Putting Clean Shirts On Unwashed Bodies - Illogical?

A play on the old NAACP slogan: "A mind is a terrible thing to waste" and Byron Wien's interview and market and economic forecast. (See 1 and 1a below

Academia has embraced prejudice and it is becoming rampant. The way to destroy a culture and under gird a society is radicalize the campus, create an atmosphere of fear and restrain freedom of speech and thought. Liberal academia is doing a great and effective job in this regard. (See 2 below.)

Jimmy Carter has been associated with that wonderful organization - Habitat for Humanity. Now Carter wants to rebuild Gaza because he claims doing so is an humanitarian and moral imperative. I have no argument with this compassionate viewpoint but I would pose at least two questions:

First,in rebuilding Gaza, is it Carter's intention to also allow Hamas to build more weapon tunnels?

Second, does Carter propose Western banks finance the reconstruction or would he demand Arab/Muslim banks take on the responsibility?

The West has stupidly assumed the continuing responsibility of pulling Palestinian chestnuts out of the fires of their own making. Not a healthy or constructive way to raise an independent society but it certainly is an excellent way to insure continuation of victim hood status. UNWRA has proven adapt at this. (See 3 below.)

Apparently Carter's solution is to spend more money putting new shirts on unwashed bodies. That has been tried and for some illogical reason it has not worked. Carter's solution is heap more misplaced guilt on Western nations. Fits hand and glove with Obama's thinking. DUH! (See 3a below.)

As for Obama, he seems to believe weakening America, which has been defending Europe for the past 6 decades, makes the world a safer place. Perhaps Obama also believes reliance upon more U.N. UNFIL forces is the path to security and peace.

Probably the two most conflicted thinkers in the Western world today, when it comes to security, are Carter and Obama.

Weakness has never been a rational solution in the face of tyrannical challenges and confrontations.(See 4, 4a and 4b below.)

Israel,the worthy pain in the ass ally? Is it conceivable Israel's so called allies are partly responsible for the problems Israel allegedly causes? Israel's allies helped birth it but the more Israel defeated those who attacked her the more they isolated Israel and accused it of being an evil nation. The Arab/Muslim campaign to delegitimize Israel's existence is directly related to Western energy dependence, increasing growth of the Muslim community in Europe and misguided Western morality.(See 5 below.)

Health care bill passes the Senate - best advice: don't get sick and fight on to the bitter end. (See 6 below.)





Dick



1) A Crisis Is a Terrible Thing to Waste: This should have been the year of radical financial reform
By Paul Barrett

In 2009 we wasted a perfectly good financial crisis.

With disastrous economic events accumulating in March, President Barack Obama exhorted listeners during a weekly radio talk to "discover great opportunity in the midst of great crisis." It's an appealing conceit: seeking breakthrough achievement in a time of danger.

That's why it's such a shame we didn't take advantage of the Wall Street crisis of 2008 by making 2009 the Year of Real Financial Reform.

Instead, the Obama Administration offered half-measures. The financiers lobbied against even modest reforms, and a Congress drenched in Wall Street campaign cash has peppered proposed regulation with loopholes. At a conference in the U.K. on Dec. 8, Paul A. Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve and an Obama adviser, addressed an audience of bankers and executives who were insisting that Wall Street and big corporations can police themselves, without more government scrutiny. "Wake up, gentlemen," Volcker said, according to media reports. "Your response is inadequate."

The warning applies to regulators and politicians as well. The crisis of 2008 offered a once-in-a-lifetime opening to overhaul the U.S. financial engine. It's a machine that can do much good by raising and allotting capital and much damage when allowed to run unchecked. Now, as stock markets recover and bank earnings bounce back, mass amnesia has set in. Political momentum has waned. Financial reform legislation is getting weaker by the week. And Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Lloyd C. Blankfein says we should be grateful to investment bankers for "doing God's work."

The most fundamental failure has been the Administration's unwillingness to take seriously the murmurings of that shrewd old giant, Mr. Volcker, who wants to reverse course on bank gigantism. In the 1990s, Wall Street convinced both political parties that combining all manner of financial services into unfathomable Goliaths was necessary in a global economy. Poof went the safeguards instituted in the wake of the Great Depression separating the public-utility-like functions of the financial system—customer deposits, conventional commercial loans, and so on—and the casino of investment banking and high-stakes trading. The consolidation accelerated a race for hugeness that gave us institutions that are "too big to fail": basket cases like Citigroup (C) and risk factories like American International Group and Goldman. Without hundreds of billions of taxpayer rescue dollars flooding the markets, all of these firms, and many more, might have collapsed, bringing on Great Depression—The Sequel.

With popular skepticism toward Wall Street at a peak in early 2009, our political and business leaders did...nowhere near enough. The White House bought the Wall Street line that bigger is better, or at least unavoidable. Now the banks are larger and more intricate than ever. As The Wall Street Journal noted recently, the world's 10 biggest banks account for about 70% of global banking assets, up from 59% three years ago.

Maybe we'll eventually see new requirements for larger capital cushions at individual banks to absorb future losses. Maybe we'll see the establishment of a new bank-subsidized rescue fund to cover the costs of potential failures. We could even get greater regulatory authority to block certain bank mergers. But the too-big-to-fail mammoths are still just that. The implicit taxpayer safety net—now explicit—means that some bankers almost certainly will engage in the kind of risk-taking that brought us the subprime fiasco. Why not? Someone else will clean up the mess.

The tame alternative to real regulation is greater transparency. And, yes, we will have more disclosure of credit-derivatives trading. These are the insurance policies against bond defaults that helped tempt Wall Street to ratchet risk up to unprecedented levels. But with derivatives, as with bank heft, the politicians have bought what Wall Street is selling.

Lawmakers backed away from any serious attempt to slow the invention of novel exotic trades whose side effects few, if any, really understand. My colleagues at Bloomberg News have lately reported that some of the very same geniuses who brought us toxic credit-default swaps are now angling to juice the carbon-trading market with climate-change derivatives. If the pilfered e-mails from squirrelly British scientists weren't enough to cast doubt on the campaign against global warming, greenhouse-gas swaps surely will do the trick.

The list of missed opportunities is too long for one humane sitting. I'll wrap up with lawmakers' mishandling of the credit-rating scandal. Moody's, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch played a major role in the crisis by rubber-stamping their triple-A approval on mountains of mortgage-backed bonds that went bad. These companies enjoy their lucrative oligopoly only because of a publicly sanctioned system requiring mutual funds and money managers to buy securities given high ratings by the Big Three. But there's a rank conflict of interest: The issuers of bonds pay the credit agencies to rate the bonds. Why we take the ratings seriously remains one of the great mysteries of the financial world.

Congress roughed up some rating-agency executives at hearings and may yet require more disclosure here, too. But the basic conflict persists. Genuine reform fizzled. We'll regret it when the next crisis hits.

Barrett is an assistant managing editor at BusinessWeek.

1a)Byron Wien: What the Seer Sees in the Short Term: Maria Bartiromo talks to investment strategist Byron Wien of Blackstone
By Maria Bartiromo

Every January since 1986, veteran investment strategist Byron Wien has issued his list of "surprises" for the year. With a little less than two months remaining in 2009, many of his prognostications have already come true. So what has Wien—who last August joined private equity powerhouse Blackstone Group (BX) as chairman of its advisory services—been right about this year? Well for starters, a rebounding S&P, the price of oil, the decline of the dollar, the growth rate of China, and the threat of a New York State bankruptcy. He predicted gold would hit $1,200 an ounce. On Nov. 10, gold futures rose to a record $1,119.10. And the year isn't over.

MARIA BARTIROMO
So many of your predictions for 2009 have been on the money, what's your sense of this market rally?

BYRON WIEN
I don't know whether the market is anticipating a better tomorrow in an excessive way, but my prediction for the year was that the S&P 500 would get to 1200, and I'm pretty optimistic that it will reach that point. At 1200, it's fairly priced. So I think it can make progress above 1200, but it'll be slow.

What is driving this momentum?

As far as the economy is concerned, I think businesses fired too many people, cut inventory back too far, and stopped capital spending. Now business is returning to normal on all three of those points. I think unemployment will peak in the first quarter of next year, more money will be spent on capital equipment, and inventories will be rebuilt. I also think housing has bottomed, and that's going to be a favorable thrust for the economy. As far as the market is concerned, people have been skeptical that it's been going up for the right reasons. Now they're finally giving up and saying they have to get on board.

So bottom line, would you recommend committing new capital to this market at these levels, or would you stay on the sidelines for a little while?

I would definitely not recommend being out of the market totally at this point. But if you've been lucky enough to be in the market for this run, I'd take a few chips off the table.

Do you see a strong market in 2010?

It's kind of hard to know. The stimulus is playing a role, but only about 24% of the stimulus has been spent. So for the first half of next year, I think the economy will be pretty strong. My hope is that investors and businessmen will then regain confidence and begin to invest more heavily. I don't think it'll be a boom year, but I do think we could have 3% growth.

But will we continue to see resilience in the economy and the recovery when the stimulus is gone?

That's something I don't really have the answer to. The purpose of the stimulus was to jump-start the economy, restore confidence, and have the economy build up a natural momentum. It's too early to tell whether that all happened. But I'm an optimist.

Will the Fed have to raise rates?

I think rates are going to stay low for a good part, if not all, of next year.

What areas of the world would you be recommending right now?

I'm still positive on the emerging markets—India, China, and particularly Brazil. But I'm positive on the U.S., too. I like technology. Believe it or not, I like health care, even though we're going to have a health-care bill and a lot of people are interpreting that negatively.

How do you read the mood in commodities?

In the case of oil, we're finding only as much oil as the reserves we're depleting. Also, right now the emerging markets and the Middle East are consuming about 20 million barrels a day, and they will be consuming 42 million barrels a day in 20 years. The reserves aren't going to go up that much, and I don't think alternatives are going to take their place. So I think the price of oil is going up. In the case of gold, the problem is that people have lost confidence not only in the dollar, but also in paper currencies generally, and they want to buy a little insurance. I don't see a dollar rally any time over the near term.

Do you worry that higher taxes next year could slow the recovery?

Well, it depends on what the taxes are. I'm not afraid of the capital gains tax and eliminating the dividend exclusion. I think I'm sort of against this health-care tax. I'm against taxes that destroy entrepreneurship, and to some extent the taxes I just talked about do that, but I don't think they're severe. I'd rather see taxes stay low because I don't think they'll raise that much more money anyway. But on the other hand, the proposals that have been advanced so far, by and large, I don't think will choke off the recovery.

Is inflation a concern?

I think you need wage pressure to produce inflation, and I just don't see any with an unemployment rate of 10% and a lot of people nervous about their jobs.

What are the big risks in 2010 from a global perspective?

The big event risk is if Israel attacks Iran. I'm hopeful some form of negotiation will provide a resolution, but I'm not optimistic about that. Iran is the big wild card in the geopolitical outlook for next year.

Maria Bartiromo is the anchor of CNBC's Closing Bell.

2)The Rot At Duke -- And Beyond: Much of academia appears to have a disregard of due process and a bias against white males.
By Stuart Taylor Jr.


You might think that a university whose students were victims of the most notorious fraudulent rape claim in recent history, and whose professors -- 88 of them -- signed an ad implicitly presuming guilt, and whose president came close to doing the same would have learned some lessons.

The facts are otherwise. They also suggest that Duke University's ugly abuse in 2006 and 2007 of its now-exonerated lacrosse players -- white males accused by a black stripper and hounded by a mob hewing to political correctness -- reflects a disregard of due process and a bias against white males that infect much of academia.

In September, far from taking pains to protect its students from false rape charges, Duke adopted a revised "sexual misconduct" policy that makes a mockery of due process and may well foster more false rape charges by rigging the disciplinary rules against the accused.

Meanwhile, none of the 88 guilt-presuming professors has publicly apologized. (Duke's president, Richard Brodhead, did -- but too little and too late.) Many of the faculty signers -- a majority of whom are white -- have expressed pride in their rush to judgment. None was dismissed, demoted, or publicly rebuked. Two were glorified this month in Duke's in-house organ as pioneers of "diversity," with no reference to their roles in signing the ad. Three others have won prestigious positions at Cornell, Vanderbilt, and the University of Chicago.

(Disclosure: I co-authored a 2007 book on the case, Until Proven Innocent, with historian KC Johnson of Brooklyn College and the City University of New York's Graduate Center. His scrupulously accurate blog details the events summarized here.)

The two stated reasons for the revised sexual-misconduct rules, as reported in the student newspaper, The Chronicle, almost advertise that they were driven by politically correct ideology more than by any surge in sexual assaults.

"The first was... fear of litigation, as expressed by Duke General Counsel Pamela Bernard," as Johnson wrote in his blog, Durham-in-Wonderland. "Yet the policy Duke has developed seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen. The second factor was a development that those in the reality-based community might consider to be a good thing: Over a three-year period, reported cases of sexual misconduct on college campuses as a whole and at Duke specifically (slightly) declined."

But for many in academia, Johnson explains, "these figures must mean something else -- that a plethora of rapes are going unreported." Indeed, Sheila Broderick, a Duke Women's Center staff member, told The Chronicle without evidence that Duke had a "rape culture." And Ada Gregory, director of the Duke Women's Center, said that "higher IQ" males, such as those at Duke, could be "highly manipulative and coercive."

The revised policy requires involving the Women's Center in the disciplinary process for all known allegations of sexual misconduct and empowers the Office of Student Conduct to investigate even if the accuser does not want to proceed.


Duke adopted a revised "sexual misconduct" policy that makes a mockery of due process and may foster more false rape charges.

Duke's rules define sexual misconduct so broadly and vaguely as to include any sexual activity without explicit "verbal or nonverbal" consent, which must be so "clear" as to dispel "real or perceived power differentials between individuals [that] may create an unintentional atmosphere of coercion" (emphasis added).

The disciplinary rules deny the accused any right to have an attorney at the hearing panel or to confront his accuser. The rules also give her -- but not him -- the right to be treated with "sensitivity"; to make opening and closing statements; and to receive copies of investigative documents.

The revised policy, among other things, shows that Duke is still in the grip of the same biases, indifference to evidence, and de facto presumption of guilt that led so many professors and administrators to smear innocent lacrosse players as rapists (and as racists) for many months in 2006 and 2007. The centerpiece was the full-page ad taken out by the "Group of 88" professors, as critics call them, in The Chronicle on April 6, 2006, about three weeks after the woman claimed rape.

This ad stopped just short of explicitly branding the lacrosse players as rapists. But it treated almost as a given the truth of the stripper's claims of a brutal gang rape by three team members amid a hail of racist slurs. It praised protesters who had put lacrosse players' photos on "wanted" posters. It associated "what happened to this young woman" with "racism and sexism." It suggested that the lacrosse players were getting privileged treatment because they are white -- which was the opposite of the truth.

And in January 2007, after the fraudulence of the stripper's rape claim and of rogue Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong's indictments of three players had become increasingly evident, most of the 88 also signed a letter rejecting calls for apologies while denying that their April 2006 ad had meant what it seemed to say.

Among the most prominent signers of both the ad and the letter were Karla Holloway, an English professor, and Paula McClain, a political science professor. They also slimed the lacrosse players in opaquely worded, academic-jargon-filled individual statements full of innuendo.

This disgraceful behavior apparently did not trouble Duke's Academic Council, which in February 2007 made McClain its next chairwoman -- the highest elected position for a faculty member.

And just this month, the university's in-house organ, Duke Today, heaped special attention and praise on Holloway and McClain and featured their photos in a gushing five-part series titled "Diversity & Excellence," focusing on Duke's efforts to hire more black faculty members.


Academia's demand for more "diversity" may interact with the small supply of aspiring black professors who are well credentialed in traditional disciplines.

None of the five articles mentioned the roles of Holloway, McClain, and most of the African and African-American studies faculty (the vast majority of whom signed both the ad and the subsequent letter) in smearing innocent Duke students -- not only the lacrosse players but also the many others whom the letter fatuously accused of fostering an "atmosphere that allows sexism, racism, and sexual violence to be so prevalent on campus."

The three Group of 88 signers hired away by other leading universities are Houston Baker, Grant Farred, and Charles Payne.

Vanderbilt was so proud to have signed up Baker, a professor of English and African and African-American studies at Duke, in April 2006 that it prominently featured a photo of him on its website for months. This was shortly after Baker had issued a March 29, 2006, public letter pressuring the Duke administration to dismiss the lacrosse players -- whom he deprecated 10 times as "white" -- and all but pronouncing the entire team guilty of "abhorrent sexual assault, verbal racial violence, and drunken white, male privilege" against a "black woman who their violence and raucous witness injured for life."

For such conduct, the official Vanderbilt Register admiringly characterized Baker as Duke's "leading dissident voice" about the administration's handling of the rape allegations.

In June 2006, Baker falsely suggested that Duke lacrosse players had raped other women. In a pervasively ugly response to a polite e-mail from the mother of a Duke lacrosse player, he called the team "a scummy bunch of white males" and the woman the "mother of a 'farm animal.' "

In 2007, Cornell proudly lured another of the 88, Grant Farred, with a joint appointment in African studies and English.

This, after the following events: In September 2006 and before, Farred produced such faux scholarship as a nonsensical monograph portraying Yao Ming, the Houston Rockets' Chinese center, as representing "the most profound threat to American empire." In October 2006, Farred accused hundreds of Duke students of "secret racism" for registering to vote against Nifong, who was subsequently disbarred for railroading the indicted lacrosse players. In April 2007, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper declared the players innocent. Then Farred smeared them again, as racists and perjurers.

Cornell elevated Farred this year to director of graduate studies in the African-American studies department.

Also in 2007, Chicago gave an endowed chair to Charles Payne, who as Duke's chairman of African and African-American studies had inappropriately authorized use of university funds to pay for the Group of 88 ad.

The fact that these five people of questionable judgment have subsequently won glorification by Duke or advancement to other prestigious positions may reflect the interaction of academia's demand for more "diversity" with the small supply of aspiring black professors who are well credentialed in traditional disciplines. These factors, amplified by politically correct ideology, have advanced many academics who -- unlike most African-Americans -- are obsessed with grievances rooted more in our history of slavery and racial oppression than in contemporary reality.

Try imagining a white male professor who had smeared innocent black students enjoying a similar path of advancement in academia today.

3)UNRWA: Perpetuating the Misery

Isn't it time for UNRWA's chief to do some soul searching and look beyond blaming Israel?


Writing in The Guardian, Karen AbuZayd, the outgoing commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) calls to address the Palestininan refugee question. While apportioning responsibility to Israel, she fails to acknowledge the fate of Jewish refugees in 1948, her own organization's role and the neglect of Palestinian refugees by their own leadership and fellow Arab states.

AbuZayd states:

Make no mistake, not a single conflict of contemporary times has been resolved, no durable peace achieved, unless and until the voices of the victims of those conflicts were heard, their losses acknowledged and redress found to injustices they experience. The precedents of recent peacemaking efforts and the methodology of contemporary conflict resolution affirm that giving high priority to resolving dispossession and the plight of refugees is a necessity, an international obligation and a humanitarian imperative.

While UNRWA may be concerned solely with the plight of Palestinians refugees (more on this definition later), how can AbuZayd make the above statement without reference to the Jewish refugees who were forced to flee from their homes in Arab countries after the creation of the State of Israel? As Avi Beker writes:

Although they exceed the numbers of the Palestinian refugees, the Jews who fled are a forgotten case. Whereas the former are at the very heart of the peace process with a huge UN bureaucratic machinery dedicated to keeping them in the camps, the nine hundred thousand Jews who were forced out of Arab countries have not been refugees for many years. Most of them, about 650,000, went to Israel because it was the only country that would admit them. Most of them resided in tents that after several years were replaced by wooden cabins, and stayed in what were actually refugee camps for up to twelve years. They never received any aid or even attention from the UN Relief And Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, or any other international agency. Although their plight was raised almost every year at the UN by Israeli representatives, there was never any other reference to their case at the world body.

Referring to an April 2008 US House of Representatives resolution on Jewish refugees, Lyn Julius argues that it:

is about recognition, not restitution, although Jewish losses have been quantified at twice Palestinian losses. Such resolutions could lead to a peace settlement by recognising that there were victims on both sides. Thus justice for Jews is not just a moral imperative, but the key to reconciliation.

UNRWA: PERPETUATING THE REFUGEE PROBLEM

While AbuZayd appears to place responsibility for the Palestinian refugee problem on Israel and others in the international community, what of UNRWA's own role?

Unlike the millions of refugees around the world who are the concern of the UN's High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), only the Palestinians have their own dedicated UN agency. While other refugees (including Jewish refugees from Arab lands) are successfully integrated and absorbed into other countries, why do Palestinian refugees still exist over 60 years after Israel's creation? As Lanny Davis writes:

UNRWA's definition of the refugees to whom it devotes its time and attention are well beyond the original 900,000 Palestinian refugees who were identified in 1950. Today the number served is over 4.5 million. Why? Because UNRWA has defined its mission to serve the descendents of the original 900,000. This means grandchildren or even great-grandchildren of the original Palestinian refugees are the focus of UNRWA's attention — in refugee camps located in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank and Gaza. (Some might ask: Why haven't the Saudis, with all their oil money, contributed to finding homes for the great-grandparents, parents, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the original Palestinian refugees over these 60 years?)

UNRWA, it could also be argued, is a negative influence on prospects for peace. There have been reports of Hamas members and potential terrorists being on the UNRWA payroll along with the use of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel textbooks in UNRWA-sponsored schools. Davis also takes issue with the anti-Israel statements of UNRWA spokespeople.

THE ROLE OF THE ARAB STATES

In a Dec.7, 2009 article, the Daily Telegraph looks at the plight of Palestinian refugees living in squalid conditions in Lebanon and perhaps hits the nail on the head:

"How could it be possible that for the past 61 years Palestinians are trapped in these camps," complained Mahmoud al-Jomaa, who chairs an organisation that provides health programmes for children.

What hurts the most for the refugees is the feeling that they have been forgotten by the world - and particularly by other Arabs.

"Seven million Jews worry about the fate of Gilad Shalit, while 300 million Arabs couldn't care less what happens to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians," said Walid Taha, who lives in the Shatila camp in Beirut.

In fact, the bulk of UNRWA's funding comes from western donors with only a small proportion from the Arab states:


According to an Oct. 2009 feature in The Independent:

UNRWA's grant of refugee status to the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the original Palestinian refugees according to the principle of patrilineal descent, with no limit on the generations that can obtain refugee status, has made it easy for host countries to flout their obligations under international law. According to Article 34 of the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, "The Contracting States shall as far as possible facilitate the assimilation and naturalisation of refugees," and must "make every effort to expedite naturalisation proceedings" – the opposite of what happened to the Palestinians in every Arab country in which they settled, save Jordan.

Indeed, the article states:

In 2001, Palestinians in Lebanon were stripped of the right to own property, or to pass on the property that they already owned to their children – and banned from working as doctors, lawyers, pharmacists or in 20 other professions. Even the Palestinian refugee community in Jordan, historically the most welcoming Arab state, has reason to feel insecure in the face of official threats to revoke their citizenship. The systematic refusal of Arab governments to grant basic human rights to Palestinians who are born and die in their countries – combined with periodic mass expulsions of entire Palestinian communities – recalls the treatment of Jews in medieval Europe.

In addition, the Palestinian Authority has not been at the forefront in helping relocate the residents of refugee camps into permanent housing facilities.

Arabs have to share responsibility for the refugee issues since they rejected the 1947 partition plan and and launched a war of destruction. Had they, like Israel, accepted the partition, there would have been no war and no refugees.

We congratulate the Daily Telegraph and Independent for going beyond the standard reporting on Palestinian refugees. Perhaps it is time for Karen AbuZayd to take a more sophisticated examination (including some self-examination) regarding the Palestinian refugee problem. Simply blaming Israel and "occupation" is simplistic and does little to resolve the issue.


3a)Gaza must be rebuilt now .We can wait no longer to restart the peace process. The human suffering demands urgent relief
By Jimmy Carter

It is generally recognised that the Middle East peace process is in the doldrums, almost moribund. Israeli settlement expansion within Palestine continues, and PLO leaders refuse to join in renewed peace talks without a settlement freeze, knowing that no Arab or Islamic nation will accept any comprehensive agreement while Israel retains control of East Jerusalem.

US objections have impeded Egyptian efforts to resolve differences between Hamas and Fatah that could lead to 2010 elections. With this stalemate, PLO leaders have decided that President Mahmoud Abbas will continue in power until elections can be held – a decision condemned by many Palestinians.

Even though Syria and Israel under the Olmert government had almost reached an agreement with Turkey's help, the current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, rejects Turkey as a mediator on the Golan Heights. No apparent alternative is in the offing.

The UN general assembly approved a report issued by its human rights council that called on Israel and the Palestinians to investigate charges of war crimes during the recent Gaza war, but positive responses seem unlikely.

In summary: UN resolutions, Geneva conventions, previous agreements between Israelis and Palestinians, the Arab peace initiative, and official policies of the US and other nations are all being ignored. In the meantime, the demolition of Arab houses, expansion of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and Palestinian recalcitrance threaten any real prospect for peace.

Of more immediate concern, those under siege in Gaza face another winter of intense personal suffering. I visited Gaza after the devastating January war and observed homeless people huddling in makeshift tents, under plastic sheets, or in caves dug into the debris of their former homes. Despite offers by Palestinian leaders and international agencies to guarantee no use of imported materials for even defensive military purposes, cement, lumber, and panes of glass are not being permitted to pass entry points into Gaza. The US and other nations have accepted this abhorrent situation without forceful corrective action.

I have discussed ways to assist the citizens of Gaza with a number of Arab and European leaders and their common response is that the Israeli blockade makes any assistance impossible. Donors point out that they have provided enormous aid funds to build schools, hospitals and factories, only to see them destroyed in a few hours by precision bombs and missiles. Without international guarantees, why risk similar losses in the future?

It is time to face the fact that, for the past 30 years, no one nation has been able or willing to break the impasse and induce the disputing parties to comply with international law. We cannot wait any longer. Israel has long argued that it cannot negotiate with terrorists, yet has had an entire year without terrorism and still could not negotiate. President Obama has promised active involvement of the US government, but no formal peace talks have begun and no comprehensive framework for peace has been proposed. Individually and collectively, the world powers must act.

One recent glimmer of life has been the 8 December decision of EU foreign ministers to restate the long-standing basic requirements for peace commonly accepted within the international community, including that Israel's pre-1967 boundaries will prevail unless modified by a negotiated agreement with the Palestinians. A week later the new EU foreign policy chief, Baroness Catherine Ashton, reiterated this statement in even stronger terms and called for the international Quartet to be "reinvigorated". This is a promising prospect.

President Obama was right to insist on a two-state solution and a complete settlement freeze as the basis for negotiations. Since Israel has rejected the freeze and the Palestinians won't negotiate without it, a logical step is for all Quartet members (the US, EU, Russia and UN) to support the Obama proposal by declaring any further expansion of settlements illegal and refusing to veto UN security council decisions to condemn such settlements. This might restrain Israel and also bring Palestinians to the negotiating table.

At the same time, the Quartet should join with Turkey and invite Syria and Israel to negotiate a solution to the Golan Heights dispute.

Without ascribing blame to any of the disputing parties, the Quartet also should begin rebuilding Gaza by organising relief efforts under the supervision of an active special envoy, overseeing a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and mediating an opening of the crossings. The cries of homeless and freezing people demand immediate relief.

This is a time for bold action, and the season for forgiveness, reconciliation and peace.


4)The Obama Doctrine: How will we know it's for real?
By Gary Schmitt and Tom Donnelly




You could probably count on one hand the number of conservatives who expected President Obama to give the address he did in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. After all, up until then, his major speeches had been built around such themes as nuclear disarmament, Muslim-American relations, multilateralism, and the occasional criticism of America's role in the world before he was elected to office. What he had not talked about in any serious way were his views regarding the use of military force. With his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, the president filled in that gap.

Whether it was having just decided to escalate the military effort in Afghanistan, the dangers still posed by al Qaeda, the growing crisis with Iran, or simply the maturation of his own views since coming to office, the president felt it necessary to spell out, in a manner he had not previously, the utility and justice of employing American military might. "There will be times when nations--acting individually or in concert--will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified."

In tone, this was a world away from his "World That Stands as One" speech in Berlin in July 2008. In Berlin, Obama spoke as an emerging global president; in Oslo he spoke as an American commander-in-chief.

We cannot know how the process that resulted in the Afghanistan surge has altered Obama's thinking. But by asserting that the American military had "helped underwrite global security for more than six decades," he has forthrightly admitted that, while international and multilateral institutions may be helpful, they are far from being sufficient. Without a power to enforce, international law remains hortatory at best.

This anchors Obama to the broad tradition of American strategy from the Truman Doctrine through the Bush Doctrine. Gandhi-like principles of non-violence are not adequate for handling the world's most ambitious or brutal powers. As the president rightly concluded, it would not have stopped Hitler nor will it "convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms."

Nevertheless, the questions remain: Will the reality match the rhetoric? Was Afghanistan an exception or, as some commentators are now suggesting, the expression of an Obama doctrine?

The jury is still out. In the struggle for the greater Middle East, the "Long War" is far from over. The prospects for a nuclear Iran within the span of even a single Obama term are pretty high. As the focus of American effort shifts to South Asia--and to Pakistan, in particular--the prospects for more terrorism will grow. China's economy may be intertwined with ours, but its geopolitical ambitions continue to grow. Both friend and foe wonder about American decline.

Beyond dealing with immediate crises and conflicts, a commander-in-chief also has obligations to ensure that U.S. armed forces are prepared to win the wars we're in and deter the wars we wish to prevent. Here the questions about Obama's purpose grow larger.

One of his first acts as president was to outline a long-term budget plan that would reduce military spending to a 50-year low while dramatically expanding social entitlements and national debt. By the end of a second Obama term, defense budgets would drop below 3 percent of GDP while entitlements and debt service would rise to 22 percent, making it virtually impossible to reverse course. This is a formula for making the U.S. defense profile more in line with the countries of Europe; it is not a formula for sustaining global security.

Thanks to some creative accounting, the White House argued, and the press has largely accepted, the claim that the administration increased the Pentagon budget last year. But, in fact, when one sorted through the monies shifted between defense supplementals and the annual Pentagon budget, the total was a cut. And it was a real cut in terms of programs, as well, with the past year seeing the termination of the Air Force's F-22 fighter program, the Army's Future Combat System, and billions of dollars of other weaponry. The forthcoming Quadrennial Defense Review is likely to add to that list, with reports that it will argue for mothballing two aircraft carrier battle-groups and eliminating one or more wings of fighters.

There has been a growing gap between American strategic ends and military means ever since the post-Cold War "drawdown" of the 1990s. George W. Bush fought two wars but did little to fix the underlying gap; only with the Iraq surge did he belatedly acknowledge the need for larger forces. If President Obama sticks to current budget plans, this gap will widen dramatically. However, if the president is serious about the view he set forth in Oslo, then it needs to be backed by a change in the military's budget. Defense dollars will be the real test of whether there is an Obama doctrine that is more than just words.

Gary Schmitt is director of the program on advanced strategic studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Tom Donnelly is director of AEI's Center for Defense Studies.

4a)The Realist Prism: A Bismarckian Approach for Today's World
By Nikolas Gvosdev


In discussing my proposal last week for a Sino-Indian Convention that would define 21st century spheres of influence in Central Asia, a colleague suggested that it was an idea that Otto von Bismarck would have been proud of. They didn't mean it as a compliment.

We think of Bismarck as a caricature of the old European warlord, peering through a monocled eye while croaking about decisions forged in "blood and iron." Most of all, we see him as someone whose policies were designed for personal and imperial aggrandizement, not the betterment of the people. We distrust his approach to the world because it seems unsavory -- built on deals conducted in back rooms with no regard to the popular will.

Bismarck might appeal to autocrats who treat policy like a game of chess, but he is never cited as someone relevant to U.S. decision-makers. The democratic policymaker, we are told, must craft policies that pass the approval of higher standards: fidelity to values and a commitment to improving the plight of the common citizen. We cannot play a "Great Game" in the center of Asia, because we don't approve of treating policy like a competitive sport.

But Bismarck pursued his policies with careful goals in mind. As he saw it, the job of guiding a major international power involves improving its standing, maximizing popular welfare, and finding ways to lock in the benefits of peace and prosperity to protect them against the risk of unexpected challenges. For the United States, the ongoing commitment in Afghanistan has the potential to do serious damage to all of these interests.

Let's consider some lesser known facts about old Otto. He was not a bloodthirsty conqueror intent on finding causes for soldiers to fight, die and cause destruction. He defined limits for where and how to use force. As he put it, questions about honor and values might make for wonderful rhetoric, but they were not "interests on behalf of which it is worth our risking . . . the healthy bones of one of our Pomeranian musketeers."

He preferred to use balance of power tactics to reduce pressures for war, convincing other countries to agree to compromise settlements instead. As a result, Bismarck accumulated a healthy fiscal reserve that enabled him to press domestic economic reforms -- including health care, unemployment insurance, and other "safety net" provisions for ordinary citizens. His keen understanding of the importance of "human security" guided his push for what were the beginnings of the German welfare state. ("The actual complaint of the worker is the insecurity of his existence.") Institutions like the Imperial Physical Technical Institute were created to formulate first-class standards for industry, providing a strong technological advantage that aided both the business and military establishment by providing innovation ahead of the competition.

So adopting a Bismarckian policy that ends up stanching the ongoing hemorrhage of equipment, people and resources in Afghanistan, and banking those savings at home instead, hardly seems objectionable from the perspective of democratic principles. Indeed, redirecting funds -- and the nation's brainpower and industrial base -- to pressing new concerns that enhance the country's human capital seems a sound course of action. As former Energy Secretary James Schlesinger has noted, the country that cracks the "liquids challenge" -- i.e., finding a substitute to the hydrocarbon-driven combustion engine that currently powers our car and truck fleets -- will take an immense step ahead of other nations in economic leadership, because it will effectively set the standards for the reorganization of the land transport sector. However, the costs of Afghanistan alone right now makes the type of government support needed for America's business and scientific establishments to pursue this work untenable -- and it makes things like health care reform much more difficult to fund.

So maybe it is time to reconsider the value of Bismarck as a guide for policymaking in the contemporary world. After all, if he were alive and at the climate talks in Copenhagen today, he might be logrolling the compromises and critical concessions needed to get a deal done -- for instance, between U.S. willingness to commit direct aid to industrializing countries for cutting emissions and China's willingness to accept some sort of international supervision on its reductions. Back in his day, Bismarck's Congresses settled some of the world's most pressing international issues, and kept World War I from breaking out for another few decades. Indeed, the Great War might not have happened at all had his parting advice to Kaiser Wilhelm II been followed. Having someone consciously emulate Bismarck today is exactly what the world needs.

My advice is Bismarckian? Thanks for the compliment!

Nikolas K. Gvosdev is the former editor of the National Interest, and a frequent foreign policy commentator in both the print and broadcast media. He is currently on the faculty of the U.S. Naval War College. The views expressed are his own and do not reflect those of the Navy or the U.S. government. His weekly WPR column, The Realist Prism, appears every Friday.


4b)How the United States Lost the Naval War of 2015
By James Kraska

Abstract: Years of strategic missteps in oceans policy, naval strategy and a force
structure in decline set the stage for U.S. defeat at sea in 2015. After decades
of double-digit budget increases, the People’s Liberation Army (Navy) was
operating some of the most impressive systems in the world, including a
medium-range ballistic missile that could hit a moving aircraft carrier and
a super-quiet diesel electric submarine that was stealthier than U.S. nuclear
submarines. Coupling this new asymmetric naval force to visionary maritime
strategy and oceans policy, China ensured that all elements of national power
promoted its goal of dominating the East China Sea. The United States, in
contrast, had a declining naval force structured around 10 aircraft carriers
spread thinly throughout the globe. With a maritime strategy focused on lowerorder
partnerships,and anational oceans policy thatdevaluedstrategic interests
in freedom of navigation, the stage was set for defeat at sea. This article recounts
howChina destroyed the USS George Washington in the East China Sea in 2015.
The political fallout from the disaster ended 75 years of U.S. dominance in the
Pacific Ocean and cemented China’s position as the Asian hegemon.

By 2015, U.S. command of the global commons could no longer be
taken for granted. The oceans and the airspace above them had been
the exclusive domain of the U.S. Navy and the nation’s edifice of
military power for seventy-five years. During the age of U.S. supremacy, the
Navy used the oceans as the world’s largest maneuver space to outflank its
enemies. Maritime mobility on the surface of the ocean, in the air and under
the water was the cornerstone of U.S. military power.1 The United States was
able to utilize its maritime dominance to envelop and topple rogue regimes, as
1 Barry Posen, ‘‘Command of the Commons: The Military Foundations of U.S. Hegemony,’’
International Security Summer 2003, pp. 5-46.

Kraska is a guest investigator at the Marine Policy Center, Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution and the former Oceans Policy Adviser for the Director of Strategic Plans & Policy, Joint Chiefs of Staff. The views presented are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Department of Defense.

4b)Obama gives Iran another year's grace for nuclear dialogue

US president Barack Obama's tough talk of sanctions has melted into soft soap for luring Iran into further dialogue. Adopting the reverse tactic, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sounds almost reasonable for a change, even as Tehran pushes its revolutionary goals as pugnaciously as ever.

Washington sources disclose Saturday, Dec. 19 that official US warnings that Washington's patience is running out and tough sanctions are imminent are no more than a smokescreen for three major steps embarked on by the Obama administration in the last four days for dragging out sanctions and setting back military action against Iran's nuclear facilities.

Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu gave the US president another six months for diplomacy without the threat of military action when they met at the White House November 9. The first six months' grace runs out at the end of Dec. 2009. The second ends in mid-2010. Netanyahu was backed up by defense minister Ehud Barak who said Monday, Dec. 14: "There is still time for diplomatic action to stop Iran.”

Using the respite, sources report the US president offered three inducements for tempting Tehran to call off its military program:

1. Whereas Tuesday, Dec. 15, Congress approved penalties for firms selling Iran gasoline and the insurance companies underwriting its sale, the following day, the influential senator John Kerry announced through his spokesman Frederic Jones that the Foreign Relations Committee, which he heads, "needs time to consider the bill."

2. Friday, Dec. 17, Pentagon spokeswoman Tara Rigler announced a six-month delay in deploying the precision-guided, 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator or "bunker buster" bomb (developed specifically for the nuclear facilities Iran and North Korea have sunk deep under ground).

"Funding delays and enhancements to the planned test schedule have pushed the capability availability date to Dec. 2010," she announced.

Only five months ago, in August, the US Air Force announced that the 15-ton bomb for delivery by B-2 stealth bombers had been funded and would be ready for service in July 2010.

Washington is thus offering Tehran another six months to play with, free of threat of sanctions and safe from the bombardment of its subterranean nuclear facilities.

3. Over the weekend beginning Friday, Dec. 18, Israeli newspaper correspondents briefed by administration officials ran stories denigrating Mossad director Meir Dagan as the only Israeli official hold-out on the need to attack Iran. He is presented as being in the grip of a fixation detrimental to his handling of other key issues. One editorial advised the Israeli government to learn to live with a nuclear-armed Iran.

But the Obama administration's lures had at least one result: Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking from the Copenhagen climate conference, said:

"Everything is possible, 400 kilos, 800 kilos, it's nothing," for enrichment abroad, "but not in a climate where they threaten us. From the outset, delivery of 1,200 kilos of uranium was not a problem for us, but if they believe they can wave a stick to threaten us, those days are over. They have to change their vocabulary to respect and legality."

While preaching to others about sticks, the Iranian president must have thought the big sticks Tehran waved in the last four days alone were invisible.

Wednesday, Dec. 12, Tehran launched an improved Sejil 2 missile which military sources confirm is capable of penetrating US and Israeli anti-missile defense shields and defying their interceptors, although US and Israeli sources were at pains to play down its capabilities. Those sources report that Sejil-2 is loaded with electronic chips used as decoys to mislead the electronic systems of the Israeli Arrow 2 and the US Patriot, Aegis and THAAD anti-missile missile systems.

Only last week, furthermore, Tehran signed a new military pact with Syria, roping in the Lebanese Hizballah and Palestinian Hamas as second-strike wielders; Wednesday, the "Iranian Cyber Army" hacked into Twitter and filled its home page with anti-US slogans; for most of December, Iran-backed Yemeni rebels have kept Saudi and government forces on the run and, Friday, Iranian soldiers seized control of an Iraqi oil well in a disputed border region.

All the same, Obama's beckoning gestures and Ahmadinejad's smooth response indicate a fresh round of talks will be explored between the 5P+1 bloc (five Security Council permanent members plus Germany) and Iran before sanctions are broached or either the US or Israel resort to military action against Iran's nuclear facilities.

This means Washington's determined ultimatum to Iran to comply with its international obligations by the end of 2009 has been extended by a whole year - an extra six months granted by Israeli up to June 2010 and another six months which President Obama tagged on himself in order to further delay an Israeli attack on Iran.

By then, it will all be over: Tehran will have attained a nuclear weapon plus the means of delivery.

Saturday, an Iranian military spokesman declared: "Our forces are on our own soil, and based on the known international borders this well belongs to Iran."

It is not hard to imagine how Tehran will comport itself once it has "the bomb."


5)Israel may be a difficult ally – but its leaders are not 'war criminals'
The International Criminal Court Act must be amended to protect friendly politicians, argues Con Coughlin.
By Con Coughlin


When it comes to diplomacy, it is hard to imagine a more difficult or frustrating partner than the state of Israel. The world pleads with its government to refrain from building further settlements, and how does it respond? By drawing up plans for 900 new homes in the heart of East Jerusalem, a scheme guaranteed to enrage Arab opinion at a time when the West is desperately attempting to revive peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

The same goes for the traditionally robust response of the Israeli military whenever the country's citizens find themselves under attack, whether from suicide bombers or Islamic militants beyond its borders. Western pleas for restraint and a "proportionate" response are invariably ignored, as Israel's overwhelming military superiority is brought to bear against its foes, often with catastrophic consequences. Who can forget the carnage in the Lebanese village of Qana in the spring of 1996, after Israeli soldiers mistakenly shelled a community centre, killing 106 of the occupants? Or the onslaught against Hamas militants in Gaza last Christmas? Israel had every right to defend itself when its citizens came under a constant barrage from home-made missiles. But its uncompromising military operation, which included firing white phosphorous shells close to crowded civilian areas, could hardly be hailed as a PR triumph.

The Israelis take great pride in their defiance in the face of adversity, but their truculent manner can ruffle the diplomatic feathers of even their closest allies. Since taking office, Barack Obama has made the Arab-Israeli dispute one of his top priorities. But he has been frustrated at every turn by Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's obdurate prime minister, who has not taken kindly to Washington's hectoring tone.

The Obama administration has responded by giving Israeli officials the cold shoulder, seeking to exclude them from deliberations over other key issues, such as the mounting menace posed by Iran. As one Israeli official remarked to me in Washington this month: "It's open season on Israel for the Obama administration. There's nothing they'd like to do more than embarrass us."

This antagonism appears to have spread across the Atlantic. The Government hardly distinguished itself in its desultory response to this week's attempts by Hamas sympathisers to have Tzipi Livni, Israel's former foreign minister and current opposition leader, arrested for war crimes in London. Indeed, Gordon Brown only offered Mrs Livni an apology after being criticised for not doing so by the media.

As a senior cabinet member at the time of the Gaza offensive, Mrs Livni clearly bears a share of responsibility for any wrongdoing. But Israel is a country that prides itself on the rigorous pursuit of public accountability, and there is no shortage of politicians, human rights groups or lawyers prepared to leap into action if there is the slightest hint that she is in any way guilty. Just look at the humiliation heaped on Ariel Sharon, then the defence minister, for his role in the massacres of Palestinian refugees in Beirut in 1982.

The Israeli judicial system is perfectly capable of bringing offenders to justice, and needs no help from its British counterpart. But thanks to New Labour's unerring instinct for proclaiming its politically correct credentials at every opportunity, our courts are now obliged to observe the International Criminal Court Act of 2001. This enables opportunistic campaigners to persuade magistrates to issue arrest warrants against those suspected of war crimes. Unlike other European states, and despite official assurances, we have done nothing to protect friendly politicians – indeed, a major diplomatic incident was only averted because Mrs Livni had the good sense to cancel her visit.

But however exasperating it is to deal with Israel, those in Whitehall should curb any Schadenfreude over Mrs Livni's discomfort. After all, it was thanks to the efforts of Israeli intelligence that the existence of Iran's top-secret uranium enrichment facility at Natanz was revealed to the world. And were it not for its air strikes against a Syrian reactor in 2007, Damascus would be well on the way to building nuclear weapons.

As Ron Prosor, the Israeli ambassador to London, reminded David Miliband when he lodged a formal complaint at the Foreign Office over Mrs Livni's reprehensible treatment, Israel is an important ally in the fight against terrorism, as well as a key player in the international effort to bring Iran to its senses. For these reasons alone it makes sense for British politicians and officials to have a constructive dialogue with their Israeli counterparts, rather than allowing them to be portrayed as criminals. Can you imagine the outrage in Britain if an Israeli court attempted to detain Jack Straw for his role in supporting the Iraq war?

If this important, and mutually beneficial, alliance is to be maintained, Israeli officials need to be able to travel to Britain with impunity. It is in the Government's interests that it acts quickly to amend the flawed 2001 Act, and ensure that anti-Israel extremists are prevented from taking the law into their own hands.

6)A Pyrrhic Victory?
By William Kristol



When a fellow conservative tried to cheer me up this morning by assuring me that the Senate Democrats' victory on health care was going to be a Pyrrhic one, I realized I didn't remember much about Pyrrhus.

I went of course to Wikipedia. That fine reference work defines a Pyrrhic victory as "a victory with devastating cost to the victor." It also provides this quotation from Plutarch's Life of Pyrrhus, describing the aftermath of the battle of Asculum in 279 BCE:


"The armies separated; and, it is said, Pyrrhus replied to one that gave him joy of his victory that one more such victory would utterly undo him. For he had lost a great part of the forces he brought with him, and almost all his particular friends and principal commanders; there were no others there to make recruits, and he found the confederates in Italy backward. On the other hand, as from a fountain continually flowing out of the city, the Roman camp was quickly and plentifully filled up with fresh men, not at all abating in courage for the loss they sustained, but even from their very anger gaining new force and resolution to go on with the war."


So: Pyrrhus's victory became Pyrrhic because the victorious party lost many of its supporters--but also because the opposition didn't abate in courage, was able to gain new recruits, and had the force and resolution to go on.

It's certainly true that the Obama administration and the Democrats have lost supporters over the past year. On February 24, when President Obama laid out his domestic agenda in his first speech to Congress, his approval/disapproval (in the Rasmussen tracking poll) was 60-39. By September 9, when he delivered his big health care speech to Congress, he was at 50-50. Today, as Harry Reid unveils his final text of the health care bill, Obama is at 45-53.

But I'd guess Obama is about to stop shedding supporters, at least for while. And it would be risky for Republicans simply to point to the public opinion polls and merely sit back and wait for good things to fall into their laps in 2010 or 2012.

So how should Republicans move forward?

1. Keep fighting on health care. Fight for the next few days in the Senate. Fight the conference report in January in the Senate and the House. Start trying to repeal the worst parts of the bill the moment it passes, if it does.

After all, never before has so unpopular a piece of major legislation been jammed through on a party-line vote. This week, Rasmussen showed 57% of voters nationwide saying that it would be better to pass no health care reform bill this year instead of passing the plan currently being considered by Congress, with only 34% favoring passing that bill. 54% of Americans now believe they will be worse off if reform passes, while just 25% believe they'll be better off. Making the 2010 elections a referendum on health care should work--if Republicans don't let up in the debate over the next year.

2. But don't fight only on health care. Republicans need to expand the battlefield. The rest of the past week's news--some Gitmo prisoners being released back to the battlefield, while others are to be brought to the U.S.; the Copenhagen farce and the EPA CO2 regulation; an Obama-appointed "safe schools czar" who's more interested in safe sex than safe schools--reminds us that there are many fronts for conservatives and Republicans to fight on, ranging from economic policy to social issues to national security. The criticism of the Obama administration needs to be broad-based, because you never know just what issue is going to take off, and because the opposition needs to knit together all those who object to the Europeanization of America.

3. And broaden the base for the fight. Many Republicans--especially Republican elected officials--fret that the Republican party remains unpopular. Don't worry about that. It will take a while longer to repair the damage that's been done in recent years. So what if the GOP has a favorable/unfavorable rating in this week's NBC/Wall Street Journal poll of 28-43 percent? The good news is that, for the first time in more than two years, the Democratic party has a negative favorable/unfavorable rating, of 35 to 45 percent. The Democrats' decline is evening up the playing field between the two parties.

The most striking result in the NBC/Journal poll is that the Tea Party movement has a net-positive 41 percent to 23 percent score. The American public is in a populist/conservative/libertarian mood. Republicans need to adopt that mood, channel it into sound policies, and learn to trust the people, without worrying that they haven't all yet signed up to GOP orthodoxy.

So: Fight on with respect to health care. Fight on other fronts. And recruit new fighters. In a word: Fight.