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Part of an e-mail sent from Michael Mann in 1999:
Hi Phil,
SOrry that you have taken such a negative spin from this. I had hoped it was all resolved pretty amicably, and emphasized to Keith and Tim that I was being perhaps overly picky this time PRECISELY to avoid the misunderstanding that happened last time around w/ Science.
Trust that I’m certainly on board w/ you that we’re all working towards a common goal. That is what is distressing about commentarys (yours from last year, and potentially, without us having had approprimate input, Keith and Tim’s now) that appear to “divide and conquer”. The skeptics happily took your commentary last year as reason to doubt our results! In fact, your piece was references in several commentaries (mostly on the WEB, not published) attacking our work. So THAT is what this is all about. It is in the NAME of the common effort we’re all engaged in, that I have voiced concerns about language and details in this latest commentary–so as to avoid precisely that scenario.
Please understand the above to be a complete and honest statement about the source of my concerns. It really doesn’t have anything to do about who did what first, etc. I trust that history will give us all proper credit for what we’re doing here.
You can read the rest here. Sounds like he’s working with his friends to prevent any criticism of his work.
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A letter written by climate scientist Tom Wigley in response to a solicitation from a group of 11 climate scientists who were soliciting support for “immediate control of emissions” prior to the Kyoto agreement. The letter is dated 11/25/97:
Dear Eleven,
I was very disturbed by your recent letter, and your attempt to get others to endorse it. Not only do I disagree with the content of this letter, but I also believe that you have severely distorted the IPCC “view” when you say that “the latest IPCC assessment makes a convincing economic case for immediate control of emissions.” In contrast to the one-sided opinion expressed in your letter, IPCC WGIII SAR and TP3 review the literature and the issues in a balanced way presenting arguments in support of both “immediate control” and the spectrum of more cost-effective options. It is not IPCC’s role to make “convincing cases” for any particular policy option; nor does it. However, most IPCC readers would draw the conclusion that the balance of economic evidence favors the emissions trajectories given in the WRE paper. This is contrary to your statement.
This is a complex issue, and your misrepresentation of it does you a dis-service. To someone like me, who knows the science, it is apparent that you are presenting a personal view, not an informed, balanced scientific assessment. What is unfortunate is that this will not be apparent to the vast majority of scientists you have contacted. In issues like this, scientists have an added responsibility to keep their personal views separate from the science, and to make it clear to others when they diverge from the objectivity they (hopefully) adhere to in their scientific research. I think you have failed to do this.
Your approach of trying to gain scientific credibility for your personal views by asking people to endorse your letter is reprehensible. No scientist who wishes to maintain respect in the community should ever endorse any statement unless they have examined the issue fully themselves. You are asking people to prostitute themselves by doing just this! I fear that some will endorse your letter, in the mistaken belief that you are making a balanced and knowledgeable assessment of the science — when, in fact, you are presenting a flawed view that neither accords with IPCC nor with the bulk of the scientific and economic literature on the subject.
Let me remind you of the science. The issue you address is one of the timing of emissions reductions below BAU. Note that this is not the same as the timing of action — and note that your letter categorically addresses the former rather than the latter issue. Emissions reduction timing is epitomized by the differences between the Sxxx and WRExxx pathways towards CO2 concentration stabilization. It has been clearly demonstrated in the literature that the mitigation costs of following an Sxxx pathway are up to five times the cost of following an equivalent WRExxx pathway. It has also been shown that there is likely to be an equal or greater cost differential for non-Annex I countries, and that the economic burden in Annex I countries would fall disproportionately on poorer people.
Furthermore, since there has been no credible analysis of the benefits (averted impacts) side of the equation, it is impossible to assess fully the benefits differential between the Sxxx and WRExxx stabilization profiles. Indeed, uncertainties in predicting the regional details of future climate change that would arise from following these pathways, and the even greater uncertainties that attend any assessment of the impacts of such climate changes, preclude any credible assessment of the relative benefits. As shown in the WRE paper (Nature v. 379, pp. 240-243), the differentials at the global-mean level are so small, at most a few tenths of a degree Celsius and a few cm in sea level rise and declining to minuscule amounts as the pathways approach the SAME target, that it is unlikely that an analysis of future climate data could even distinguish between the pathways. Certainly, given the much larger noise at the regional level, and noting that even the absolute changes in many variables at the regional level remain within the noise out to 2030 or later, the two pathways would certainly be indistinguishable at the regional level until well into the 21st century.
The crux of this issue is developing policies for controlling greenhouse gas emissions where the reductions relative to BAU are neither too much, too soon (which could cause serious economic hardship to those who are most vulnerable, poor people and poor countries) nor too little, too late (which could lead to future impacts that would be bad for future generations of the same groups). Our ability to quantify the economic consequences of “too much, too soon” is far better than our ability to quantify the impacts that might arise from “too little, too late” — to the extent that we cannot even define what this means! You appear to be putting too much weight on the highly uncertain impacts side of the equation. Worse than this, you have not even explained what the issues are. In my judgment, you are behaving in an irresponsible way that does you little credit. Furthermore, you have compounded your sin by actually putting a lie into the mouths of innocents (”after carefully examining the question of timing of emissions reductions, we find the arguments against postponement to be more compelling”). People who endorse your letter will NOT have “carefully examined” the issue.
When scientists color the science with their own PERSONAL views or make categorical statements without presenting the evidence for such statements, they have a clear responsibility to state that that is what they are doing. You have failed to do so. Indeed, what you are doing is, in my view, a form of dishonesty more subtle but no less egregious than the statements made by the greenhouse skeptics, Michaels, Singer et al. I find this extremely disturbing.
Tom Wigley
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This is a case of grade A media bias. It’s so blatant that only MSNBC could pull something like this and not be ashamed. Remember this video?
Click here to view the embedded video.
Susan Roesgen, the CNN reporter in that clip, was fired three months later. Kudos to CNN for not allowing this blatant display of bias to define their network.
Now have a look at this clip (just watch the first 20 seconds):
Click here to view the embedded video.
What you don’t see just before the clip starts is a long roving shot of Norah just walking down the line of people waiting to see Palin. Norah just happens to stop and ask this particular 17 year-old girl about her t-shirt. And Norah just happens to have this johnny-on-the-spot response which leaves the girl flummoxed.
Here’s what really happened as told by the girl in that clip:
I was first approached by a New York Times writer who wrote what my shirt said and then asked me a couple questions. She asked me what it was I liked about Sarah Palin. I said, “As a young female she is someone I can look up to, before her the only prominent female in politics I had known about was Hilary Clinton, whom I respect don’t get me wrong, I respect her but when you don’t agree with someone it’s hard to really look up to them. I like how Sarah Palin will speak her mind, regardless of what the media will say about it.”
….Seconds later I met her… One of the many faces of liberal media bias. She asked me my name and then before going on air asked me why I liked Sarah Palin, I repeated what I told the NYT reporter. Norah didn’t seem to like that much…I noticed her look down at my shirt then, she turned around blackberry in hand spoke to a man, thumbs tapping the blackberry…then jotted down a quick note. Little did I know that note would be used against me. She told us she’d be walking up to us. You know like she just stumbled upon us.
The shot began… I kept telling myself answer her question well, don’t freak out. Well, I thought she’d ask me the same question. She asked the man beside me…the same question she had before we went on air. Myself on the other hand, not the same story. She had me read my shirt and then proceeded to ask me “Did you know Sarah Palin supported the bailout” to be 100% honest I was like, are you kidding me? She is trying to use my shirt against me. I was so shocked by the craftiness she had that I was truly stumped. I asked her where she got her fact and she read her little note.
Sarah Palin oppo-researcher impersonates journalist on MSNBC, film at 11.
Actually, this is much worse than Susan Roesgen. Susan Roesgen, biased as she was, was at least speaking off-the-cuff. Norah O’Donnell actually set up this little gotcha moment as if she were Michael Moore. She didn’t know the facts (or wasn’t sure of them), so she had to check them on her blackberry, but then she made it look as if it were all spur of the moment.
Of course Norah O’Donnell knows that a VP never disagrees with the head of the ticket and McCain supported the TARP bailout. But, hey, it’s all in a day’s work at MSNBC. If you can embarrass a 17 year-old on camera at a Sarah Palin event, you go for it.
Susan Roesgen deserved to lose her job. CNN chose not to let blatant on-air bias define them. What Norah O’Donnell did is worse. MSNBC should fire Norah O’Donnell. Until that happens (I won’t hold my breath) some enterprising reporter should ask Robert Gibbs if this is why MSNBC is the White House’s favorite network.
[HT: Hot Air headlines for the link to the 17 year old blogger]
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From Der Spiegel:
The planet’s temperature curve rose sharply for almost 30 years, as global temperatures increased by an average of 0.7 degrees Celsius (1.25 degrees Fahrenheit) from the 1970s to the late 1990s. “At present, however, the warming is taking a break,” confirms meteorologist Mojib Latif of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in the northern German city of Kiel. Latif, one of Germany’s best-known climatologists, says that the temperature curve has reached a plateau. “There can be no argument about that,” he says. “We have to face that fact.”
Even though the temperature standstill probably has no effect on the long-term warming trend, it does raise doubts about the predictive value of climate models, and it is also a political issue. For months, climate change skeptics have been gloating over the findings on their Internet forums. This has prompted many a climatologist to treat the temperature data in public with a sense of shame, thereby damaging their own credibility.
“It cannot be denied that this is one of the hottest issues in the scientific community,” says Jochem Marotzke, director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg. “We don’t really know why this stagnation is taking place at this point.”
Just a few weeks ago, Britain’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research added more fuel to the fire with its latest calculations of global average temperatures. According to the Hadley figures, the world grew warmer by 0.07 degrees Celsius from 1999 to 2008 and not by the 0.2 degrees Celsius assumed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And, say the British experts, when their figure is adjusted for two naturally occurring climate phenomena, El Niño and La Niña, the resulting temperature trend is reduced to 0.0 degrees Celsius — in other words, a standstill.
How many trillion dollars are we going to use to stop something that hasn’t been happening the last decade?
Related: Scientists caught trying to cover up “bad data” that showed no warming.
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From Time magazine:
There can be something thrilling about accountability, so it was nice to see a federal judge declare the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers directly responsible for the destruction of most of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. The blistering ruling validates the rage felt by so many survivors — and may put them in line for some much needed cash. It also provides an always welcome opportunity for those of us who have banged our spoons on our high chairs about the culpability of the Corps again and again and again to say we told you so. And it could help spread a message to millions of Americans who still think the tragedy of Katrina was the government’s response to the disaster rather than the government’s creation of the disaster.
The idea that Katrina wasn’t Bush’s fault is probably a novel one to most Americans. That the Mayor and Governor were Democrats was inconsequential. The media pounded us with the idea that all that really mattered was how much Bush cared. Clearly, not enough. The Democrats got a lot of mileage out of that fact-free bit of demagoguery.
The lesson of Katrina doesn’t just apply to hurricanes. Health care reform is a government made disaster in the making. Sure, Medicare is a disaster now, but the government fix is going to be the thing that sends a storm surge of red ink over the levies. When it happens, you can bet the left and their media allies will be ready to shift the blame to the nearest Republican.
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Defense Secretary Robert Gates just exposed David Axelrod as being either ignorant or a liar on the President’s dithering over the decision on more troops for Afghanistan. Here’s Axelrod in an interview with Politico just this past Sunday:
White House senior adviser David Axelrod, who attends the deliberations but says he does not “have a seat at the table,” told POLITICO that the impatience on the momentous decision is a symptom of today’s “A.D.D. political culture.”
“It’s related to politics,” Axelrod said. “No matter what decision he makes, if he were to send troops, the first brigade would not arrive until next spring. So this notion that he is delaying is simply not true. He’s been strong in asking [questions]. He understands what the parameters are for this decision and he’s not going to be pushed into it in order to deal with any kind of transient political controversy.”
And here is Defense Secretary Robert Gates in an interview released by the Associated Press just minutes ago:
“I anticipate that as soon as the president makes his decision, we can probably begin flowing some forces pretty quickly after that,” Gates said.
I’m no military expert but “pretty quickly” sounds like something slightly more immediate than next March or April. And I’ll take the word of the Defense Secretary on this over that of a political hack like Axelrod.
So was Axelrod clueless or was he lying? If the former, I’m sure this wouldn’t be the first (or last) time that Axelrod spoke without knowing what the hell he is talking about. But since according to Axelrod he’s been attending the meetings on Afghan policy, I’m not so willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. The question of how quickly troops could be deployed had to have come up on more than one occasion.
Perhaps he was counting on the President to delay this decision until after the first of the year, at which point the initial deployment would be close enough to next spring to not really matter. But in any case, it’s clear he was being less than truthful given that based on Gates’ statement we’d probably have more troops on the ground now if Obama had made this decision back in September.
The fact that Axelrod would lie in defense of the President is not a surprise. But what’s really troubling is that for this Administration the political calculus has taken precedence over the safety of our troops. And although he chose his words poorly, I think Fred Thompson is right.
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I liked the ring of that headline and you’ll see how it fits in a moment. But actually, I thought Victor Davis Hanson’s piece on Palin was four stars. Well, three and a half anyway. VDH sets out to answer two questions:
1) What drives this fear and loathing?
2) How does one, then, assess the Palin phenomenon?
He comes up with three answers to the first one. Feminism, elitism, and populism. This bit on elitism seemed spot-on:
Liberal elites are, well, deemed elites because they predicate their stature on things such as where they went to school, where they live, how much money they have access to, where their children attend university, and whom they know—all done in a sort of understated, coded fashion. The best snobbery is the least stated.
When a Wasilla, you betcha, no abortion, Christian PTA mom comes on the scene with an Idaho BA, then red flags go up.
Hanson goes on to say that she’s really attractive and that probably doesn’t help. But VDH leaves out a fourth component of liberals Palin-phobia, her faith. Granted, this could be just one more issue under the elitism angle, but it’s odd that he doesn’t mention it at all.
From the moment she appeared on the scene, her faith was an issue. Follow that link and you’ll see that the same day she was picked as McCain’s VP, Daily Kos diarists were already calling her a “dominionist.” Claims were made that she was against the teaching of evolution (she wasn’t). Claims were made that she’d called dinosaurs “lizards of Satan” (she hadn’t, though Hollywood idot Matt Damon apparently believed it). Claims were made that she tried to ban books from the library (she hadn’t). In short, the theocratic boogeyman was in full effect.
Most significant of all was a piece of video tape showing Palin speaking at a church. She prayed the following:
Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God…That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.
In the hands of the Associated Press, that became this:
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told ministry students at her former church that the United States sent troops to fight in the Iraq war on a “task that is from God.”…
“Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God,” she said. “That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God’s plan.”
Notice that the word “pray” has vanished from the AP version of her statement. What was intended as an imprecation has now been transformed into a declarative statement of fact.
From the AP to Charlie Gibson. In her first big interview since her selection, Gibson confronted Palin with the AP version of the quote:
GIBSON: You said recently, in your old church, “Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God.” Are we fighting a holy war?
PALIN: You know, I don’t know if that was my exact quote.
GIBSON: Exact words.
Only those weren’t her exact words. Gibson blew. ABC blew it. The AP blew it. But none of them ever explained the error or apologized for it. ABC simply edited out Gibson’s reaction when the tape was shown on the West Coast.
I’m sure VDH is aware of all of this, so why not mention it? Is it because this is the one bit of anti-Palin elitism he’s sympathetic with? His recent defense of Charles Johnson’s turn to “creationism” watchdog suggests it’s a real possibility.
Dr. Hanson ends with an insightful defense of the real world vs. academia as a qualifier for high office:
I would trust the judgment of someone with Palin’s background on matters of Iran or Honduras or Putin far more than I would someone of Obama’s resume. I would trust my neighbor who farms 180 acres more than I would a chairman of an academic department. I know, I know, there are extreme binaries, but they are reflective of the lack of autonomy and physicality today and the undue emphasis on elite schooling as prerequisites for success. We know now that you can do nothing and still finish as the head of Harvard Law Review, or win a Nobel Prize, but if you miss an antlered moose, or run out of gas in the tundra, or fall overboard on a salmon boat, there is no Norwegian committee or Harvard Law Dean to bail you out.
All true. But he might also have noted that it’s often the most sheltered and most privileged who find faith in God most unnecessary.
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Stealing the clip from Hot Air. Just watch (it’s near the end):
That was yesterday. Schumer’s completely on board with Holder now. In fact, his only concern it appears is that NY not get stuck with the cost of security.
However, the Washington Times finds he used to feel quite differently. Back in 2001, just a few weeks after 9/11, he said:
[T]hose who commit acts of war against the United States, particularly those who have no color of citizenship, don’t deserve the same panoply of due process rights that American citizens receive. Should Osama bin Laden be captured alive—and I imagine most Americans hope he won’t be captured alive. But if he is, it is ludicrous to suggest he should be tried in a Federal court on Center Street in Lower Manhattan.
It’s still ludicrous, Chuck.
BTW, that NY Times piece actually throws out the possibility that this trial could last a year! The guy was prepared to plead guilty. What are we going to be doing in court for a year?
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From the Guardian:
The Cuban president, Raúl Castro, has crushed dissent and continued repression in the country since taking over from his brother Fidel, according to a Human Rights Watch report published today.
Didn’t I recently see images of Cuba in Michael Moore’s movie Sicko? He ridiculed the idea that it was a horrible place. Here’s a clip. Scroll in to about 2:40.
The report, New Castro, Same Cuba, paints a near-dystopian image of an island where those who step out of line risk being beaten and jailed in horrific conditions which verge on torture.
That can’t be right. They have great health care and stuff.
The government has extended use of an “Orwellian” law that allows the state to punish people before they commit a crime on suspicion they may do so…
“The most Orwellian of Cuba’s laws, it captures the essence of the Cuban government’s repressive mindset, which views anyone who acts out of step with the government as a potential threat and thus worthy of punishment,” the report said. It documented more than 40 cases in which individuals were jailed for “dangerousness”, including such things as handing out copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, staging rallies, writing articles critical of the government, and trying to organise independent unions.
Portraying rallies and speech critical of the government as “dangerous.” Sort of like MSNBC’s treatment of the tea parties?
Jails were overcrowded, unhygienic and unhealthy, leading to extensive malnutrition and illness, the report said, and political prisoners were routinely subjected to extended solitary confinement, beatings, restrictions of visits and the denial of medical care. “Taken together, these forms of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment may rise to the level of torture.”
How many prisoners in Cuba can only wish they were in Gitmo?
Although Obama has eased some restrictions, he has pledged to maintain the embargo to keep pressure on Raúl Castro, Fidel’s brother and successor.
Something tells me his heart isn’t in it though.
In June, in a move symbolic of the thaw, the US shut off an electronic billboard outside the office looking after its interests in Havana. It had irked the Castro government with pro-Democracy news and messages.
Trying not to “irk” tyrants who brutally repress the rights of their own citizens…now that sounds more like the Barack Obama I’ve come to know.
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I love California. I also hate California:
Energy Commissioners say the new TV ban will save Californians one billion dollars a year in electricity costs, but some customers told 17 News they don’t want the government telling them what kind of TV to buy. Martin Garcia will likely buy an energy efficient LCD flat screen TV, but he disagrees with the new state law that forces him to do so.
“It’s good for the environment and I’m all for it but I hate for the government telling you what kind of TV you should have in your home,” Garcia said…
The law would ban all TVs under 58 inches that energy commissioners say are inefficient. The LG 42-inch LCD is a big seller, and under the new law, it has to use less than 183 watts, which it does. That brand will stay on the shelves. However, the less expensive Panasonic 42-inch plasma will have to go.
You guessed it. I own a 42″ Panasonic Plasma. It’s a great TV. I compared it to the LG LCD and you know what? Plasma looks better. But it’s the equivalent of running an extra 100 watt light bulb, and the state has decided that’s unacceptable.
Did I mention that I hate California?
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All 2,074 pages of it are available here for your reading pleasure. The initial CBO scoring summary is available here. No major surprises that I’ve seen or heard about yet. The bill includes a public option with a state “opt-out” provision. The total cost of the legislation is being touted as $848 billion over the initial 10-year budget window. With a net deficit reduction of $130 billion over this same period. Like with every other version of the bill so far, the credibility of these numbers rests entirely on whether you believe that Congress is likely to sustain the substantial ($436B) cuts in Medicare and Medicaid programs included in the bill. (Put me in the skeptical category.)
The one interesting data point from my initial review of the CBO’s analysis is that a substantial portion of the net deficit reduction seems to stem from the inclusion of a brand new, federally-sponsored assisted living insurance plan.
Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) provisions, which would establish a voluntary federal program for long-term care insurance. Active workers could purchase coverage, usually through their employer. Premiums would be set to cover the full cost of the program as measured on an actuarial basis. However, the program’s cash flows would show net receipts for a number of years, followed by net outlays in subsequent decades. In particular, the program would pay out far less in benefits than it would receive in premiums over the 10-year budget window, reducing deficits by about $72 billion over that period, including about $2 billion in savings to Medicaid.
Unless I have misunderstood the CBO’s analysis, this means that a full $72B of the $130B in deficit reduction (55%) is due to a temporary revenue spike based on the fact that the CLASS program would initially receive more in premiums than it would pay out in benefits. But as the CBO report makes clear, this situation would begin to reverse in subsequent decades as program beneficiaries reach the golden years where assisted living services will be required. Similar to how the Social Security and Medicare surpluses of decades past are now quickly turning into massive deficits. So in other words, a brand new entitlement program (which has barely even been mentioned up until this point) is actually being used to tout the deficit REDUCING effects of this bill.
Watch for the White House and Senate leadership to tout the misleading $130B figure, and we’ll see if anyone in the media reports on the impact of the CLASS program. And of course this is only just the beginning of what is likely to be an extended debate and amendment process in the Senate that will only add to the cost of the final bill.
But let’s not kid ourselves. This bill will be finessed and touted as “deficit neutral” whether it costs $850B or $900B – or more. Justifiably or not, the only thing that can sink this bill at this stage, short of some sort of external shock or calamity, is the politics over abortion and/or the public option. Barring that, this monstrosity of government spending and public entitlement is going through. Whether we like it or not.
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What’s an enlightened Commander-in-Chief to do when presiding over a conflict we are widely perceived to be losing? Signal to the enemy that we have a fixed time-line for withdrawal, of course:
In an interview with CNN, Obama said he would soon announce the results of a long-awaited review, which would include an exit strategy to avoid “a multi-year occupation that won’t serve the interests of the United States”.
“The American people will have a lot of clarity about what we’re doing, how we’re going to succeed, how much this thing is going to cost, what kind of burden does this place on our young men and women in uniform and, most importantly, what’s the end game on this thing,” he said.
“My preference would be not to hand off anything to the next president. One of the things I’d like is the next president to be able to come in and say I’ve got a clean slate.”
Of course don’t expect the actual announcement to arrive until after the passage of the health reform bill, or until it clears the Senate at least. When it does arrive, no doubt the new and improved strategy will include a greater emphasis on building up the Afghan security forces, and generally shifting more of the burden onto them. All couched as the “path to victory” of course. The only question is whether this “victory” will be foreordained by 2012 or 2016.
The President is also signaling that he intends to approve a significant increase in troops. All this talk about an exit strategy is really directed to the President’s liberal base, and even more so to the increasing number of independent voters who are opposed to an ongoing commitment in Afghanistan. It’s a politically motivated attempt to stem the ongoing fall in his approval rating, and that of his party, leading into the mid-term elections next year.
Here’s the problem: the enemy is paying attention too. And given that their strategy consists chiefly of waiting us out, it seems more than a little unwise to signal our intentions to leave within a defined window of time. Just ask our friend Anwar Al-Awlaki. He was speaking about Iraq, but his words readily apply here as well:
The US has come to the conclusion that they cannot do the job alone and they must seek the assistance of the munafiqeen (hypocrites.) With all of the outside and inside forces combining efforts to fight the carriers of the truth in Iraq our brothers do not need to win in order to be victorious. All what they need to do is hang on. If they succeed in that they are winning. The invader cannot stay there forever. Allah know best but it seems that outside circumstances around the world may ultimately come to their relief.
If you are feeling a sense of déja vu over this issue, it’s because the central disagreement between the Bush Administration and liberals in Congress over Iraq was whether there should be a fixed timetable for withdrawal. In spite of the success of the surge, the Democrats essentially won the battle for public opinion over this with the congressional elections in 2006. And no doubt the public will be largely supportive of a timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan as well.
But if a lasting victory over Al Qaeda and Islamic extremists is the goal, then a fixed timetable for withdrawal is tantamount to surrender. At least it will be as far as our enemies are concerned. And given the unique and global nature of this conflict, winning the PR battle is just as important as succeeding in our military engagements.
The security of our nation is not a “game”, and if we leave Afghanistan (and Iraq) before the job is done the only “clean slate” will be in the imaginations of those who desire to go back to a pre-9/11 mentality. The tragedy at Fort Hood – the first terrorist attack on our shores since 9/11 – should serve as a reminder to us all of the seriousness of this threat.
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The Wall Street Journal has an analysis of the Stupak amendment which indicates the impact will be small:
Just 13% of abortions nationwide are billed to private insurance, according to a 2001 study by the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights but is cited as a reliable source of data by both sides in the abortion debate. An unknown number of people might seek reimbursement from their insurance company after the procedure. Applying the 13% figure to the most recent abortion data available suggests that fewer than 160,000 women a year rely on insurance to cover the cost of an abortion upfront.
The only significant impact would be on late term abortions, which in my mind is all the more reason to support Stupak:
The restrictions in the House bill would forbid federally subsidized insurance plans from covering these abortions, even in cases of fatal fetal deformities.
That angered a 29-year-old Colorado woman who had a second-trimester abortion last week. The woman said she works full time but can afford only catastrophic health insurance, which didn’t cover abortion, so she borrowed from relatives and emptied her savings to pay the $2,000 bill.
She had been hoping Congress would make insurance more affordable, but without abortion coverage, she said it wouldn’t truly be comprehensive. “It’s really frustrating,” she said. “It’s a woman’s choice, and this infringes on that choice.”
Typical liberal, teenager-logic: It’s my choice and I expect you to pay for it!
The proper response to the old pro-choice slogan “keep your laws off my uterus” is “keep your choice out of my wallet.” You want to kill your own children, do it with your own money. Speaking for a majority of members of Congress and a majority of Americans, we don’t want any part of it.
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Some districts they saved and some they just created:
ABC News found that Recovery.gov, the government Web site created to track the [stimulus] expenditures, had many job creation and stimulus spending figures that were attributed to congressional districts that do not exist, or that were incorrectly identified.
Do you get the impression they aren’t being all that careful with the data?
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From Politico:
Mounting evidence that independent voters have soured on the Democrats is prompting a debate among party officials about what rhetorical and substantive changes are needed to halt the damage.
Following serious setbacks with independents in off-year elections earlier this month, White House officials attributed the defeats to local factors and said President Barack Obama sees no need to reposition his own image or the Democratic message.
Since then, however, a flurry of new polls makes clear that Democrats are facing deeper problems with independents…
Andrew Myers, who polled for Democrats in Virginia House of Delegates races this year, said his analysis of exit polls indicated that voters had come to see Democrats as a party of high spending — too willing to make a rush for the pocketbooks and unable to effectively articulate how their health care reform push benefited independents, many of whom already have insurance plans.
You mean that plan to spend 2 trillion dollars, raise premiums, and drive insurance companies out of business. Yeah, it’s probably a message problem. Just tweak the language a bit and you’ll be fine.
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You’ve probably already heard about the flap over Newsweek’s cover photo of Sarah Palin. The shot they used was not taken by Newsweek but by a running magazine for a profile earlier this year. You can see how this would work for a running magazine.
But it’s pretty obvious a photo of Sarah Palin in shorts and jogging shoes placed beside the subheading “She’s bad news for the GOP–and for everybody else, too” is designed to ridicule her. Message: She’s not to be taken seriously.
Newsweek editor Jon Meacham responded to the criticism, saying “We chose the most interesting image available to us to illustrate the theme of the cover, which is what we always try to do.”
Sure it is, Jon Evan. You might want to let Eleanor Clift know that’s your explanation. She wrote a post at Newsweek attempting to explain the reaction to the cover shot. According to Clift, Palin is a hero of mediocrity to mediocre white guys in flyover country, but she works out so, you know, that’s something. This is the kind of esteem in which the Newsweek regulars hold Palin.
Of course this is hardly Newsweek’s first foray into liberal hackdom. I caught one of their senior editors in an outright lie about tea party protesters here. Newsweek also seemed to have a coordinated roll in the White House’s war on Fox News. No one bothered to explain that though.
Even after all this, I’m willing to take Newsweek seriously if they show that they really are equal opportunity offenders. Here’s a cover I expect to see next week:
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Probably not as significant as the study’s authors are hoping:
Rivals on the dating scene could make one feel closer to God, according to new research that suggests one’s religiousness may be more closely related to mating strategies than previously known.
In experiments with 269 college students, researchers found that both men and women apparently felt more religious when they saw attractive potential competitors.
[...]
“Our guess at this point is that seeing attractive members of one’s sex makes it less likely that you will be able to play a fast and loose mating strategy, because the competition is likely to be too tough,” Li said.
As such, the researchers conjecture that people might become more religious when rivals are present since religion often involves rules that police sex. Alternatively, people might say they are more religious to be more attractive, maybe exploiting a different niche to find mates.
Personally, I’d be willing to lay money on the alternative explanation, i.e. given a situation where other men or women one is competing with are very attractive, an individual might seek to emphasize another advantage. In this case, that advantage is spiritual wholesomeness. If you can’t win on external beauty than lay claim to an extra dose of internal beauty.
You’d probably be able to test the theory by doing a counter-experiment where really attractive women or men are shown pictures of less attractive competitors. My guess, they don’t feel motivated to become more spiritual because they don’t need to compensate for anything.
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That’s the conclusion of a new study:
The CMPA study compares ABC, CBS ( CBS – news – people ) and NBC evening news shows and the first half hour of Fox News Channel’s Special Report, which most closely resembles its broadcast news counterparts. (CNN and MSNBC have no comparable flagship evening news show; more on Fox’s polarizing talk shows momentarily.)
So how could Fox have both the most balanced and the most anti-Obama coverage? Simple. It’s because the other networks were all so pro-Obama. CMPA analyzed every soundbite by reporters and nonpartisan sources (excluding representative of the political parties) that evaluated the candidates and their policies. On the three broadcast networks combined, evaluations of Obama were 68% positive and 32% negative, compared to the only 36% positive and 64% negative evaluations of his GOP opponent John McCain.
[...]
Fox’s Special Report was dramatically tougher on Obama, with only 36% favorable vs. 64% unfavorable evaluations during the same time period. But McCain didn’t fare much better, garnering only 40% favorable comments vs. 60% negative ones. So the broadcast networks gave good marks to one candidate and bad marks to another, while Fox was tough on both–and most balanced overall.
Not that people like Anita Dunn will let the facts get in the way of a good narrative.
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This is becoming almost routine:
Click here to view the embedded video.
Note that the pro-immigration folks are screaming “Amnesty yes, racists no” and “Racists go home” both before and after the incident. More than a little provocative. And yet it’s the pro-immigration goons who get physical and throw the first punches.
Consider this a preview of much more to come. If you’re against illegal immigration, you’re a racist. We heard a lot of that same claim this summer in relation to health care reform. Expect to hear a lot more now that Obama has put immigration reform on the agenda. Dissent is no longer patriotic, in fact it now warrants a beating in the street.
From the media’s Nothing-to-See-Here file:
[HT: Gateway Pundit]
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From ABC’s Blotter:
Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s military superiors repeatedly ignored or rebuffed his efforts to open criminal prosecutions of soldiers he claimed had confessed to “war crimes” during psychiatric counseling, according to investigative reports circulated among federal law enforcement officials.
[...]
Investigators believe Hasan’s frustration over the failure of the Army to pursue what he regarded as criminal acts by U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan may have helped to trigger the shootings.
“The Army may not want to admit it, and you may not hear much about it, but it was very big for him,” said one of the federal investigators on the task force collecting evidence of the crime.
Of course we already know that Hasan thought it was verboten for a Muslim to fight other Muslims. Given his views it’s no surprise that he thought it a crime for soldiers (many of them Christians?) to fight them as well.
This does raise the question of how the Army missed this so completely. This is a person who was begging for attention. Why didn’t someone give him some?
It’s also interesting how much Hasan, a jihadist sympathizer, sounds like the more extreme elements of the left. It’s a point I’ve made before. Given this, I suspect it won’t be long before the lefty fringe moves on from the claim that Hasan had second-hand PTSD to the idea that he was a whistle blower who finally snapped out of a desperate need to call attention to “war crimes.” Wait and see.
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