As readers of these memos know, or by now should know, I have great respect for the editorial and op ed pages of the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ's own editorial writers are superb and provocative as well as those who write op ed pieces. The one by Robert Reilley is particularly good. I commend it to you because it is probably one of the most perceptive op ed's I have read. Romney needs to read, digest and embrace it, if he can. (See 3 below.)
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In several memos ago, I listed 17 reasons, why in my opinion, the president's foreign policy initiatives, or lack thereof, have been mostly failures.
Now I would like to turn your attention to his domestic policies. Once again, if success is a useful criterion for re-election, I find more reasons to boot this president out of office than allow him to remain.
In all fairness and objectivity, he inherited a divided nation, a division he contributed to during his campaign, an economy that had turned down and was faltering on many levels. None of these problems should be laid at his door but certainly members of his own party as well as Republicans share blame.
So what did this president decide to do about the many problems he faced?
1) He over promised and set expectations which, in virtually every case, he either failed to meet or fooled us into believing he would or could.
2) He told us his administration would be open. False.
3) He told us he would heal our nation. False.
4) He told us we needed to get money and lobbyists out of politics. True but once again he did not live up to his words. False again.(See 1b below.)
5) Initially, the president told us everything confronting him should be laid at GW's feet. This was a clever way of deflecting and bought him some time but eventually the public tired of his off loading and particularly after he began to embrace the same policies he had previously criticized, ie Guantanamo comes to mind among many others pertaining to wiretapping etc.
6) Within a short period of time he began implementing change. As it has turned out, the changes were mostly of the unwanted variety. Neither did they gain him any kudos, except among his staunchest supporters and The Nobel Committee.
The changes he wrought went against the grain of how history has defined what it means to be "An American," ie. an independent, risk taking ornery cuss of a people who are nevertheless, both sentimental and charitable and, above all brave, when called upon to defend our precious freedoms and rights and those of others. We are a creative and proud nation with a rich history of accomplishments and good deeds that have benefited mankind.(See 1 below.)
The president's early trip's abroad, and his questionable acts of apologizing and bowing, reinforced the growing mood and feelings of discomfort and discontent. It caused many to believe he was not whom they thought they had elected.
Don't forget about the return of Churchill's bust as further evidence of his inner anger at Colonialism notwithstanding the fact that Britain was one of our closest allies.
7) Then, in rapid succession, came a host of changes including government largess spent to save companies that mostly involved favoring labor constituents, 'fat cat' contributors from Wall Street, etc.
While doing so, he began a series of speeches which were disingenuously designed to be critical of those he was purposely enriching with his administration's out sized spending. Health care, banks, auto and finance companies were direct beneficiaries of his attempt to save these bankrupt entities from suffering the fate of their own poor corporate decisions and governance.
One can argue this was the correct policy but the spending continues unabated as if the speeding car, called government, has no brakes. Furthermore, bondholders were actually raped by the administration as their bond covenants were ignored in this administration's rapacious transfer of assets to favored unions and benefactors. And then we have the Solyndra episode. (See 1a below.)
His health care legislation was so repugnant the administration was forced to begin a series of waivers which, I am told, now numbers around 2,000.
Watch:"http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=HcBaSP31Be8&vg=medium"
8) Then, we witnessed a series of presidential hubris and quick trigger pronouncements about a certain Boston area policeman and afterwards we became victims of an incessant and extended period of race card playing and baiting.
He even had the 'audacity' to misstate a Supreme Court decision belittling the Justices who came as guests of Congress during a previous SOTU.
9) The president's appointments have been less than charitable if one believes our Constitution has any merit. A multitude of czars/czarinas, fabulous salaries and none confirmed by the Senate.
10) Unemployment remains above the president's expressed prediction and now we have evidence of statistical manipulation in order to create the appearance unemployment will soon hit his previously announced target. (See 1c below.)
11) In recent days we have the administration's attack on Catholic beliefs regarding birth control issues. This patent attempt to garner the female vote is, at the very least, an affront to a proud religion. At worst, it is a blatant and unconstitutional act to intrude government control over religious freedom and choice. (See 1 below.)
12) The president has failed to present a budget that is balanced and his own party's control of the Senate is well into a third year of ignoring their Constitutional responsibility to even present a budget.
This president's deficit spending and out year budget forecasts are beyond comprehension and will surely have a detrimental impact not only on our currency but also on future inflation prospects.
Professing the desire to protect lower socio economic levels makes for good emotional campaign rhetoric but actions speak legions.
13) Those on food stamps have broken all records suggesting the program is either too loosely managed and thus wasteful or we have a serious problem when it comes to feeding our citizens. Not an encouraging sign for a nation capable of producing more food per acre than any country in the world.
14) This is the first president who is demonstrably and avowedly anti-capitalist. Yes, we have had social leaning presidents - Wilson, Roosevelt and Johnson immediately come to mind, but none can hold a candle to this president's level of contempt and antipathy.
His attack on those he defines as 'rich,' on creative achievers who played by the rules and created enterprises that employ millions in good paying jobs and finally, his class warfare attacks dividing our nation, is an indictment exposing this president's flawed character.
15) Without getting overly personal, this president has enjoyed more costly travel, including bigger entourages and time away from office enjoying golf, than any president preceding him and this during a time of economic severity.
16) This president's past voting record, as a solon, demonstrates a pattern of evasive ducking and this pattern now borders on becoming habitual.
17) His support of his appointed Attorney General, who all but lied to Congress while evasively defending a plan to provide weapons to Mexican drug dealers that went awry,borders on contempt for
the legitimate role of Congressional oversight.
Once again, as with his foreign policy failures, his domestic accomplishments fall pitifully short. His tenure in office has become both an assault, as well as an affront, to what and who we are as a nation and people.
His extreme radical theories and ideologies place him outside mainstream thinking. His mis-management of our nation's affairs and finances reflect a level of incompetence that is mind boggling.
His increase in citizen dependency upon an ever expanding government, increasingly incapable of meeting its moral obligations and legal commitments, approaches wanton behavior that is unconscionable.
For all the reasons enumerated above, I submit this president is undeserving of being re-elected.
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Two experienced co-authors call upon this president to initiate a more effective triple-track strategy and, by all means, bolster the military option regarding Iran.
They mince no words about what they believe this president must do and enumerate the dire consequences if he fails to rise to the occasion. (See 2 below.)
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Israel is seeking an air force facility on Greek territory in order to protect prospective Israeli natural gas developments nearby. (See 4 below.)
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Dick
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1)ObamaCare's Great Awakening
HHS tells religious believers to go to hell. The public noticed.
The political furor over President Obama's birth-control mandate continues to grow, even among those for whom contraception poses no moral qualms, and one needn't be a theologian to understand why. The country is being exposed to the raw political control that is the core of the Obama health-care plan, and Americans are seeing clearly for the first time how this will violate pluralism and liberty.
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In late January the Health and Human Services Department required almost all insurance plans to cover contraceptive and sterilization methods, including the morning-after pill. The decision came after passionate lobbying by religious groups and liberals from the likes of Planned Parenthood, amid government promises of compromise.
In the end, Planned Parenthood won. HHS chose to draw the rule's conscience exceptions for "religious employers" so narrowly that they will not be extended to religious charities, universities, schools, hospitals, soup kitchens, homeless shelters and other institutions that oppose contraception as a matter of religious belief.
The Affordable Care Act itself is ambiguous about what counts as a religious organization that deserves conscience protection. Like so much else in the rushed bill, this was left to administrative discretion. What the law does cement is the principle that the government will decide for everyone what "health care" must mean. The entire thrust of ObamaCare is to standardize benefits and how they must be paid for and provided, regardless of individual choices or ethical convictions.
To take a small example: The HHS rule prohibits out-of-pocket costs for birth control, simply because Secretary Kathleen Sebelius's regulators believe no woman should have to pay anything for it. To take a larger example: The Obama Administration's legal defense of the mandate to buy insurance or else pay a penalty is that the mere fact of being alive gives the government the right to regulate all Americans at every point in their lives.
Practicing this kind of compulsion is routine and noncontroversial within Ms. Sebelius's ministry. That may explain why her staff didn't notice that the birth-control rule abridges the First Amendment's protections for religious freedom. Then again, maybe HHS thought the public had become inured to such edicts, which have arrived every few weeks since the Affordable Care Act passed.
Bad call. The decision has roused the Catholic bishops from their health-care naivete, but they've been joined by people of all faiths and even no faith, as it becomes clear that their own deepest moral beliefs may be thrown over eventually. Contraception is the single most prescribed medicine for women between 18 and 44 years old, and nine of 10 insurers and employers already cover it. Yet HHS still decided to rub it in the face of religious hospitals.
Mr. Obama's allies among Catholic liberals are also professing shock—even the Catholic Health Association's Sister Carol Keehan, who lobbied for ObamaCare, and Notre Dame's Father John Jenkins, who invited Mr. Obama to speak on campus in 2009. But if they now claim they were taken for a ride by the secular left, the truth is that they wanted to be deceived in the name of their grander goal of government-enforced equity. The Catholic left was one of ObamaCare's great enablers.
Columnist Bill McGurn on the Obama administration's rule requiring religious institutions to cover contraception and sterilization in their health plans. Plus, is the Obama administration considering dropping Joe Biden from the ticket?
Speaking of scales from the eyes, we're eager to hear from former Michigan Congressman Bart Stupak, who for a brief moment led a faction of pro-life Democrats against ObamaCare in 2010. They surrendered when Mr. Obama gave them the fig leaf of an executive order that will supposedly prevent federal funds from subsidizing abortions. Mr. Stupak is now a lobbyist at the D.C. law firm Venable LLP.
This is also a teaching moment for Mitt Romney, who has joined the calls to defend "the right to worship in the way of our own choice," as he put it in a Colorado speech on Monday. "This is a violation of conscience. We must have a President who is willing to protect America's first right, our right to worship God," he added.
This is fine as far as it goes, but as usual the GOP front-runner is missing the larger policy and moral issue. The HHS diktat isn't something unique to President Obama. It is the political essence of government-run medicine. When politics determines who can or should receive what benefits, and who pays what for it, government will use its force to dictate the outcomes that it wants—either for reasons of cost, or to promote its values, which in this case means that "women's health" trumps religious conscience.
If Mr. Romney can't make the obvious connection between this infringement of American values and all the other infringements that are inherent in government health care, then he needs better political advisers.
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The White House is now trying to cauterize the political damage and saying it is open to some "compromise" on its own contraception decision. But the rule is already final. HHS tried to sell it as a compromise when it was announced, and in any case HHS would revive this coercion whenever it is politically convenient some time in Mr. Obama's second term. Religious liberty won't be protected from the entitlement state until ObamaCare is repealed.
1a)Revisiting the Auto Bailout With Clint
Detroit is hostage to the administration's green energy schemes—a perfect vehicle for granting favors and extorting tribute.
By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.
Clint Eastwood is receiving grief for his Super Bowl ad for Chrysler, which many saw as an Obama campaign ad trumpeting the president's Detroit bailout.
Mr. Eastwood's previously recorded remarks on the subject were: "We shouldn't be bailing out the banks and car companies."
A further complication is that Chrysler is now owned by Fiat, an Italian company, which received its stake largely as a gift of the U.S. taxpayer in return for meeting fuel-economy goals, not financial goals.
Chrysler's "Halftime in America" Super Bowl XLVI Ad starring Clint Eastwood talks about the economic situation in the country.
No political party would have let GM go under because of Lehman, and a column uninformed by political realism is uninteresting to read or write. But a decent bailout would have addressed the structural burdens that Congress, mostly for its own convenience, inflicted on the homegrown auto makers. That didn't happen.
If the U.S. president told the bank holding your mortgage to cancel your debt and hand you the house free, it wouldn't make you more productive or efficient. It just screwed someone you owed money to. And clearer than ever is that GM could have survived the Lehman episode with a simple bridge loan. America's biggest auto maker could have returned to the slog without dishonoring billions of dollars in obligations to bondholders and other creditors.
But the most egregious aspect of the Obama bailout is its annexation of the auto sector to the administration's green energy schemes. It's no exaggeration to say the auto industry is being used to fulfill a throwaway line in an Obama speech calling for one million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.
We've often noted the direct handouts, in the form of billions of dollars in subsidies to both manufacturers and buyers of green cars. But these are only half the story. Mr. Obama made a splash last year when he announced that, by 2025, the U.S. fleet would be required to get 54.5 miles per gallon.
The corollary of an implausible mandate is a steady traffic in auto industry lobbyists to Washington, campaign check in hand, to water it down. Of these, the most important are very large mileage credits awarded to electric cars (though they basically run on coal), and then the doubling of these credits as an "incentive multiplier." In effect, auto makers have been virtually required to build electric cars and dump them on the public at a loss in order to create headroom for the cars that actually earn a profit.
The latter, of course, are pickups in the case of U.S manufacturers. Lo, pickups have also been quietly showered with special breaks under the broad rule Mr. Obama announced.
Just ask Volkswagen and Daimler: Here we have almost a parody of public choice theory, which in raw form holds that whatever the stated purpose of government policy, it usually devolves into an excuse for politicians and bureaucrats to grant favors and extort tribute from special interests. The Germans are among the few willing to say publicly that CAFE has degenerated into a favor factory to protect Detroit's pickup franchise while giving Mr. Obama subsidized green cars to flaunt in a campaign ad. One measure of the absurdity: When the loopholes are factored in, a 54.5 miles-per-gallon standard has become a 40 mpg standard.
The coming Obama campaign will make a fuss over the Detroit bailout, helped by slenderly informed commentators who declare it an amazing success. Car sales are up 20% in two years, even if still below pre-crash levels. Detroit is adding shifts. GM, Ford and even Chrysler are reporting profits. Unmentioned in any Obama campaign ad, though, will be that today's modest sales boom is essentially a horsepower boom. SUVs and pickups are selling strongly. A run-of-the-mill Ford Fusion would have been a muscle car two decades ago. Detroit is bouncing back because it's selling cars the public wants to buy.
This, in fact, is a great way to run a car business, but will soon become all but impossible if Mr. Obama's new fuel-mileage rules are not further rolled back. Hence a glaring anomaly amid the happy talk: GM's stock price is still down 22% from its public reflotation a year ago.
As we noted last year, the auto industry's strategy for dealing with the administration that bailed it out has been to pray for the madness to pass. That the Lord has partly answered those prayers with pickup loopholes, and now talk of a mandatory "midterm review" of the mileage targets, was politically predictable. And yet a mystery remains.
No president in three decades has embraced fuel-economy regulation so fulsomely, and for good reason: Every study has found the rules to be costly, ineffectual and perverse. There is little evidence that Mr. Obama himself has ever given intelligent analysis to what he's doing or why. His one big speech advanced a perfectly silly claim that Detroit's troubles stem from building "bigger, faster" cars that the public manifestly wants and that earn Detroit most of its profits.
One explanation for the fuel-economy circus is that President Obama is content to be a point man for shibboleths. He takes for granted the wisdom of liberal policy clichés.
A more likely answer, we suspect, is to be found in public choice theory.
1b)The Super PAC President
Obama makes fools of the goo-goos one more time.
Get out your checkbook, George Soros. You too, Peter Lewis and Steve Bing. An Obama for President fund-raiser will soon be calling to hit you up for some big campaign money. May we suggest $5 million?
That's the meaning of the White House decision, announced late Monday night, to encourage donations to a struggling Super PAC trying to raise money to attack President Obama's Republican opponent this year. This would be the same kind of political action committee that Mr. Obama and other good liberals have been denouncing for months as an avenue for corruption and a blight on America's national honor.
It's easy to denounce this switcheroo, and no doubt many liberals will do so—for all of 24 hours. This synthetic outrage will be highly entertaining. But then they will return to deploring Republicans and privately encouraging "millionaires and billionaires" like Mr. Soros and Jeffrey Katzenberg to save the Democratic Party in November. It may create a little "psychic dissonance" to denounce big money and then beg for it, as one Soros acolyte was quoted Tuesday as saying. But you gotta do what you gotta do.
The better way to understand this decision is that it is Mr. Obama's second in-kind contribution to the demise of the campaign-finance reform movement. In 2008, Mr. Obama was so flush with cash he voluntarily dropped out of the presidential public-funding system that limits the amount a candidate can raise and spend. John McCain, trapped by his own history of favoring spending limits, played the sap, obeyed the rules, and was heavily outspent. You may have noticed he lost.
The liberal goo-goos want to ban money from politics, but now their political hero has made them look like fools—twice.
Mitt Romney and any other potential GOP nominee won't be fooled again. Mr. Romney's Super PAC has already raised in the neighborhood of $30 million and has shown it is willing to use it to carve up an opponent.
Mr. Obama's Super PAC has had a harder time raising funds this cycle. So the President is now anointing certain Administration officials to be able to speak directly on its behalf—though apparently not actively to solicit checks.
So let's see: HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will be able to speak at an event that is expressly a Super PAC fund-raiser, but because she won't be stuffing the checks in her purse she will not violate federal rules against coordination between a candidate's campaign and a Super PAC. After the election, and especially if Mr. Obama wins, the President will switch one more time and become a reformer demanding limits on money in politics. And good liberals will praise him for it.
No wonder Americans are cynical about politics.
1c)On Friday the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculated and reported a 243,000 increase in employment for January.
The actual number of jobs fell by 2,689,000 in January.
But because it is typical for the economy to lose a lot of jobs after the holidays, the Bureau has to estimate how many jobs the economy would “normally” lose.
The Bureau estimated that the economy should have lost 2,932,000 jobs in January to do these seasonal adjustments.
Therefore, since it lost 243,000 jobs less than they estimated it should have, a gain of 243,000 jobs was reported.
Seasonal adjustments are important but are subjective. The BLS used a factor of 1.0165 this year which was the highest since the 1960s. In 2009 the factor was 1.0155.
This .0014 difference in the adjustment factor accounted for 182,000 jobs.
Ray Fracchia, CFP(R)
Atkins Capital Management, LLC
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2)Bolstering the Military Option on Iran
Providing Israel with advanced bunker-busting munitions and refueling tankers to extend the range of its jets would help convince the Iranians to pursue a diplomatic solution.
By CHARLES S. ROBB AND CHARLES WALD
In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama declared, "Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon." Yet Iran is fast approaching the nuclear threshold, despite new, tough international sanctions.
The clock must be stopped. The best hope for doing so is a triple-track strategy of diplomacy, sanctions and a more credible threat of force by the U.S. and Israel. The time has come for American leaders to begin preparations for, and a robust public debate about, military action against Iran.
From its inception, the Islamic Republic has terrorized its citizens, killed American soldiers, supported terrorist groups, and repeatedly undermined the stability of our Arab allies. Last October, American authorities uncovered an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States on U.S. soil. And just last month, Iranian military leaders threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, a critical energy shipping lane. An Iran with nuclear weapons capability, overconfident behind its own nuclear deterrent, would act even more aggressively, threatening our allies and vital interests.
President Obama entered office pledging "to use all elements of American power to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon." We applaud his sincere diplomatic outreach and support for stricter sanctions passed by Congress. But it is now time to engage other elements of our power.
Though Iran's economic condition may be worsening, its centrifuges continue to spin, unimpeded. International Atomic Energy Agency reports indicate that in the last two years Iran's nuclear program advanced dramatically—doubling its uranium enrichment rate, enriching uranium to ever higher levels, testing advanced centrifuges, beginning enrichment at a fortified facility, and continuing its weaponization program.
While important, recent sanctions—a European oil embargo to possibly take effect July 1 and U.S. measures designed to limit Iran's oil exports by targeting firms dealing with its Central Bank—are unlikely to suffice on their own. China, which buys over a quarter of Iran's oil exports, has refused to cooperate. Other top buyers of Iranian crude, like India, South Korea and Japan, have promised to lower their Iranian imports but are unlikely to do so in significant quantities soon. We support additional tough sanctions but believe that as Congress considers further measures it must also regularly assess the effectiveness of sanctions in bringing a halt to Iran's nuclear program.
Contrary to public perception, Iran's reported interest in resuming talks is not an indication of the sanctions' success. Historically, Tehran has used negotiations to stall and defuse pressure before international consensus for more drastic action can be reached. Both the reluctance of other nations to wean themselves from Iranian oil and Iran's latest diplomatic gambit are evidence of the need for much greater pressure.
As we argue in a new Bipartisan Policy Center report, "Meeting the Challenge: Stopping the Clock," to prevent a nuclear Iran the U.S. needs to demonstrate its resolve to do whatever is necessary, including military action. Gaining international support for tougher sanctions and convincing Iran to accept a diplomatic solution requires making clear that military conflict is the only other outcome.
Additional pressure needs to come from the credible threat of military action—whether by the U.S. or Israel—against Iran's nuclear program. Such threats can enable peaceful, diplomatic solutions. After U.S. and coalition forces toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003, fear of military action apparently led Iran, briefly, and Libya, permanently, to halt their nuclear programs.
Making credible the military threat will require strengthening our declaratory policy, making clear our willingness to use force rather than permit Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, and requiring all U.S. officials to adhere to that policy publicly. Congressional hearings on the viability of the military option would further underscore our seriousness.
Also, while we do not advocate an Israeli military strike against Iran, we believe that enhancing Israel's military capabilities—by providing it with 200 advanced GBU-31 bunker-busting munitions and three KC-135 refueling tankers to extend the range of its jets—would improve Israeli credibility and help convince the Iranians to pursue a diplomatic solution. The Obama administration, under a prior commitment from President Bush, already delivered less-advanced GBU-28 bunker busters to Israel.
If more pressure is needed, a quarantine could block refined petroleum imports into Iran, sending a clear signal and ensuring the effectiveness of sanctions on gasoline imports. Should even that fail to persuade Iran's leadership, the U.S. military is capable of launching an effective surgical air strike against Iran's nuclear program and its military installations. Such action would set back Iran's nuclear program, but continued monitoring and vigilance would remain necessary for an extended period.
We recognize the risks of this approach. We are also aware that our country is war-weary and saddled with economic challenges. But we cannot wish this problem away, nor should we fall prey to the inertia of resignation. It is time to begin a serious public debate about what it will take to prevent a nuclear Iran. Avoiding hard choices today can only lead to significantly greater costs in blood and treasure tomorrow.
Mr. Robb, a former Democratic senator from Virginia, and Mr. Wald, a retired general and air commander in the initial stages of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, are co-chairs of a new Bipartisan Policy Center report on Iran, "Meeting the Challenge: Stopping the Clock."
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3)Romney's Businessman Pitch Won't Work
If you can't articulate the cause for which you are fighting in moral terms, you will lose.
By ROBERT R. REILLY
Mitt Romney points to his successful business experience as his principal qualification to be president. Others seem to agree. In a story in this newspaper after last week's Florida Republican primary, Susan Tynan, a retired nurse, said she voted for Mr. Romney because "the biggest corporation in the world is the United States, and Mitt Romney has the best experience to run it."
When Mr. Romney was running for president four years ago, he said in an interview that the first thing he would do in the White House would be to bring in some business consultants. In other words, Washington is a management problem.
This is a profoundly mistaken Republican notion that goes back at least to Herbert Hoover, a successful mining engineer, businessman and progressive politician who was an advocate of the "Efficiency Movement," an attempt to manage government better. For decades the Republican Party nominated losing candidates—Alf Landon (1936), Wendell Willkie (1940), Thomas Dewey (1944 and 1948)—who presented a résumé boasting nonpolitical accomplishment in business and the professions. More recently, Republicans like Richard Nixon, George H.W. Bush and John McCain may have been more accomplished in the political realm but all struggled with what Bush 41 famously called the "vision thing." Time and again, they've been defeated by Democrats proclaiming such things as the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier, the Great Society, and "hope and change."
The Great Communicator Ronald Reagan, who spoke mostly in moral terms, was the magnificent exception. He understood that Washington is not a management problem; it is a political problem. Everything the government does is necessarily political, because governments decide not only who gets what, but why. These choices define a candidate's politics, but they must be conceived and expressed in terms of moral priorities.
Political language is inherently moral, not managerial. It must convey visions, not just plans. It must explain why some things are good and others bad..
Instincts are never enough. You need to have thought about politics in the philosophical sense to know what is going on. I have seen businessmen in Washington with superb instincts who soon became frustrated. That is because people who have no background in either moral philosophy or rhetoric—i.e., lacking the "vision thing"—are most often left speechless when they discover that they cannot rebut attacks with management techniques.
If you cannot articulate the cause for which you are fighting in moral terms, you will lose. Because they cannot do this, businessmen suffer from a sense of illegitimacy when they come to Washington. When your opponents scent this vulnerability, they go in for the kill.
Unable to deal with your opponents, you will begin to see as your enemies not those who are opposing you, but the subordinate members of your own administration who insist that you publicly carry the banner of a cause that you do not fully comprehend. On numerous occasions this has happened to high-powered businessmen (White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan, Secretary of Treasury Paul H. O'Neill) who thought they were going to shake up Washington. Instead, they were shaken up.
President Obama is expert at deploying moral rhetoric. If his Republican opponent is not equally adept at this, he won't be able to defeat him. Mr. Romney has showed no talent for this, which is hardly a surprise since little in his background has prepared him for it. He did not exhibit this ability as governor of Massachusetts, where he failed to defend the very principles he now avows regarding such things as the family, abortion and a liberal judiciary.
Mr. Romney has a tendency to treat his business autobiography as a policy prescription. The economy is the only thing in his quiver. If it keeps improving, he will be empty-handed before the Obama onslaught. Like Hoover, Mr. Romney wants to be president because he thinks he can manage things better. But my advice to any person who seeks to move American politics through his ability to succeed in business is: Stay home. It will be better for you and for your country.
Mr. Reilly, former director of Voice of America, served as a special assistant to President Reagan. He's also served in the U.S. Information Agency, and the State and Defense Departments.
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4)Kastelorizo - Mediterranean Flashpoint?
By Daniel Pipes
National Review Online
Remember the name Kastelorizo; you heard it here first.
It is the far-flung, easternmost island of Greece, 80 miles from Rhodes, 170 miles west of Cyprus, but just 1 mile off the coast of Turkey. Kastelorizo (in Greek, Καστελόριζο; or officially Megisti, Μεγίστη) is tiny, comprising just 5 square miles, plus some yet smaller, uninhabited islands. Its 430 inhabitants are way down from 10,000 in the late nineteenth century. The Lonely Planet travel guide has picked it as one of the four best Greek islands (out of thousands) for diving and snorkeling. There's no public transportation from nearby Anatolia, only from distant Rhodes by airplane or ferry.
That Athens controls this wisp of land implies it could (but does not yet) claim an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the Mediterranean Sea that reduces the Turkish EEZ to a fraction of what it would be were the island under Ankara's control, as maps reproduced from the Cypriot newspaper I Simerini illustrate show. The top map shows the Greece claiming its full 200-nautical mile EEZ and controlling Kastelorizo EEZ (indicated by the red arrow); the bottom one shows the Greek EEZ minus Kastelorizo (indicated by the white arrow).
Were Athens to claim its full EEZ, Kastelorizo's presence would make its EEZ contiguous with the EEZ of Cyprus, a factor with great import now, at a moment of massive off-shore gas and oil discoveries. Kastelorizo with an EEZ benefits the emerging Greece-Cyprus-Israel alliance by making it possible to transport either Cypriot and Israeli natural gas (via pipeline) or electricity (via cable) to Western Europe without Turkish permission. This has taken on special urgency since Nov. 4, when Turkey's minister for energy, Taner Yıldız, announced that his government would not permit Israeli natural gas to transit Turkish territory; Ankara will likely also ban Cypriot exports.
Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ruling AKP party colleagues accept Greek control of Kastelorizo and its six nautical miles of territorial waters, but not more and certainly not its full EEZ rights. Indeed, in their eyes, Greek assertion of an EEZ constitutes a casus belli. By neutering Kastelorizo, Ankara can lay claim to large economic area in the Mediterranean and block cooperation among its adversaries. This is why the island could become a flashpoint.
Several developments point to AKP intimidation of Greece concerning Kastelorizo. First, in September, it authorized a Norwegian ship, the Bergen Surveyor, accompanied by other sea craft, to begin prospecting for gas and oil south of Kastelorizo, including some of the island's continental shelf. Second, Turkish warships have trained with live ammunition between Rhodes and Kastelorizo. Finally, Turkish military aircraft four times in 2011 overflew Kastelorizo without permission, sometimes very low with reconnaissance aircraft.
This bellicosity fits a larger pattern. The AKP government, especially since it has took full control of the armed forces in late July, has shown increasing hostility toward Cyprus, Israel, Syria, and Iraq. In addition, Ankara has long denied Cyprus its EEZ, so doing the same vis-à-vis Kastelorizo builds on an established policy. Indeed, the Turks' brutal, napalm-assisted 1974 conquest of the northern 36 percent of Cyprus set a precedent for seizing nearby island territory. Grabbing Kastelorizo would require about as much time as reading this article.
George Papandreou, then prime minister of Greece, visited Kastelorizo in April 2010.
So far, responses to heightened Turkish aggressiveness in the Mediterranean have focused on deterring Turkish feints toward gas and oil reserves in the Cypriot EEZ, with navies and statements from the United States and Russia backing the Republic of Cyprus' right to exploit its economic resources. Cypriot president Demetris Christofias warned that if Ankara persists with its gunboat diplomacy, "there will be consequences which, for sure, will not be good." Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told the Greeks that "If anyone tries to challenge these drillings, we will meet those challenges" and his government enhanced security not only for its own maritime fields but also for drilling areas in Cypriot waters. On at least one occasion, Israeli warplanes have confronted Turkish ships.
Such clear signals of resolve are welcome. As the European Union pushes Greece to drill for hydrocarbons to find new sources of income, it should also support Athens declaring its EEZ, reject AKP troublemaking vis-à-vis Kastelorizo, and clearly indicate the dire results for Turkey of any trouble-making toward an island now happily renowned for its diving and snorkeling.
Mr. Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is president of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. © 2012 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved.
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