the more dangerous enemy, Hezbollah. Israel is back to being a sophisticated and sly military force that must be feared. Meanwhile, the civilians used as human shields by Islamic terrorism did not curb the IDF’s abilities – the opposite is true in fact: The world is starting to wake up in the face of this crime and cynical use of such civilians.


Finally, Nasrallah is well familiar with the golden rule that “More is less.” He has already been burned several times. In case of war he may lose plenty, and perhaps even everything. The above-mentioned embarrassing secrets will be revealed to all, and it may turn out that he did not secure a divine war or victory, but rather, only self-destruction.


Indeed, Hezbollah’s deception in the last war may become apparent to everyone, and the organization may lose everything.


Nasrallah’s fear that the bluff of the last war will be completely exposed prevents him from even thinking about another confrontation with Israel. He is scared, and this is precisely what deterrence is all about.

10) Our Iraq strategy now a tale of ‘diminishing returns’
By Diana West

Question for Americans: How can we as a nation even consider using our military for another "surge" in Afghanistan when the "surge" in Iraq has left little more imprint on the sands of Mesopotamia than the receding tide?


This, to clarify, is not the antiwar Left writing. I am writing from a pro-military, anti-jihad point of view that has long seen futility in the U.S. nation-building strategy in Iraq, and now sees futility in the rerun in Afghanistan. Problem is, the same blind spot afflicts both strategies: the failure to understand that an infidel nation cannot fight for the soul of an Islamic nation. This, in essence, is what President Bush and now President Obama have ordered our troops to do.


I don't suggest these missions are ever considered in such terms, which implicitly acknowledge intractable differences between Judeo-Christian-based Western cultures and Islamic cultures. Doing so, of course, is a taboo thing — a grievous violation in the PC realm where decisions are made. But the omission helps answer my opening question. I seriously doubt Americans would approve of re-running the surge in Afghanistan if there were an honest reckoning of the religious, cultural and historical reasons why the surge failed to achieve its promised results in Iraq.


This is not to say the U.S. military failed. On the contrary, the U.S. military succeeded, as ordered, to bring a measure of security and aid to a carnage-maddened Islamic society. Given U.S.-won security, surge architects promised us, this same Islamic society was supposed to then respond by coming together in "national reconciliation." They were wrong. Not only did Iraqis fail to coalesce as a pro-American, anti-jihad bulwark in the Islamic world (the thoroughly delusional original objective), they have also failed to form a minimally functional nation-state. And the United States is now poised to do the same thing all over again in Afghanistan.


I write this as the volume of talk of an Afghanistan "surge" is getting louder, drowning out the quiet undercurrent of eye-opening reports now emerging on post-surge Iraq. Late last month, for example, the New York Times reported on a bluntly revealing memo written by Col. Timothy Reese, an adviser to the Iraqi military's Baghdad command. In it, Reese urgently argues that the United States has "reached the point of diminishing returns" in Iraq due, among many other things, to endemic corruption ("the stuff of legend"), laziness, weakness and culture of "political violence and intimidation."


Reese considers Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) "good enough" — just — to keep the Iraqi government from toppling. That's reason enough, he writes, to leave early, by August 2010 instead of December 2011. Reese describes a "fundamental change" in the U.S.-Iraq relationship since the June 30 handover — a "sudden coolness," lack of cooperation, even a "forcible takeover" by ISF of a checkpoint.


While Iraq will still "squeeze the U.S. for all the `goodies' that we can provide," he writes, tensions are increasing and "the potential for Iraqi on U.S. violence is high now and will grow by the day."


And that's the good news. The Washington Times this week reported on an even more dire prognostication to be published by National Defense University written by Najim Abed Al-Jabouri, a former Iraqi police chief and mayor. Al-Jabouri focuses on problems within the ISF, where, he writes, the divided loyalties of what is essentially a series of militias beholden to competing "ethno-sectarian" political factions could easily drive Iraq to civil war. He writes: "The state security institutions have been built upon a foundation of shifting loyalties that will likely collapse when struck by the earthquake of ethnic and sectarian attacks. Iraq's best hope for creating a long-term stable democracy will come from an independent national security force that is controlled by the state, and not by political parties competing to control the state."


Al-Jabouri insists the United States should exert its "leverage" to revamp the ISF, which, given Reese's evidence of plummeting U.S. influence in Iraq, seems farfetched even if it were a good idea. Which it is emphatically not. An infidel nation cannot fight for the soul of an Islamic nation — a truism that, in a more rational (non-PC) world, might bring surge enthusiasts to their senses.


11)Foods
Saturday, August 15th, 2009 I plan to do a lot more shopping at Whole Foods in the coming weeks. Mostly in response to the moronic boycott of the store now gaining momentum on the left.

Let me see if I have the logic correct here: Whole Foods is consistently ranked among the most employee-friendly places to work in the service industry. In fact, Whole Foods treats employees a hell of a lot better than most liberal activist groups do. The company has strict environmental and humane animal treatment standards about how its food is grown and raised. The company buys local. The store near me is hosting a local tasting event for its regional vendors. Last I saw, the company’s lowest wage earners make $13.15 per hour. They also get to vote on what type of health insurance they want. And they all get health insurance. The company is also constantly raising money for various philanthropic causes. When I was there today, they were taking donations for a school lunch program. In short, Whole Foods is everything leftists talk about when they talk about “corporate responsibility.”

And yet lefties want to boycott the company because CEO John Mackey wrote an op-ed that suggests alternatives to single payer health care? It wasn’t even a nasty or mean-spirited op-ed. Mackey didn’t spread misinformation about death panels, call anyone names, or use ad hominem attacks. He put forth actual ideas and policy proposals, many of them tested and proven during his own experience running a large company. Is this really the state of debate on the left, now? “Agree with us, or we’ll crush you?”

These people don’t want a dicussion. They don’t want to hear ideas. They want you to shut up and do what they say, or they’re going to punish you.

12) Obama’s Health-Care Mess
By Victor Davis Hanson



Ironies abound in the health-care debate. Bush was pilloried by the Obamanians for (1) not planning for the postwar occupation of Iraq; and (2) not being able to articulate the ends and means of the administration’s war. Yet in the hubris of high ratings, Obama apparently felt that he neither had to present a comprehensive finished blueprint of health-care reform, nor that he or his associates should have to sum it up succinctly and clearly. The result is that most Americans not only do not know what the administration plan is, but sense that their president does not either.

Health care is stalled and insidiously undermining the presidency of Obama precisely because the public senses he has not leveled with the American people. Of the uninsured, how many millions are young people who feel no need right now to buy insurance, how many million are illegal aliens, how many millions chose to use their optional income for things other than a low-cost catastrophic health plan, how many millions still find care outside the insurance system?

Nor do most Americans feel their system is broken. They worry about redundant care, frivolous procedures, and lawsuits, but sense that all in all it can be improved rather than scrapped. They know that Americans with cancer and heart disease survive longer than anywhere else due to superior American care. And they know that longevity is influenced by factors well beyond medical care. The president just as easily could tackle the epidemic of homicides and youth violence, as well as automobile accidents, if his concern really were to ensure that Americans on average lived longer than any others.

Bottom line: Too many Americans, whether rightly or wrongly, believe that Obama has other agendas that transcend simply ensuring American live longer, healthier, and better — such as growing government, enforcing an equality of result, and creating permanent constituencies that administer and receive expanding federal entitlements.

And what looms over the entire debate? Debt, debt, debt — both the recognition that one cannot expand those covered and save money at the same time without rationing or higher taxes; and the notion that all Obama’s new entitlements essentially involve borrowing money, much of it from Asia, as our indebtedness soars