VERY BRAVE MAN JOKES ---
1 - What is the difference between a battery and a woman?
A battery has a positive side.
2 - If your wife keeps coming out of the kitchen to nag at you, what have you done wrong?
Made her chain too long
3 - Why is a Laundromat a really bad place to pick up a woman?
Because a woman who can't even afford a washing machine will probably never be able to support you.
4 - Why do women have smaller feet than men?
It's one of those 'evolutionary things' that allows them to stand closer to the kitchen sink.
5 - If your dog is barking at the back door and your wife is yelling at the front door, who do you let in first ?
The dog, of course. He'll shut up once you let him in.
6 - Scientists have discovered a food that diminishes a woman's sex drive by 90%..
It's called a Wedding Cake.
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This from the father of a dear friend: "Keep up the good work. I have talked to as many people in eleven states as I could while traveled (from June first) through GA to WASHINGTON State. Less than five percent are going to vote for BHO. Those (admitted) voting for BHO will not do it again - all say BHO is weak. The five percent did not want to talk."
I responded that: "Your small sample is why I believe Obama is toast." and Ajami sums it up beautifully with Obama's 'redistribution at home and retrenchment abroad' comment. (See 1 below.)
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With respect to the ceiling deal it appears the pressure to do something supplanted the opportunity to do what was best. Blame the philosophical schism that exists between those who believe there are no limits to government spending and those who believe there must be.
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This article points out Canada is beating us but, in truth, we are beating ourselves with oppressive government growth, high deficits, enforcement and passage of crippling rules and regulations, stifling taxation policies and the list is endless.
Whether Obama is re-elected or not, his policies and leadership must be given an F based on empirical results. He knows nothing about how markets work, his brain is in an ideological strait jacket when it comes to people accomplishments versus bureaucratic ones. The man is a disaster and is, as I always said he was, simply a political "Music Man" who blew into town, got everyone excited and, in the end, proved to be an empty suit full of high-falutin scripted rhetoric.
Furthermore, Obama lacks a sense of humor and that which he has is intellectual and therefore, stiff and mean streaked.
What the article further reveals is that, in order to truly get our nation back on track, a single party must rule all three branches and act responsibly in the process. However, that too becomes a problem, over time, because, as history demonstrates, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Politicians have a tendency to overreach and ultimately believe they can drink their own bathwater. Living in DC. far too many politicians become disconnected from their constituents as they become removed from the practical realities of life. Dealing in billions of dollars can cloud their thinking..
Finally, when trying to be clever, Obama generally says something stupid that reveals his 'pissyfanny' personality and true thinking. (See 2 and 2a below.)
Meanwhile, several Democrats, including V. President Biden, have accused Republican members of Congress who feel beholden to The Tea Party anti-spend policies as being terrorists.
The Tea Partyers are to be congratulated for forcing a change in the debate from spending and creating a dependent society to questioning what the spending is for with the hope of returning to a semblance of individualism and more government accountability.
What is wrong with a government that balances its budget? Everything, if you believe in the free lunch concept of economics.
As for those who believe we should extract more money for government they are free to mail checks to the IRS which I assume the IRS will accept. The Matt Damon's of the world talk the talk when they could simply walk the walk.
As for raising revenue all we need do is get rid of a good bit of the government, overhaul the tax code, make is simple and capture the sub-terranean economy, close loopholes and unshackle American ingenuity. then stand out of the way and watch this nation explode!
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By posting these statistics e mailed from a friend and fellow memo reader I am not suggesting I have verified them nor do I believe all our fiscal problems can be attributed to illegal immigration. It simply presents some numbers that put in perspective the argument that all our fiscal problems are also attributable to the Iraq War.
I have maintained history may show the unraveling of tyrannical Middle East leaders may well have been triggered by Iraq becoming somewhat democratic.The key will be if subsequent presidents do not allow Iran, as Obama is doing, to gain a dominant upper hand in the region.
Finally, these figures do not reflect the monetary benefits derived from illegal immigration and thus, I mention this for balance. That said, I believe we must develop a method whereby foreign workers, who wish to come to our country for economic reasons to do work that Americans, for whatever reason, choose not to do, can do so legally. (See 3 and 3a below.)
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So what's new? (See 4 below.)
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Moscow enters the Iranian nuclear issue with a proposal to block U.N. action against Syria if Iran co-operates. For their co-operation Russia hopes to ease sanctions against Iran. (See 5 below.)
America's influence in the Middle East continues to weaken. The author of this article accords with my own prior expressions regarding G.W's thinking regarding Iraq. Obama chose an alternative path resulting in unanticipated negative consequences. (See 5a below.)
Meanwhile, a German newspaper confirms Mossad behind latest killing of Iranian nuclear scientist. (See 5b below.)
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This New York Times op ed writer bends over backwards to try and portray Obama in a positive light but even Douthat concludes Obama's presidency has been diminished. (See 6 below.)
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Dick
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1)Barack Obama the Pessimist
His lack of faith in American exceptionalism has dashed any hope of a 'transformational' presidency.
By FOUAD AJAMI
In one of the illuminating, unscripted moments of the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama said—much to the dismay of his core constituency—that the Reagan presidency had been "transformational" in a way that Bill Clinton's hadn't. Needless to say, Mr. Obama aspired to a transformational presidency of his own.
He had risen against the background of a deep economic recession, amid unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; he could be forgiven the conviction that the country was ready for an economic and political overhaul. He gave it a mighty try. But the transformational dream was not to be. The country had limits. Mr. Obama couldn't convince enough Americans that the twin pillars of his political program—redistribution at home, retrenchment abroad—are worthy of this country's ambitions and vocation.
Temperament mattered. Ronald Reagan was the quintessential optimist, his faith in America boundless. He had been given his mandate amid economic distress—the great inflation of the 1970s, high unemployment and taxation—and a collapse of American authority abroad. Through two terms and a time of great challenges, he had pulled off one of the great deeds of political-economic restoration. He made tax cuts and economic growth the cornerstone of that recovery. Economic freedom at home had a corollary in foreign affairs—the pursuit of liberty, a course that secured a victorious end to the Cold War. The "captive nations" were never in doubt, American power was on the side of liberty.
By that Reagan standard, Mr. Obama has been a singular failure. The crippling truth of the Obama presidency is the pessimism of the man, the low expectations he has for this republic. He had not come forth to awaken this country to its stirring first principles, but to manage its decline at home and abroad. So odd an outcome, a man with an inspiring biography who provides no inspiration, a personal story of "The Audacity of Hope" yielding a leader who deep down believes that America's best days are behind it.
Amid the enthusiasm of his ascent to power, the choreography of a brilliant campaign, and a justifiable sense of pride that an African-American had risen to the summit of political power, it had been hard to tease out the pessimism at the core of Mr. Obama's vision. His economic program—the vaunted stimulus, the bailout of the automobile industry, the determination to overhaul the entire health-care system—gave away a bureaucratic vision: It was rule by emergency decree, as it were. No Reaganesque faith in the society for this leader.
In the nature of things, Mr. Obama could not take the American people into his confidence; he could not openly take up the thesis of America's decline. But there was an early signal, in April 2009 in Strasbourg, during a celebration of NATO's 60th anniversary, when he was confronted with the cherished principle of American "exceptionalism."
Asked whether he believed in the school of "American exceptionalism" that sees America as "uniquely qualified to lead the world," he gave a lawyerly answer: "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." We were not always going to be right, he added, "all have to compromise and that includes us."
Events would supply evidence of Mr. Obama's break with the history of America's faith in liberty in distant lands. The herald of change was at heart a man who doubted the ability of political freedom to skip borders, and to bring about the emancipation of peoples subjected to brutal tyrannies. The great upheaval in Iran in the first summer of his presidency exposed the flaws and contradictions of the Obama diplomacy.
A people had risen against their tyrannical rulers, but Mr. Obama was out to conciliate these rulers. America's support wouldn't have altered that cruel balance of force on the ground. But henceforth it would become part of the narrative of liberty that when Iran rose in rebellion, the pre-eminent liberal power sat out a seminal moment in Middle Eastern history.
In his encounters with the foreign world, Mr. Obama gave voice to a steady and unsettling expression of penance. We had made our own poor bed in distant lands, Mr. Obama believed. We had been aggressive and imperial in the wars we waged, and in our steady insistence that our way held out the promise for other nations. In that narrative of American guilt, the Islamic world was of central importance. It was in that vast, tormented world that Mr. Obama sought to make his mark, it was there he believed we had been particularly egregious.
But the truth of it, a truth that would erupt with fury in the upheaval of that Arab Spring now upon us, is that the peoples of that region needed our assistance and example. This was the Arabs' 1989, their supreme moment of historical agency, a time when younger people broke with their culture's history of evasion and scapegoating. For once the "Arab Street" was not gripped by anti-Zionism and anti-Americanism, for once it wasn't looking beyond its geography for alien demons. But we could not really aid these rebellions, for our touch, Mr. Obama insisted, would sully them. These rebellions, his administration lamely asserted, had to be thoroughly indigenous.
We had created—and were spooked by—phantoms of our own making. A visit last month to Syria's embattled city of Hama by U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford ought to have shattered, once and for all, the thesis of a rampant anti-Americanism in Arab lands. The American envoy was given a moving reception, he was met with flowers and olive branches by those struggling to end the tyranny of the Assad family. News of America's decline had not reached the streets of Hama. The regime may have denied them air and light and knowledge, but they knew that in our order of nations America remains unrivalled in the hope it holds out for thwarted populations.
Americans' confident belief in the uniqueness, yes the exceptionalism, of their country, rested on an essential faith in liberty, and individualism and anti-statism at home, and in the power of our example, and muscle now and then, in foreign lands. Mr. Obama is ill-at-ease with that worldview. Our country has had pessimism on offer and has invariably rejected it. At crucial points in its history, it has remained unshaken in the belief that tomorrow can be better.
In 2008, shaken by a severe economic recession and disillusioned by a difficult war in Iraq, Americans voted for charisma and biography. The electorate could not be certain of the bet it made, for Mr. Obama had been agile, by his own admission he had been a blank slate onto which his varied supporters could project their hopes and preferences. Next time around, it should be easier. The man at the helm has now played his hand.
Mr. Ajami is a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and co-chairman of Hoover's Working Group on Islamism and the International Order.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2)Why Canada Is Beating America
It shrank government, and now unemployment and debt are declining.=
By JASON CLEMENS
While the U.S. remains mired in debt and slogs through a subpar economic recovery, Canada is moving ahead steadily. Its unemployment rate peaked at a little over 8.5% and is now 7.4%, and there were no bank bailouts. Real GDP growth is expected to be roughly 3% this year.
Now with the first majority government since 2004, and the first Conservative majority since 1993, the country has an opportunity to vault forward. The Conservatives led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper have a chance to build on the reforms begun under previous Liberal governments that Americans can only look at with envy.
Canada's government, for example, has grown smaller over the last 15 years. Total government spending as a share of the economy peaked at a little over 53% in 1993. Through a combination of spending cuts in the 1990s and spending restraint during the 2000s, it declined to a little under 40% of GDP by 2008. (It's currently about 44% due to the recession.)
Reductions in government spending allowed for balanced budgets and the retiring of debt. Federal debt as a share of the Canadian economy was almost halved from nearly 80% to a little over 40% over the same period.
On the federal level, capital gains taxes in Canada were reduced twice and currently stand at 14.5%. A series of cuts to the corporate income tax beginning in 2001 have seen the rate slashed to 15% from 28%. Many provinces followed suit by reducing both corporate and personal income tax rates.
But the Conservative government faces two challenges: health reform and taxes.
The unavoidable challenge is the country's health-care system. Negotiations to renew federal transfers to the provinces in support of health care begin later this fall.
Canada devotes a relatively high share of its economy to health care without enjoying commensurate outcomes. Of the 28 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that have universal access, Canada has the sixth-highest rate of health spending as a share of its economy.
Canadian health care is unique among the OECD countries with universal access in that Canadians alone depend almost exclusively on government for medically-necessary health care. Simply put, health care is dominated by the government in one form or another. Canada prohibits both copayments and private funding for publicly-insured services. Hospitals are for practical purposes owned and operated by government, and over 98% of physician income is from government.
But Canadians' access to care is poor, despite high spending. The country ranks 20th of 22 OECD countries for access to physicians. Canada's national statistical agency recently reported that 6.6% of Canadians (aged 12 or older) indicated being without a doctor and unable to find one. Canada also ranks poorly on access to technology: 17th for CT scanners and MRIs.
Waiting times for treatment continue to worsen. A longstanding survey by the free-market Fraser Institute recently found that the median wait time between general practitioner and treatment had increased to 18.2 weeks (2010) from 9.3 weeks in 1993 when the survey started.
While the United States moves towards greater centralization of health-care regulation, Canada's Conservatives have an opportunity to give the provincial governments more leeway in delivering and financing health care. Allowing the provinces to become laboratories for different methods of health-care delivery and financing while protecting universal access holds the greatest chance for improving health care and controlling costs.
Uncompetitive tax rates, particularly compared to the U.S., are the country's other major challenge. Canada's Conservative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has consistently indicated that lowering personal taxes is a priority. In a recent interview he stated that Canada "should be moving toward a flatter personal income tax system."
Canada's personal income tax rates are relatively high and kick in at comparatively low levels of income. For example, Canada's top federal marginal personal income tax rate (29%) applies to income over $128,800 (in Canadian dollars, or U.S. $135,038 as of July 29). Provincial taxes, which are generally higher than in U.S. states, are added on top of the federal rates. The top federal tax rate in the U.S. is 35%—but it applies to income over U.S. $379,150.
The Conservatives have committed to tax relief once the budget is balanced, which is expected toward the end of their current term. To implement meaningful income tax cuts, the Conservative government will also need to be more proactive with spending reductions. As demonstrated in the 1990s by their Liberal Party predecessors, spending reductions now will result in a balanced budget sooner and an opportunity for large-scale tax relief.
Winning a Conservative majority in Canada was no small feat. The question remains what the Conservatives will do with that majority.
Mr. Clemens is the director of research at the Canadian Macdonald-Laurier Institute and co-author of the "Canadian Century" (Key Porter, 2010).
2a)A few days ago President Obama stated he could not guarantee Social Security checks would be mailed on August 3 if the debt ceiling was not raised.
What he did not say:
I will not be able to get my monthly check for $33,333.33, Vice-President Biden will not get his check for $19,225.00, and oh by the way, Michelle will be happy to give up a vacation until we get this mess straightened out.
Congress will not be able to get their checks which average $14,500.00 per member. My Czars will not be able to receive their checks, some of whom receive $14,350.00 per month while others receive $13,208.33 a month.
My cabinet members will not receive their $15,941.66 monthly check. Their Deputy Secretaries will not be able to receive their $14,350.00 monthly check. Their Under Secretaries will not be able to receive their $13,208.33 monthly check. Their Assistant Secretaries, general counsels, and heads of minor departments will not be able to receive their $12,416.66 monthly check. My various administrators, board members, commissioners, and others will not be able to get their $11,633.33 monthly check.
The Supreme Court will not be able to receive their $17,341.66 monthly check. The U.S. Appeals Court and Appeals Judges for the Armed Forces will not be able to receive their $14,591.66 monthly check. The U.S. District Court, Claims Court, International Trade Court, and U.S. Tax Court Judges will not be able to receive their $13,766.66 monthly check. And the Bankruptcy and Magistrate Judges will not be able to get their $12,665.33 monthly check.
The gaggle of Washington TSA bureaucrats will not receive their $8,750.00 monthly checks. The tens of thousands of other various paper shufflers who are pigeon holed in various offices in Washington will not receive their checks which average more than $8,333.33 a month.
What we heard coming from the Obama's lip was the only folks that should be concerned were those receiving Social Security checks. Isn't it ironic the only people he feels he cannot assure with any degree of certainty will get their checks are the ones who need the money the most? The national average for all Social Security beneficiaries is $1,079.00 monthly, which totals a whopping $12,948.00 yearly; the money coming from a fund that most have paid into their entire working lives. Or put another way, the average Social Security recipient gets a check each month that equals about 3% of what the President receives each month; and in theory, they are getting back their own money.
Never mind the United States Constitution requires the President to pay Principal and Interest on the National Debt and on Federal Pensions before any other funds can be obligated. It is a foregone conclusion that Mr. Obama missed his constitutional law classes at Harvard.
The mere fact that the President, any President, would threaten in a "thinly veiled" manner the elderly would not get their pension checks is about as contemptible and fear mongering effort as any elected official could use for expediency. This is outrageous even for this chronic avoider of the truth!
All seniors should reward this Prince of Politics in November 2012 in like manner for his obvious lack of respect for their welfare, physical and mental, and his attempt to manipulate the debt ceiling discussion using senior citizens as pawns.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3)Informative, and mind boggling!
We have been hammered with the argument the Iraq war and war on terror is bankrupting us.
The following 7 reasons are revealing and include the URL's verification of the following facts...
1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments.
Verify at: http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecenters7fd8
2. $22 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps,WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.HTML
3.$2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.HTML
4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANscriptS/0604/01/ldt....0.HTML
5.$17 Billion dollars a year is spent on education for American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.
Verifyat http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANscriptS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML
6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/%20TRANscriptS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML
http://transcripts.cnn..com/%20TRANscriptS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML
7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.CNN..com/TRANscriptS/0604/01/ldt..01.HTML
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The total cost is over $250 billion/year or about $800/year/U.S. citizen.
3a)Arab Regimes Fear Ramadan will Be Month of ViolenceAuthorities in Syria fear the nightly prayers during Ramadan will transform every day into Friday.
By Gil Ronen
Arab governments in the Middle East are preparing for increased tensions during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan which may reignite the smoldering flames of uprisings that swept the region this year.
"Throughout history, Ramadan has been the month of revolutions and victory," Abdullah al-Amadi, director of the Qatar-based Islamonline website, explained to AFP. "I think it will inspire the youths of the Arab Spring to complete their struggles against injustice and tyranny."
Amadi said the Arab struggle could peak in the final ten days of Ramadan, believed to be the holiest of the month.
Authorities in Syria fear that the "Taraweeh" nightly Ramadan prayers will transform every day into a Friday, the Muslim holy day which is also the customary day for violence and mayhem.
AFP quoted a Facebook group called The Syrian Revolution 2011, which it called "a driving force of the protest movement," as writing: "The regime is afraid of Ramadan and the Taraweeh prayers," amid calls by Syrian activists for protests every night until dawn.
In Libya, a rebel fighting Muammar Qaddafi vowed to fast during the fighting: "If it's war and we're tired, we'll eat. But if we remain in a defensive position, we will fast. God is with us," said Hatem al-Jadi, 24, in Gualish, south of Tripoli.
Protesters camped out at a square Yemen's capital San'a since February say they are determined to revive their movement during Ramadan and finish the task of overthrowing President Ali Abdullah Saleh. "This will be the month of change, especially since Ali Abdullah Saleh is not in Yemen," said Walid al-Omari, an activist from Yemen's "Youth Revolution" group.
Other Arab governments are closely monitoring the prices of goods, which usually soar during Ramadan, in order to keep their people happy and unrebellious.
In Egypt, the government is taking measures to maintain the subsidy system that keeps very low prices for basic foodstuffs such as bread. In Saudi Arabia, the ministry of commerce has forced dairy producers to reconsider their decision to increase prices, and may cut the price of imported barley to prevent an increase in meat prices. And in the neighboring United Arab Emirates, the president has ordered that rice be subsidized during Ramadan.
Meanwhile, Muslim religious authorities in most of the Middle East determined that Ramadan will start Monday this year (the Muslim calendar is calculated anew every year, and different countries often determine different calendars. Like the Hebrew calendar which predates it by thousands of years, the Muslim calendar is lunar – but the Jewish calendar as established by Hillel the Second in 359 C.E. has seven leap months every 19 years, making yearly changes unnecessary).
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4) Study Shows UN Refugee Agency Aids Terror, Not Peace
BY MICHAEL WIDLANSKI f
The UN agency specializing in aid to Palestinian refugees has become a
chronically corrupt organization whose funds are siphoned off by terror
groups, especially in Gaza, according to a new series of studies by an
American think tank.
Of the 1.2-billion-dollar annual budget of UNRWA (United Nations
Relief and Works Agency), about 550-million dollars in education funds is
going through the hands of HAMAS, declared Dr. Mordechai Kedar and Arlene
Kushner of Center for Near East Policy.
"When HAMAS takes over the UNRWA teachers union, it gets their money,"
asserted Dr. Kedar. He said this was probably about 50 million dollars a
year from the UNWRA budget, half of which is financed by American and
European tax payers. About 268-million dollars of UNRWA money comes from the
US, and a similar amount from the European Union according to Kushner, who
has been studying UNRWA for more than a decade.
Hamas control of UNRWA is not just a financial matter, said Kedar, an
Arab affairs expert at Bar Ilan University and an-ex-IDF intelligence
officer. He stressed that the terror group controlling Gaza has converted
UNRWA school programs into recruiting agents for suicide bombers.
The researchers backed their findings with a 35-minute documentary
film entitled "Palestinian Refugee Policy: From Despair to Hope." The film
showed just how deeply Hamas has penetrated the UN agency, using school
posters and interviews with UNRWA teachers to highlight how the ideal of
killing Israelis—rather than working for peace—had come to dominate a UN
agency.
The researchers said UNRWA had a 60-year record of failing to help
Palestinians, and, instead was perpetuating their refugee status for its own
bureaucratic needs, continuing to control 59 refugee "camps" in several Arab
countries, involving a population officially estimated at about four million
persons. Outside observer believe there is a great deal of "number fudging"
in UNRWA refugee rolls, with deaths and births not recorded accurately.
Kushner and Kedar showed that another UN agency—the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)—had a totally different record:
successfully resettling millions of refugees from wars and natural disasters
all over the world, usually within a ten-year time limit. They cited the
fact that UNHCR had successfully resettled Palestinian refugees from Iraq,
who were threatened by war there, in Chile, Brazil and Iceland, among other
locales.
Speaking at a press conference at the American Colony Hotel in
Jerusalem, Kedar and Kushner strongly suggested that Western leaders should
revamp UNRWA, which deals only with the Palestinian refugees, and make it
more like UNHCR.
Kedar said other Arabs resent the Palestinans as "fat cats," because
they have been living off international aid for 60 years. He said the
average Palestinian refugee stipend was several times the annual income of
the average Egyptian, for example.
Kushner said that UNRWA in Gaza and in the West Bank had allowed itself
to support text books and curricula by Hamas and the Fatah-run Palestinian
Authority which demonized Israel and the idea of making peace with it.
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5)Moscow defends Assad, seeks nuclear deal with Iran by freezing sanctions
As Moscow prepares to block strong UN Security Council condemnation of Syrian violence against protest, Russian diplomats Monday, Aug. 1, launched a quiet effort to start freezing sanctions imposed on Iran over its military nuclear program in return for Tehran satisfactorily answering of the International nuclear watchdog's "questions and concerns," debkafile's Moscow and Washington sources report.
The Obama administration, while not involved in the Russian initiative, has indicated through contacts between US and Russian officials that if Moscow persuades Iran to go this path and another effort to break the long impasse over its nuclear program, Washington will not interfere and agrees to await results.
Moscow's hands were therefore free to put its proposition to Tehran: Russia will block a strong UN Security Council resolution condemning its ally Syrian President Bashar Assad for his brutal crackdown on dissent, thereby shutting the door to approval of Libya-style outside military intervention. Tehran will reciprocate by cooperating with the Russian plan for solving the nuclear controversy along the lines proposed by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in mid-May: "…each time when Tehran satisfactorily answers the questions or concerns of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it should be encouraged, including some sanctions should be frozen," he suggested.
Until now, Tehran has rejected this Russian overture.
Over the weekend, however, Iranian sources disclose that Iranian leaders decided after a stormy session to change course. The Spiritual Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave the order to inform Moscow that Iran is willing to discuss the Lavrov plan while fully reserving its objections. Moscow must also be ready to talk through Iran's counter-proposals.
Accepting Tehran's decision as the starting point for discussing the Lavrov plan, Moscow made two more public moves: An announcement in Moscow and Tehran that Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev would visit Tehran on Aug. 15, followed two days later by the arrival of Iran's foreign Minister Saeed Jalili in Moscow. The latter would sit down with Lavrov to hammer out agreement on the Russian plan.
On Monday, too, Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin commented that the draft European powers had circulated condemning Syria was “somewhat excessive” and Russia would consider a presidential statement from the council “satisfactory.”
Moscow was encouraged to start meeting Tehran halfway after many Western experts came to the conclusion that the UN, US and European sanctions aimed at making Iran abandon its nuclear drive were wasted effort, with not the slightest effect on slowing Tehran's nuclear momentum.
With little chance of a UN move against Syria, State Department Deputy Spokesman Mark Toner said Monday that additional US steps might target Syria’s oil and gas industry, which is the government’s main source of revenue amid the virtual collapse of the rest of the country’s economy.
5a) Weakening Washington's Middle East Influence
Middle Eastern Upheavals
By Lee Smith
Middle East Quarterly
Trailing the wave of revolutions that began sweeping through the Arabic-speaking Middle East this January, I recently traveled in the region, visiting some of the capitals where what we have come to call the "Arab Spring" has hit.
In Cairo, I kept company with the handful of Egyptian political activists from the social media generation who were skeptical of a revolution that had already started to show its populist roots. In Manama, I met with members of the mainstream opposition movement who contended that, contrary to their government's claims, the Shiites of Bahrain wanted nothing to do with Tehran: In the 1970 U.N. poll about the emirate's future, Bahrainis expressed the wish to remain part of an independent Arab state under the ruling al-Khalifa family but demanded their political rights—and still do. And from Beirut, I watched another uprising kick off over the anti-Lebanon mountain range in Damascus as many Lebanese quietly hoped that the revolution there would do away with the Assad regime while fearing the repercussions could not help but come back on them.
By deserting Egypt's president Mubarak (left, in the White House, August 18, 2009), President Obama condemned the peace process to failure, for it was lost on no one in the region that the man who kept the peace with Israel for more than thirty years was trashed when the pride of the U.S. president won out over U.S. national interests.
After a month in North Africa, the Levant, and the Persian Gulf countries, I am still unsure what these uprisings have in common, if anything. The regimes that suffered these blows are themselves different from place to place, for all authoritarian regimes are authoritarian in their own way—Husni Mubarak was no Saddam Hussein, nor even a Bashar al-Assad.
Perhaps our eagerness to see the upheavals as one wider movement is less a representation of reality than a reflection of how the Middle East is understood by large segments of the American intelligentsia—a habit of mind that of late was most powerfully expressed by President Barack Obama. It was during the June 2009 Cairo speech,[1] after all, where Obama transgressed the borders according to which Washington maintained and advanced its interests, describing the region in terms of Muslims, a Muslim world that is by definition borderless, transnational, and not specific to the particular circumstances of history, geography, and politics that give nation-states their character. Obama's Muslim world is amorphous, more like a sentiment than a physical fact, something perhaps similar in nature to the "Arab Spring."
Birds of Many Feathers
It has been argued that the recent events were driven by economic motives, insofar as all these revolts pitted the have-nots against the haves; and yet the particular circumstances vary greatly. There is little comparison, for instance, between the grand prize up for grabs in Libya's civil war (control of the country's oil) and the fairer employment, and educational and housing opportunities sought by the Bahraini opposition. Furthermore, the blanket charge of corruption against economic elites across the region obscures the genuine reforms that won the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes high marks from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The onetime, popular notion that all these opposition groups are united in their calls for democracy is starting to fade in light of the evidence. It seems, for instance, that the Libyan rebels comprise a large component of violent Islamists,[2] some of whom fought against U.S. forces in Iraq. There is concern that parts of the Syrian revolution are also spearheaded by Islamists, and there is little doubt that the fall of Egyptian president Mubarak will give more power to the Muslim Brotherhood. And even the very model of the Arab democracy activist, that young, middle-class, social-media-mad Egyptian, has begun to look different than when he first took to Tahrir Square on January 25. In their demands for retribution and revenge against the scions of the late regime, the Egyptian activists seem less inspired by the rule of law, due process, and other features of liberal democratic reform for which they petitioned and protested, than by the tradition of modern Egyptian populism,[3] from Saad Zaghloul to Gamal Abdel Nasser.
As for the revolutionaries themselves, there is no consistent profile from country to country or little to suggest that their different resumes make them necessarily sympathetic to each other's goals. To be sure, the Tunisian activists found common cause with their Egyptian counterparts, explaining to them how to use the social media to get people to take to the street. As Lebanese journalist Hazem al-Amin told me in Beirut, "The first time the Tunisians tried, they failed. That was back in 2008, and this time they were prepared."[4] And yet Muhammad Bouazizi—the iconic figure of the "Arab Spring" whose self-immolation triggered the Tunisian revolution—seems to have had little in common with the Libyan rebels, who unlike every other opposition movement, took up arms against the ruling order almost immediately.
The sectarian divisions between the opposition movements are also noteworthy. While the moderate mainstream of Bahrain's Shiite opposition has earned the admiration and support of Hezbollah, the Syrian uprising's Sunni current has cursed this same terrorist organization, sponsored by Damascus's Alawite regime, from the outset of their demonstrations.
The ostensible sources underlying the revolutionary eruptions are equally myriad. Many point to social media, like Facebook and Twitter, which served as a billboard and meeting place for opposition movements. And yet some argue that it was the Mubarak regime's ill-considered decision to shut down the Internet and mobile phone service that really filled the streets of Cairo. As Egyptian political analyst Amr Bargisi told me as we walked through Tahrir Square in early spring, "If your mother can't reach you on the phone, she is going to send your brother down to look for you."
Others point to broadcast media, especially al-Jazeera. However, even as this instrument of Qatari foreign policy assiduously covered the uprising against Mubarak, a Qatari adversary, it was virtually mute when turmoil first started brewing in Syria, an ally. Given Riyadh's fears that the revolutionary wave might eventually crash on Saudi Arabia, al-Arabiya, the majority Saudi-owned satellite network, has been only a little bit better on the Syrian protests and all but ignored the opposition to the government of Bahrain, a Saudi ally.
Many Shiites in the region are of the opinion that it was the 2003 invasion of Iraq that inspired the "Arab Spring." For some, the end of a Baathist regime that had persecuted Shiites marked an almost millenarian turning-point for the Middle East. In Beirut, independent, anti-Hezbollah, Shiite activist Lokman Slim told me that "the toppling of Saddam's statue made many things seem possible that seemed impossible before." Others in Lebanon claimed it was their own 2005 Cedar Revolution that led the way—even as the March 14 pro-democracy movement has suffered a major setback with Hezbollah's de-facto takeover of the government this January.[5] And yet others pointed to Hezbollah's Iranian sponsor as inspiration. "The 1979 Islamic Revolution first proved to people that they could change their own rulers," one young Shiite activist told me in Bahrain.[6]
An "Arab Spring"?
If success has many fathers, it will be some time yet before anyone knows whether the "Arab Spring" was a success or instead turns out to be a series of failures. In fact, it is not even clear what has really changed. Consider that Tunisia and Egypt, the two countries where the rulers were actually brought down, merely witnessed direct military takeovers of what were already military security regimes.
Hence the various and often conflicting narratives surrounding events seem to suggest that the "Arab Spring" is a misnomer. The belief that there is some deeper trend underlying the recent wave of political upheaval in the region, something uniquely Arab tying them all together, is of a piece with the discredited pan-Arab notion that the three hundred million inhabitants of the Arabic-speaking Middle East constitute a unified Arab nation.
To most Americans, the reality of Arab disunity was laid bare most recently when Shiites and Sunnis slaughtered each other in post-Saddam Iraq—a reality reinforced, paradoxically, by the "Arab Spring." If the tendency is to see this string of uprisings as a pan-Arab enterprise linking Arab publics across borders, then the uprisings have further underscored the fractious character of the region. In effect, the "Arab Spring" is a series of civil wars, sectarian and tribal conflicts, and divisions not only between the political elites and the people but also within certain regimes themselves.
In other words, as of yet there has been no fundamental shift in Arab political culture. Where some have argued that the Arab publics have been empowered with their newfound voice, the truth is that Arab officials have long had to reckon with the power of the masses, especially when manipulated by talented demagogues like Nasser, lest they wind up butchered by the mob in the streets of their capitals, as was Iraqi prime minister Nuri Said in July 1958.[7]
Moreover, the additional power of the street and its ability to bring down rulers will come at the expense of actual democratic reform. For one thing, the regimes will ignore calls to reform, from both their own populations and Washington, in the conviction that reform is simply another word for the weakness that brought down Mubarak. For another, the activists themselves may find democracy less conducive to their ends than populism. As the young Egyptian activists have shown, they can wield more power from the pulpits of Tahrir than by participating in parliament.
Obama's Strategic Blunder
But if little has so far changed in the region, it is a very different matter for U.S. policymakers. Even though the dust is far from settling in the Middle East, in Washington the picture is already starting to become clear. The U.S. position in the region, an area of vital interest since the end of World War II, has been weakened. The erosion has taken place gradually over time and is a factor of many forces not attributable to any single episode or administration, but one can nonetheless identify a defining moment—Obama's Cairo speech.
For more than half a century, Washington had been accustomed to dealing with the Middle East, its allies and adversaries alike, in terms of nation-states, discreet political units with their own interests and internal makeup. U.S. policymakers were less concerned with the desires and aspirations of Arab peoples than with those of their authoritarian regimes. If to many Arabs this seemed cruel and hypocritical coming from one of the world's oldest democracies, the fact is that the most salient feature of the modern international system is that states deal with states whether those governing institutions are elected by their free citizens or imposed by powerful ruling cliques. To deal instead with opposition forces is by definition an act of subversion, or more spectacularly, war. And yet as it turns out, despite all the repression suffered at the hands of their authoritarian regimes, the Arab masses would have their voices heard by the Americans on 9/11.
In retrospect, it is clear that the attacks themselves were less significant than how this monumental episode of anti-U.S. violence was received around the region. It is interesting to speculate how the Bush administration might have responded had the 9/11 attacks been condemned, and terrorism and extremism in all its varieties isolated and targeted both by the Arab regimes and the Arab masses. But because the bloodshed of innocent civilians was justified and celebrated, from North Africa and the Levant to the Persian Gulf and Pakistan, it was difficult for U.S. policymakers not to conclude that the furies were endemic in the region and needed to be addressed as such.
The Bush administration saw the issue as a political pathology, one that could be solved by importing democracy to the region, beginning with Iraq, which would be a beacon unto its neighbors. The Obama administration, partly to correct for a predecessor deemed wildly unpopular at home and abroad, took another view and tended to see popular Arab anger at the United States as the product of legitimate grievance. Hence it believed that by pressuring Israel to accommodate Arab demands, it would win the approbation of the Arab and Muslim masses.
The practical effect of both administrations was to set political precedents that reflected a sea-change in U.S. political-strategic thinking, namely that the Arab states were no longer Washington's primary interlocutors but rather its regional problem. The solution was to go over the heads of Arab rulers and make Washington's case directly to the Arab peoples. There was, however, a big difference between the two presidents: Bush made war against an Arab adversary while Obama undermined a U.S. ally.
The main flaw with Obama's Cairo speech is not simply that it contravenes the norms of political and diplomatic practice or that the belief in the existence of a unified Muslim world ignores the reality of 1,400 years of Muslim sectarianism; nor is it that the leader of a secular republic should avoid categorizing the world's inhabitants by their religious beliefs. No, the biggest problem is that Obama played into the strategic communications campaign of Washington's chief regional adversary, the Islamic Republic of Iran. For it is Tehran that insists that for all their divisions (Sunnis versus Shiites, Sufis versus Salafis, Arabs versus Persians, Africans versus Asians, etc.), there truly is one factor uniting all the world's Muslims: resistance to the United States and its regional allies, Israel as well as the Sunni states such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.
But while Washington's relations with these states and others constituted the cornerstone of U.S. Middle East policy, by describing the region as an amorphous body of believers (an umma of sorts), Obama strayed into a minefield without a map—or no map other than the one that confirmed the Iranian view of the Middle East.
Adding Insult to Injury
If Tehran loses its one Arab ally in Damascus, the score may be somewhat evened. But so far, only pro-U.S. regimes have fallen, in Egypt and Tunisia, and the Iranians have already benefited from a number of subsequent U.S. errors.
To begin, in Libya the White House has entered into a conflict whose outcome may be important to the Europeans but would have had very little effect on U.S. interests—unless Washington decided to intervene. Now that it has, the danger is that Washington may be bound to its European allies in a stalemate or forced to sacrifice prestige by eating its words and acknowledging Qaddafi's restored legitimacy to rule. A testament to the administration's confusion is the description of its support of armed Libyan rebels as a humanitarian intervention while other peaceful opposition movements such as Syria's have failed to win any support from Washington. Hillary Clinton excused this difference by the Libyan regime's firing on its subjects from airplanes. The secretary of state obviously did not mean to imply that so long as the Syrians eschewed the use of fixed-wing aircraft they were safe from U.S. intervention, but that is how Damascus understood it and so used tanks against Syrian civilians.
The Libyan adventure is not about humanitarian causes. Rather, as some analysts have explained, Obama and key aides saw Libya as an opportunity for the administration to fold U.S. power into a multilateral dispensation.[8] If the commander in chief believes that unilateralism, or unbridled U.S. power, which Bush was wrongly faulted for, is a danger both to the world and to the United States itself, the fact remains that the White House has intentionally hobbled U.S. power and prestige to put them at the service of European interests.
As for events in Bahrain, the White House failed to keep a tight rein on two key U.S. allies—the governments of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. By turning a blind eye to the entry of a 4,000-strong, Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council force that has helped the Bahraini security forces terrorize the local Shiite population, Washington has paved the way for the Iranians to lend comfort and perhaps eventually material support to their coreligionists. Even before the Bahrain uprising, Washington had shown its inability to manage the Saudis, who crossed U.S. interests in Iraq and Lebanon by cozying up to Damascus, temporary alliances that strengthened Tehran's hand in both Baghdad and Beirut. There was little chance Riyadh was inclined to heed Washington's counsel regarding Manama since the Saudis are still fuming over Obama's treatment of Mubarak.[9]
The key issue then is Egypt, arguably the cornerstone of the U.S. position in the Middle East for more than thirty years. The peace treaty with Israel was not only a corollary of Cairo's shift from the Soviet camp to Washington's side but also neutralized the largest and most influential of Arab states and made a full-scale regional war with Israel many times less likely. Since then, Egypt has served as a sort of U.S. trophy, an example of what other Arab states could have—money, arms, and prestige—if they simply made peace with Israel. And it was that treaty that turned Washington from a great power into a power broker—U.S. support for Israel proved to the Arabs that if they wanted anything from Jerusalem, they would have to come through Washington to get it.
If Obama seemed to understand the centrality of Cairo, the sticking point, according to reports at the time, was the president's sense of personal honor. How, he asked aides, could he not support the aspirations of the Arab and Muslim masses that he himself had promoted and praised in his Cairo speech before the very same audience that was now out in the streets demanding Mubarak's ouster?[10]
Hubris and Its Costs
The conflict between national duty and personal gratification is one of the perennial trials scoring political life since the beginning of recorded history. The Hebrew Bible and the Greek and Latin epics document that there can be no marriage between the two, no compromise; for the essential test of the statesman, failing which he cannot be one, is to come down on the side of the national interest. As Obama could not choose between Dido and Rome, he dithered, making a series of mistakes that showed that the administration was caught unaware—by a popular insurrection whose pattern fit perfectly with the essential message of the Cairo speech.
For what allegiance did Egyptians owe their president when Obama had approached them directly in terms of their political loyalty to the umma? What the regime actually stood for, or the fact that the protestors greeted the army like brothers when it actually was the most corrupt institution in all Egypt, as well as Mubarak's real flaws and successes—including an economy that had grown steadily at 7 percent for more than half a decade—were all irrelevant. The Egyptians were part of something larger—the "Arab Spring." Would Obama side with the activists—as the American press blithely ignored or suppressed the anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiment during the protests—or would he stand with an ally that undergirds the U.S. position in the Middle East?
For Tehran, there was no contradiction to smooth out. The mullahs could congratulate the Egyptian and Tunisian peoples on their great successes in tossing out their rulers even as they ruthlessly repressed their own opposition movement and helped Assad put down his own. The administration knew neither its own interests nor policy. Mubarak's naming a vice president and his promise to step down after the autumn elections was precisely what U.S. policymakers had sought from the Egyptian leader for nearly a decade. Had the administration pocketed that as a victory, the situation would have looked very different. Instead, the president seemed to make a fetish of consistency; Mubarak, Obama announced, had to go.[11]
Nor, for that matter, is there anything obviously consistent about demanding that U.S. ally Mubarak step down while tacitly supporting Assad, whose security services were responsible for the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq as well as of U.S. allies in Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, and the Palestinian territories. Having warned Damascus to refrain from violence against protestors, Obama drew a moral equivalence between the regime and its unarmed opposition by admonishing demonstrators to avoid shedding blood.[12] The reason the administration has shown Assad so much favor is no secret: Obama needs Damascus to sign a peace treaty with Israel, with which he means to win the affection of the Arab masses.
The rather inconvenient truth is that an Arab-Israeli peace process no longer exists. To be sure, as animals for slaughter survive the deathblow standing on all fours for moments before succumbing, many Washington policymakers on both sides of the aisle continue to insist on the centrality of finding a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. But there will be no takers on the Arab side. It was lost on no one in the region that the man who kept the peace with Israel for more than thirty years at some personal risk to himself was trashed by Washington when the pride of the U.S. president won out over U.S. national interests. In other words, the administration is not yet aware that the centerpiece of its regional strategy, Arab-Israeli conflict diplomacy, is no longer relevant.
Egypt's future is unclear, but there is little consolation in the fact that the Egyptian army seems not to want another war with Israel or to lose $2 billion a year in U.S. aid.[13] The decisions made by the rulers of modern Egypt, from King Farouk to Nasser, have often been driven by domestic, regional, and international dynamics beyond their control. Even as there is no longer a contest between superpowers played out in the Middle East, the regional competition is as heated as ever, given Iranian and Turkish ambitions. Cairo's permitting two Iranian ships to pass through the Suez Canal for the first time since the Iranian revolution is a taste of things to come, for the Egyptians will continue to test Washington's resolve and mettle. For thirty years, thanks to Mubarak, war between Egypt and Israel, two U.S. allies was unimaginable. So far, all Washington has reaped from the uprisings in the Middle East, the "Arab Spring," is the whirlwind.
Lee Smith is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard and the author of The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations (Doubleday, 2010).
[1] The New York Times, June 4, 2009.
[2] See, for example, Christopher Boucek, "Dangerous Fallout from Libya's Implosion," The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, D.C., Mar. 9, 2011.
[3] Microsoft Network News, Apr. 8, 2011.
[4] Interview, Mar. 20, 2011.
[5] The Guardian (London), Jan. 25, 2011.
[6] Interview, Mar. 23, 2011.
[7] BBC, "On This Day, July 14, 1958," accessed Apr. 25, 2011.
[8] Stanley Kurtz, "Samantha Power's Power," National Review Online, Apr. 5, 2011.
[9] Jackson Diehl, "Amid the Mideast Protests, Where Is Saudi Arabia?" Feb. 25, 2011; Yahoo News, Apr. 18, 2011.
[10] The New York Times, Feb. 12, 2011.
[11] The Washington Post, Feb. 2, 2011.
[12] Michael Doran, "The Heirs of Nasser," Foreign Affairs, May/June 2011.
[13] Reuters, Jan. 29, 2011.
5b)Der Spiegel: Mossad behind Iran hit
By Assaf Uni
German newspaper quotes Israeli intelligence source saying that Iranian nuclear scientist's assassination was Mossad chief Tamir Pardo's first major operation. Report claims Mossad opposed to IAF calls to strike Iran nuke sites
The assassination of the Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran last week was the first major operation of Mossad director Tamir Pardo, the Der Spiegel website reported Monday.
The article, which quotes an Israeli intelligence source, surveys the series of assassination attempts involving Iranian scientists in the past 18 months and points to the Mossad as the organization at the forefront of Israel's campaign against an Iranian nuclear bomb.
According to reports, the scientist was shot to death last Saturday while taking his daughter to kindergarten. "It was the first public operation by new Mossad chief Tamir Pardo," an unnamed Israeli intelligence source told Der Spiegel's correspondent in Beirut.
Ex-IAEA official says physics professor Darioush Rezaei, who was assassinated in Tehran, was indeed an atom scientist
It was later revealed that the victim was involved in the development of switches for a nuclear bomb and had worked in a research center in northern Tehran.
The days after the hit saw many conflicting reports regarding the victim's identity. Iran's State-run media initially identified him as Darioush Rezaei, a physics professor and expert in neutron transport, but backtracked within hours, with officials subsequently naming him as Darioush Rezaeinejad, an electronics student.
According to the Der Spiegel report, the victim is Professor Rezaei, who was not seen in public since the hit.
In January 2010, Iranian nuclear scientist Mohammed Ali Masoudi was assassinated in Tehran. In November of that year physics professor Majid Shahriari was also killed.
According to Der Spiegel's source, many Israel Air Force officers are pushing for an aerial attack on Iranian nuclear sites, a plan the Mossad is against.
"It's also a matter of prestige between the organizations," the source said. "As long as the Mossad is leading the campaign against the Iranian nuclear program it continues to get the big budgets."
Iran has submitted a letter to the UN's Human Rights Council demanding an investigation into the assassination of Daryoush Rezayeenejad last week.
Javad Larijani, the secretary general of Iran's High Council of Human Rights, accused Israel and the West of assassinating an electrical engineering graduate student.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------6)The Diminished President
By ROSS DOUTHAT
By rights, Barack Obama should be emerging as the big political winner in the debt ceiling debate. For months, he’s positioned himself near the center of public opinion, leaving Republicans to occupy the rightward flank. Poll after poll suggests that Americans prefer the president’s call for a mix of spending cuts and tax increases to the Republican Party’s anti-tax approach. Poll after poll shows that House Republicans, not Obama, would take most of the blame if the debt ceiling weren’t raised.
Yet the president’s approval ratings have been sinking steadily for weeks, hitting a George W. Bush-esque low of 40 percent in a recent Gallup survey. The voters incline toward Obama on the issues, still like him personally and consider the Republican opposition too extreme. But they are increasingly judging his presidency a failure anyway.
The administration would no doubt blame this judgment on the steady stream of miserable economic news. But it should save some of the blame for its own political approach. Ever since the midterms, the White House’s tactics have consistently maximized President Obama’s short-term advantage while diminishing his overall authority. Call it the “too clever by half” presidency: the administration’s maneuvering keeps working out as planned, but Obama’s position keeps eroding.
Start with the first round of deficit debates this winter. After the Republican sweep, the White House seemed to have two options: double down on Keynesian stimulus or pivot to the center and champion deficit reduction. Instead, Obama chose to hover above the fray, passing on his own fiscal commission’s recommendations and letting the Republicans make the first move.
The strategy worked, in a sense. Goaded by the president’s evasiveness, Paul Ryan and the House Republicans put forward a detailed long-term budget proposal of their own, whose Medicare cuts proved predictably unpopular. But while the subsequent policy debate favored Obama, the optics of the confrontation diminished him. The chairman of the House Budget Committee looked more like a leader than the president of the United States.
Then came the spring’s great foreign policy dilemma, the civil war in Muammar el-Qaddafi’s Libya. The president (wisely) didn’t want to put America’s blood and treasure on the line for the rebels, but he also didn’t want to take responsibility for letting Qaddafi crush the revolt. So the White House opted for a kind of quasi war, throwing just enough military power at the problem to ensure a stalemate and then punting responsibility to our NATO allies. An Obama adviser told The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza that the president was pioneering a new American way of statecraft: “Leading from behind.”
Again, the strategy worked, sort of. An immediate humanitarian crisis was averted, and Libya quickly fell out of the headlines. But it left Americans to contemplate a peculiar and unpresidential spectacle: The leader of the free world taking the country to war while pretending that he wasn’t, and then effectively washing his hands of the ultimate outcome — which, 135 days and counting later, is still very much in doubt.
The same pattern has played out in the debt ceiling debate. Instead of drawing clear lines and putting forward detailed proposals, the president has played Mr. Compromise — ceding ground to Republicans here, sermonizing about Tea Party intransigence and Washington gridlock there, and fleshing out his preferred approach reluctantly, if at all.
The White House no doubt figured that this negotiating strategy would either lead to a bipartisan grand bargain or else expose Republican extremism — or better still, do both. And again, the strategy is arguably working. Americans were given a glimpse of right-wing populism’s reckless side last week, and the final deal will probably let the president burnish his centrist credentials just in time for 2012.
But winning a debate on points isn’t a substitute for looking like a leader. It’s one thing to bemoan politics-as-usual when you’re running for the White House. It’s quite another to publicly throw up your hands over our “dysfunctional government” when you’re the man the voters put in charge of it.
In fairness, the president’s passive-aggressive approach is a bipartisan affliction. The ostensible front-runner for the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney, took a deliberately hazy position on last week’s crucial House debate, preferring to flunk a test of leadership rather than risk alienating either side. (The Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney quipped that “if you took Obama’s plan and Romney’s plan, and just met in the middle, you’d be in the middle of nowhere.”)
This leaves Americans to contemplate two possibilities more alarming than debt-ceiling brinkmanship. First, that we’re living through yet another failed presidency. And second, that there’s nobody waiting in the wings who’s up to the task either
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