Emanual vs. Holder: it’s on Eric!

The New Neo Posted on by

Jane Mayer’s puff piece on Eric Holder appeared recently in the New Yorker. Anyone who reads blogs or periodicals on the right, and who has followed the controversies involving Holder’s decisions about the KSM trial and the Christmas bomber—especially Andrew McCarthy’s various dissections of Holder’s positions on dealing with terrorists—can easily recognize that Mayer has given Holder a platform to say his piece without much challenge.

But fisking her article does not especially interest me at the moment. What does interest me are two points I gleaned from reading it. The first is the following, which comes as no surprise whatsoever, and which I have long believed to be the truth:

[Holder said] “The decisions are, relatively, mine. I take responsibility for them. But these are things where [Obama] is kept in the loop, and the direction he gives obviously has to be factored into any decision I make.” Holder declined to reveal details of their recent discussion but said, “We are on the same page.”

Holder is not exactly Obama’s puppet, but it has been clear for some time that they are in substantial and basic agreement on reinstating the pre-9/11 approach to terrorism. They probably don’t even have to confer on every little detail; they both know what they intend.

Here’s the other point that especially interested—and in this case somewhat surprised—me: when Holder sought to investigate “whether the C.I.A. had obstructed justice when it destroyed videotapes documenting waterboarding sessions,” and to “determine whether the agency’s abuse of detainees had itself violated laws,” Rahm Emanuel was against it. He “worried that such investigations would alienate the intelligence community.”

I’m surprised that any of Obama’s advisers showed such sense. Emanuel was overruled, but he did try to fight Holder on this, which is to his credit.

Mayer keeps talking about the fact that Holder is a lawyer and Emanuel is not, as though that makes the former automatically correct and the latter wrong. Emanuel fought Holder on another question—the venue for the KSM trial (and note Mayer’s need to insert the obligatory “who is not a lawyer” after Emanuel’s name in the following excerpt):

At the White House, Emanuel, who is not a lawyer, opposed Holder’s position on the 9/11 cases. He argued that the Administration needed the support of key Republicans to help close Guanté¡namo, and that a fight over Khalid Sheikh Mohammed could alienate them…“Rahm felt very, very strongly that it was a mistake to prosecute the 9/11 people in the federal courts, and that it was picking an unnecessary fight with the military-commission people,” [an] informed source said. “Rahm had a good relationship with Graham, and believed Graham when he said that if you don’t prosecute these people in military commissions I won’t support the closing of Guanté¡namo. . . . Rahm said, ”˜If we don’t have Graham, we can’t close Guanté¡namo, and it’s on Eric!’ ”

Again, I’m surprised that Emanuel showed that much sense (although I’m not surprised that Mayer managed to write her entire 7,600-word article without mentioning Holder’s embarrassing and incompetent question-and-answer session at Graham’s hands). But note that—at least, as far as the information in the article goes—Enamuel’s protest of Holder’s decision on KSM was not based on anything as noble as considerations of law, justice, protection of the city of New York, or anything else connected with what might be considered principle. It was purely strategic and political: Guantanamo needed to be closed, and if the administration went ahead with the New York KSM trial, it would be alienating the political support required to do so.

It’s sad that politics was behind Emanuel’s objections. But at least he had them. It’s also sad that he didn’t win the argument, and that Holder was allowed to prevail in this, as in so many other decisions. But Holder is a proxy for Obama himself.

It’s the independents, stupid

The New Neo Posted on by

Obama’s support is dropping among the independents of New Hampshire. This has become a general trend for Obama; the Scott Brown election polls and results showed the same precipitous decline among independents in Massachusetts, whose swing from Democratic to Republican accounted for much of his margin of victory in a state that went heavily for Obama just one year ago. This change not only is widespread, but it has been going on for many months.

This sort of shift is hardly surprising. Obama’s support has dropped a bit among Democrats, too (understandably, because he hasn’t fulfilled the hopes of the more radical members of the Party), but nowhere near as much. The vast majority of Republicans never liked Obama to begin with and still don’t, so one would not expect a whole lot of change there. But the key to his victory was his ability to appeal to independents. And they have left him, as the article said, “in droves.”

There are those on the left who think this is because Obama hasn’t gone far enough in his transformative leftist policies. But this is wishful thinking on their part, and defies logic. As a group, independents tend to be more middle-of-the-road, so it stands to reason that they thought Obama would function more as a centrist, and that they have now been thoroughly disabused of that notion.

One of the earliest pieces I ever wrote on this blog concerned what I call “the Law of Thirds.” The following is an except from it that still seems relevant:

Some time ago–”“long before I became a blogger, or even a neocon”“–I noticed a certain phenomenon and gave it what I thought was a unique name: the “Law of Thirds.”…Basically, my law refers to the fact that the populace of the US seems to be divided roughly into thirds, at least in the political sense: one-third on the entrenched left, one-third on the entrenched right, and one-third in between. It was something I’d noticed over and over in public opinion polls, and it seemed to be stable over time…

Those who are considerably to the right or left often seem to have [something] in common: when their party happens to get into power, they believe it means that the Law of Thirds has been repealed, just for them. It hasn’t. As far as I know it’s still in operation, and has been for quite some time. Anyone from either radical third who thinks the American people will be happy to give his/her third a permanent ascendance in American political life is quite wrong, IMHO, and that person will be soundly rejected by said American people if he/she arrogantly and openly displays the hubris of thinking so”“–whether that person’s name be Howard Dean or Newt Gingrich or whomever else would be an even better example of the genre.

Do I hear “Obama?”

Obama and the core of “corpsman”

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s a small point; really very small in the larger scheme of things: President Obama mispronounced the title “Corpsman” several times at a prayer breakfast, saying “Corpse-man” instead of the proper “Core-man.”

The usual suspects have criticized him for this error. My first impulse, however, is to feel a small harmonic quiver of empathy. How many among us have not made the error of mispronouncing something we’ve only read in books but never heard, or at least never paid much attention to? Terribly embarrassing, and not at all unusual, especially for the reclusive and bookish.

The left used to take great delight in reaming out Bush for saying “nukular” instead of “nuclear.” And yet that was a widespread regionalism, an acceptable and common pronunciation of the word in many parts of the country—just not the parts of the country in which the left ordinarily resides. They considered Bush’s pronunciation just another piece of evidence for the imbecility of his small and chimpish mind.

Obama’s “Corpsman,” however, is a far more idiosyncratic blunder. Although a small one, it is not entirely trivial, because it is almost perfectly emblematic of some of the deeper divisions between left and right. Perhaps Obama’s supporters might even consider it to be a badge of honor, because it is evidence of Obama’s career in academia—his bookishness rather than his real-life experience—as well as his ignorance of all things military. These are traits shared (and in some ways admired) by many in the left.

What’s more, it’s an example of Obama’s international outlook, which is another leftist plus. His childhood was largely spent away from this country; in some ways he is rather unfamiliar with the basic American vernacular and ethos, and has had to try to pick such things up as he goes along. Understandably, there are gaps. And, understandably, the military would be one of them.

You may think I’m making much ado about almost nothing. And indeed, I am. But I have noticed that, with a man as carefully scripted and controlled as Obama, who purposely conceals a great deal about himself, the gaffes and thowaway remarks can loom unusually large in helping to tell us what might be going on (or failing to go on) beneath the public persona.

Sullivan, Edwards, Palin and the Atlantic

The New Neo Posted on by

I don’t link to Andrew Sullivan, and you may notice I ordinarily don’t discuss him.

And I’m not going to do too much of either here, except to say I consider that something very sad and disturbing happened to his mind a number of years ago. Here’s a post from Tom Maguire that discusses the latest bizarre manifestation of this fact.

My point is a different one, and it’s not really about Sullivan himself. I have a question: why is the Atlantic still providing a forum for Sullivan’s descent into irrelevancy, illogic, and obsession? He may not know any better. But surely they ought to realize it’s time to quietly draw the curtain.

Too much heat for the boiling frog?

The New Neo Posted on by

I often think that, had Pelosi, Reid, and Obama been just a little smarter, they would have moved more slowly and incrementally to the left. If they had not given away their hand so quickly, they might have lulled the voters into a false sense of security, and would still have their sixty votes in the Senate and an excellent chance for re-election in 2010. This would have been especially true had they paid more attention to the economy and job creation.

But they moved more quickly than that. Has that frog in the pot—the American voter— noticed he was about to be boiled to death, and leapt soon enough to thwart their plans?

[NOTE: Here’s what really happens to those boiling frogs.]

What’s Obama got against Vegas?

The New Neo Posted on by

Twice he’s spoken out against going to that city. Why? Here’s my PJ article in which I speculate on why Obama might have it in for Vegas.

[NOTE: On looking at the comments over at PJ, I notice that some of the commenters find the article trivial and/or petty. And here I thought it would be a relief from my usual heavy weightedness! But I don’t find the topic trivial. I didn’t see it as all that interesting when Obama trashed Vegas once. But the fact that he saw fit to trash it a second time, after having seen the negative response from Las Vegans and the state of Nevada the first time, gave the second incident more significance.]

And speaking of Vegas: can Republicans run the table in the Senate elections of 2010?

The New Neo Posted on by

I wouldn’t bet on it.

But it’s theoretically possible that Republicans could win back the Senate in 2010 if they play their cards right.

There are ten Senate seats in play that are currently held by Democrats but are considered “competitive” for Republicans, and Republicans would have to win every single one—as well as keeping all of its own currently held seats. These ten “competitive” races include states that are so traditionally Democratic that just a short while ago it seemed literally impossible that Republicans could win there. But post-Brown, anything seems possible, and strong Republican candidates have been coming forward to run in the presently encouraging environment.

Let’s remember that things could change dramatically in the nine long months that remain till the next election. Just consider the last nine months if you doubt this fact. But looking back, the reports of the death of the Republican Party seem to have been a tad premature.

Jenny Sanford tells all…

The New Neo Posted on by

…but the question is, why?

I don’t completely understand this need of the wronged spouse to publicly unburden herself (and it’s usually a “her”), either through writing a book or granting interviews, or often both—the latter to promote the former. But it seems to be all the rage.

I get that it might be a way to earn money, although both Jenny Sanford and Elizabeth Edwards can’t possibly be hurting for dough. I get that it might be a way to take revenge on the wayward spouse who’s been the cause of all the embarrassment. And I get that it feels powerful, after feeling weak and powerless. I also get that it’s tempting to tell your side of the story, when it’s other side that’s gotten all the attention so far.

But it’s a terrible idea that only serves to expose a person’s humiliation. And it’s not good for the children, even if they are grown, even if they urge you to do it. It compromises two things that used to be thought of as important, but don’t seem to be much valued any more: dignity and privacy.

It’s true that in these cases, the exposure of the husband’s actions has already ripped the veil from what might have been kept secret from the world. But is there any need to compound the error by shedding the last vestiges of privacy?

One of the things I admired most about Jacqueline Kennedy was that she resisted this siren call. Whatever may have been gossiped about her husband’s affairs (and it was plenty), she took her side of the story—and her own dignity—to the grave. I am convinced that the world would not have been a better place had she told all. There are many things we simply do not need to know.

[NOTE: Since Jenny Sanford has decided to share so many of the details of her marriage with us, I have a question about an oddity she revealed: would it not raise a few red flags for most people if a prospective spouse insisted on removing the words “to be faithful” from the marriage vows? Jenny thought it rather strange, also, when husband-to-be Mark made that request. But she “got past it”—until he had his dramatic affair, twenty years and four children later. At least Sanford can claim he didn’t break his vows; he had the foresight to plan ahead.]

Promises are meant to be broken: budget includes back-door taxes for middle class

The New Neo Posted on by

[See UPDATE below.]

Sadly enough, this comes as no surprise whatsoever:

The Obama administration’s plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade relies heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families.

In the 2010 budget tabled by President Barack Obama on Monday, the White House wants to let billions of dollars in tax breaks expire by the end of the year — effectively a tax hike by stealth.

The article (by non-conservative Reuters, by the way) goes on to describe the many ways in which this would happen.

It seems that, the more Obama emphasized a certain fact in his campaign and/or the early days of his presidency—“The proceedings will be televised on C-SPAN;” “If you make less than $250,000 you will not see your taxes go up”—the more likely he is to do exactly the opposite. In addition, he attempts to accomplish this without stating that he is reversing himself, and in a hidden manner (as the article puts it “by stealth”).

“Back-door,” indeed. And if anyone is so bold as to challenge him about what he’s doing, he denies, lies, twists, and blames—sometimes all at once.

As I’ve said before: presidents lie, and break promises as well. Obama is not the only one. But he is the most blatant, shameless, repetitively lying president ever, deeply mendacious about the most important facts of his program and his character.

[ADDENDUM: The Reuters story has been withdrawn. A new one is slated to appear next week. I had linked to the Canadian version of the story, which is still up as of this moment.

Very interesting development. It could be due to something innocuous. Or the Reuters folks might have found a horsehead or two in their beds.]

[UPDATE: The Reuters story has itself become The Story. Word is that it contained errors of fact, and was pulled at the White House’s request. Reuters writes:

The Feb 1 story headlined “Backdoor taxes to hit middle class” is wrong and has been withdrawn. The story said lower-income families will pay more under tax provisions scheduled to expire Dec 31. The Obama administration’s budget calls for the extension of those tax provisions for households earning less than $250,000. There will be no substitute story.

That sounds like a major mess-up by both the writer and whatever fact-checkers might still reside at Reuters. Obviously, if the entire premise on which the story is based is incorrect the piece should never should have run in the first place, and a retraction is necessary. If a blogger had made such a faux pas, the mistake would be ascribed to lack of professionalism, and contrasted to the skill of the press. Now we can say that it is evidence that standards in journalism have fallen pretty low.

But of course, we already knew that. The unusual thing about this story is that the errors went against Obama, and they seem to have been fairly egregious.

However, was everything in the original article incorrect, or just some of it? It’s hard to know, because the original story has been pulled. But Powerline quoted quite a bit from it, and as best as I can tell from a quick perusal, the bulk of the assertions in the Reuters article did seem to refer to those now-non-expiring tax cuts. If so, then Reuters was correct to pull it, and the Obama administration was correct to call attention to the mistakes.

Of course, we know that it’s not unusual for articles in the MSM to contain errors both large and small. However, it’s rare for them to be pulled in this way. Would Reuters have done the same for a similar article about Bush? And would Bush have asked them to do so?]