I extend to you and your families all the very best in the approaching Holiday Season and wish for you the Merriest of Christmases and the Happiest and Healthiest of New Years
==.
Meanwhile,Obama's egomaniac attitude, evidenced by 'his way or the highway',continue s tearing at the fabric of our nation. (see 1 and 1a below.)
Republicans have an opportunity to reduce Obama's effectiveness when he acts in an imperious manner in the 2014 election.
Their policies should appeal to women and Hispanics if they can contain themselves and stay away from their far out social discourse.
Focus on the size of government, the cost of government, the negative consequences of government involvement in education, the break up of the family structure and the many lies of Obama as relate to health care and his disastrous foreign policy performance.
Most importantly he has proven untrustworthy! (See 1b and 1c below.)
===
Democrats regain their confidence. Will this prove correct? Time will tell. (See 2 below.)
===
Seeing the world through Arab eyes! (See 3 below.)
===
Greenspan helped start what he now states is the most uncertain economic period he has witnessed. (See 4 below.)
===
Dick
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1)Obama Is Tearing America Apart
By Richard Winchester
On November 25th, New York Post columinist Michael Goodwin, an Obama backer turned critic, published "Obama's Failed Promise to Heal a Polarized Nation." Goodwin wrote that, "Obama's promise to heal a polarized nation has proven to be as big a lie as his promise that you can keep your health insurance."
He added that, "America is now so divided and demoralized that there is no hope Obama can fix it." Moreover, "[a]s last week proved, he doesn't even pretend to try any more."
The last reference was to Obama's complicity in Harry Reid's coup in the Senate that severely curtailed the filibuster, thus seriously weakening the Republican minority's ability to thwart Obama's increasingly tyrannical tendencies.
Once upon a time, Obama promised to close America's partisan, ideological, racial, etc. divisions. Proving that the will-to-believe is powerful, some conservative pundits wanted to cut Obama some slack after he was elected in 2008. (For Peggy Noonan, this continued until only a few months ago.)
Obama governed as a leftist during his first term in office. He has ruled as a hard leftist since being re-elected. On December 3rd, he launched a campaign intended to last until Christmas that began by blaming the Republicans for "sabotaging" Obamacare. He followed the next day with another of his patented "class warfare" battle cries. One is hard-pressed to see how such a crusade could have any other outcome than further polarization.
Charges that Americans are polarized require proof, but evidence that Americans are badly divided is easy to find.
One way to demonstrate that the public is polarized -- probably the most frequently chosen method -- is to compare Democrats' and Republicans' opinions on a series of major issues such as the central government's power, government's responsibility to provide health care, abortion, taxation, government spending, national debt, gay marriage, terrorism, etc.
The second taps a facet of the Nanny State that has emerged in America. In late October-early November, 2013, the Pew Research Center asked a random sample of adults if they thought "[g]overnment should play a significant role in reducing obesity." Thirty-seven percent of Democrats said "no," and 60% replied "yes." Sentiment was almost reversed among Republicans, 77% of whom said "no," and 20% said "yes."
Additional evidence along these lines comes from a series of polls done by the Times Mirror/Pew Research Center for The People & The Press between 1987 and 2012. If we look at the average percentage-point difference between Democrats' and Republicans' responses on 48 values questions asked over the 25 years, we find that "the values gap" of 9-10 points when the series began reached 16 and 18 points in the two polls done such Obama became president (2009 and 2012). This may not seem much larger than during the Bush #43 presidency, but given the size of these polls, the differences are significant.
One can also demonstrate how polarized our society has become by looking at how Democrats and Republicans characterize themselves and the opposing party.
At least twice in 2013, the Pew Research Center asked random samples of adults if they thought five different phrases applied to the Democrat and the Republican parties. In late February, the five phrases were: "out of touch with the American people," "too extreme," "open to change," "has strong principles," and "looking out for the country's long-term future." In late July, they were: "too extreme," "has strong principles," "stands up for individual rights," "tolerant and open to all groups of people," and "cares about working class Americans."
Respondents could tell interviewers that the five phrases either applied to the Democrats/Republicans or did not. Hence, if we look at Democrats' characterization of Republicans and Democrats and the same for Republicans, we have twenty opportunities to see how partisans view their party and the opposition.
Although one wishes Pew had included additional, or even different, phrases, these will do. Collectively, they capture many of the notions one or the other of the two major political parties touts about itself, and/or claims that the opposing party may be tarred by.
There is no need to cover all twenty comparisons. Based on the respective partisans' characterizations of their party and the opposition, polarization seems to be the proper assessment. Democrats' and Republicans' characterization of their fellow partisans and their political opponents are virtually mirror images.
By overwhelming majorities, Democrats usually attribute negative qualities to their Republican opponents, but offer positive depictions of other Democrats. Republicans return the favor.
A few examples illustrate the point. Roughly three-quarters of Democrats believe Republicans are "too extreme." By contrast, only about one-fifth of Republicans think their party is "too extreme." Between 15 and 18 percent of Democrats say their party is "too extreme," but roughly 70% of Republicans think that about Democrats.
Another point of division is over the phrase "looking out for the country's long-term future." Roughly a quarter Democrats told Pew's interviewers this phrase applies to the GOP, but about four-fifths believe it fits their party. Only 16% of Republicans say the phrase aptly characterizes the Democrats, while three-fourths claim it applies to the GOP.
There is one note of (approximate) agreement. Just over half of the Democrats told Pew's interviewers that the GOP "has strong principles," a characterization manifested by three-quarters to four-fifths of Republicans.
Agreement breaks down, however, when the phrase is applied to the Democrats, roughly three-fourths of whom say their party "has strong principles," but only about a third of Republicans think that applies to Democrats.
A Gallup report from January, 2013 depicts a 76 percentage point gulf between Democrats' and Republicans' approval of him during his fourth year in office (January, 2012 to January, 2013). That ties George W. Bush's record during his fourth year in office.
Bush and Obama were running for re-election in their fourth year, and that might account for the level of polarization Gallup detected. It does NOT, however, account for the fact that approval gaps between Democrats and Republicans ranged from 65 to 68 percentage points in Obama's first three years in office. (One can say much the same about Bush #43, but Obama promised to be the not-Bush.)
Whether one looks at partisans' opinions on policy issues, political values, or their characterizations of their party and the opposition, the data show the American public has been badly polarized while Obama has been president. Obama has not unified the country. Perhaps the most apt thing to say about his presidency is that if Americans like their polarization, they can keep it. Period.
1a)Obama warns 'ideal world' Iran deal not possible
President BarackObama warned Saturday that Israel's vision of an "ideal" nuclear agreement with Iranwas unrealistic and put the chance of any acceptable final deal emerging at no more than 50/50.
But Obama argued that the best possible available agreement with Tehranwas likely to be better than the alternatives, and it was therefore imperative to try to secure one.He indicated that could include a very "modest" option for Iran to enrich uraniumas part of a peaceful nuclear programunder intense scrutiny by outside observers that would ensure Tehran was kept from "breakout" capacity needed to race to build an atomic weapon.
"If we could create an option in which Iran eliminated every single nut and bolt of their nuclear program and foreswore the possibility of ever having a nuclear program, and for that matter got rid of all its military capabilities, I would take it," Obama said.
"But I want to make sure everybody understands it -- that particular option is not available, so as a consequence, what we have to do is make a decision, as to given the options available, what is the best way for us to assure Iran does not get a nuclear weapon?"
Obama noted likely criticism from Israel of any final deal that did not eliminate all of Iran's nuclear infrastructure as he laid out a pragmatic case for the negotiations.
Saul Loeb/AFP
US President Barack Obama speaks alongside Saban Forum Chairman Haim Saban (R) about US, Iran and Israel and the Middle East at the 10th in Washington, DC, December 7, 2013.
"One can envision an ideal world in which Iran said 'we will destroy every element or facility and you name it it is all gone.'"
But he added: "I think we have to be more realistic and ask ourselves what puts us in a strong position to assure ourselves that Iran is not having a nuclear weapon."
Obama also made clear that the interim deal reached in Geneva last month between Iran and world powers did not grant Iran a "right to enrich," despite such interpretations of the deal by some top Iranian officials.
"We can envision a comprehensive agreement that involves extraordinary constraints and verification mechanisms and intrusive inspections but that permits Iran to have a peaceful nuclear program," Obama said.
Such a scenario, however, would not permit underground fortified facilities or advanced centrifuges.
"Now, you'll hear arguments including potentially from the (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) that says we can't accept any enrichment on Iranian soil, period, full stop, end of conversation," Obama said as he warned that such solutions of "an ideal world" were not within reach.
"There are a lot of things I can envision that would be wonderful," he said. "But ... I think we have to be more realistic."
Saul Loeb/AFP
US President Barack Obama speaks about US, Iran and Israel and the Middle East at the 10th Anniversary Saban Forum hosted by the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, December 7, 2013.
"It is my strong belief that we can envision an end state that gives us an assurance that even if they have some modest enrichment capability, it is so constrained, and the inspections intrusive, that they as a practical matter do not have breakout capacity."
Obama also sought to temper expectations on the likelihood of a successful final agreement with Tehran.
"If you asked me what is the likelihood that we’re able to arrive at the end state that I was just describing earlier, I wouldn’t say that it’s more than 50/50," he said.
"But we have to try."
The interim nuclear agreement reached in Geneva freezes aspects of Iran's nuclear program and caps its enriching of uranium.
In return, world powers offered Iran seven billion dollars worth of limited sanctions relief.
Netanyahu this week slammed the international community's "rush to accommodate" with the interim deal, describing an easing of sanctions as dangerous "political theatre."
Secretary of State John Kerry, who is just back from Israel, appeared at the same forum a few hours after Obama, and redoubled the administration's effort to convince the Israelis -- and skeptics in theUS Congress who are mulling new sanctions, that the deal was a good one.
"I am convinced that we have taken a strong first step that has made the world, and Israel, safer," Kerry said.
1b) Among 'Obama Coalition,' Obama approval plunges
By BYRON YORK
President Obama's job approval rating among Hispanic Americans has plunged
from 75 percent in...
President Obama won re-election with the rock-solid support of what has
become known as the "Obama Coalition" -- young people, minorities, women,
and low-income voters. Without a firm foundation -- and high turnout --
among those groups, Obama would not be in the White House today.
Now, little more than a year after the president's re-election, his job
approval rating has fallen among all segments of the American electorate.
become known as the "Obama Coalition" -- young people, minorities, women,
and low-income voters. Without a firm foundation -- and high turnout --
among those groups, Obama would not be in the White House today.
Now, little more than a year after the president's re-election, his job
approval rating has fallen among all segments of the American electorate.
But it has fallen the most among those who did the most to elect him.
For example, according to a new Gallup compilation, Obama's job approval
rating among Hispanic Americans has plunged from 75 percent in December 2012
to 52 percent today -- a drop of 23 percentage points, the sharpest decline
among any voter group. Among Americans who make less than $24,000 a year,
the president's approval rating has fallen from 64 percent last December to
46 percent today. Among Americans 18 to 29 years of age, it has fallen from
61 percent to 46 percent. Among women, it has fallen from 57 percent to 43
percent.
For example, according to a new Gallup compilation, Obama's job approval
rating among Hispanic Americans has plunged from 75 percent in December 2012
to 52 percent today -- a drop of 23 percentage points, the sharpest decline
among any voter group. Among Americans who make less than $24,000 a year,
the president's approval rating has fallen from 64 percent last December to
46 percent today. Among Americans 18 to 29 years of age, it has fallen from
61 percent to 46 percent. Among women, it has fallen from 57 percent to 43
percent.
The only key part of the Obama Coalition that did not experience a
double-digit drop in support for the president is black Americans, although
his support is down there, too -- from 92 percent last December to 83
percent today. Other groups among whom Obama's fall has been relatively
minor were those voters -- Republicans, conservatives -- who didn't like him
in the first place.
double-digit drop in support for the president is black Americans, although
his support is down there, too -- from 92 percent last December to 83
percent today. Other groups among whom Obama's fall has been relatively
minor were those voters -- Republicans, conservatives -- who didn't like him
in the first place.
For Democrats, a successful Obama second term, followed by the election of a
Democrat to the White House in 2016, depend on keeping the Obama Coalition
together. "The primary strategic question for supporters of progressive
values and policies is whether this coalition can be sustained going forward
and, if so, how it can be harnessed to achieve progressive policy
victories," wrote strategists Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin in a
post-election analysis for the liberal think tank Center for American
Progress. That view is shared by many other Democratic analysts. But the
Gallup numbers suggest the president's coalition is already falling apart.
That could be a critical development for the next three years, and could
have a huge effect when the next presidential election comes around.
Democrat to the White House in 2016, depend on keeping the Obama Coalition
together. "The primary strategic question for supporters of progressive
values and policies is whether this coalition can be sustained going forward
and, if so, how it can be harnessed to achieve progressive policy
victories," wrote strategists Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin in a
post-election analysis for the liberal think tank Center for American
Progress. That view is shared by many other Democratic analysts. But the
Gallup numbers suggest the president's coalition is already falling apart.
That could be a critical development for the next three years, and could
have a huge effect when the next presidential election comes around.
This from Jack Kingston:
| Eliminating Preventable Waste |
Improper Payments Cost Taxpayers More than $100 Billion Annually |
| Imagine filling up your gas tank and realizing that the price you were charged was more than the price advertised. What would you do? You would get in your car, drive away, go about your business, and fill up at the same gas station paying the same inflated price next time you needed gas, right? Wrong. As mind-boggling as it may seem, that is exactly what the federal government does every day in a whole host of programs. The price tag for this practice was $115.3 billion in 2011 alone according to the non-partisan Government Accountability Office. The government watchdog found some 79 programs spanning 17 agencies making “improper payments” and often doing nothing to recoup the wasted taxpayer resources. The rates at which some of these agencies are wasting tax dollars is astounding. The Small Business Administration’s Disaster Assistance Loan, for example, has an improper payment rate of some 28 percent. The school lunch program has a rate of 16 percent and, not to be outdone, school breakfast clocks in at 25 percent. Enough is enough. I have introduced legislation that would hold those administering these programs to account. My proposal would require agencies to submit an audit with their annual budget request to Congress. If the error rate in a program is not reduced compared to the previous year, the agency responsible would see its administrative budget reduced by the error rate percentage. Therefore if the Unemployment Insurance program cannot reduce its current improper payment rate of 12 percent by next year, the Department of Labor which runs the program would see its administrative budget cut by 12 percent. The “Eliminate Preventable Waste Act” has earned widespread support from taxpayer advocacy organizations and budget watchdogs like Americans for Prosperity, Americans for Tax Reform, Concerned Women for America, National Taxpayers Union, and others. This commonsense step would increase accountability and ensure all public officials are committed to making government more efficient and effective. After all, isn’t that a goal around which we should all be able to unite? |
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Will public disapproval of the healthcare law, Obama and Congress last into 2014 midterms?
Democrats are breathing a sigh of relief over what effectively passes as a re-launching of the Obamacare website, with some lawmakers now expressing optimism that the healthcare reform law will fall to their political benefit.
While the Fed's massive easing program has stabilized much of the economy, "the issue goes beyond that, because, even though we have very major expansion of the balance sheets, it has not essentially spilled over in lending by commercial banks into the usual pattern that one sees when reserves go up," he told CNN's "GPS" program.
So why aren't banks lending more?
"The first and most important issue to recognize in the United States — and it's a problem to an extent in other countries as well — is that the level of uncertainty about the very long-term future is far greater than at any time I particularly remember," Greenspan said.
And one political argument is that "the extent of government intervention has been so horrendous that businesses cannot basically decide what to do about the future," Greenspan said.
For example, two years ago the percentage of business cash flow that was invested in any form of capital asset was at the lowest level since 1938, he says.
"It’s improved somewhat [since then], but it is still extraordinarily low. And what we're observing there is with all this money coming in, all the profit, the cash flow, it cannot find adequate investments."
Asked for his assessment of Fed Chair-nominee Janet Yellen, Greenspan had plenty of compliments.
"Janet Yellen is an excellent economist, very intelligent," he said. "She knows exactly what is going on. I've worked with her for years. I learned a lot from her."
Yellen will handle Fed policy "as well as anyone I can think of can handle it," Greenspan said.
"But there's a different type of problem that's going to be occurring. None of us has handled this before," he added in reference to how to engineer an exit rom the Fed's unprecedented stimulus program.
"She's as qualified as anyone I know to deal with it, and sufficiently knowledgeable with that extraordinary staff at the Federal Reserve to handle it," he said.
Meanwhile, a Bloomberg survey of 35 economists after Friday's strong jobs report showed that 34 percent believe the Fed will announce a beginning of the tapering of its quantitative easing policy at its policy meeting Dec. 17-18. A slightly larger percentage — 40 percent — expect a move in March.
“Clearly the economy is performing far better than the FOMC [Federal Open Market Committee] expected, and there’s no reason not to get started with tapering,” James Smith, chief economist at Parsec Financial Management, told Bloomberg. He expects a December tapering.
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Democratic office-holders like Sen. Mary Landrieu, of Louisiana, expected to face a tough 2014 re-election campaign, are once again embracing the Affordable Care Act. But Republicans argue the Affordable Care Act remains problematic and unsalvageable for a long list of reasons that extend well beyond a website, citing concerns about issues ranging from security to individuals losing their insurance coverage.
“The American people have been learning about the impact Obamacare will have on individuals and families in the form of higher premiums, disrupted insurance, and lost jobs—more broken promises from the administration,” said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky. “And they’re becoming increasingly aware of the fact Obamacare is broken beyond repair. The only ‘fix’ is full repeal followed by step-by-step, patient-centered reforms that drive down costs and that Americans actually want.”
Rep. Steve Israel, of New York, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, countered that continued GOP attacks prove the party is only concerned with sabotaging the new law while Democrats continue their efforts to fix a broken healthcare system.
“Republicans’ only playbook is to take us back to a system that didn’t work, led hardworking people into bankruptcy and gave insurance companies unchecked power to deny care and drop coverage,” Israel said. “Democrats are going to relentlessly remind Americans that one party wants to fix the Affordable Care Act – and one party wants to repeal the law and put the fix in for insurance companies.”
When it comes to the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, Democrats and Republicans appear to agree on only one thing – the official Oct. 1 rollout was an unmitigated disaster. Under the law, everyone is required to purchase health insurance, with those unable to afford a policy receiving governmental subsidies. The official website, HealthCare.gov, was supposed to provide consumers with a marketplace to pick and choose coverage.
But the website didn’t work from the beginning. It crashed often, was extremely slow on the occasions it was operational and potential enrollees often got part way through the process before the system ate the information provided.
President Obama ultimately took responsibility for the untold number of “glitches” and vowed to have the website up and running smoothly by Dec. 1. That goal has, for the most part, been met although all problems have not been ironed out – while only about 26,000 people were able to choose a health plan in October about 100,000 people were able to make their way through the system in November.
Regardless, the devastating roll-out carried political consequences and questions remain whether Democrats, with a tenuous hold on the Senate, can recover. A CBS News poll conducted in mid-November showed that just 31 percent of Americans approved of the law, while 61 percent disapproved. The survey further showed that fewer Americans view Mr. Obama as honest and trustworthy and fewer Americans approved of congressional Democrats’ job performance.
But Democrats believe the performance upgrade provides them with an opening. Landrieu was so distressed by the law’s dismal lift-off and its potential impact on her re-election chances that she introduced legislation permitting individuals to keep their health insurance plans even if they don’t meet standards mandated by the law – a proposal unlikely to come up for a vote as a result of opposition from Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, of Nevada.
A mid-November poll conducted by Southern Media & Opinion Research showed Landrieu’s approval rating among Louisiana voters dropping 10 points over a six-month period to 47 percent, most likely because of her vote for the healthcare law. Yet, despite her ongoing concerns – “there should have not been a glitch in the software” she told MSNBC recently – Landrieu said she continues to support Obamacare.
“The Affordable Care Act, as I said, the bill itself has got very good concepts and, yes, I would support it again,” she told the network.
Sen. Mark Pryor, of Arkansas, another Democrat on shaky ground – a mid-October University of Arkansas poll showed him in a virtual tie with Rep. Tom Cotton, R-(Ark.) – remains unenthusiastic about the prospects of the law serving as an asset in his re-election campaign but it continues to carry his less than whole-hearted support.
“As I’ve said many times throughout this process, I will always work to find responsible solutions to fix problems where they exist,” he said.
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3)The World through Arab Eyes
Arab Public Opinion and the Reshaping of the Middle East
By Shibley Telhami
A Skewed Look at Arab Hearts and Minds
Telhami offers in The World through Arab Eyes a valuable if unavoidably imperfect attempt at illuminating the hearts and minds of the Arab world as revealed through public opinion polling. His book contains useful broad generalizations, revealing new data and intriguing ambiguities. But it also suffers from occasional problems: methodological flaws, unsupported or questionable single-sourced assertions, and strained interpretations that go beyond the available evidence. Arab public opinion polling as well as the analysis and policy debate surrounding it needs to be taken with a proverbial shaker of salt, a seasoning the author does not always apply.
Egyptians window shop in Cairo. Arabs' popular dislike of the United States derives mostly from a rejection of its policies rather than its values—and, more surprisingly, this dislike actually has very little effect on Arab consumer preferences or behavior.
|
On the positive side, the book provides interesting and well-organized survey data on certain broad major topics. Moreover, the author acknowledges the evidence that Arab public opinion has turned inward, toward domestic issues such as political freedoms and social justice. He also makes due allowances for the significant differences among and within diverse Arab publics.
In addition, the book offers numerous specific nuggets of information. It is interesting and important, for instance, to see that on average the Arab citizens of Israel are four times more likely to empathize with Jewish Holocaust victims than are Arabs in the six other countries polled: Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates. Or that those Arabs' popular dislike of the United States derives mostly from a rejection of its policies rather than its values—and, more surprisingly, that this dislike actually has very little effect on Arab consumer preferences or behavior. Another important data point: On a weighted average, two-thirds of those in the six Arab countries polled would accept a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; only one-quarter say the Arabs should keep fighting Israeli forever.
Equally surprising nuggets, but also plausible and useful, come from individual countries. In Saudi Arabia, the "most admired" foreign leader in 2011 was Saddam Hussein. In 2012 Egypt, two-thirds of those polled wanted Shari'a as the country's legal basis, but most (83 percent) preferred applying "the spirit of shari'ah but with adaptation to modern times"; just 17 percent opted to apply it literally, "including the penal code (hudud)."
One problem, however, is that other recent polls show dramatically different results for very similar questions. The latest Pew poll from Egypt, to cite but one case, shows that 88 percent of Muslims there favored the death penalty for apostasy.[1] This kind of discrepancy points to the problems in most contemporary Arab survey research—whether by Pew or Telhami.
The book suffers from scattered methodological omissions as well. The first is simply the failure to spell out several important procedural approaches. Were all these surveys true probability samples, or were some based on quota or even merely "convenience" samples? If the former, what precisely were the methods adopted in each case—multi-stage, stratified, geographic probability? Random walk?
Household interview selection? Statistical/demographic weighting? If these were not all standard probability samples, how truly scientific or reliable are the resulting numbers? Regardless of sampling method, how much host government supervision, permission, or intimidation took place, which might have distorted the findings?
Household interview selection? Statistical/demographic weighting? If these were not all standard probability samples, how truly scientific or reliable are the resulting numbers? Regardless of sampling method, how much host government supervision, permission, or intimidation took place, which might have distorted the findings?
Some potentially revealing numbers are also missing from the narrative. For example, one poll cited produced the unlikely result, not replicated in others conducted by this reviewer, that Hugo Chavez was once the "most admired" foreign leader among Arabs. But did he get a rating of 60 percent, 20 percent, or some other percentage? It makes a big difference—and in this and other instances, there is no telling from the text.
A different deficiency is in the choice of the countries surveyed and in the decision to stick with purely urban samples, which thereby excludes half or more of a country's total population. Thus, the book's samples hardly encompass all the Arab eyes of its title, and they completely omit crucial current developments in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, and Tunisia. Even in Egypt and other countries that are included, many of the most salient internal political issues are absent. As a result, the book has little to tell us about the great contest between the Islamist and the civil-military segments of society now underway in Egypt or about the prospects for stability or instability in Saudi Arabia, Morocco, or Jordan.
Too often the book treats all six Arab countries polled as a unit, which obscures rather than illuminates the vital differences among them. The averaged responses are weighted by population. Since Egypt has many more people than the other five countries combined, the findings are really a distorted reflection of Egyptian public opinion rather than a meaningful average of anything.
Another methodological problem is the occasional use of loaded questions on key issues. Some examples: "What aspect of al-Qaeda do you admire the most, if any?" "How important is the Palestinian issue to you?"—instead of an open-ended question like "What issues are important to you?" Given the author's repeated and correct references to Arab aversion to international pressure, why ask: "There is international pressure on Iran to curtail its nuclear program. What is your opinion?" This preamble prejudices the findings by cuing the respondents in a particular direction.
Finally, the author largely neglects other readily available Arab polls that variously corroborate, qualify, or contradict the findings from his own fieldwork. Among the obvious candidates for inclusion would have been the Pew, Gallup, Charney, PIPA, Pechter, and many Palestinian and Israeli surveys on the topics in question. Given the particular constraints and vagaries of Arab polling, no single source can be credible. In certain important cases—as on Arab attitudes toward Iran or toward selected American values—the discrepancies among different pollsters are so significant that they demand detailed accounting and explanation.
In particular, other surveys taken in the two-and-a-half years since the beginning of the 2011 Arab uprisings strongly suggest that most Arabs are now very heavily focused on their own internal issues—and not on Americans, Israelis, Palestinians, or other Arabs. This is contrary to the book's overall leitmotif. Telhami interlaces the book with observations about Arab "dignity" and "the ever-present prism of pain," attempts to reassert the primacy of the Palestinian issue and resentment of U.S. policy therein. If there were actual empirical survey support for this, as opposed to mere anecdotes, fine. But the evidence is just not there—not in the polls, not in the public squares, and not in the actual policies of Arab governments, revolutionary or otherwise. In 2011, as Telhami notes in passing, the Palestinian conflict ranked eighth out of eleven possible named priorities in an Egyptian poll—and dead last in Tunisia. Yet the author is at pains to add that "there were other indications of [its] importance," without indicating what those are.
Even if he at times concedes that today's Arab politics and public opinion are "primarily" about domestic matters rather than foreign economic, social, and political affairs, Telhami spends little time considering the ramifications of this trend.
Telhami is among the most decent, thoughtful, knowledgeable, and balanced experts in this all-too-polarized intellectual arena. There is much to be learned from this book, despite its imperfections. Yet had the author considered the substantial and directly relevant work of others like him—including mounds of complementary but occasionally quite contrary polling data—the result would have been considerably more compelling. This narrow focus is a common and even an understandable academic failing but one that is relatively easily remedied. One keeps hoping that it will be—another time.
David Pollock is the Kaufman Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and director of its bilingual Arabic/English blog, Fikra Forum. A Harvard Ph.D. and former State Department official, he is the author of Slippery Polls: Uses and Abuses of Opinion Surveys from Arab States (Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2008) andThe Arab Street: Public Opinion in the Arab World (Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1993).
[1] Neha Sahgal and Brian J. Grim "Egypt's Restrictions on Religion Coincide with Lack of Religious Tolerance," Pew Rresearch Center, Washington, D.C., July 2, 2013.
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4)
Greenspan: Economic 'Uncertainty' Greatest I Have Known
While the Fed's massive easing program has stabilized much of the economy, "the issue goes beyond that, because, even though we have very major expansion of the balance sheets, it has not essentially spilled over in lending by commercial banks into the usual pattern that one sees when reserves go up," he told CNN's "GPS" program.
So why aren't banks lending more?
"The first and most important issue to recognize in the United States — and it's a problem to an extent in other countries as well — is that the level of uncertainty about the very long-term future is far greater than at any time I particularly remember," Greenspan said.
And one political argument is that "the extent of government intervention has been so horrendous that businesses cannot basically decide what to do about the future," Greenspan said.
For example, two years ago the percentage of business cash flow that was invested in any form of capital asset was at the lowest level since 1938, he says.
"It’s improved somewhat [since then], but it is still extraordinarily low. And what we're observing there is with all this money coming in, all the profit, the cash flow, it cannot find adequate investments."
Asked for his assessment of Fed Chair-nominee Janet Yellen, Greenspan had plenty of compliments.
"Janet Yellen is an excellent economist, very intelligent," he said. "She knows exactly what is going on. I've worked with her for years. I learned a lot from her."
Yellen will handle Fed policy "as well as anyone I can think of can handle it," Greenspan said.
"But there's a different type of problem that's going to be occurring. None of us has handled this before," he added in reference to how to engineer an exit rom the Fed's unprecedented stimulus program.
"She's as qualified as anyone I know to deal with it, and sufficiently knowledgeable with that extraordinary staff at the Federal Reserve to handle it," he said.
Meanwhile, a Bloomberg survey of 35 economists after Friday's strong jobs report showed that 34 percent believe the Fed will announce a beginning of the tapering of its quantitative easing policy at its policy meeting Dec. 17-18. A slightly larger percentage — 40 percent — expect a move in March.
“Clearly the economy is performing far better than the FOMC [Federal Open Market Committee] expected, and there’s no reason not to get started with tapering,” James Smith, chief economist at Parsec Financial Management, told Bloomberg. He expects a December tapering.
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