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Thursday, November 19, 2009
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| NATO Should Launch Major Counterstrike in Afghanistan, Says COIN Expert |
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Here's a nifty write-up of counterinsurgency sensei David Kilcullen's speech at Johns Hopkins, delivered last night. Kilcullen's been in the news recently, warning of a "Suez-like disaster" should the White House lowball USFOR-A boss Gen McChrystal's request for 40k additional combat troops. DoD Buzz's Greg Grant gives us the synopsis.
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| No Decision on Afghan Troops before Thanksgiving |
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Nothing to fear. Though the President will likely shortchange General McChrystal's troop request, his charm, charisma, and supernatural diplomacy powers will soon make war obsolete anyway.
America's fighting men and women play a vital role in this ambitious plan.
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| Leahy: No Need to Interrogate Bin Laden |
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If bin Laden is captured, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee doesn't see any need at all to interrogate the al Qaeda founder and mastermind -- because we already have enough on him for a "conviction."
Leahy went on to defend Holder, saying "We're going to bring them back to New York and prosecute them...I think we ought to stand up and applaud that." Why would we stand up and applaud that? Democrats seem to genuinely believe that this is all a show, that as soon as the decent and law-abiding Obama administration starts giving terrorists their due process rights, our enemies will lay down their arms and simply surrender to our moral superiority. But we've already tried it this way. The first time these guys attacked the WTC, the Clinton administration did everything by the book -- due process for terrorists in U.S. courts. And how'd that work out?
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| Rubio on Health Reform |
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According to a lot of media coverage, the only difference between Florida governor Charlie Crist and former Florida House speaker Marco Rubio is that the governor supported the Obama stimulus package. Therefore, conservatives are waging an ideological crusade against Crist for straying from conservative orthodoxy on this one issue. The reality is different. Crist has a "moderate" record on other issues as well: he supported California-style emissions standards in Florida, appointed liberal judges to the Supreme Court, and though he calls himself "pro-life" he's said he can't think of a single restriction on abortion he'd favor in Florida. So conservatives are naturally backing Rubio. But what's really fueling the excitement about Rubio's candidacy is not just his beliefs but the fact that he's a young, charismatic Cuban-American who has a record of developing ideas and fighting to implement policies of conservative reform. It's unfortunate that Charlie Crist, still far ahead in the polls, continues to avoid debating Rubio. Crist is no slouch. He comes across as a likeable person, he's popular, and isn't nearly as liberal as Arlen Specter or Dede Scozzafava. So Rubio is left trying to get his message out through stump speeches and, beginning today, a series of YouTube videos. In the first "Marco In His Own Words" two-minute spot, Rubio makes the case against Obamacare as the first step to a single-payer system. He also calls for reforms on which there's a consensus. You can watch it here:
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| Ferguson and Krugman Agree on Something! |
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When Paul Krugman and Niall Ferguson agree on something, it's worth paying attention. In recent weeks, both the liberal New York Times columnist and the free-market Harvard University historian have penned op-eds calling on China to allow the renminbi to appreciate against the dollar. Here's Ferguson:
Does Obama have the pull to convince the Chinese that something like the arrangement Ferguson describes is in Beijing's interest? I'm not so sure. Which is why Chinese currency manipulation, which helped fuel the U.S. real-estate bubble in mid-decade, may be fueling a much larger asset bubble today. No one will be happy when it pops. ![]()
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| A GOP Alternative |
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Among the health-care proposals advanced so far, here is the clear order of merit: 1. the House Republican bill (the only proposal the CBO says would lower insurance premiums); 2. the status quo; 3. the massive Democratic attempts to overhaul our nation’s health-care system and dramatically increase government control. Over at NRO, however, former Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services Tevi Troy and I outline a proposal that's modeled off of the small bill presented in these pages. It would combine the best features of the House Republican bill with far more effective help for the uninsured. Our proposal would end the unfair tax on the uninsured (and self-insured)—giving them a long-overdue tax-break similar to that which is already enjoyed by those with employer-provided insurance. The proposal, which we’re hoping Senate Republicans will review and will consider adopting as the Republican alternative, would be a “triple crown” bill: It would lower health costs, significantly reduce the number of uninsured, and be deficit-neutral. The House Republican bill hit on two of these three (not bad), while the Democratic bills in the House and Senate hit on only one (the number of uninsured) while making the other two substantially worse (health costs and deficits). And unlike the Democratic bills, our proposal would also have the added advantage of not raising Americans’ taxes by hundreds of billions of dollars, or siphoning hundreds of billions of dollars out of already barely-solvent Medicare and spending it elsewhere. We hope you’ll give the proposed bill a look—and will encourage your GOP senators to do the same.
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| Schumer in 2001: "Ludicrous" to Try 9/11 Plotters in Civilian Courts |
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Via Hot Air, the Washington Times unearths a quote from New York Senator Chuck Schumer in which, just a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, Schumer mocks the idea that anyone would give the 9/11 plotters the same rights afforded to American citizens charged with pick-pocketing.
Yesterday, when Holder was asked whether bin Laden would be read Miranda rights if he were captured by U.S. forces, his answer: "that all depends..." Ed Morrissey asks, "What has changed in eight years to transform KSM and his cohorts into people who do 'deserve the same panoply of due process rights that American citizens receive'?" On that, the Washington Times was unable to get a straight answer from Schumer.
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| Uranium Deal with Iran Likely Dead |
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No surprise here, Tehran doesn't believe sanctions will materialize and have buried the lion's share of their HEU stockpiles -- and accompanying centrifuge cascades -- in a massive underground complex near the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center. Isfahan, Tehran's version of Cheyenne Mountain, is well protected by advanced Russian radar systems, surface-to-air missile batteries, and roughly 150 meters of rock and concrete. The logistical hurdles involved in destroying such a facility would be nearly insurmountable.
So Iran has very publicly played President Obama for a fool, faking their way through negotiations that were a farce from the get-go. The question now becomes one of response. Israel has indicated that the current negotiations could be Iran's last chance for a non-military solution. Now that Iran's own foreign minister has admitted that negotiations will fail, will the United States drop its objections to Israeli military action? And, more importantly, will Obama green light the massive ordnance penetrator -- a weapon widely believed designed specifically for the inaccessible Isfahan facility -- for export? Chances that the White House will order a U.S. strike hover between slim and none and equipping the capable Israeli Air Force with MOPs would essentially be the same thing as condoning an attack. It's more likely that the Obama administration has resigned itself to a restructured deterrence framework with the Iranians -- an increasingly difficult task, considering how aggressively the president is cutting both our strategic arsenals and missile defense.
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| The Daily Grind |
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The mammogram message: "Democrats cannot afford to lose the support of women on this issue, but the announcement plays into a narrative already advanced by the pro-choice movement that ObamaCare will ration healthcare for women. The Obama administration is clearly worried about this." And, this won't help. Report: Palin photographer breached contract by selling photo to Newsweek. Gay marriage opponents suing D.C. over decision not to allow a ballot initiative.
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| Putin in the House |
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Maybe he knows what really happened to Tupac?
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| Michael Boskin, Sarah Palin: Cut the Payroll Tax |
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In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, Michael Boskin made the case for a payroll tax cut:
Interestingly, Sarah Palin also has some kind words to say about the payroll tax cut in Going Rogue: "And if we really want to help the poor and middle class get through this recession, how about cutting their payroll taxes?"
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| Can Reid Protect Holder—and KSM? |
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One of several e-mails I’ve received on the KSM trial:
I agree. But when you suggest this to Senate Republicans, they point out that Majority Leader Reid is moving to the health care bill, that he will presumably get 60 votes for cloture on the motion to proceed to the bill Saturday or Monday, and that health care will then be on the floor until the (attempted) showdown final cloture vote just before Christmas. The only interruption will be a brief one, for an Omnibus bill that will take care of government funding (the Continuing Resolution runs out Dec. 18) and a few other issues—and that will be an unamendable conference report. So, it was explained to me, there are procedural obstacles to getting a floor vote on the KSM to New York issue in the near future in the Senate (and the minority has no power to start with in the House). But this isn’t a fact of nature. This is a choice Reid has made. Of course he could interrupt the health care debate for a day or two—what’s the rush on health care?, most of it doesn’t go into effect for a few years anyway, except for the taxes—to allow for a debate and vote on some version of the Lieberman-Graham legislation to reverse Holder’s reckless decision. But Reid certainly doesn’t want to do this. And House Republicans have filed a discharge petition to force their legislation to the floor. But Pelosi will put pressure on Democrats not to sign on. There will only be congressional action if popular outrage forces it. The public needs to understand that if Congress does nothing, they’re enabling Holder and the KSM trial. Especially after Holder’s appalling performance yesterday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, you wouldn’t think congressional Democrats would want to be known as Holder’s enablers. So exposing the emptiness of the arguments on Holder’s side, and putting pressure on Congress to step up to prevent KSM from getting his wish, a gold-plated trial and bully pulpit for jihad in New York, is key. The man to focus on, I think, is Harry Reid. Many Nevadans are family members or friends of those who died on 9/11. Many other Nevadans have contributed—many through serving in the military—to our efforts in the broader war on terror. If they—along with everyone else in the country—let Sen. Reid know they want an up or down vote on KSM, they might be able to force Reid to change the Senate calendar, and allow Congress to do its duty.
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Wednesday, November 18, 2009
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| Reid's 2,074-Page Health Care Bill Raises Taxes, Cuts Medicare, and Pays for Abortions |
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Harry Reid unveiled his $849 billion health-care bill tonight. It weighs in at 2,074 pages. Keith Hennessey runs through the tax hikes in the bill:
Analysis on the tax hikes from Hennessey at the link. Reid has decided to raise the Medicare payroll tax on individuals making more than $106,800; perhaps not the smartest way to boost employment. The CBO report says the bill would save $127 billion over 10 years--but as Allahpundit notes "$127 billion over 10 years sounds like a lot until you remember that $176 billion was October’s monthly deficit." We still haven't gotten a look at the CBO report to see just how bad the Medicare cuts will be [Update: The CBO (download here) reports Medicare will be cut by $491 billion over 10 years], but tell grandma and granpa not to worry: Under this bill they'll get $500 in 2010 when Harry Reid just so happens to be up for reelection. The bill also allows taxpayer-funding for abortions through the public health insurance plan and the health insurance exchanges; the language is similar to the Capps amendment that tried to conceal federal funding of abortion through an accounting gimmick (see here). National Right to Life Committee calls the amendment "completely unacceptable." Senator Mitch McConnell said in a statement: “This bill has been behind closed doors for weeks. Now, it’s America’s turn, and this will not be a short debate. Higher premiums, tax increases and Medicare cuts to pay for more government—the American people know that is not reform.”
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| Happy Hour Links |
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Andy McCarthy on the Holder hearing. Obama not planning to screw up Iraq until April or May. Ace goes supernova on Sullivan. NIAC shockingly uses the same PR firm as Qaddafi. Christian Whiton and Greg Jenkins: Hope for conservatives in California? When Jeffrey Toobin isn't busy ripping off Matt Labash he finds time to misinform New Yorker readers.
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| House Republicans Try to Force Vote on the "Keep Terrorists Out of America Act" |
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House Republicans have introduced a discharge petition to try to force a vote on a bill to keep the Obama administration from transferring Guantanamo detainees to the United States. From a press release:
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| Graham to Holder: So, Are We Mirandizing bin Laden if We Catch Him? |
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I cannot compete with Allahpundit's write-up of this exchange, from the Holder hearing today, so go forth and read his take. Holder says Miranda wouldn't be an issue in KSM trial or Osama bin Laden's because the evidence is so overwhelming against the two that prosecutors wouldn't need "custodial statements" gotten without Mirandizing them. But as Allahpundit notes, the question is what happens in the future, when soldiers on a field of battle, knowing that combatants may be tried in federal courts, have to start Mirandizing terrorists instead of interrogating them. And, if they don't do that consistently (soldiers are not supposed to be cops), does it not mean that many a future conviction of future terrorists would be impossible? Here is the video:
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| Flashback: Obama Asked Bush to Do More for the Dalai Lama |
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Way back in March 2008, widespread protests erupted across the Tibetan plateau and were brutally crushed by a massive Chinese security response. On March 28, then-Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama, who had previously shown little interest in Tibet, sent a letter to President Bush chiding him for not doing enough about the situation there and helpfully suggesting some specific steps he should be taking. A few choice selections:
How times have changed. When President Obama stood next to Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing yesterday and uttered the words "Tibet is part of the People's Republic of China", he may have been the first U.S. president to do so on Chinese soil. In any case, this was more than just an idle (and unnecessary) repeating of long-standing U.S. policy; rather it was a concession to a very specific and intensely-sought Chinese demand for this trip. In the weeks before Obama traveled to China, following on his refusal to meet with the Dalai Lama, three Tibetans were executed in Lhasa after closed trials that failed to meet minimum standards of due process, and a prominent Tibetan blogger was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his writings, without any comment from the White House. Talks between the Dalai Lama's representatives and China have been stalled for the past year. The repression on the ground has not changed, but Obama's views on how to treat those responsible for it certainly have. Instead of seeing Tibet as a priority in U.S.-China relations, he now seems to view Tibet as a cheap bargaining chip to be traded away in a futile attempt to curry favor with the Chinese. Hypocrisy we can believe in?
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| In Which One Picture Encompasses the Entire Debate About Obama's Broken Stimulus Promises |
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| Parsi: "NIAC Has a Good Name in Iran" |
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Earlier this month, when Rep. Mark Kirk accused Trita Parsi, the Iranian national who heads the oddly named National Iranian American Council, of being a "regime sympathizer," NIAC accused Kirk of making a "slanderous allegation." Yet internal emails reveal that Parsi certainly did not see himself as an opponent of the regime in Tehran. In fact, Parsi was confident that an affiliation with NIAC would be looked upon favorably by officials in Iran. In an email exchange with Parsi, Mohammad Mansouri, listed as a project manager on NIAC's website, worries "how reasonable it will be to take the risk and actually go to Iran." It's not clear whether Mansouri's concern is the threat from regime officials or from American bombs -- the correspondence is dated March 17, 2006, and came as NIAC was warning of an imminent war between the U.S. and Iran -- and Mansouri explains that given "what's going on in the world, it might be very dangerous and we may be forced to cancel [the trip]." Parsi reassures Mansouri -- "NIAC has a good name in Iran and your association with it will not harm you."
How can NIAC have had a "good name in Iran" if it was working to promote human rights, to foster democracy, and to undermine the authoritarian regime? Simple: it couldn't, and it wasn't. While the left screams about AIPAC and the "Israel Lobby," they rise to defend a man who, by his own estimation, was in the good graces of the Ahmadinejad regime as recently as two years ago. Surely that was because the regime viewed NIAC as "sympathetic." The full exchange after the jump...
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| Holder on KSM Conviction: 'Failure is Not an Option' |
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Attorney General Eric Holder seemed to take an unorthodox view of the guarantees of the American justice system today during a committee hearing about his decision to try 9/11 co-conspirators in federal courts in New York City. Asked by Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) if the justice department had contingency plans, should by some technicality, KSM and others not be successfully prosecuted, Holder replied: “Failure is not an option. These are cases that have to be won. I don’t expect that we will have a contrary result.” The answer met with audible snickers in the gallery, perhaps from those who were under the impression that the very essence of our court system is that failure to prosecute is always an option. "Well, that's an interesting point of view," Kohl said. "And, I'll leave it at that." Sen. Chuck Grassley later criticized Holder's assertion. "I don’t know how you can say failure is not an option," Grassley said. "I’m a farmer, not a lawyer, but it seemed to me ludicrous." Holder sought to soothe critics by explaining the administration has already determined that if something did go wrong, and a mistrial or acquittal happened, it would "not allow release into this country of anyone who was deemed dangerous." KSM and others would remain detained as enemy combatants, Holder said, in that case. Holder was asked on several occasions about his confidence in convictions. He said it lay in evidence that others don't have access to—evidence he had determined could be best used in U.S. courts instead of military tribunals. "My top priority is to select the venue where the government will have the opportunity to present strongest evidence," he said. Republican senators asked repeatedly why, if Holder is concerned with which evidence would be admissible, he had picked civilian courts rather than military tribunals, which have fewer restrictions on what evidence may be considered. "There is really, from my perspective, very compelling evidence that I’m not at liberty to discuss now that will probably not be revealed until we are in a trial setting," he said. "The evidence that I am not talking about I think is compelling, is not tainted, and I think it will prove to be decisive in this case." Alice Hoagland, who lost her son Mark Bingham on Flight 93, disagrees with Holder's decision about 9/11 co-conspirators, and was in the gallery for the hearing. She approached him after the hearing and the two spoke for about five minutes, surrounded by media and cameras. "It's a bit of a 'trust me' thing, I suppose," Holder told her. "There are reasons why bringing this case in an Article III (federal) court, in terms of admissibility of certain evidence, is really the right thing, and really maximizes our chances to be successful."
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| Life or Death Non-Decisions |
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President Obama responds to a question from CBS about the Afghan policy leaks:
In the same breath as Obama pats himself on the back for making the tough decisions required of a wartime president, he simultaneously concedes that no, he hasn't actually made any "life-and-death" decisions on Afghanistan over the last four months. Meanwhile, the wires are reporting once again that the president is "very close" to making an actual decision -- i.e., a decision is "just weeks away." A very generous interpretation of the phrase "very close" indeed. It's like how President Bush was "very close" to making a decision about sending federal assistance to New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, and true to his word just a few weeks later there were FEMA trailers and everything. Update: Gary Schmitt hits the above and adds:
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| "Several Democrats" Called for Military Tribunal for Moussaoui in 2001 |
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Earlier today, Dick Durbin argued no one complained about Zacarias Moussaoui's trial in civilian court. In fact, as a friend on the Hill points out, "several Democrats" said the 20th hijacker should have been tried in a military tribunal:
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| Kristol: Will Obama Overrule Holder? |
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At the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this morning, Sen. John Cornyn asked Attorney General Eric Holder about the decision he announced Friday to try some detainees, including the 9/11 plotters, in Article III courts: "Does the president agree with you?" Holder’s response: "I believe he does. I have not spoken to him directly, but the decision I made is consistent with his Archives speech...” This is ridiculous. This decision has national security, foreign policy, intelligence, and homeland security implications, as well of course as legal aspects. The idea that the Attorney General would decide how to deal with the mastermind of 9/11 without talking directly to the president is unbelievable. Either Holder isn’t telling the whole truth here, and he got guidance indirectly—if not “directly”—from his boss. Or Obama is so concerned to distance himself from the decision that he’s willing to let it appear Holder’s alone, even though that would constitute a remarkable presidential dereliction of duty. Or both. The good news is that, having decided on this kind of decision-making process—or having decided to say there was this kind of decision-making process—Obama and Holder have left the door open for Obama to overrule Holder, as he did a few months ago with respect to releasing the photos of alleged military-prisoner abuse. So the conclusion I draw from the Cornyn-Holder exchange is this: Those who want to reverse this reckless and irresponsible decision need to turn to their attention both to Congress, which could act to prevent Article III court trials for some or all Guantanamo detainees, and to the president, who could reverse Holder with a stroke of a pen or a simple statement. I imagine senators and congressmen will move ahead with legislative efforts. But they might also send a letter to the president—who hasn’t yet been “directly” involved in this decision—explaining why he should step in to overrule Holder.
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| At the Holder Hearing |
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Mary Katharine Ham is on Capitol Hill reporting on Attorney General Eric Holder's testimony to Congress and capturing lots of very interesting exchanges on Twitter: Holder says: "Failure is not an option. These are cases that have to be won. I don't expect that we'll have a contrary result." To which Senator Grassley replied: "I don't know how you can say failure is not an option...I'm a farmer, not a lawyer, but it seemed to me ludicrous." As Senator Kyl said, "How could you be more likely to get a conviction in federal court when [KSM] has already asked to plead guilty to military commission?"
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| Durbin Cites Moussaoui Trial to Defend KSM Decision |
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Andy McCarthy writes at NRO:
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| AG Holder Confirms Gitmo-Closing Deadline Will Be Missed, Questions Remain |
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Attorney General Eric Holder confirmed to the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning that Gitmo will not be closed by the initial January 2010 deadline. Holder’s comments follow President Obama’s earlier announcement that the deadline will be missed. There are, according to published accounts, around 210 detainees or so still at Gitmo. Holder offered the following breakdown for these remaining detainees. “We have more than 100 detainees who have been approved for transfer,” Holder said. Who are these detainees? The Obama administration has not said. But this seems like an awfully high number. There were roughly 250 (or so) detainees at Gitmo when the Obama administration assumed power. The Obama administration is now saying that 100 of them (40 percent) are considered transfer-worthy. This may be in addition to the 25 detainees Holder said had already been transferred. If so, that would mean that 125 detainees (50 percent), in total, are either going to be transferred or already have been under the Obama administration. Concerned parties on the Hill should push for additional transparency on this. How is it that the Obama administration determined that so many detainees, who were considered a threat by the Bush administration and military officials, should no longer be held? This question takes on more urgency when you review the Obama administration’s previous transfer decisions. Binyam Mohamed was transferred to the UK in February, despite the fact that he admittedly trained at an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan and was originally detained because he was likely traveling to the U.S. to take part in an al Qaeda attack orchestrated by senior al Qaeda members in 2002. U.S. intelligence officials never backed down from that assessment. In June, the Obama administration transferred Ahmed Zuhair -- a known al Qaeda terrorist and likely murderer of a U.S. diplomat -- to Saudi Arabia. And the Obama administration has also approved Ayman Batarfi -- a known al Qaeda doctor with troubling ties to al Qaeda’s anthrax program -- for transfer as well. Batarfi has not been transferred as of yet (at least, there has been no public announcement of Batarfi’s transfer). The Bush administration made its own mistakes in transferring detainees. The Obama administration is posed to make additional mistakes and has, in fact, already made additional mistakes. Congressmen and senators should push for additional details concerning the Obama administration’s transfer decisions. Holder also noted that “more than 40 detainees have been referred for prosecution.” Thus far, the administration has only publicly commented on 10 of the detainees who have been referred for prosecution. Who are the other 30 detainees that have been referred for prosecution? And are they going to be prosecuted in federal courts or military commissions? Finally, who are the remaining dozens of detainees that the administration hasn’t made a final decision on? Attorney General Holder has only given the broad details concerning the administration’s efforts to close Guantanamo. The devil is in the details. It is up to Congress and the press to ferret out those details.
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| Palin and Clinton Agree on Settlements |
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Sarah Palin weighs in on settlements:
J Street says Palin's comments "reveal a glaring ignorance of damaging facts and a callous disregard of past and present U.S. policy," but isn't Palin just following the administration's lead? Indeed, the Israelis continue to build -- allowing for natural growth -- and at the same time Secretary Clinton has praised the Netanyahu government's "unprecedented" concessions on settlements.
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| Palin on the Democratic Party: "Filled with More Sheep-Like Individuals" |
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In my interview with Governor Palin yesterday evening, we touched briefly on some current events, including President Obama's trip to Asia and the place of the tea-party movement in the Republican party. Some highlights: 1) I asked Palin about the anti-tax-and-spending tea parties. "I love the tea party movement," she said. "It's beautiful, it's healthy. It's part of that good healthy competition that's needed in a political party." She contrasted the somewhat tumultuous state of the GOP to what's going on in the Democratic party today. "It seems like the Democratic party is filled with more sheep-like individuals, who go along and get along," she said. I brought up the Senate primary fight in Florida between Governor Charlie Crist and former state house speaker Marco Rubio. Palin isn't ready to make an endorsement. She told me she's just starting to look at the candidates "and see what their positions are." Palin added that she is eager to meet Rubio. She worked with Crist at the Republican Governors Association and thought highly of him. "I hear good things about Rubio, too, though," she added. No question, if Palin decides to endorse a candidate in this race, her influence will be powerful. 2) Would Palin bow or curtsy to the emperor of Japan? "No," she said. She went on to say that Obama's recent bow to the emperor was "symbolic" of the new administration's "apologetic mode of operation." "I'm not comfortable with it, and I don't think most Americans are as well," Palin said. In other Asia news, Palin expressed a willingness to meet with the Dalai Lama, and said that she was happy to hear that Obama brought up the "abuse of human rights in China" during his visit. But she also said that Obama needs to focus on "getting our house in order." "There are so many things that need to be taken care of domestically," Palin said. The president, in her opinion, ought to "buckle down on the huge challenges facing our country." 3) I was surprised to learn that Palin, who is using social media to speak directly to her supporters, is the only member of the Palin family on Facebook. "Ironically, I banned the kids from using it," she said. Associate editor Matthew Continetti is the author of The Persecution of Sarah Palin.
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| Hasan Recommended His Patients Be Charged with War Crimes |
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I tweeted this a few days ago, but deliberately kept it vague. Capt. Shannon Meehan, an old college associate and former patient at Fort Hood's medical facility, said that Hasan had a reputation for telling his patients to report themselves to the legal office for war crimes, an unbelievably sick offense and deep betrayal of the doctor-patient privilege. Now that Shannon has relayed the same to the Dallas Morning News, I'll amplify.
Shannon's is a sad tale. During his deployment in Iraq, he called in an airstrike on a residence believed to double as an IED factory. The intelligence was wrong, the house was a civilian residence -- occupied by a family of eight (this is the crushing burden of leadership our young officers shoulder daily). Shannon was deeply traumatized by the horrific incident, a condition exacerbated by a severe brain injury suffered a few days later while leading his men in combat. When his road to recovery finally led him back to Fort Hood (his home station), Shannon -- in his fragile mental and physical state -- could have easily been assigned to Hasan. Fortunately, fate was on his side -- the Army placed him in the care of another therapist shortly before treatment started. The thought of soldiers having their conscience and pain manipulated by the likes of Hasan is chill inducing. This is how far the Army has been pushed and corrupted by political correctness, in that they were willing to sacrifice the mental health of their soldiers on the altar of religious and political neutrality. Aside: Though he's quick to emphasize that the quality of care he received at Fort Hood was top-notch, Shannon's most effective treatment came in the form of paper and quill. His combat memoir, Beyond Duty, was released this past fall to wide accolades.
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| Neighborhood Watch |
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The president of the United States has expressed his displeasure with Israeli government plans to build 900 new housing units in Jerusalem’s Jewish neighborhood of Gilo. Glad to know Mr. Obama, with all he has to occupy him, is able to maintain so deep an interest in city planning. But just how deep is it? And how wide? Does it extend to the Tehran neighborhoods of Naziabad, Niavaran, Farmanieh, Saadat, Abad, Shahrak, Gharb, and Vanak Square? Will he be demanding that the mullahs who send their Basij murderers into those areas to put down demonstrators discontinue doing so as a precondition for negotiations?
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| CNN Poll: Americans Oppose Public Funding of Abortion 61% to 37% (CORRECTED) |
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A new CNN poll "indicates that 61 percent of the public opposes the use of public money for abortions for women who can not afford the procedure, with 37 percent in favor of allowing the use of federal funds." How much stronger must opposition to public funding of abortion be in states like Byron Dorgan's North Dakota and Blanche Lincoln's Arkansas? What's really remarkable is that a majority of Americans oppose private insurance coverage of abortions:
In their attacks on the Stupak amendment, a number of pro-choice Democrats, like Rep. Nita Lowey of New York, have claimed that the amendment "puts new restrictions on women's access to abortion coverage in the private health insurance market even when they would pay premiums with their own money." Even the St. Petersburg Times's Politifact, which has a history of flacking for the Democratic party, reports that this claim is "false." It turns out that a majority of Americans support even the supposedly scary and radical position that Nancy Pelosi and Planned Parenthood falsely ascribe to Stupak supporters. While it's remarkable, opposition to private insurance coverage of abortion is hardly surprising. The CNN poll reports that Update: Via Ramesh Ponnuru, the Washington Post/ABC poll had a similar finding:
Correction: 63 percent of Americans believe abortion should be illegal or legal in only a few circumstances. I had originally reported 55% believed so. That number was from a 2005 poll.
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| The Tinny Bravado of Eric Holder |
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In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, Eric Holder will say, according to the Associated Press, that "I have every confidence the nation and the world will see him for the coward he is....I'm not scared of what (Mohammed) will have to say at trial and no one else needs to be either." And, "we need not cower in the face of this enemy. Our institutions are strong, our infrastructure is sturdy, our resolve is firm, and our people are ready." I suppose we should be grateful Holder is calling Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a coward, rather than describing the American people as "a nation of cowards" (as he did earlier this year). But is anyone else struck by the tinny bravado of Holder's prose? When politically correct careerists start beating their chests and proclaiming their own courage--you know they're in deep trouble. Let's see how Holder does today when he finishes posturing and has to answer the intellectually serious and morally compelling criticisms of his plan to grant KSM and his fellow terrorists a trial in federal court in New York. And if he does badly (as I expect), let's see if some congressional Democrats have the courage to break with the administration and join in passing legislation to block Holder's plan.
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Tuesday, November 17, 2009
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| Happy Hour Links |
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The White House realizes there are no settlements in Jerusalem -- and yet their position remains unclear. David Frum says it isn't enough to take Trita Parsi at his word. Russia gives Georgia the 411: We're annexing your sovereign territory. Ace examines the "diplomacy of deference." "He ought to get professional help, perhaps from Maj. Nidal." Good news: Terrorist lawyer and enabler Lynne Stewart may get a longer sentence. Obama's going to get to that whole Afghanistan war thing any day now. Flashback from the day of the Ft. Hood massacre: watch Dr. Phil and Shoshana Johnson attack this former Army JAG for daring to suggest that Major Nidal Hasan might be a jihadist. How about having all three back on for a follow-up?
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| Palin on Nidal Hasan: "Profile Away" |
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I spoke to Governor Palin by phone this afternoon. Lots of interesting material, but to me the most interesting takeaways were the following: 1) I asked about Palin's upcoming visit to Ft. Hood. "We had planned on that before the tragedy struck," she said. She commented on the trail of evidence linking the alleged Ft. Hood shooter, Maj. Nidal Hasan, to militant Islam. "There were such clear, obvious, massive warning signs that were missed," she said. "This terrorist, even having business cards" that identified him as an "SoA" or soldier of Allah. Palin blamed a culture of political correctness and other decisions that "prevented -- I'm going to say it -- profiling" of someone with Hasan's extremist ideology. "I say, profile away," Palin said. Such political correctness, she continued, "could be our downfall." If the upcoming investigations into the attack reveal bad decision-making on the part of senior officials, Palin continued, those officials ought to be fired. Palin visits Ft. Hood on December 4. She plans to donate all the royalties from her book-signing there to the families of the victims. 2) I also asked Governor Palin about Attorney General Holder's decision to try September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohamed in federal court in New York City. "Does KSM deserve constitutional rights?" I asked. Palin's response: "Not no, but hell no." And she went on: "That was an atrocious decision," she said. "And it makes a mockery of our judicial system." She focused in particular on the fear that "war criminals" like KSM and his accomplices will use the trial as a "platform" to denigrate America. More Palin to come, including her thoughts on President Obama's trip to Asia and the role of the tea-party movement in the GOP ... Associate editor Matthew Continetti is the author of The Persecution of Sarah Palin.
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| Parsi: "Our Views on Ross May Resemble Tehran's" |
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As NIAC prepared its duplicitous campaign to scuttle the appointment of Dennis Ross as the Obama administration's envoy to Iran, Trita Parsi and his policy director, Patrick Disney, conferred with their allies on two separate listservs to devise a strategy. The date was January 7, 2009, and as the administration started floating names to reporters, Disney suggested that the group and its allies (which presumably included J Street, already a participant in NIAC's Campaign for a New American Policy in Iran) to "start a conversation about what our response will be if Dennis Ross is named Iran envoy." Disney explained that "NIAC is obviously still formulating a plan, but we're exploring the idea of coming out publicly, and relatively strongly, against Ross." In the end, NIAC decided not to come out publicly against Ross, choosing instead to lobby Congress and the administration behind closed doors while sending out fundraising appeals casting Ross as a fellow proponent of engagement and a victim of the same "smears" being launched against NIAC. Disney concludes that "if it's simply impossible for us to work with Ross, we should be in a position to say I told you so after he messes everything up." Eleven months later and everything is messed up, but not because of Ross. Indeed it seems like NIAC's strategy of engagement minus sanctions has not produced any result other than providing the Iranian regime with more time to work on their nuclear weapons program and kill dissidents. But Parsi was acutely aware of the fact that on this issue, like so many others, his views closely resembled those of the regime in Tehran. Parsi wrote,
Because Parsi and his group chose not to go on record with their objections to Ross but to lobby against his appointment behind closed doors, no one could connect the dots that both NIAC and Tehran happened to have the same view of the appointment. The effect of NIAC's duplicity is that the group was lobbying for Tehran's preferred outcome (the scuttling of the Ross appointment) while appearing before its members and the press as though it was supporting the administration approach. That is shady pool. But here's another question: how did Parsi know what Tehran's view of the Ross appointment was two weeks before Obama was even inaugurated? Is Parsi so plugged in to the regime that he would have a good sense of Tehran's disposition on this subject? Did Parsi simply assume that the regime would not welcome the appointment of a Jew as the administration's interlocutor? Or is there some other explanation? And now that Ross has been moved out of the Iran job, and John Limbert, a member of NIAC's board, has been installed in his place, it seems fair to ask whether it was NIAC's objections or Tehran's objections that ultimately led to Ross's departure. Is there even a difference between the two? The full email exchange after the jump...
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| Inspector General: Geithner Overpaid AIG in Bailout |
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Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is in trouble again, and this time he may not be able to save his job. You’ll recall that his confirmation was threatened by revelations of cheating on his income taxes. Now he’s accused of paying billions too much for the bailout of AIG and allowing the insurance firm’s Wall Street creditors -- Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Wachovia -- to be paid in full for their derivative contracts with $27.1 billion in taxpayers’ money. The accusation comes from Neil Barofsky, the inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in a report issued yesterday. At the time of the bailout in September 2008, Geithner was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Rather than bargain with AIG and its creditors for a reasonable bailout, Geithner agreed to pay “an amount far above the market value at the time,” the report said. The bailouts for the big creditors was agreed to by Geithner “even though senior policy makers contend that assistance to AIG’s counterparties was not a relevant consideration in fashioning the assistance to AIG.” In extending $85 billion in credit to AIG, Barofsky said, the New York Fed “did not craft its own terms and instead simply adopted in substantial part the economic terms of a draft term sheet under consideration by a consortium of private banks, which included a high interest rate.” The banks, which had declined to help AIG, “believed AIG’s liquidity needs exceeded the value of the company’s assets.” The shorthand of what the inspector general concluded is this: Geithner bailed out AIG and its investment bank creditors without negotiating for tougher terms that would have saved the taxpayers billions. And he did this though one of the “counterparties” was willing to agree to concession. In Geithner’s defense, Barofsky noted that Fed officials “believe they will recoup the loan made to AIG to pay off the big creditors. The private report, first disclosed by Huffington Post, is officially titled “Factors Affecting Efforts to Limit Payments to AIG Counterparties.” The Republican to call for Geithner’s resignation as treasury secretary was Rob Simmons, a former House member who is running for the Republican nomination for the Senate seat in Connecticut held by Chris Dodd. Polls show Simmons running ahead of Dodd. In a statement, Simmons said: “The cozy relationships between the bailed out financial companies and powerful politicians like Tim Geithner and Chris Dodd are exactly why Americans have lost trust in Washington, D.C., and why we need new leadership with the skills and integrity to clean up the mess and get our economy back on track.” As the Barofsky report circulates on Capitol Hill, more Republicans are likely to raise the matter of Geithner’s conduct in the AIG case. “There were already serious doubts about Secretary Geithner’s credibility, stemming from his failure to pay taxes and subsequent poor performance,” Simmons said.
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| Finally: The Douglas Elmendorf Profile! |
![]() For anyone who's been in Washington for the past year, it's become increasingly obvious that the only moments of true bipartisanship come when everyone in the city is waiting for Douglas Elmendorf to deliver a CBO report. No matter which persuasion, political junkies universally hunker down with their e-mail accounts and Twitter on constant refresh mode as Washington awaits another all-important judgment from the fiscal overlord of the federal government. Douglas Elmendorf, the CBO economist on whose numbers the world waits, is the very picture of the kind of unlikely, unassuming man whom the geeky business of politics makes into an unwitting celebrity. The New York Times, in an interesting and fair piece, takes a look at the toll the numbers take on the numbers man.
The glamorous life of the Elmendorf (who is, incidentally, a Democrat):
In a way that's also quintessentially Washington, Elmendorf's celebrity comes with all the criticism and none of the glitter, all downside and no up:
Also revealed: Elmendorf coaches his daughters' youth soccer team on weekends, has a black Labrador, and generally behaves in exactly the way you'd expect a man named Douglas Elmendorf to behave, even if it means he'll lose friends over the numbers:
Douglas Elmendorf, avatar of unaffected, average, honorable Americanness, found against all odds in the abyss of the federal government's finances. As a longtime Elmendorf fan, I say it's downright Capra-esque.
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| The Art of the Unintellectual Critique of Palin's 'Insufficient Intellectualism' |
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There are thoughtful arguments to be made against Sarah Palin's future as a national politician, her persona as a conservative folk hero, her political ideology. Relatively few liberals or critics in the media bother to make them. It's a testament to how thoroughly they caricatured her the first time around, and how little respect she warrants in some circles, that all questions about her are presumed perfectly settled, and serious engagement about her is often treated as a nuisance to be avoided. To them, Palin is audacious (not in that good, Obama way) and out-of-line to even write a book. Her criticisms of the McCain campaign leakers who anonymously bashed her while the campaign was still going on are "ungrateful." To venture to promote the book is more audacious still, and means she gets exactly what's coming to her in all interviews and coverage, no matter how unfair. The fact that the book she's daring to promote is selling extremely well means more license still to sully the woman from Alaska once again. I've heard each of these sentiments uttered or implied by pundits or reporters in print, on Twitter, or on TV this week. The thoughtlessness of these critics, who never see the irony in attacking Palin's alleged anti-intellectualism using debunked doctored photos of the governor in a bikini, is crystallized in Ana Marie Cox's review of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue today. It is perhaps overly generous to call the Washington Post piece a review. It reads like an off-the-cuff e-mail to a friend with very low standards in e-mail correspondence. It's atrocious, not in its assessments necessarily (of which there are few), but in its laziness. I hesitate to excerpt much of it, because at 379 words, I would quickly be dealing with questions of fair use, but here's a taste:
It's a Washington Post book review, for goodness' sake, not a note you pass in between classes before that book report you totz didn't prepare for. In the print version of the article, Cox is introduced as a national correspondent for Air America who has described Palin as "crazypants with arrogant sauce on top," right before she criticizes Palin's take on campaign strategy as unsophisticated. Feel free to click over and read her devastating, postcard-length critique of Palin's, ahem, lack of substance. But if you're short on time, skip it, and read our own Matt Continetti's thoughtful review of the same book, also in the Washington Post today—a juxtaposition by which Cox's effort suffers all the more. Sure, I'm biased, so here's a taste of his review by which you can judge:
I was originally just going to use this post to tout Continetti's review, but Cox's review was so emblematic of the frequent laziness and lack of professionalism that characterizes media coverage of Palin, that I thought it important to point out. For more from Matt on Palin for the Palinistas in the audience, try his book.
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| Laughable WH Claim on Jerusalem: Our Position is Clear |
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Israel has approved the construction of some 900 housing units in their own capital city, Jerusalem:
To which the White House responds:
Obviously this administration's approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict has been so successful, there is no need to adjust the rhetoric. Just keep making demands of the Israelis and expressing dismay and offering objections and the peace process will, no doubt, get on back on track any moment now. But let's be clear -- the Obama administration's position on Jerusalem is not clear. From the moment during the campaign that Obama declared "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided," to the subsequent walkback, to the demand that all settlement construction in East Jerusalem come to an end, to the subsequent walkback on that -- nobody knows what this administration's position is on Jerusalem, least of all the parties involved in the peace process. The only "achievement" this administration can claim is having driven the Israeli public into Bibi's arms, helping him solidify his support across party lines, and destroying President Obama's credibility with the Israeli public -- smart power.
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| Mr. El Baradei’s Secrets |
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Where lie the sympathies of the UN nuclear watchdog agency's chief dog has been no secret: Mohammed El Baradei earned his 2005 Nobel Peace Prize not for shepherding rogue states to denuclearization—on the contrary, North Korea and Iran spent his (soon-to-be-over) watch as head of the IAEA in a frenzy of development and proliferation—but rather for spending his years in the anti-nuke saddle singling out the Bush administration and Israel for vicious criticism. Beyond his purview, maybe, and very non-aligned-movementy of him, but bad sympathies alone do their mischief only in the ether. It’s where reverse transubstantiation occurs—words into deeds—that the real harm lies, and Mr. El Baradei has been engaging in some of that recently, securing a legacy he may one day wish he hadn't. In August, the AP revealed he’d been sitting for a year on “compelling” intelligence about Iran’s active pursuit of “research into developing nuclear warheads and the way to deliver them”; in September, the French foreign minister excoriated him for omitting this crucial information from his report to the Agency’s September 14 General Conference; in October, he described a newly-uncovered secret nuclear site near Qom as "a hole in the mountain . . . nothing to be worried about," suggesting at best an extremely poor job of inspecting, and at worst shameful—treasonous?—colluding. And just today, TimesOnline reports that Mr. El Baradei has conspired secretly with the Iranian despots on the formulation of a “deal to persuade world powers to lift sanctions and allow Tehran to retain the bulk of its nuclear programme in return for co-operation with UN inspectors.” How beautiful the irony that the UN's chief champion of a nuke-free peace is a collaborator with tyrants threatening the destruction of Israel, and that the defense of the West on this issue has been left to France. Yet there’s some comfort in knowing Mr. El Baradei’s days there are numbered—the moment of his retirement cannot come too soon—and in believing the UN will be hard-put to find someone worse to fill his shoes.
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| Health Care, Afghanistan, and Palin |
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Americans disapprove of the way Obama is handling health care by a 49-47 percent margin, according to the latest Washington Post poll. Americans disapprove of Obama's handling of Afghanistan by a 48-45 margin. In April of this year 63 percent of Americans approved of Obama's handling of that conflict -- that support is now down 18 points. And why wouldn't it be -- Obama has showed zero leadership on that issue. Meanwhile, Obama has broken the record for travel in the first year of his presidency and the DNC has sent out no less than 5 releases this morning attacking Sarah Palin. I understand that the Democrats fear Sarah, but maybe this administration and its allies could better spend their time making the case for the incumbent president and his increasingly unpopular policies?
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| The Daily Grind |
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The doc-fix's decline: The conflicting maneuvers suggest that, rather than a permanent solution, the best the doctors might get is yet another one- or two-year fix, which could threaten their support for health care reform. Stop the presses: Obama "braved" freezing temperatures in China. What's the matter with Arkansas? "Lincoln, a second-term senator, helped write some of the legislation's key provisions as a member of the Finance Committee, and her sometimes uncomfortable role near the center of the debate could cost her in culturally conservative Arkansas. Despite the potential benefits for many in her state, polls show her support weakening, and constituents are expressing doubts about the proposed overhaul." Thinking the American public and system wants Dodd's perpetual TARP legislation would be like assuming they desperately want a sequel to "Gigli." Meet the GOP's 2012 dark horses. The Obama administration wants you to pay back your tax credit now that he's gotten credit for the campaign promise. DVR alert: Vice President Biden tapes an appearance for Comedy Central’s “Daily Show.” Obama's town hall in which he criticized censorship in China, censored by China. Late, but still hilarious, which is a testament to the Onion staff's skills:
Obama's Home Teleprompter Malfunctions During Family Dinner
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| Petitioners File Brief in Chicago Handgun Ban Challenge
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The petitioners in McDonald v. Chicago, the Supreme Court case challenging Chicago's handgun ban, filed their merits brief yesterday, and it's a doozy. Rather than just citing the well-established Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the brief invokes the long-dead Privileges and Immunities Clause and seeks to overturn three 19th-century Supreme Court cases. From SCOTUSblog:
The brief spends only seven pages addressing the Due Process Clause. Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Orin Kerr is impressed by the novel approach:
Or, to put it another way, it's like calling a pass play on fourth and two on your own 28*. But like any good gamble, there are heavy rewards if the petitioners win out. Lower courts cited the Cruikshank and Presser decisions in ruling the Second Amendment only applied to the federal government. If the Supreme Court overturns those antiquated decisions (Cruikshank also rather quaintly ruled that the First Amendment did not apply to the states), it will definitively close a line of argument used for decades to restrict Second Amendment rights.
 One good sign for the petitioners: The Court hinted that it didn't consider Cruikshank good law when it struck down D.C.'s handgun ban in 2008.
 The city of Chicago now has 30 days to file its merits brief. You can read the full petitioner's brief here. 
*Which was the correct decision according to The Numbers.





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| Obama's Town Hall in China |
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When President Obama took the stage in Shanghai on Monday for his faux town-hall with 400 carefully selected While the Chinese government's countermeasures to control the event are unsurprising, the degree to which the Obama administration went along with them should be. At one point there were reports that the advance team working on the trip was fighting back against the Chinese efforts at control, but those efforts apparently stopped at some point over the weekend and the Obama team gave in to Chinese demands for a tightly controlled forum. In the end, Obama seemed uncomfortable dealing with the non-responsive crowd, which did not laugh at his jokes despite their apparent English fluency, and he seemed to be self-censoring, even in response to the "tough and straightforward" questions about how it felt to win the Nobel Peace Prize. When he did get a serious question such as on Taiwan arms sales or his knowledge of the Great Fire Wall that tightly controls access to the internet in China, he ducked and flinched. In an otherwise decent answer to the Internet censorship question, in which he praised the value of freedom of information in American society (albeit in typically self-regarding terms), he undercut his whole message by referring to the "different traditions" that Chinese internet users supposedly have. Huh? Nevermind that his predecessors were somehow able to get the Chinese to agree to let them speak on live TV. As the White House explained in response to criticisms of Obama's lack of direct contact with the Chinese people, he really was unable to do more because of the shortness of his trip (during which he reportedly did manage some sight-seeing at the Great Wall and Forbidden City). But you would never know there was any controversy about any of this from reading the White House website, which referred to the town-hall as "unprecedented" and "historic." Yes--I suppose it was both those things, in that it has now set a new low standard for what American presidents can expect in terms of their ability to directly address the Chinese people without the filter of China's authoritarian government. Apparently oblivious to all this, Katie Lillie, the White House Director of Press Advance told the White House Blog that: "What was so amazing to her about today’s town hall in Shanghai, was the similarities it had to hundreds of events held all over the United States during the campaign." Well, that explains a lot.
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| The Future of the Obama Bow |
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On the homepage, James W. Ceaser asks: will President Obama show as much respect for the Dalai Lama as he did for the emperor of Japan?
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Monday, November 16, 2009
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| Keeping America Safe from AG Holder |
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Keep America Safe is joining forces with The Bravest and 9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America to encourage people to attend AG Eric Holder's appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning. The hearing promises to be a major event, with Holder answering questions about his decision to bring KSM and other 9/11 plotters to New York City for trials in federal criminal courts:
More details here.
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| U.S. President and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Silent on Dalai Lama in Asia |
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President Obama has responded to critics of the administration's weak human rights policies by getting tough on Asian abusers during his trip.  Sort of.  While sitting across the table from the Burmese junta's prime minister, General Thein Sein, at the US-ASEAN Summit in Singapore, President Obama publicly and privately reiterated the pointed statements on Burma he had made earlier in the week in Tokyo.  According to NSC spokesman Ben Rhodes:
Contrast his vigorous advocacy for Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma's democrats, however, with his unwillingness to mention the name of another Asian Nobel Peace Prize winner: the Dalai Lama. Â There was no mention of the Dalai Lama or the situation in Tibet in Obama's remarks in Tokyo or, so far as we know, during his time in China. Despite having been given a serious opening by the Chinese Foreign Ministry's ham-fisted moral equivalence of the American Civil War and the Chinese occupation of Tibet, Obama used a vague reference to the rights of "ethnic and religious minorities" when talking about human rights to the Communist Youth League representatives who participated his so-called town hall in Shanghai. There was no teachable moment for China's future leaders. Â While he may yet raise concerns about Tibet during his bilateral meetings in Beijing, none of us will know what he said and how his interlocutors responded. Â It is good to know that Obama is willing to stand up for his fellow Nobel Peace Laureates and the suffering people they represent. Â Except when he isn't. Â
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| Happy Hour Links |
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Joementum, in Israel, says Iran "has failed the test." While Obama dithers on Afghanistan, Lang Sias asks what happened to the "fierce urgency of now." Steve Clemons says "the dark side has taken hold at the White House." Fact: It took 11 AP reporters to fact-check Palin's book. Jamie Kirchick asks what NIAC is and who it represents. Iran to establish "cyber police" -- but Obama and NIAC will bear witness.
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| Obama Art (cont.) |
![]() Even Chinese artists are fired up (!) about President Barack Hussein Obama. At right is a work created by Chinese artist Liu Bolin. It's a bronze bust laced with gas lines so that every few minutes President Obama is engulfed in blue flame. (Much as he will be during his Assumption.) Says Liu, "He's so hot right now, so I wanted to translate that through my work. . . . Yes, setting something on fire can have negative connotations, but this piece represents energy and life that Obama has given to the world." The AP report helpfully notes that Liu made a similar piece commemorating Mao Zedong. Our first Pacific PresidentTM is also being celebrated in Beijing with "Oba Mao" T-shirts picturing Obama dressed as a Red Guard soldier. In America, this sort of thing might set Robert Gibbs off on one of his sputtering sneers of indignation. Happily, in China the image is meant as a compliment. It's all about context.
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| Dual Loyalty Would Be an Improvement |
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Andrew Sullivan is digging in to defend Trita Parsi -- and to attack Parsi's critics:
It is not a classic neoconservative move to accuse people of dual loyalty -- it's a classic Sullivan move. Neoconservatives tend to be pretty careful not to accuse people of dual loyalties. And, of course, nobody is accusing Parsi of dual loyalties -- we're asking if he has any allegiance to America at all. Parsi is not, contra Sullivan, an "Iranian-American." Parsi is not an American citizen, and yet he claims to speak on behalf of Iranian-Americans. Parsi did not even have a green card when he started NIAC, and the organization he set up before NIAC sought only to "safeguard Iran's and Iranian interests." Dual loyalty would be a huge improvement I think. Meanwhile, Sullivan sees in all this a neoconservative plot to undermine Iran's opposition. "Smearing the non-neocon Green opposition as essentially pro-Khamenei solidifies the neoconservative war project," Sullivan writes. If Parsi is part of the opposition, why was he working to silence regime dissidents? After the jump is an email exchange between Parsi and Siamak Namazi, who helped Parsi establish the group that sought to "safeguard Iran's and Iranian interests," and Hadi Semati, an Iranian who served as an adviser to Khatami, in which they plot to keep Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, a former Iranian parliamentarian who resigned in protest over her government's crackdown on reformers, from participating in a panel discussion on the democracy movement in Iran. The panel was sponsored by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Iranian Students for Democracy and Human Rights. Parsi first asks his two confederates, only one of whom is an actual Iranian-American, "Will either of you discuss with Haghighatjoo how she should deliver her message on the Hill?" The problem, it seems, was that Haghighatjoo supported the idea that Americans should do more than "bear witness," as Obama likes to say, to the repression of the Iranian people. Namazi responds that "I spoke to her in Boston and tried to emphasize that she should not go around saying 'we need foreign help to promote democracy in Iran' w/o being very clear." Semati then chimes in to explain that while Haghighatjoo is a "very brave and genuine democrat...[she] does not know the field at all." Semati, an Iranian national, wants democracy to "develope [sic] authentically from within" Iran. And Semati adds that he is "very skeptical of the true intent of the US." And then Parsi returns to the conversation and offers to intervene himself if necessary. "I am fond of convincing Iranians of the hostile intentions many players in DC based on my own observations from within Congress," Parsi writes. So what does that mean? Parsi is an Iranian national working to convince Iranian dissidents of the "hostile intentions" of those who would give voice to regime dissidents -- something isn't right here. It was Parsi who wanted to kill the The email exchange is after the jump -- read it from the bottom up.
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| Obama Admin. Actuary: Status Quo Actually Slightly More 'Sustainable' Than House Bill |
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According to a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services report:
This is not the first entire justification fail of the health-care reform process, nor will it be the last. Why? Because as "Saturday Night Live" notes, "The President wants to pass a health-care bill so bad that he will literally sign anything...As long as it's a stack of paper with the words 'health care' on it, he'll sign it." Because what's important in this time of 10.2 percent unemployment is to pay several trillion dollars to preserve the fantasy that Congress knows anything about bringing down the cost of health care, despite the fact that the fallacy has been laid bare on numerous occasions by lawmakers, CBO, CMS, and trusty common sense. Now, go forth, and get that giant, directionless hodge-podge of made-up policy remedies and government largesse on the president's desk before the make-believe deadline of the end of the year, lawmakers! That'll fix everything.
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| RE: Stimu-Less |
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In light of ABC's reporting on the Obama adminstration's reporting do-over on stimulus jobs, which slashed 60,000 jobs from the count due to funky reports, please click over to this new interactive map of bogus stimulus job reports. Hey, Recovery.gov has its map. And, now recovery doubters have a map of their own, which charts the locations of more than 75,000 fake "saved or created" jobs boasted by stimulus-boosters.
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| Stimu-less (Cont.) |
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Ross Douthat writes in the New York Times:
It's not entirely clear that unemployment will matter "much, much more" than the Democrats' health-care legislation, but it will obviously be a very big issue in 2010. Here are just a few articles from around the country that Republicans are highlighting to show that the stimulus package isn't doing what President Obama said it would do. The Detroit Free Press: "Car orders not lifting auto jobs"
The Greenville News in
The Atlanta Journal Constitution: "Georgia jobs created by stimulus dollars overstated"
There is no doubt much more muckraking to be done on the Obama administration's claims of jobs "created or saved" by the stimulus package. And the national media are beginning to catch on. This just in from ABC News:
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| Just Plain Wrong |
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Normally I tend not to get as worked up about our national eating habits like, say, the Center for Science in the Public Interest or Mayor Bloomberg. Is there an obesity problem in America? Sure. Childhood obesity even moreso. Do we need to ban trans-fats from cities like New York or sue fast-food giants because their food makes us fat? Probably not. But what about enormous cupcakes the size of your kitchen microwave? And what about the commercials for them on children’s channels like Sprout? I’m talking about Big Top Cupcake. And this, I firmly believe, must be stopped, if necessary, by congressional legislation. Judge for yourself. (And if you think this is directed toward large birthday parties, notice how the “cupcake” is served to only two kids!)
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| The Daily Grind |
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Jen Rubin corrects the L.A. Times: "And to prevent (Ft. Hood) from happening again, we need to get over the diversity fetish (which imagines that Americans are too dumb to distinguish between nonviolent Muslims and those who've adopted a murderous ideology) and get on with the business of fighting a war against those who want many, many more Fort Hoods." Finding an impartial jury for KSM should be easy, right? WSJ: Meet the health-care rationing commission. "Going Rogue" reviewed: "This is not the prejudiced, dim-witted ideologue of the popular liberal imagination." U.S. Chamber and other critics of Obamacare plan an economic study to illuminate the job-killer. Barone advises a Democratic president, whose job-saving policies are hard to recognize, but job-killing policies are obvious: "So here is a suggestion for the jobs summit. The president should put on again the bipartisan hat he wore during much of the campaign and embrace the proposal by some Republicans for a payroll tax holiday. Cutting our most regressive tax should appeal to Democrats. And it would immediately reduce the cost of job creation. Voting for health care legislation may or may not help incumbents. Voting for a payroll tax cut would." Another illustrious member of the Party of Tax Hikes has to go pay her back taxes before running. Heart-ache: Health care is least wished for Christmas gift in a New York Magazine poll. Video: The UCONN College Republicans explore the prevalence of the bowing protocol Obama observed with Akihito:
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| NIAC and J Street: Lobbying and Lying |
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NIAC and J Street might seem at first an odd alliance. J Street is "pro-peace, pro-Israel" and NIAC is pro-engagement, pro-Iran. But J Street isn't all that pro-Israel, and NIAC will take any allies it can find in the fight against sanctions, so few and far between are such organizations in Washington. J Street director Jeremy Ben-Ami co-authored an op-ed with NIAC chief Trita Parsi making the (extremely unpopular in the Jewish community) argument against sanctions. J Street invited Parsi to speak at their conference last month. And the two groups have together constructed and embraced a narrative that explains away all the questions about their credibility and legitimacy as the work of the same nefarious right-wing conspiracy. But follow the money and the tie that binds seems to be George Soros, who provides substantial funding to both groups. Also, Morton Halperin, one of the top men at Soros's Open Society Institute, sits on the boards of both J Street and NIAC. As Ben Smith reported Friday, Soros pays the salary of the NIAC staffer who runs the Campaign for a New Policy on Iran. Documents reveal that J Street participated in the discussions that determined the group's agenda. And there's another thing the groups have in common: they've both been caught telling their supporters they've taken one position while lobbying behind the scenes for the exact opposite outcome. Jennifer Rubin notes two examples of this dishonest conduct. J Street declared publicly that it would not lobby against passage of a resolution in the House of Representatives condemning the Goldstone Report. (Neither would J Street support the resolution, of course. The group's position was somewhere between oppose and support.) Yet this blog reported and Morton Halperin has not denied that either he or someone in his office was the author of a letter circulated to members of Congress and signed by Judge Goldstone. J Street, or at least one of its top advisers, was actively lobbying against the resolution and in support of Goldstone. NIAC gets caught in a similar lie. Eli Lake's Washington Times report details NIAC's campaign to "create a media controversy," in the words of one NIAC staffer, in order to scuttle the appointment of Dennis Ross to oversee Iran policy. NIAC failed, but just last week NIAC put on its website a "Myths and Facts" page to set the record straight about the organization's work:
So after trying to kill Ross's appointment in a secret and perhaps illegal lobbying campaign, the group touts Ross on its website as a "distinguished policy maker" who is the victim of neoconservative smears. Now we know that the smears against Ross were being conceived and directed by the staff at NIAC, and all the while NIAC was playing the victim. Trita Parsi has charmed his way into the very heart of the "progressive left," and no progressive organization has been more easily or completely charmed than J Street. So what is a "pro-peace, pro-Israel" group doing allying itself so closely with a man who is himself so closely allied with a Holocaust-denying regime that daily threatens the existence of the State of Israel? And why is it that neither organization is able to represent in public the views that they so aggressively promote behind closed doors?
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| Awlaki (We Think) Speaks |
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Anwar al Awlaki, the radical cleric contacted by Major Nidal Malik Hasan, gave an interview to a "terrorism expert" who spoke on behalf of the Washington Post. (See the story for WaPo disclaimers/cautions.) Awlaki , who issued a statement praising Hasan for his killing spree, says he neither directed nor pressured Hasan to kill US Army soldiers. But according to the Post: On Dec. 23, 2008, days after he said Hasan first e-mailed him, Aulaqi also posted online words encouraging attacks on U.S. soldiers, writing: "The bullets of the fighters of Afghanistan and Iraq are a reflection of the feelings of the Muslims towards America," according to the NEFA Foundation, a private South Carolina group that monitors extremist Web sites. The FBI and others familiar with Hasan's emails to Awlaki have described them as "benign" and consistent with his research. It's always good to be skeptical of self-serving accounts from al Qaeda clerics, but Awlaki has a different view. Again, according to the WaPo: Aulaqi described Hasan as a man who took his Muslim faith seriously, and who was eager to understand how to interpret Islamic sharia law. In the e-mails, Hasan appeared to question U.S. involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and often used "evidence from sharia that what America was doing should be confronted," the cleric told Shaea. Who is telling the truth? We should see the emails.
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Sunday, November 15, 2009
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| Kristol and Cheney on KSM's Trial in Civilian Court |
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In the online-only "Panel Plus" segment of Fox News Sunday, the boss and Liz Cheney continued their assault on the Obama administration's decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and his associates in a federal court in New York City. You can watch it here:
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| The Bow as “Protocol” |
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Politico reports that “A senior administration official said President Barack Obama was simply observing protocol when he bowed to Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko upon arriving at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on Saturday.” Why won’t that “senior administration official” come out from behind the curtain and make that assertion in his own name? Because it’s nonsense. As these photos make clear, numerous heads of state and the former U.S. vice president didn't bow to the emperor; they shook hands. The New York Times criticized Bill Clinton in 1994 for almost bowing to the Japanese emperor. We await the release of a State Department briefing paper that says it’s “protocol” for an American president to bow to a Japanese emperor.
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| When is Obama Going to Meet with McChrystal? |
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The Hill reports that a Republican member of Congress is claiming that he was denied access to General Stanley McChrystal during a recent trip to Afghanistan:
This raises a larger question about whether the Obama administration is trying to muzzle General McChrystal. White House aides opposed to the deployment of additional troops to Afghanistan have been shamelessly leaking details of National Security Council meetings and classified cables even after National Security Advisor Jim Jones chastised General McChrystal in early October for publicly discussing his request and explaining why other options, such as a more limited counterterrorism strategy, would not be successful. The administration has rejected repeated requests, including from some Democrats, for General McChrystal to be allowed to appear in front of Congress to discuss his assessment. Last month, the Washington Post reported that prior to President Obama making his final decision, General Jones said that the president would meet again in person with General McChrystal. "When the White House is ready, he said, McChrystal -- along with the U.S. ambassadors to Afghanistan and Pakistan -- will fly to Washington so that the three 'can meet with the president before a decision is made.'" President Obama told reporters in Tokyo that he would make a decision "soon." Does he still plan to meet with General McChrystal in person to tell him whether he is rejecting his strategy and request for additional troops?
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