Quote of the Day
The vision that you glorify in your mind, the ideal that you enthrone in your heart
this you will build your life by, and this you will become.
James Lane Allen
Why Can't People From Different Backgrounds Do The Same?
Will President Obama Get a Post-Bin Laden Bounce?
Did He Just Win Reelection?
(1) Yes, but not much and not for long.
(2) No. (The Week has this question as their cover sound bite today.)
GHW Bush's approval rating hit 89% after the successful conclusion of the first Gulf War, and George W. Bush hit 90% two weeks after 9/11. The first Bush went on to lost reelection in a 3-way race, not even reaching 40% of the final vote. The second Bush approval rating dipped below 50% several times during 2004, including just before his reelection, barely topping 50%.
I think that Obama may get a boost to 51% (from a current 46%) (pollster Zogby suggests that he may get as high as 10% in the The Week article), but even then I don't think it will last a month if it does. There are a number of reasons for that. First, the election of 2008 was not over military and foreign policy, and neither will the 2012. If the 2008 election had been over military and foreign policy, McCain would have won in a walk. In fact, Obama has largely followed Bush's lead in Iraq and Afghanistan (with the same Bush protégés: Defense Secretary Bob Gates and military strategist Gen. David Petraeus). Second, Obama could find himself dealing with reprisal attacks, he's also bogged down in Libya, etc.; I think, if anything, there will be questions raised about his vacillation on Gitmo, the timeliness of his decisions (e.g., the Afghanistan surge). Third, Obama may have oversold the value of a single target, however significant from a symbolic standpoint; we have perhaps a more decentralized, autonomous enemy.
Let's be clear: although the wars/occupations are of concern to many, if not most Americans, they are more concerned about an anemic economy, escalating college costs, food and gas prices and feeble job growth, an out-of-control federal budget and national debt and a highly unpopular health care plan, which two federal judges have ruled is unconstitutional, which purports to "fix" healthcare but more likely to exacerbate the health care cost bubble. I don't think they are going to forget the near tragedy of the underwear bomber because of federal bureaucratic screwups or Obama's abysmal handling of the BP oil spill disaster. I don't think they've forgotten the international apology tour, the convoluted foreign policy that is silent as revolutions in Iran and Syria are ruthlessly suppressed but a faithful ally, Egyptian President Mubarak, who had already announced he would not be running for reelection, is thrown under the bus.
Many of us, including myself in yesterday's post, have praised President Obama and especially the magnificent Navy Seals whom flawlessly executed a daring raid. In a manner of speaking, it reminded me of Operation Entebbe, a far more complex and extraordinary operation decades ago by the heroic Israelis. However, one successful daring raid does not outweigh the preponderance of evidence of a fatally flawed, grossly incompetent Presidency.
In fact, and I'm not saying this will happen, but it's very possible that Obama could get LITTLE or NO bump in the polls. Remember how there is usually a bounce in the polls following a party Presidential convention? In 2004, nominee John Kerry came out of the convention--with NO bounce. People had mostly already made up their mind about Kerry and Bush. I don't think there are people undecided about Obama. I think almost any qualified Republican without high negatives (e.g., Romney, Pawlenty, Huckabee or Daniels) will be very competitive against Obama. The bin Laden mission is only one initiative and does not make a Presidency.
Let's think about this: we have a mansion with high walls, barbed wire, 8 times bigger than anything else in the neighborhood, within walking distance of Pakistan's equivalent of West Point (US Military Academy), an hour's drive from the capital, in an area with plenty of military trainees, personnel or retirees. It is ludicrous to believe that Pakistan's notorious ISI and/or Islamic sympathizers in the Pakistan military did not know of Osama bin Laden's presence in the area and in fact some are even suggesting the mansion is an ISI guesthouse. The duplicitous behavior of our traditional ally Pakistan has long been suspected.
One of my best friends, a naturalized Indian American, used to speak to me for hours on the duplicitous nature of Musharraf, the Pakistan military and ISI, long before 9/11. In fact, I was well-aware of the radical seminaries throughout Pakistan and the ties of the Taliban to elements in Pakistan's military and/or ISI, and there was plenty of reason to believe that communications from Washington to the Pakistan government were being intercepted or otherwise leaked to the Taliban or their allies (including Al Qaeda). My personal opinion is that Musharraf as President was paying lip service to the War on Terror but was co-opting the US by providing passive-aggressive, half-hearted attempts to crack down on radicals on home soil.
ISI is officially denying any knowledge of the compound, but it's hard to believe a compound with barbed wire near a major Pakistan military academy would have escaped notice, even if for no reason than general area security, especially given multiple incidents within Pakistan over the last couple of years. No trash collection, no telecommunications, etc.
Now I have to point out, in all fairness, that Musharraf survived assassination attempts by radicals, there has been a significant amount of intelligence provided to the US, and many Pakistan military have died in the autonomous regions in north/western Pakistan. Pakistan has provided political cover for certain American military actions (e.g., drone activity) in Pakistan. President Zadari wrote an impassioned defense of Pakistan's role, noting his wife was murdered by relevant terrorists and he himself is being targeted.
Musharraf, in a recent interview, blasted the US for violating Pakistan's air space and sovereignty (he said that if Pakistan would have done the operation itself if it had been given the opportunity). I have zero tolerance for this nonsense. We made it clear to the Taliban government in Afghanistan in 2001 that we would not tolerate their protection of bin Laden. We were all but certain bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan; Musharraf certainly did not invite the US military to stabilize the northwestern region of Pakistan. He said in his autobiography he agreed to cooperate in the War on Terror based on the belief the US had otherwise threatened to bomb Pakistan into the stone age. Given the terrorists' attacks on himself, Musharraf had to realize there were security leaks in the government. Why, after spending 10 years closing in on bin Laden, we would have the possibility of losing bin Laden's location by allowing a leak, is beyond me. Musharraf should be happy that the US conducted a surgical strike for the #1 terrorist in the world without the loss of any other Pakistani lives.
Sunday Talk Soup: A Preview of 2012
On Meet the Press Sunday, there were some broad, but predictable hints of what the election next year will look like. David Axelrod, an Obama campaign advisor and former senior aide, all but got into Virginia Governor McDonnell's (R) face after McDonnell noted that any of a number of fiscally conservative, experienced former Republican governors could run a formidable campaign against Obama, pointing out that Obama has studiously avoided austerity measures and deferred the tough decisions, noting McDonnell's own record of achieving a balanced budget with spending cuts and no new taxes.
Axelrod went after McDonnell (not a 2012 candidate), claiming Kaine (the previous governor, a Democrat and 2012 Senate candidate) also made tough cuts and had to balance the budget, all but calling McDonnell a lame duck (Virginia governors are limited to a single 4-year year) and accused McDonnell of grabbing all the money he could get from the federal government, including stimulus dollars, playing budget games with delayed contributions to an underfunded pension system, and borrowing from future receipts with transportation. (One should note that McDonnell took office last year, nearly a year after passage of the stimulus bill, the transportation bill wasn't relevant to last year's balanced budget, and McDonnell is in the process of engaging in pension reform and has already restored a portion of any deferred pension funding.)
Clearly the Obama strategy will be to damn with faint praise any former governor whom wins the GOP node, i.e., so he balanced a budget: big deal! All state governors have to balance budgets, after all: they have to do it by law. All of you guys end up playing the same Enron-style accounting games. And don't you dare have the audacity to attack the President's stimulus bill--those Republican governors took all the money we took the heat for passing, while pretending to be against it.
I think that the exceptional former GOP governor/candidates are more than capable of meeting the partisan rant of a political hack like Axelrod. We have seen Democratic legislatures and governors signing off on unsustainable public sector hiring and pension commitments, over and beyond what's available in the private sector. California's aggressive regulatory policies and high taxes have resulted in corporate exits and stagnating population growth, the first time in decades California will not win any new seats while no-state-income-tax Florida and Texas add multiple new seats. Illinois under Governor Blagojevich and Pat Quinn has expanded health care programs while its pension system is all but bankrupt; they have also just hiked corporate and income tax rates without serious pension reform.
What do we see Republican governors doing, unlike their predecessors? Canceling white elephant infrastructure investments projects, with costs shared by the federal government, in states like Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey, and Florida. Cutting business taxes. Reforming public sector collective bargaining. Cutting spending in real terms, not just gimmicky rates of increase. Vetoing spending bills. Improving government responsiveness (e.g., wait times at DMV's in Indiana). Calling up special sessions.
The tactic of marginalizing the opposition, trying to impeach them by arguing they are "hypocritical"--that because a GOP Congress sometimes run deficits (versus the Democrats whom have controlled one or both chambers of Congress for 4 out of 5 years and have never run a surplus), Republicans or conservatives do not have the moral authority to talk about Obama's adding over $4T to the national debt in less than 3 years as President, or to complain about anti-growth tax policies, with the highest business taxes in the world under Obama, or to worry about the high compliance costs of 2000-page bills, just isn't going to work. Being a leader does not mean delegating a stimulus bill, with money-wasting earmarks, to Pelosi and Reid. Being a leader does not mean allowing the use the Byrd rule to pass a special-interest corrupt health care bill through Congress without a single Republican vote and contradicting a core position against an individual mandate during the campaign. Being a leader does not mean ignoring the recommendations of your own bipartisan debt reduction commission.
Fukushima Nuclear Incident Update
Atomic Power Review notes:
- Sunday evening update: Because of suspect reactor 1 instrument readings and the inability of robots to do the work, TEPCO needs to do some preliminary safety system enhancements to make work conditions safer for workers doing replacements, including installation of an air filtration system.
IAEA notes:
- daily update: They've stripped the "but improving" boilerplate language follow-up to "situation remains serious". Various radiation levels (air, seawater) remain stable/decreasing. Some 180 of 190 recent food/milk samples showed no issue with existing food safety standards; the remaining samples involved: shiitake mushrooms (5), sand lance (seafood) (3), ostrich fern and bamboo shoot.
The Hiroshima Syndrome blogger notes there are steps being taken to shore up the Daiichi site to quake-proof it more, including erection of a 12-foot stone levee to protect against another tsunami, blockading tunnels to prevent radioactive water leaking out to sea, reinforcing tunnels against cracks, and setting up additional pillar support under spent fuel pool 4. He also mentions that filling with water the primary containment for reactors 1 through 3 to further attenuate radiation risks. His Hiroshima Syndrome synopsis is interesting: he discusses TEPCO managers shooting themselves in the foot with an assessment if the Daiichi incident was an act of God or man-made, the prime minister clearly separating his government from TEPCO and rejecting the idea of cost sharing, certain TEPCO shareholders (a minority) wanting the company to close all nuclear plants, and anti-nuke columns suggesting nearly half a million cancer deaths from Fukushima Daiichi.
Political Humor
It’s the 75th anniversary of the introduction of Social Security checks. For the younger viewers who don’t know what a Social Security check is, you’ll never see one in your lifetime, so don’t worry about it." –Jay Leno
[The Democrats keep telling us not to worry about it... Why? Because they have government workers around the clock printing money and checks. You'll be guaranteed your check--you just won't be able to cash it or buy anything you need with it.]
A few originals:
- Osama bin Laden is dead. Donald Trump wants to see the long form of his death certificate.
- VP Joe Biden, when told by Obama that Donald Trump is thinking of running for President, said, "This is a big [expletive deleted] deal." When asked to comment, Trump said, "[Expletive deleted] Biden."
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
ABBA, "Summer Night City"
